By the time Juliet finished with the Port Authority officer’s questions, Aya had left and returned with Bennet. The two of them were halfway done conducting an assessment and inventory of the Bumble’s systems when Juliet watched Reggie walk away down the corridor, still checking off items on his little clipboard. He hadn’t given her any trouble about her account of events on Dione, but he’d certainly been thorough, asking follow-up questions about nearly every detail of the encounter with the pirates.

Juliet found Bennet with Aya in the engineering corridor, pulling out components, examining them, and then, in most cases, stuffing them back into their housings. “What’s the story?” she asked from the ladder leading up to the mess.

“Shiro wants us to know what we’re dealing with before we see about trying to sell this thing.” Bennet grunted as he spoke, wriggling a hefty, stainless cylinder around, trying to get it to slide back into the cramped space under the floor paneling.

“So, they’re definitely selling it?”

“Yeah, I think so, but they told me to send you to meet with them after the guy got done grilling you. He’s done, right?” Bennet peered past her to the opening leading upward.

“He’s gone.”

“Everything okay?” Aya asked, looking up from an instrument making a ticking, popping sound, its red needle bouncing around crazily.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Where am I supposed to meet them, Bennet?” Juliet was feeling a strange anxiety having these two combing through the ship, getting ready to sell it.

“Well, they’ve been dealing with the Port Authority, too. They had more bodies and the gunship salvage to get inspected. If they’re done, they were planning to find a bar near the port. Just hit Alice up on comms; she’ll give you her location.”

“All right. What about Engineer? Can we bring him back to the Kowashi, Bennet?”

“I’ll take him over,” Aya offered. “I’ve got some diagnostics I can run, and if I don’t have the right specs for his chip, I can find it pretty easy on the sat net.”

“Promise me you won’t delete him or take him apart or something without talking to me first.”

Aya looked up sharply and met Juliet’s eyes. “I won’t, Lucky. I’m not a monster.” Bennet chuckled at her words but didn’t offer any comments on the subject.

Juliet nodded. “Thanks. Right, well, I’ll see you guys later, I guess.” She turned to climb out of the hot, cramped space.

“See ya. We need to set up a lifting schedule while we’re in port, huh? Hey, hold up!” Bennet sat up, set his socket driver down, and waited for her to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“I wanna help with your friend. You know, the one in trouble. I owe you, and I mean it—anything I can do, don’t forget to ask.” His eyes were earnest, and for once, he didn’t have a hint of a joke in his voice.

Juliet nodded and wrestled a smile onto her face, “Thanks, Bennet.”

“I’ll help too. I don’t know what you two are talking about, but I want to help,” Aya chimed in, still fiddling with her scanner, pointing the nozzle at some tubes protruding from a diamond-shaped, shiny, crystal-looking thing.

“Okay. Thanks to you both, then. I’ll let you know.” With that, Juliet climbed out of the corridor and into the mess. “Angel, what’s the deal with guns here?”

“New Atlas has a far more liberal take on self-defense than Luna City; anyone without a criminal record can purchase a license that takes effect immediately. SOA operators are no exception. This freedom only extends to weapons incapable of damaging the dome—most small-arms, personal weapons fit that category.”

“Okay,” Juliet nodded, then, hoisting her pack onto the table, she began changing her clothes. She put on a pair of stretchy, comfortable black cargo pants, her boots, her only clean tank top, blue with a yellow frowny face on the chest, and her motorcycle jacket, but not before slipping into the shoulder holster for her needler. When she shrugged into the garment, its silky red lining tickling her bare shoulders, she couldn’t help but notice that it was a bit tighter than the last time she’d worn it. “Did I put on that much muscle lifting with Bennet?” she muttered.

“Your musculoskeletal rating has improved significantly. Would you like to see your updated numbers?” Angel’s voice was high with excitement.

“Just the top part! My rankings.” Juliet sighed and clicked the blinking tab on her AUI:

Juliet Corina Bianchi

Physical, Mental, and Social Status Compilation:

Comparative Ranking Percentile (higher is better - previous value in parenthesis):

Net worth and assets:

Sol-bits: 104,884

.73 (67.11)

Neural & cellular adaptiveness:

.96342 (scale of 0 - 1)

.91

Synaptic Responsiveness:

.19 (lower is better)

.31

Musculoskeletal ranking:

–

.09 (61.33)

Cardiovascular ranking:

–

.91 (71.76)