“We’ll resupply on Furion. As long as we can afford it, maybe we can pick up the right materials. I don’t think we’ll have funds for a mech right away, though.”

  Druck shrugged as we descended to the deck, approaching Alter. “You never know. You can pick up a derelict, a bunch of parts, and some basic ammo packs for a couple hundred thousand if you land on the right planet. If it’s broken, I can fix it.” Druck pulled back when Alter stood up and turned to face us. “Oh, I didn’t realize there were crew members I hadn’t met.” He put out his hand. “Emil Druck.”

  Alter looked at him without replying before glancing at me, letting me decide how to handle things. I smirked at the lack of effort in his greeting, compared to when he had met Pilot Alter on the flight deck. Clearly, he didn’t think Mechanic Alter was his type.

  “That is Alter,” I said.

  His eyes narrowed, as if squinting would help him see her better. “I’m sorry. I could have sworn you were shorter and less bulky before. It must be the spacesuit.”

  “It must be,” Alter replied, without a hint of deception. She had a memory of everything that had happened on the flight deck, but no concept of which essence she had used or that there was a rigid line between them. It was almost like a subconscious part of her, a mostly innate part of her nature that responded to outside stimulus rather than a completely willful decision. “I have suits for both of you as well. Do you have experience working on starship thrusters?”

  “I do,” Druck said. “My father was a mechanic. First for the Ishima Complex, and then as a private contractor working through the dark exchange. Growing up, I spent hours watching him work on all kinds of things, from ships so big they had to use orbital docks to smaller stuff like this one, to mechs, bots, and even land spears. I have to say, this is the only ship I’ve ever seen that looks like a robot head. I’d love to know why the Acheon designed it this way.”

  “They didn’t design the general shape,” Alter answered. “They used the superstructure as it was. Just a shell in the beginning, with some damaged beams that needed to be replaced. But it was originally in this general shape.”

  Druck whistled. “Crazy. Then I’d love to know where it came from, and how it wound up on Demitrus.”

  “Probably like everything else does. Thrown out like useless trash.”

  “Heh, well, it’s hardly useless. Those ion cannons are big noise.”

  “Big noise?” I said.

  “Yeah. You know, high altitude, major sleek, hot speed.”

  “I think I get it.”

  “I haven’t seen them mounted on turrets like that before. You’ve got a sweet range of fire for such big pounders.”

  “You’re right,” I said, looking at Alter. “Things that wind up on Demitrus are hardly useless.”

  She bowed her head, a little embarrassed, before picking up the suits and handing them to each of us. I put mine over my clothes without a problem, zipping and then clasping the front. Druck’s clothes were too baggy to wear beneath the suit, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He stripped to his underwear without hesitation, revealing a body with more than its fair share of scars.

  “I can’t tell you where each one came from,” he said, noticing me staring at the old wounds. “A bunch came from the time my mech exploded beneath me, sending shrapnel through the floor of the cockpit. A few more from random hits I’ve taken on non-armored jobs. A few others from my personal life.” He laughed. “Always be careful about drinking too much around mech jockeys of the opposite gender. That’s good advice.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  He closed his suit as I picked up my helmet, pulling it on. It was designed to seal automatically, and clicking it into place started the oxygen flowing from the tank, hidden beneath a slight bulge in the back, and activated the helmet’s HUD and comms.

  “Alter, do you copy?” I said.

  “I copy,” she replied.

  “I copy,” Druck said, quickly slamming his helmet over his bald head. “Ready to get down to business.”

  “Follow me,” Alter said, leading us to the hangar bay doors. She used a wrist-computer to activate the outer shielding that would prevent the atmosphere from leaking out, and then to open the smaller central door. It slid aside, revealing the vast, star-speckled emptiness of the black expanse beyond them.

  My heart picked up the pace in anticipation as she moved to the threshold. The tools she had selected for the job clung magnetically to her belt, surrounding her hips.

  “Make sure you activate maglock on your gloves,” she reminded us, though I was sure I was the only one who needed it. I pressed both palms of the gloves together to turn the maglock on as she turned to face us, reaching up and grabbing the face of the ship, pulling herself up and away.

  “You look a little nervous,” Druck said. “You haven’t worked on a ship in space before, have you?”

  “I haven’t done any kind of spacewalk before,” I replied.

  “Where are you from again, Bennie?”

  “Earth,” I replied, turning my head to see his reaction.

  He froze in place, jaw slack. I don’t know everything that passed through his mind, but it only lasted a moment. “I’ve never met an Earthian before. How did you get here?”

  “That’s a long story. But now you’ve met two. Me and Matt.”

  “How do you like the Quad? Not too much I guess, considering we met in prison.”

  “It’s been an adventure so far,” I answered, moving to the open hatch. I turned inward and looked up, finding Alter standing perpendicular to me, walking up the curved arc of Head Case’s face. I closed my eyes as a wave of dizziness hit me, not from the cancer but from my mind’s inability to process her orientation and the emptiness around us.

