The tether latch stopped short of closing, and Lena Vasquez pressed it open again.
A ventilation fan idled behind the rest bay’s tool bench. Its vibration traveled through the mounting bolts into her wrists, steady beneath the scrape of her pick. She held a cloth over the hinge to catch the grit. The spring had enough travel. Something in the last fraction of the gap kept it from seating.
Beyond the bay opening, boots released and engaged along the line. A relief miner pulled into place at the rail. The outgoing miner checked the clear passage before making the short push toward the rest straps.
Six days without the ore trains. The fan had been here all along.
Three miners secured themselves beside Lena’s bench. The nearest clipped a slate onto an unused tool loop, screen facing her. Fleet Construction had issued another delay notice. The pressure-shell line the liaison had described yesterday now appeared beneath a red receiving-slot warning.
“This is from his office,” the miner said. “Not Helios.”
“I can read the heading.”
“Then read the rest.”
Lena covered the loose hinge pin with her thumb and turned toward the screen. Unfinished shells. Material already committed elsewhere. Another scheduling revision. The same ore she had spent years sending out, listed at the place where someone needed it instead of the place where someone cut it.
“We go back,” he said. “They put the review in writing. You tell the chapter that’s enough to resume. They’ll listen to you.”
“Who stops the next face?”
“The review settles that.”
“After we’re under it.”
A woman behind him caught the edge of the bench. She had folded a meal pouch flat, creasing it again along the same line.
“My next transfer home is due tomorrow. I can’t send them a review either.”
Lena eased the pin into its recess. Her own account still covered the next payment. Saying that would buy nobody else another day.
“I don’t have an answer for your transfer.”
“You could help us earn it.”
The miner moved the slate closer. In the corner, a reserve estimate counted down. Lena had hauled the loads behind numbers like those. The people at the receiving end needed their shells closed. She had no quarrel with the notice.
“What would the dead have wanted?” he asked. “Those frames left unfinished?”
Her pick stopped against the hinge.
At the inner door, one glove had come through the gap before its owner could. She had kept her eyes on the clip. Seat it. Check it. Send the miner toward the reel. She could account for each movement without finding a word for the people beyond the door.
“They wanted the next handhold,” she said.
He lowered the slate.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I have.”
The woman clipped the empty pouch to her belt. Neither of them withdrew the request. They left it beside the bench in the form of the delay notice, transferred to Lena’s slate, and moved back toward the line.
Lena worked the gate. Grit marked the cloth in a thin black crescent. This time the latch seated.
Two miners at the bay’s far rail pulled over before she could test it again.
“You shouldn’t have to defend yourself to them,” one said.
“I wasn’t.”
The younger miner held out a different slate. A recording frame occupied the upper corner. Below it, Lena’s name headed a statement.
The opening assigned intent to Helios management. The next line called the deaths murder. Her name appeared again beside an empty approval field.
“We wrote it so you wouldn’t have to,” the miner said. “One take. We can send it before the talks.”
Lena selected the prepared text and deleted it. She did not read a sentence aloud.
“Why would you do that?”
“My name was on it.”
“They left people in there. You brought them out.”
The other miner’s wrist rested against the rail, bare where a partner’s band had worn the skin smooth. Lena moved the pick into its retaining loop. Nothing on that wrist gave her the right to make a claim she could not support.
“I know the order I got,” she said. “I don’t know who changed what before it reached me.”
“The report is a lie.”
“Then keep the report. Get what it leaves out.”
The blank statement stayed between them. The miner closed the recording frame, gathered the slate against a chest strap, and pushed away from the bench.
Lena opened the latch again. Her thumb shook against the gate. She changed hands and held it still.
Kavita Nair caught the door rail with one hand and pointed toward the narrow records alcove behind the rest bay.
“No recording,” she said.
Lena enclosed the latch in the cloth. She transferred along the wall grips, keeping the small bundle against her ribs, and locked her boots opposite Kavita’s. The organizer drew the acoustic panel across the opening. Ventilation still passed through its upper grille.
“They want you at the talks,” Kavita said.
“Which they?”
“I do. As a technical witness.”
Lena unfolded the cloth on the alcove’s strapped work shelf.
“You have my suit log.”
“I have the pitch change. I have your order to clear the face. Someone will ask what made you give it.”
“The brace carried a pulse after the cutter stopped.”
“Tell them that.”
“Someone else will ask why rescue took so long.”
“Give the interval the log supports. Describe where you were when the reel arrived. The staffing record has to answer the rest.”
Lena pressed the latch open against the shelf. The fan’s vibration came through faintly here, softened by another joint in the wall. A familiar machine changed character over a short distance. The suit microphone had recorded one part of the collapse. Her glove against the drill had supplied another.
“They’ll want a cause.”
“You don’t have to give them one.”
“They’ll ask anyway.”
“Then say what you cannot establish. I’ll deal with the demands and the terms.”
Kavita turned her slate over and secured it beneath the shelf strap. Lena’s name did not face her from this one.
“No statement prepared for me,” Lena said. “No answer cut short to fit a broadcast. If I don’t know, that stays in the record.”
“Agreed.”
“You handle the bargaining.”
“Yes.”
Lena drew her union card from her pocket and slid its edge beneath the repaired latch. She depressed the gate, withdrew the card, and let the spring drive the metal home. No catch. She repeated it from a shallower opening.
The latch clicked shut against its stop.
A function check, not a load test. She left the service tag attached. The tool tether could wait for the test fixture without anyone pretending she had finished more than she had.
She rubbed the card’s edge clean and pocketed it.
“Put me on the witness list.”
Kavita reopened the panel. Across the rest bay, the wall display carried the reserve projection from Fleet Construction. Beside it, the negotiation notice counted down to the next session.
One clock measured the ore they had left. The other measured the time before Lena would have to speak.
Both lost a minute while she stood there.
If you enjoyed this story, you can follow the main story arc in The Exodus Rush, the first book in The Vethrak Requiem series.