He enlarged the screen with a jab and threw Gairad’s flight plan up on the wall alongside an image of the cluster. The great bulk of Carissi Station swam among the automated plants and minor habitats like a whale among a gleaming school of fish. The Kingfisher refinery sailed at the edge of the school.

Bel tapped the refinery. “He has to be here,” she said. “It’s the only military-owned habitat, and we know he’s not on the station. Got an up-to-date schematic?” she added, without much hope.

“Yes,” Gairad said unexpectedly. She opened up a diagram of the refinery bristling with annotations. “The mass readings are off, but I figured it out. There has to be a section here.” One of the annotations glowed red, showing a storage module slotted in at the back of the central cylinder. “Shielded. But it has to be there or the rotation of the whole habitat would be off.”

“Nice work,” Bel said approvingly. “Shielded clandestine module. That’s where I’d put my high-value prisoners.”

Hearing high-value prisoners felt like someone was scraping a nail down Kiem’s spine. He steeled himself not to show that. “If I can get you there, can you break in?”

“Depends,” Bel said. She traced some of the antennae that extended from the refinery. “I can brute-force most door models, as long as they’re not brand-new.

But there’ll be monitoring and alarm fields before we even get there—if our shuttle doesn’t have the right keys built into it, any alarms will go straight to their control room.”

“So we need a military shuttle,” Kiem said slowly.

“Yes. Do you have one hanging above your bed?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kiem said. There was an urgent, fizzing feeling under his skin as possibilities unfolded in his mind. “Listen, if anyone asks you afterward: I ordered you into this. You didn’t have a choice.”

Bel rolled her eyes. “We’ll have an uphill job to convince them you’re capable of making threats. But keep the kid out of this.”

“I’m eighteen, ” Gairad said. “I’m coming too.”

Bel opened her mouth, but Kiem got there first. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Just don’t get hurt, or you’re another diplomatic incident.” Bel gave him an exasperated look, and Kiem raised his hands placatingly. “If it were me, I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t go and—and something happened.”

“Ugh, if we have to,” Bel said. “I’m not arming her, though.”

“What?” Kiem said. “Arming her?”