  “It takes a few minutes to adjust the first time,” Druck said, recognizing my dilemma. Probably from the paleness of my face and the size of my eyes. “Just take it slow and easy. The most important thing when you’re spacewalking is to be deliberate. Every step. Every move. If you fall off, we can probably circle around to pick you up, but it’s better that you don’t.”

  “Right,” I said, taking a deep breath. I put my hands on the outer hull above the bay door and pressed down on my heels, disengaging the maglock on my boots so I could pull myself up. Tucking myself in like a frog, I reengaged the boots and disengaged the gloves, slowly rising to a stand and looking up along Head Case’s face, which my brain had already turned into the floor.

  Incredible!

  I started trailing after Alter, keeping Druck’s advice in mind, remaining deliberate with every step. It didn’t take long to reach the transparency in front of Deck Three, and I couldn’t help pausing to stare. Quasar was stretched out on the sofa, taking a nap, with Shaq resting on her stomach. They really were half their normal size. Everything on the deck was. They looked like G.I Joe toys.

  “Don’t dawdle too long,” Druck said, coming up behind me. “We’ve got enough air for three hours, and the work will probably take at least two of those.”

  I nodded and moved on, noticing Druck stop for a few seconds to peer in too, with what I imagined was a similar reaction to mine.

  “You weren’t lying,” he said. “Crazy. I’ve never seen tech like that before.”

  “You probably don’t know Doctor Who.”

  “Doctor Who?”

  “Exactly.”

  Grinning, I left him confused as I followed Alter around the sensor array on top of the head to the back of the ship. I had never seen the rear before, and I took a moment to absorb the network of exposed pipes and machinery, along with the dozens of small lollipop protrusions I assumed were the shield nodes. The long view reminded me of the tricked out rat rods that used to gather in the mall parking lot twice a month for people to gawk at.

  “I didn’t expect it to be so exposed,” I said.

  “Most ships aren’t,” Alter replied. “But we maximize the space inside this way.”

  “It looks cool, anyway.”

  “Be careful where and how you step. The rounded surfaces provide less of a lock. Stick to the thicker pipes.”

  “Got it.”

  I did my best to match her steps, following her until we reached one of the two massive thrusters that jutted nearly twelve feet out of the rear. She lifted a screwdriver from her belt and began removing one of the plates on its side.

  “Druck, if you’re familiar with signature tuning, maybe you can start on the other thruster?”

  “Sure. You have another screwdriver and an extra pair of pliers?”

  “I do.”

  She picked them off her belt and tossed them toward Druck. They drifted the short distance and he caught them with ease before changing direction to tackle the other thruster.

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “Watch and learn,” Alter replied.

  I stood beside her, watching over her shoulder as she rearranged some of the wires before closing that panel and moving to another. After doing that three times, she knelt down and opened a panel on the hull, making more corrections. I tried to follow it all, but I was too exhilarated from the view and the activity itself to learn much. Even so, I hung in there for a while before becoming distracted.

  Looking down along the back of the ship, I noticed how it sloped inward, following the shape of a skull. Tracking the slope, I spotted a pair of wires that looked as though they were dangling free from the hull.

  “Alter, where do those belong?” I asked, pointing toward the wires when she turned her head to look.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied. “I never noticed them before.”

  “They look like they should be connected,” Druck said. “But nothing on the ship is malfunctioning.”

  “That we know of,” Alter corrected.

  “Nothing critical is malfunctioning,” Druck said, updating the statement. “I’m almost done with the modifications on this one. Give me a minute to finish up and I’ll go check it out.”

  He was true to his word, completing his task a minute later and slowly walking along the back of the ship to the two wires. Leaning over their origin, he looked back at us.

  “There’s a weird, metal ball thing here I don’t recognize. The plugs look like they used to be anchored next to it, but not connected to it. The anchors just came loose.”

  “Does it have inputs for the plugs?” Alter asked.

  “Yeah, seems to. Should I reconnect it?”

  “I’m not sure. It may have been disconnected for a reason. Ben, what do you think?”

  “What are the odds it’s a bomb or something destructive?” I asked.

  “Pretty low,” Druck replied.

  “Go ahead and plug it in.”

  “Copy that.” He leaned over the spot, reconnecting the plugs. “Done.”

  I don’t know what I expected to happen. Nothing did.

  Maybe we would never know what we had just reactivated.

  “I’m finished with my thruster,” Alter said, tightening the last screw on the panel. “We should be good to go.”

  “Great,” I said. “Nice job, Alter. You too, Druck. You saved us a lot of time helping out.”

  “No problem, Boss,” Druck said. “It’s been a long time since I got to tinker with an engine. I should be thanking you.”

  “Let’s test the modifications so we can get underway.”

  CHAPTER 22

  A short jaunt across open space proved we had sufficiently changed the output signature of the thrusters. Even better, the modification had resulted in a two percent gain in efficiency. While it didn’t sound like much, Alter had happily assured me it could mean the difference between life or death in a tight spot.

  I still hoped we could avoid any more tight spots, but past history didn’t give me much confidence.

