A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(102)

They followed a sign – The Small Craft Hall – which led to a massive doorway. On the other side lay one of the most ridiculous sights Pepper had ever laid eyes on. It wasn’t so much an exhibit hall as a hangar, so long and wide it was easy to think it went on for ever. Within it sat shuttles – rows upon rows of retired shuttles, all immaculately clean, lit, and labelled. She’d seen spacedocks smaller than this.

‘Holy shit,’ Pepper said. Everyone turned to look at her. She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’

Curator Thixis chuckled. ‘I take it as a compliment,’ she said.

It took everything in Pepper’s power to not run forward. Tak caught her eye; she understood. ‘Which way’s the Human section?’ she asked with an easy smile. ‘Sorry, I’m just—’

‘Ready to get started? I know the feeling,’ Thixis said, waving them along. ‘Let’s find what you came here for.’

Pepper wanted to hold Blue’s hand. She could feel him next to her, tugging like a magnet through her pocket to where her fingers fidgeted. She was glad he was nearby, at least.

The Human section was a ways in, tucked off to the side, away from the impressive array of Aandrisk scout ships, and the crown jewel of the whole to-do, an honest-to-goodness Quelin research orbiter. She scanned the rows frantically, forcing herself to stay a few complacent steps behind Tak. This was crazy-making. Insulting, almost. It was—

There.

Everything else disappeared – the ships, the aliens, all sound. It was just her and one battered little shuttle. A Centaur 46-C, tan hull, photovoltaic coating.

Home.

It wasn’t the way she’d remembered it, not exactly. Someone had scraped the years of dirt and grime from it, probably cleaned out all the dust and fur and crud inside, too. It was so small – smaller than most of the other ships there, smaller than the shuttle she’d just travelled in. But it had been her whole world, once. And what had been her whole family was still inside.

‘Excuse me,’ Blue said. The others stopped. Pepper could feel Sidra’s eyes on her. ‘Would you mind if I sat, uh, if I sat down?’ He smiled sheepishly, and nodded at a nearby bench. ‘I’m still adjusting from the artigrav, and I’d l-like to keep still for a bit.’

Pepper grabbed the lead he’d thrown her. ‘Ah, that sucks,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ll hang out with you.’

Tak nodded. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Just come find us when you’re feeling up to it.’

The aliens departed. Sidra followed them, glancing back over her shoulder for a short moment. Blue sat down on the bench. Pepper nearly fell onto it. His hand was waiting, and she grabbed it, hard.

‘You okay?’ he said softly.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I mean, I can’t breathe and I want to throw up everything I’ve ever eaten, but other than that, yeah, totally.’ She ran her thumb over the fingertips of her spare hand, one by one, back and forth, over and over. ‘There are thirty-seven cameras on the way in here. The core pedestal’s too big to carry out unnoticed, so I’m going to need to hack something together to fry their feeds. Or just knock them out for a short time while we leave.’

‘Can’t you just take the c-core itself? Why the whole pedestal?’

‘Because it was built decades ago, when they weren’t making neat little pop-off globes yet. I rip the core out of that thing, and I could—’ I could kill her. Pepper shook her head. ‘It’s heavy. If you help me carry it, it’ll go faster.’

‘Somebody will notice.’

‘Not if we go quick, and not if I fry the cameras as we go.’

‘Pepper—’

‘I told you, you don’t have to come with me. I will drag the core out myself if I have to.’

Blue sighed. ‘How are you going to, um, going to fry the cameras?’

‘I have some ideas.’ Pepper kept nodding, never taking her eyes off the weathered lump she’d put back together. ‘Trust me. This will work.’





SIDRA


‘This is not going to work.’ Sidra paced by the hotel room window as her pathways worked out the problem at hand. Outside, the city of Kaathet Aht began to glow in the twilight dark. Some other time, Sidra would’ve been keen to study the way the city shifted in pace and mood as its planet took a scheduled respite from the light of its twin suns. But not now. Now, her pathways were overflowing with the situation at hand, and none of it was anything comfortable.

The Humans had gone out in search of food and tech supplies, leaving Sidra and Tak alone to parse the plan that had been non-negotiably dropped in their laps. They’d also left behind a mess of half-built, hastily assembled leftovers Pepper had ripped out of her contemporary shuttle. Sidra knew each component by name – she’d spent enough time at the Rust Bucket – but not what their current configurations were supposed to do. Pepper hadn’t bothered to answer those questions. The gadgets would work, she’d said. She’d have them completed by evening. Owl would be retrieved by midnight. No room for argument had been allowed.

Tak was seated on the floor, head arched back against a pile of cheap cushions, tapping her thumbs together. She would’ve looked unhappy even if Sidra hadn’t known what mustard-yellow cheeks on an Aeluon meant. ‘Pepper said it’d be easy to build these things,’ Tak said. ‘She said I wouldn’t have to be nearby once we got into the exhibit.’