Page 76 of Red Scale Daddy
“Damage is repairable,” I say.
Dux comes closer but stops before his shadow crosses the scanner. “How repairable?”
“Port vane needs hinge realignment and actuator replacement. Ballast requires cooling cycle and recalibration. Aft routing needs a manual patch. The strut can be locked for launch if we lift unevenly and compensate on ascent.”
“In normal language?”
“We can leave.”
“In honest language?”
I stand and turn toward him. “That was honest.”
“No, that was engineer honest. It tells the truth while hiding the knives.”
Wind drags loose dust around his boots. It whispers over the hull, catching in the scored metal with a dry rasping sound that makes my shoulders pull tighter.
“We can leave,” I say again. “It will take approximately six hours if nothing else degrades.”
Dux glances toward the horizon.
Not dramatically. Not fearfully. Practically.
“What?” I ask.
“This place feels watched.”
“That is not data.”
“It is veteran data.”
“It is superstition wearing boots.”
“It kept me alive.”
“Your redundant organs kept you alive.”
“They contributed.”
I return to the scanner and pull up my repair sequence. “We repair in priority order. Ventral shields first so the hull can tolerate ascent vibration. Then actuator replacement. Then routing. Then ballast recalibration.”
“And if whatever lives here comes to see who rang the dinner bell?”
“There is no evidence of indigenous macrofauna.”
He looks at the enormous gouge the Lamplight tore through the surface. “There is evidence of noise.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is to predators.”
I stop and look at him.
Dux’s expression is lighter than his tone. That is becoming familiar. His mouth jokes while the rest of him measures distance, cover, wind direction, shadow movement, and the places an attack could come from. His hand rests near the ship-safe sidearm I still regret authorizing under strictly limited emergency conditions.
“We are exposed here,” he says. “The ship is damaged, the terrain is bad, and that ridge gives anything on the far side a clean approach.”
“We cannot move the ship until I repair enough systems to make movement possible.”
