Cavalon cleared his throat as he removed another bolt. “I mean, not that I want to be here,” he clarified, “but I definitely don’t want to be there.”
“Okay…” Rake said, letting out a soft breath. “Then, what’s your favorite planet?”
“Artora. Easy.” More bolts floated off and Rake caught them.
“You’re on Artora, then.”
He could almost feel the warm, humid spring air on his cheeks. The panel floated loose, and Rake’s hand appeared in his periphery and grabbed it. He inspected the open hull and found the secondary nacelle paneling bent as well. He began to unscrew the bolts fastening it down.
“What am I up to on Artora?” he asked.
“Well, no good, certainly,” she grumbled. “But for now, you’re just at the spaceport fixing a ship.”
“Which port?”
“Hera.”
“Wait, who the hell’s flying a Hermes around the Core?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just some old explorer guy.”
“Old explorer guy? You can do better than that.”
“What?” she scoffed. “You expect some elaborate backstory?”
“I mean, if you want…”
Cavalon finished removing the secondary panel and passed it off to Rake. He peered down into the opening, where a resonance dampener coil floated loose.
“Ah, see?” Cavalon grabbed the coil. “This should be attached.”
He turned it over in his hands, checking for damage, but found none. It’d merely shaken itself loose.
“Solder knife, please.”
Rake secured the loose bolts in the front pouch of her suit, then replaced the impact driver in his hand with a soldering tool. He lowered the copper coil back into place and began to reattach it.
“Probably caught a speck of debris,” he explained. “Worked its way through the two sets of panels and bumped into this guy.”
“A speck could cause this?” Rake asked.
“At the speed you were going?” He laughed. “Definitely. You should be glad the whole hull didn’t rip off.”
She sighed.
“The debris probably just tweaked it. The vibrations caused by that velocity ramp are likely what shook it loose,” he explained. “Now, you were saying about our explorer?”
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “Well, he’s a haggard sort. From, uh … the Inward Expanse.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. He thought he’d bring his Hermes into the Core and get it traded for a decent Evorsor.”
“Oh, a starfighter.” He grinned to himself. “Whatever for?”
“Well, see…” She took a beat, either for dramatic effect or to try to think up something to say. Either way, he appreciated the distraction. “After a lifetime of charting the IE,” Rake continued, “he’d finally found what he’d been hunting for all along.”
“And what’s that?”
“The Drudger horde who’d killed his family.”
Cavalon let out a low whistle. Damn. That got dramatic fast. He finished the last of the soldering, then doubled back around to confirm solid connections.
Rake continued. “So now, he has some reckoning to do.”
Jackin laughed through the comms.