“Nice and quiet, understand?” Caran put an arm around Fee and Vira took the other side.
Bart positioned himself slightly ahead of them, to Vira’s right, and they had the short length of the alley to practice looking natural and like they were all just friends going back to their runner after having a good time.
“I don’t need to reiterate what will happen if you call attention to us, do I?” Vira asked.
“Won’t that be completely impractical?” Fee asked. “Damaging Larga Ways will not endear you to the residents or to the people of Balco.”
“To get it fully back into our hands, I think more people than you realize would see it as a fair trade.” Vira trilled out a laugh, as if they were discussing something light and funny for anyone looking their way, a smile on her face. Her eyes were utterly focused, though.
Fee thought Vira was the one who was mistaken, but she wasn’t prepared to risk a strike to the way station if she could win by other means.
The alley they’d been hiding in was close to the docks, and they approached the checkpoint a few minutes after they’d stepped out into the street.
The light barrier that was usually in place between the two poles on each side of the dock was down, along with every other dock arm barrier that protected Larga Ways from unauthorized entry. That was obviously due to the comms blackout, but there should still have been guards here to check them through.
There were none.
“You paid them off?” Fee asked.
“We had Jaden send a messenger a few minutes ago with a note that they were ordered to head over to Security headquarters to meet with Tean Lee.”
Well, at least they weren’t corrupt. And she couldn’t blame them for believing a note from Jaden Tris, either. He was part of the legitimate administrative structure of the way station.
The runner they headed for was on the left, and beyond it, on the next dock spoke over, was the skeletal shape of the lower part of Paxe’s new Class 5.
The plan had been to move it off the way station when it reached a point where it could only just fit through the frame of the dome. It would be harder to build outside of the gravitational system that kept everything solidly grounded, so they’d made the decision to only do it when they had to, and even then, Eazi and Paxe were still working out whether they could build the ship in sections at the dock, and move them up and connect them piece by piece.
Which suddenly begged the question, where was this secret other Class 5 being built?
On Balco, most likely, but Fee wondered how they were going to launch it out of the atmosphere into nearspace when it was done.
“No work’s gone on there since the comms went down,” Caran said, and Fee realized he’d been watching her and seen where she was looking.
Fee shrugged. “Paxe can’t run his drones without comms.”
She was pretty sure he could, though. They were self-aware, and didn’t need instructions to work. But she wasn’t surprised he’d stopped building when he realized the comms were down. He’d taken the comms down himself in the past, so he might have decided to look into the problem.
Caran studied her for another moment, then gave a nod.
The door to the runner opened, and another Balcoan stood in the opening, eyes widening at the sight of her.
“What—?”
“Let’s get in.” Vira snapped out the words.
The Balcoan stumbled back and as soon as they were inside, the door closed behind them.
“The comms are coming back on, so get ready to go,” Vira said. “We need to be one of the first out as soon as the system comes back online.”
“What about . . .” The Balcoan glanced to the side, and Fee saw he was looking at a plain wall panel.
“Unless Fiona Russell wishes to see this way station hit by battleship fire, that won’t be a problem.” Vira touched the wall and the panel slid aside.
Behind it were an array of weapons, each hanging neatly in place, and above them was a shelf. Fee could see her replica trophy sitting on there, as well as a few other weapons that weren’t as practical to hang on hooks.
Vira opened the box she’d been carrying, lifted out the silver cylinder, and slid the trophy into it.
“A bit big, but not a bad fit for short notice,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. “You better hope this keeps him contained.”
