The hatchway door nods solemnly.

This gets an amused snort, and she makes her way through.

It's a much bigger facility than the one they bunked down in earlier, but also more cramped. A lot of its rooms can only be accessed by maintenance tunnels; the Engineering Princess guiding them gives hints on which tunnels will be easiest/most scenic.

The facility subsection they arrived in houses the Mouth of the Macrofab, where small-to-medium-sized finished items get delivered for transport. There's a larger mouth nearby, Engineering Princess says, that allows larger fabricated objects to be ejected directly into space.

Deeper subsections handle assembly of all sorts. The further back you go, the smaller the components that the macrofab's working on.

Sections along the exterior of the station handle heat regulation, interface with transmission relays, and so forth.

The subsection at the center of the facility contains its reactor. Engineering Princess explains that macrofabrication facilities like this one are some of the most energy-hungry installations in the entirety of the debris field, and must rely upon onsite nuclear furnaces rather than solar arrays or EM-dysofrag hookups.

It's all very interesting. Deskyl's questions make it pretty clear that she's not familiar with this kind of technology at all, but she picks up the basic idea quickly and has a couple good questions about why things are done the way they are.

Her questions are answered at exorbitant length.

At one point the Engineering Princess has to take a break for some sort of social engagement, but before doing so she brings a friend up to speed and has her jack into the facility for the intervening span.

They switch back half a degree later, just in time for Engineering Princess to pilot the the transport ship back the way it came.

Deskyl enjoys herself pretty thoroughly. She tries to make sure it's not too boring for Devika, too, though she's distracted enough at the shiny new tech that the results might be a little lackluster.

She returns to the transport without complaint, though, satisfied with both the tour and the backpack of small items that DZ now wears.

"Oh, cool!" Their guide speaks up again a couple minutes after deceleration starts. “Okay, yeah, you continue to not have any sort of view of things from back there... but there's a SLAYER waiting outside the habitat. Older model, lots of battle damage, pretty sweet. And, uh, allied. That's important. No danger. Ayup, going ahead with docking maneuvers..."

    "Yes Ma'am, that's Shreya. Deskyl can sense her from here."

The transport docks, allowing all aboard to cross back to the small periphery station.

Deskyl heads off to find her friend.

Friend isn’t actually aboard yet: has to wait for the transport drone to detach and depart, then begin the process of slotting SLAYER into docking ring?

And then the hatch opens again, and there is a Shreya!

Shreya!

DZ waits until Deskyl is done hugging her to speak. "Hello, Ma'am, it's good to see you again. This is Devika, Deskyl's captive from the kidnapping attempt, though they're on rather better terms than that now. Devika, this is Shreya, one of Culamine's princesses."

“Welcome to the Draco Territories! Glad to hear you’re doing better!”

Shreya takes Devika’s hand and shakes it enthusiastically.

“Got a big adventure ahead of us, huh? Yeah, I’m Shreya, it’s great to meet you!”

Devika is shook.

(Though she’s taller and heavier set than the Hound Knight, in the null inertial conditions that vigorous handshake sends both of them reeling.)

”Big adventure. Yes.”

(Oh, good, nobody needs to get pinned to the ceiling. Not that she thought it was very likely.)

    "How much did Culamine tell you about it?"

“I know that I’m going to be flying insertion and extraction for you on a covert operation, deep in colonial space. Our turncoat friend helps with the covert part and with finding what we’re aimed at. And you’re in charge of destroying whatever the thing is. That about right?”

“I’m not a turncoat.”

“Uh... sorry?”

Deskyl gives Devika a reassuring shoulder-squeeze and signs with her free hand.

    "A rogue group like this one isn't helping anyone but themselves, we expect. It's in everyone's best interests to take them out."

Well, this is a little weird, but Shreya certainly isn’t going to question the parameters of any mission that Culamine and her sisters have signed off on.

“Hey, um...” she faces Devika again and tries to walk back from her earlier assumption. “Regardless of your reasons, I’m glad to have you on board.”

“Likewise.”

Good. (Not great, she'll have to keep an eye on things. But as far as her body language is concerned: good.)

    "Would you like to rest before we go, Ma'am? It sounds like it's going to be a long trip."