Much as she was dreading it, Miliam decided the first thing on her docket would be to get a quote for the Astrum Vitae’s repairs. She didn’t need a specialist to tell her it was going to be an astronomical sum, but it was best if she had an exact number going into her negotiations over the sale of the data she and her crew managed to retrieve from Delta Bootis.

  So it was that she found herself welcoming the mechanic Hroarr onto her ship again for a consultation.

  “Hasn’t even been three months! Who’d ya piss off t’ end up lookin’ like this?” Hroarr exclaimed as he beheld the ship’s exterior. From the outside, the damage looked much worse than it had on the damage reports. While Miliam’s ship had only taken internal damage from a single hit, others had grazed the hull closely enough to leave scars. There was also a nasty exit wound from the shot that had penetrated.

  “…an Unnac Imperium cruiser,” Miliam answered honestly.

  “How’d you run into one’a those? Had some business out at Jethroe’s Landin’?” Hroarr asked curiously, bringing up a name Miliam had heard a few times by now.

  “Um, no, but I took a job to bring someone to check out a site that might have been left by the Observers…” she explained vaguely, assuming that would be enough information for Hroarr to fill in the blanks.

  “That’d piss ‘em off for sure,” he confirmed before shaking his head. “Anyway, I can tell ya right now this’ll be expensive. I’d be willin’ t’ bet that even th’ frame is stressed from a hit like that. We’ll have t’ open ‘er up like a can o’ beans t’ fix damage like that.”

  “Which probably doesn’t make much difference seeing as how the entire outer hull is totaled anyway…” Miliam predicted.

  “Eh, that’s true. Not sure there’s a square meter of intact platin’ t’ be found there,” Hroarr observed while brushing a hand through his beard. “Y’might want t’ consider real armor this time. I doubt most o’ those glancin’ hits woulda caused much damage to proper mithril ‘n adamantite alloy.”

  Miliam released a long sigh; she knew he was right, but she also remembered how much that would cost. When she’d last employed Hroarr’s services, the price for new armor had been well outside her budget even if she ignored everything else that needed to be fixed. Now? All she could do was cross her fingers and pray to a god she didn’t believe in that she could make as much money off her last job as Abigail insisted.

  “I’d love to, but it’s really going to depend on how big my budget ends up being,” Miliam admitted. “Worst case scenario, I get exactly as much repaired as I need to make the ship safe to fly.”

  “Then ya’d better hope th’ inside looks a whole lot better ‘n th’ outside, because I think that’ll be a tall order itself,” Hroarr warned as he marched towards the airlock. Miliam followed after him. “Are th’ environmental wards still holdin’ up?”

  “I think so. My engineer didn’t say anything about them failing, so we should have atmosphere in the ruined compartments still,” Miliam answered uncertainly.

  “That’ll at least make th’ inspection easier,” the dwarven mechanic noted. “Which cabins got hit?”

  “The lounge, medbay, and elevator,” Miliam listed off as she trailed behind Hroarr, who seemed to remember where to find the rooms in question. He thumbed at his grimoire and placed a hand against the bulkhead sealing off the lounge for a moment before nodding and hitting the door controls.

  A picture of utter destruction awaited within. On one side of the room, a ragged hole had been torn through the floor, ringed with twisted metal that looked like it had entirely melted before cooling back into a solid form. Absolutely nothing in the lounge was still recognizable. Furniture and devices alike had been incinerated and melted into indistinguishable masses plastered to the walls. Where the lounge extended under the medical bay a second hole was present in the ceiling, far neater than the first when viewed from this angle.

  “Huh,” Hroarr snorted as he examined the scene. “It’s a miracle th’ wards weren’t damaged. Everythin’ else, though…”

  Trailing off, Hroarr stepped into the room carefully, taking a closer look at the walls and floor. Now and then he cast spells as he went, presumably gathering information on the damage somehow. A few minutes later he returned to the door where Miliam was waiting for him; she didn’t trust herself not to trip and fall through the hull.

  “Cabin’s a lost cause. Goin’ t’ have to rip it out and replace the whole thin’. This ship ain’t built t’ be modular, so that’s goin’ t’ mean redoin’ anythin’ that passed through this part o’ th’ ship from wirin’ t’ pipes,” Hroarr informed Miliam with a grim tone. “Th’ damage is actually worse than it looks- everythin’ inside th’ walls is fused together into a single mass, so even th’ interior bulkheads will need t’ be replaced.”

  “How are the wards still working, then?” Miliam questioned skeptically, unsure how that was possible if everything making contact with the lounge had been reduced to slag.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Only half o’ them are. Seems like most o’ the heat was absorbed by th’ walls or expelled through the hole; with th’ hull breach actin’ as a release for it, th’ ceiling right above didn’t take nearly as much damage, and that’s exactly where th’ wards for this side o’ th’ room were,” Hroarr explained, satisfying Miliam. “Even then, only th’ atmospheric barrier is workin’. If ya stepped inside, th’ first thin’ ya’d notice is th’ cold.”

  “You seem fine,” Miliam noted.