  We entered hyperspace less than an hour later, offering everyone on board twelve days to rest up and relax in relative safety. I spent the first fourteen hours in bed, sleeping off the exhaustion of our week in prison and everything that had occurred both immediately before and after incarceration. Another treatment in Sickbay, another shower and some food left me feeling much, much better.

  After eating, I found Quasar in the lounge, using the television to read something she had found in the ship’s datastore. I added more networked tablets to my mental supply list, checked in with her to make sure she was settled, and collected Shaq, who jumped from the back of the sofa to my shoulder as I passed.

  I didn’t see Matt between my quarters and the elevator and figured he was probably still asleep, as worn out as I was from the events of the last week. Looking for Alter, I headed to the flight deck only to find it empty.

  Back on the elevator, I hesitated while deciding between Deck Five and the hangar. I didn’t want to disturb her if she was resting, but I also needed the slab she had stolen back from security. The slab Keep had tried to take from the courier. I had decided trying to hack into it would be my primary focus over the duration of the journey across the Quadrant, though I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence that I could unlock the device without causing it to self-destruct or otherwise react harshly to the effort. I had done okay on the penal satellite, but only because their security sucked, as ironic as that was. I didn’t think anything as important as what I imagined might be on the slab would be as poorly protected.

  What did I imagine was on the slab? Based on what Keep had told me and both the origin and destination of the device, my best guess was some kind of document shared between Sedaya and Nobukku. A declaration of an alliance, maybe. But it would have to be something more incriminating than a standard trade deal or something like that. Perhaps an affirmation of their shared commitment to overthrowing the Empress. Damning stuff, especially if Keep had managed to bring it to the Empress’ attention.

  Except…he’d had every opportunity to take the slab from the courier when he abandoned me. He made a conscious decision to give it to me instead. Why?

  The elevator started moving on its own, called to another deck. I leaned back against the wall and waited to see who would be joining Shaq and me.

  We stopped on Deck Five, answering my question before the doors parted. Sensei Alter’s eyes narrowed in surprise when she saw me there, before her instinct to attack any potential intruders shifted to genuine gladness.

  “Ben,” she said, smiling. “And Shaq. I didn’t expect you to be there.”

  “Sorry,” I replied, returning the grin. “You’re actually just the person I was looking for.”

  “I was headed down to a session with Matt and Emil. I would have invited you, but I thought you needed the rest.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready for your workouts again yet. Maybe tomorrow. I’m looking for the slab.”

  She waved me off the elevator, shifting form to Pilot Alter. “I kept it up here for safekeeping. In case Kasper law enforcement managed to get on board. Digging through the sand would be like searching for a mote of dust in the galaxy for them. I would have brought it to you soon. I didn’t expect you to be so eager to get started on it.” I followed her around her privacy barrier, pausing there while she stepped onto the sand, melting down to her natural form as she crested the inertia-made dune.

  It was still a bit of a shock to see her as a gelatinous blob, but I didn’t look away as she vanished into the sand.

  “Weird,” Shaq buzzed on my shoulder once she had vanished.

  “You’re a little weird too, bud,” I replied. He laughed in response before shifting on my shoulder to start cleaning himself. “You do that a lot, don’t you?”

  He ignored the question, licking at the fur on his arms. I settled against the bulkhead with my hands behind my back, waiting patiently.

  She reappeared a few minutes later, holding the slab in one of her tentacles. Rising out of the sand, I watched her mass remold itself like clay, transforming her back into Pilot Alter, the device in her hand. She walked over and held it out.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?” I replied as I accepted the slab. “I should be thanking you, both for getting this back from security and for retrieving it now.”

  “It still means a lot to me that you accept me for what I am,” she replied.

  “As long as you don’t take the essence from anyone else who doesn’t deserve it, we’re good,” I said.

  “I won’t.” She paused. “I have something else I found with the slab.” She reached into the pocket of her flight suit, producing a small square of paper. “Here.”

  “Keep’s business card,” I said, looking down at it before accepting it from her. “Did you try to contact him?”

  “No. I didn’t know who the hypercom identifier belonged to. I just found it with the slab and your clothing. I returned the clothes to the assembler. Are you going to contact him?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “We can’t until we leave hyperspace, anyway. I guess it depends on what I find on the slab, if I can get into it. I thought it might be some kind of declared alliance between Sedaya and Nobukku against the Empress. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “It’s not unheard of for Dukes to make alliances, but they’re usually more public about them.”

  “If your goal is to overthrow the ruler of the galaxy, you might not want to broadcast it.”

  “True, but that’s why the dark exchanges exist. Contract details are localized and encrypted, not passed halfway across the galaxy and back.”

  “If not that, then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think it could all be a trick? I thought maybe you and Keep set it up to dupe Matt and me.”

  “You what?” Alter said, face falling.

  “I don’t think that now. I was just trying to make sense of everything at the time.”

  She nodded. “I understand. I’m not working with Keep. My loyalty is to—”

  “Head Case,” I finished for her. I know.