‘I keep thinking,’ Peg continues, as we start to make a fire and Falco and Boots see to the wagon, ‘I could’ve been like that. If I’d been a few years younger.’

‘How so?’

Peg sighs, balling up leaf fibres. ‘Minority Force are mostly orphans, right? Pulled outta the camps and shelters. Like me.’

‘Was it the war took your parents?’ I ask carefully.

‘Nah. Folks didn’t have politics. They were scrappers on Delos for years, finally saved enough to buy a farm, near Renown. It’s what Ravage used to be called.’

I wince. ‘Yellowrot?’

‘Accord always said it spread from black-market fertiliser, but everyone knew it came up out of the ground.’ Peg bends, squinting at the dry matter as a flame takes hold. The flickers of light catch upon the deep pockmarks that scatter their face and neck. ‘Folks died quick and that were a blessing. My sister fought it for months…’ Peg trails off. ‘They put me and my brother Joby in a quarantine unit for a year before we shook it. Took the ranch as payment for the medical bill.’

I throw a ball of fibre onto the crackling flames. I’ve heard the same thing many times over, on Factus and on other neglected moons. The FL made a point of collecting stories like these.

‘What happened to you both?’

Peg shrugs. ‘Put in the Institute, in Otroville. Cracked out of there when I was sixteen and hooked up with a raiding party. Joby joined the Accord when he was old enough and got posted to some satellite at the other ass-end of the system so I was on my own. Until I tried to rob one of Falco’s couriers.’ Peg’s eyes light up with a smile. ‘She offered me to join, and now—’

‘Now I got the best damn shot from here to Delos at my side,’ Falco says, dropping down beside the fire, planting a loud kiss on Peg’s face.

Peg laughs, pulling the goggles from Falco’s head. ‘Look at these. Filthy again.’

‘Why bother cleaning both lenses?’

‘What about you, Doc?’ Boots asks, dumping down an armful of blankets. ‘You got family?’

I hesitate, unsure of what to say.

‘Enough chat.’ Falco reaches for the supplies. ‘I want my dinner.’

I catch her eye, grateful, and she gives me a small nod.

Together, we prepare the food – or rather, I get in the way while Falco, Peg and Boots work in well-practised unison. Boots is the best cook, having laboured for a time with a prison detail on a mining satellite. ‘Damn machines ate better than we did,’ she says as she stirs pseudosalt and cricket powder and dried protein into a thick porridge. ‘Fine oils, fancy lubricants, all we got was dehydrated nutrient paste. Got so sick of it, we boiled it up with whatever we could find.’ She sticks her foot out. ‘And since prison-issue shoes are made from bovine collagen…’