  “I do this for a livin’. O’ course my clothes are enchanted for cold and vacuum.” Evidently finished with the lounge, the dwarf marched out and towards the stairs, already knowing exactly where to find the medbay. Again Miliam followed along, waiting outside the room while he inspected it. After repeating the same routine as before he emerged with a shrug. “Same as th’ lounge. Complete write off.”

  “Ugh…” Miliam groaned at the expected answer.

  “With this level o’ damage I don’t expect I’ll know th’ full extent until we strip th’ outer hull off, but is there anythin’ else ya can tell me now for the preliminary estimate?” Hroarr asked, moving the conversation along mercilessly.

  “We had to strip the orichalcum from four of our point defense lasers to jury-rig the reactor…and we were able to get a replacement for the reactor component that failed, but I think it would best to have it rebuilt just in case. If I can get enough funding I’d like to just replace it entirely, but…” Miliam ended her sentence with an inarticulate noise of frustration.

  “Th’ damage report ya sent mentioned that. Hard t’ say how much more expensive that’d be since there’s a lot of options for a new reactor, but…adding in just th’ rebuild, you’re lookin’ at fifteen million reserves minimum, and that’s likely to go up once I get a look under the surface,” Hroarr estimated. “Course, y‘can always prioritize some repairs over others, but I don’t know how long y’can keep going like that before th’ whole thing falls apart.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of you ‘discovering’ more things to charge me for while my ship is already in your drydock,” Miliam said disapprovingly, being reminded of a shady mechanic she’d taken her car to once upon a time. He’d assumed she’d known nothing about cars for whatever reason, and he’d been right, but her father was another story. One of the few good memories she had of the man.

  “Ya mentioned ya have an engineer aboard now? You’re welcome t’ have ‘em stay aboard and double check my claims,” Hroarr offered, unperturbed. “I might be able t’ give ya a better guess at th’ final price if I can speak to ‘em first, too.”

  “They’re…not much of a talker, and they’re the one that handled the damage report, but we can see if there’s anything else they’d like to add.” Miliam headed for the engineering bay, beckoning for Hroarr to follow. Inwardly, she thought to herself that she’d definitely be taking the mechanic up on his offer, even if it meant paying Engineer extra for taking that duty on.

  It was a short walk over to engineering where Miliam was unsurprised to find Engineer milling about, working on something she assumed was a component of one of the machines in the room. Outside of times she’d asked for them to show up elsewhere, she’d almost never seen the little dragonewt anywhere but this room.

  “Engineer, I know you already gave me a report, but are there any additional details you can share with Hroarr here?” Miliam asked when Engineer looked up. They tilted their head to the side for a moment before nodding sharply.

  Hroarr pulled up the report and began asking clarifying questions, but the conversation was far too technical for Miliam to follow. There were questions ranging from the precise state of the wards in the damaged areas prior to the battle all the way to inquiries about possible knock-on effects of the damage on systems in other parts of the ship. Engineer answered each question in short statements which Hroarr seemed to find sufficient for his purposes.

  Eventually they moved onto Engineer’s more minor concerns which may not have made it into the report, then a detailed discussion regarding replacement parts. From what Miliam could gather, there were a wide range of product lines that could be utilized in fully replacing old systems. While she herself didn’t have the level of knowledge needed to know which of them would suit her needs best, Engineer did, so they were able to shoot down some of Hroarr’s proposals in favor of cheaper or more specialized alternatives.

  It was actually rather impressive that Engineer could get so much across without ever uttering a single full sentence.

  By the time the two finished their conversation, Miliam was struggling to stay awake due to sheer boredom. They’d taken so long that Hroarr actually looked a bit embarrassed when he saw the time, coughing into a fist and looking away.

  “Apologies for th’ wait. Your Engineer is quite knowledgeable. Based on their recommendations I believe a more accurate estimate is possible, but I don’t know what th’ precise cost of th’ parts will be yet, so I’ll need t’ make some calls before I can provide it,” Hroarr explained on his way out.

  “From the sound of the conversation I thought they were recommending less expensive components…” Miliam replied, perplexed. Hroarr nodded slowly.

  “They did. Tentatively, I think th’ price is more likely t’ be around fourteen million reserves, but I’ll have to see what those components are selling for. All I can say right now is that they would be cheaper than th’ ones I had in mind based on th’ list o’ damages,” Hroarr elaborated.

  “Fourteen million…” Miliam muttered, hardly able to fathom that amount of money. Some part of her wondered if repairing her ship would even be worth it at that point, but based on the last time she’d had that conversation with Aoibhe she was fairly certain it was a better deal than buying a used corvette that would likely require its own repairs anyway.

  Besides, she was getting attached to the beat-up old bird. An ambitious part of her mind thought that if she could get enough out of the upcoming auction, she may even be able to restore her to full functionality. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?”

  “I’ll check with a couple other docks to be sure and let you know when I’ve got the money,” Miliam told Hroarr once she’d finished processing the price tag she was faced with.

  “Mm, and I’ll have th’ final estimate t’ you in a day or two,” Hroarr responded, holding his hand out. Miliam accepted and tried not to cringe when the dwarf nearly crushed her hand, so firm was his grip.

  “Thanks Hroarr. I’ll talk to you then.”