Free The Heretic (Beyond the Wall Book 1) by Lucas Bale

you counted wrenches and hammers, looked as if he’d eaten at most a single meal a week for years—he was an unlikely physical threat. But Shepherd was still cautious. Stranger things had happened.
    The boy turned and looked at him.
    ‘What are these?’ he asked, indicating the oil drums.
    ‘Don’t ask questions you don’t need answers to.’
    ‘Not much here, is there?’ he said. ‘I mean, to come all the way out here with a few barrels of, what, is that oil?’
    Shepherd said nothing.
    Bright kid.
    ‘I need to get up to the main drive,’ the boy said.
    ‘The problem is the avionics,’ Shepherd responded.
    The boy stared at him a little longer than Shepherd liked, before he replied, ‘I need to know how the whole propulsion system works before I can tell you if it’s the avionics. You might think it’s the avionics, but I need to see if the problem has a root cause somewhere else. ’Course, you want to do it all yourself, I got no problem with that either…’
    The boy indicated the door to the loading ramp, as if to leave.
    Shepherd grunted his agreement and walked over to where a ladder was bolted onto the wall. At the top, where it reached the ceiling of the loading bay, was a circular access hatch. He pointed to it and said, ‘It’s in there. Turn the handle a quarter-turn right and wait. It’ll pop, and then you turn it all the way round. Then push.’
    ‘Where will you be?’
    ‘I need to check a few things in the cockpit.’
    The boy nodded and walked over to the ladder. Shepherd headed to the airlock door to the crew quarters and galley, and tapped in the key code. He opened the door and headed inside. It felt good to be back inside Soteria. Whatever he did with the medicine, he needed breach co-ordinates, and that meant getting a departure licence. He would set Jieshou as his final destination; perhaps he could get some more work there.
    As his footsteps rang on the steel-grid floor, he wondered if hiring the boy was a mistake. But the loading bay ramp was closed and there was nothing in there worth stealing anyway, unless he stumbled across the concealed compartments—unlikely, as they were next to invisible—or could lift a few dozen barrels of oil. And from the look of him, he wouldn’t be able to lift even one. It was possible for the boy to open and close the ramp from down there, and even seal it completely and fast-vent the air inside in the event of a fire. Yet it didn’t matter. The moment he opened the loading bay ramp, a klaxon would sound and Shepherd would know. Sure, maybe it was a risk, but Shepherd couldn’t see where the danger could come from. What could the boy possibly want from him besides some coin for mechanical work?
    Paranoia. It’ll get you every time.
    After a short while, Shepherd heard the bell ring from the loading bay. It was a device he’d had installed so that anyone stuck in the loading bay by mistake could let the cockpit know. It was located next to the keypad for the door to the living quarters, and the boy had obviously found it. Shepherd left the cockpit and walked down and opened the door.
    ‘That was quick,’ he said.
    ‘Not finished yet,’ the boy replied. His jumper was off and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. There was grease on his face, and his hands gripped a torque wrench. ‘I need to get out to the avionics in the nacelles outside.’
    Shepherd nodded. He walked over to the loading bay ramp and hit the button to drop it. It wheezed as it opened, and wind swept inside with swirling spindrift.
    ‘Need you to come out,’ the boy said. ‘Gotta ask you some stuff.’
    Shepherd looked at him. ‘What stuff?’
    ‘You got a problem with the avionics sure enough, but it’s linked to another problem with the drive on the port nacelle. I need you to ask you about the way you fly and, for that, I need to show you the aeronautics pod.’
    Shepherd waited and watched the boy. The boy’s face was deadpan. Didn’t even flicker.
    There was no