Page 171 of Red Scale Daddy
The map flickers as Pally expands the route into the Thorn Shelf. The region ahead is ugly even by core standards, a dense knot of wreckage and gravitational turbulence where oldships have gathered over decades, maybe centuries. Broken hulls rotate through shear pockets. Dead engines drift hot with residual radiation. Sensor ghosts ripple through the field, false returns blooming and vanishing like bad omens.
Pally points toward a narrow approach corridor. “Throgg will pass along this outer spine to avoid the worst of the Zenos territory. His ship is too large to cut straight through the debris field while towing or clamping damaged vessels. That gives us a window.”
“How generous of him.”
“It is forty-three seconds if his shield recalibration cycle remains consistent.”
“Less generous.”
“We attach here.” He marks a point along Throgg’s lower maintenance spine. “The hull plating shifts during recalibration to vent heat from the secondary shield emitters. For that interval, his external sensors lose fine resolution along this strip.”
I lean over the projection. “And if his cycle changed?”
“Then we are detected before contact.”
“And?”
“And his point-defense systems turn this vessel into vapor.”
I nod slowly. “Love a plan with clear stakes.”
Pally gives me a dry look. “You asked for immediate action.”
“I did. I’m enjoying the educational consequences.”
He adjusts the route again. “Once attached, we cannot cut directly into inhabited decks. Too many internal sensors. We enter through a maintenance intake and move through service crawlspace until we reach a junction near engineering.”
“Roma will be near engineering.”
“If she convinced Throgg of her value, yes.”
“She did.”
“You are very certain.”
“She had five minutes with him and a ship full of broken systems. She convinced him.”
Pally’s mouth pulls tight, and pride flickers through the fear before he suppresses it. “Yes. She would.”
“She’ll leave us something.”
“If she can.”
“She can.”
He looks at me. “Faith is not a method.”
“No, but knowing Roma is close.”
That almost earns a smile.
Pally opens a second panel and brings up a schematic of Throgg’s likely internal layout, patched together from stolen scans, old sensor data, and guesses labeled with the kind of blunt honesty Roma would have appreciated. Unknown. Probable weapons routing. Avoid unless suicidal. Possible coolant access. Likely trap.
I point to a narrow conduit marked along the outer spine. “That our way in?”
“Yes. It will be tight.”
“For you, maybe.”
