“It’s like a city,” Beanfield said. “Or an island.”
“Mass projector,” Anders said, pointing as a cubelike protrusion slid by. It was in a retracted state, but he was right: It was one of the guns. “That’s the good stuff.”
“Anders, we’ll pass your station in a minute,” Gilly said.
“Where?”
“You won’t be able to see it. It’s a couple layers beneath the hull.”
“Oh,” Anders said. “Thanks, Mr. Tour Guide.”
Gilly shrugged. “You won’t get to see it from the outside again.”
“I can’t see it from the outside now.”
“Well,” Gilly said.
The ship continued to pass by: laser batteries, flat sensor arrays, and housings that would generate their electrostatic armor. “All right,” said Anders. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of this harness.”
“Almost there,” said Jackson. The ship was appearing to slow, which meant they were matching its speed, preparing to dock. Until recently, a hundred people had worked out here with tens of thousands of drones. For the last two weeks, though, the ship had sat practically empty, waiting. The last remaining skeleton crew would ride this shuttle back home.
The ship revolved and disappeared from Gilly’s view. The shuttle bumbled around for a minute, adjusting position. There was a solid clunk.
“Welcome home,” Jackson said. “Let’s go to work.”
* * *
—
The ship was silent. It had a faint smell that put Gilly in mind of orange peel. The breach room was large enough for only one person at a time, and on the other side was a low-ceilinged corridor, sprouting protrusions and bundles of cable, which threw shadows in the glow-lights. They would have to get used to clambering around, ducking beneath or squeezing past all the stuff that apparently mattered more than space for the crew.
Jackson and Beanfield milled ahead of him. Behind, Anders cleared the breach door and Gilly shuffled up to make room. “Fuck, this is small,” Anders said.
“You didn’t know?” They had undergone hundreds of simulations. Service had hangars dedicated to mocked-up Providence sectional layouts, inside of which they role-played scenarios.
“I thought they were exaggerating.” Anders rotated his shoulders reflexively. “The thing’s three miles long; we can’t get an extra ten inches here?”
“I’m sure there’s a good reason,” Gilly said. “I could ask the Surplex hardware guys.”
“It’s for appearances,” Beanfield said. “We don’t want people back home seeing our feeds and thinking their sacrifices have funded some kind of luxury cruise ship.”
“I feel like there’s a middle ground that got missed,” Anders said, “by about a thousand fucking miles.”
“There will be an engineering reason,” Gilly said. “I’ll find out.”
“Everyone oriented?” Jackson said. “Then let’s proceed to quarters. Collect your film and survival core and begin preflight checks.”
Film was a clear plastic band that fitted around the upper part of their faces and provided information display, local comms, and a variety of ways to interact with the ship. Survival cores were bulky black boxes they had to wear strapped to their backs whenever they left their cabin, and which would, during a catastrophic depressure or thermal event, throw a thin suit and helmet around their bodies and attempt to keep them alive. The cores were awkward and uncomfortable and almost certainly pointless, it seemed to Gilly, since anything that managed to get through the ship’s hull would definitely kill them all outright. But it was protocol, so he would wear it.
They moved deeper into the ship. At the first ladder port, Jackson spun a hatch to reveal a lit ladder shaft and gestured for Gilly to step inside. When he did, motorized rungs hummed beneath his feet, bearing him upward. Their quarters all lay in the same section of C Deck, with just enough separation to keep them from tripping over each other. He maneuvered through the corridor until he found a door marked QTR-4: GILLIGAN. There was a tactile panel and he pushed it to reveal the only private space he would possess for the next four years.
He stepped inside. The door jumped closed behind him. It was small but efficient. Retractable bunk, retractable desk, retractable sink. Sunken handles that would reveal drawers and a closet. The lighting was pleasantly soft. He moved to the bunk, removed his shirt, and fitted his survival core. When he slid the film over his face, the word HELLO materialized on his closet, as well as above the sink and on the door: places that could serve as virtual screens.
“Cute,” he said. He fiddled with the film until he figured out how to dismiss the welcome message.
He moved toward the door. Then he glanced back. It was hard to imagine how much time he was going to spend here. It was really too much to comprehend. But he supposed he didn’t have to. He would just take it one day at a time. He hit the tactile button and went out.
* * *
—
The ship burned for thirty-three days. During this time, Gilly acclimatized to his routine and the various weirdnesses of being on board a ship, such as having plastic over half his face and not being able to stretch out without hitting something. Most of each day was spent alone, but they all ate together at least once in Con-1, two of them headed on duty and two coming off, hunched around a retractable table with metal plates and bowls and some nutritionally dense soup, maybe a loaf.
“Ugh,” said Beanfield to Anders. “Is there any chance of you eating like a decent human being?”
“What?” Anders said. There was loaf all over. From clips and pics, Gilly had gotten the impression that Anders was calm and self-assured, but in reality he was kind of manic. He just went still for cameras.
“I don’t want to sit opposite you anymore,” Beanfield said. “It pains me.”
Jackson said, “We’ve reached S-min velocity.”
They looked at her. “When?” Gilly said. “Just now?” He checked the numbers on his film. She was right: The ship was now traveling fast enough to perform a hard skip, which would take them into the fighting zone.
“Yep,” said Jackson.
“When do we skip?” asked Beanfield. “Next twenty-four hours, right?”
“Where is the question,” said Anders. “Sword of Iowa’s bogged down in Orange Zone. They might want a hand.”
Gilly shook his head. “Two Providences in one zone is a waste. We’ll go somewhere new.”