The recovery cradle in the center of Titus’s technical workshop held the battered silver-steel metal tube of Nautilus-Prime’s main command core.
The metal was scorched by overload steam and crusted with deep-sea stone oxides. But its internal quantum storage lattice remained intact. Toby Mallow leaned over the workbench. His magnifying goggles pushed was tight against his nose, carefully soldering three bypass leads into the core’s sight bus.
Beside him, Arthur Vance stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his hair damp with sweat, his eyes fixed on the light-projected decryptor screen.
Dr. Morrigan Calder stood at Arthur’s right. She walked into coded decryption keys derived from the Vanguard Federation’s naval intelligence database.
Around the cabin, the friend beasts kept their relaxed, post-combat watch. Grimm lay sprawled across two rubber floor mats, his massive black paws twitching sometimes as he dozed, his chin resting near Arthur’s boots. Pip was perched on the workbench lamp bracket, his golden head cocked inquisitively. He watched the glowing soldering iron. That let out a soft, curious chirp whenever a spark flew. Vesper sat atop a metal storage locker, licking her right shoulder with slow, rhythmic feline sweeps.
And overhead, curled comfortably through the overhead load-bearing arches of the ceiling, Echo’s twenty-five-meter body cast a gentle, shifting aurora of sapphire and amethyst across the workshop, his feathery gills wafting like silk banners.
