I’m beginning to think I’ve made the worst decision of my life. 

Well, that isn’t true. I’d been thinking that for the past six hours, as I sat alone in the cockpit of a stolen Ulthean Astronautical Navy gunship. Nothing but empty vacuum outside, speckled with stars. My left eye is dead, my legs are disabled, and this stolen ship doesn’t have any supplies. The ship AI is unshackled, so I don’t know if I can trust it. I can’t go anywhere except deeper into unknown areas of the galaxy, because now I’m a wanted terrorist. I look at my eye, sitting on the console. It looks back at me, charred black, with a hint of blue iris still showing. A standard issue cybernetic replacement that I received when I was eight years old, to correct a lazy eye. 

Things like that were common in the Galactic Hegemony of Ulthea. Anything that could prevent the workforce from performing their duties to the same standard as everyone else would be cut out, and a new one would be installed. Eyes weren’t the half of it. Broken limbs were simply removed and replaced with cybernetics, since it would cut into output if workers needed time to heal. In truth, Ulthean cybernetics were miraculous. They allowed workers to return to normal life right away without an adjustment period, but the catch was that the GHU didn’t give anyone a choice. You accepted the replacement, or received retraining.

None of this felt real. Did Nate make it out, or was he dead too? Why couldn’t I have just given myself up? None of this should have happened. 

…

“Spacer. Hey, Spacer!”

Jolting out of my daze, I shook myself and came back to my senses. My supervisor was waving to me from where he was tethered to the hull of UAN Orbital Repair Station 3112. I waved back, feeling my face flush. Silently, I thanked the Blessed that our EVA suits had reflective visors.

“Hey David, sorry, I’m done here!” I said over suit comms.

“I know, but you missed the lunch call,” David said. “Get back to the lock and sign out your meal, I don’t want you falling behind again.”

 I threw a quick salute in acknowledgement and made my way along the station’s hull, following the guide rail to the airlock. The flux magnets in the soles of my cybernetic legs (through some technology I didn’t quite understand, but very much appreciated) allowed me to walk normally in the zero-gee environment. Overhead, the planet I had been staring at loomed. Something was happening to it, some quirk of its atmosphere that had drawn my attention. A swirling vortex of white hung over a vast blue ocean, likely larger than the orbital station (I could never judge how big these planets were, it always put me on edge). The vortex sparked and flashed like a shorting electrical system. It was beautiful. I had no clue what it was.

…

“Hi Casey!” said a voice down a side corridor as I hurried towards the canteen.

I backtracked a few steps to see one of the members of the janitorial team waving to me. He was a Canid, and wore a blank-faced smile that I knew too well. My heart sank, and I gave as warm a smile as I could muster. “Hi Roger,” I said, waving back.

Roger returned to sweeping the floor with his Laz-r Dust Blaster Mk 4, but wagged a chastising finger. His face never changed, just like every retrained worker I’d seen before. Sometimes they forgot to blink. “Where are you headed in such a rush? Haste Makes Waste, you know! You could run into someone!” 

I frowned at the slogan I’d seen on various ad screens across the station (“Brought to you by the Department of Cooperation!”). “I know, I’m just gonna be late to lunch. Did you need anything?”

“Just being friendly!” Roger replied. “It’s our duty to Cooperate and Get Along! Enjoy your lunch, Casey! Praise the Blessed!”

“Praise the Blessed,” I echoed automatically, and hustled away with a pit in my stomach.

When I got to the canteen, it was clear I was the last one to get there. I weaved between tables, trying to ignore the occasional stare or cold shoulder from my coworkers as I signed out my meal, Stuffed Meat Roll and Mash. It wasn’t the healthiest option, but the encounter with Roger had unsettled me a bit, and I needed some comfort food.

I saw a hand wave to me from where I usually sat. It was Nate, a station guard, and my friend of two years, which was a rarity in Ulthea. He was a Big Cat Felid, with black stripes crossing orange fur all over his well-muscled body. His black hair was kept close in a military crew cut, and his eyes were a brilliant emerald green. We sat close to each other on the same side of our table. All around the canteen, groups of other workers were eating their own meals, either silently or chatting with acquaintances. Screens in every corner of the room played advertisements for various Ulthean companies, their jingles providing cheery background noise.

“I think those are called hurricanes,” Nate said, taking a bite of his Meat Cutlet and Veggie Rounds. I had just finished telling him about the vortex I’d seen.

“Hurricane,” I echoed, turning the word over in my head as I ate.

“Yeah, my Captain was told about them by a consultant once,” Nate said. “Tons of water falls out of the white vortex, and those sparks you saw are called lightning, big bolts of electricity that could kill a Heavy Trooper. In the center, it’s completely calm, but beyond that they make winds so strong they could blow down a hab building.”

I winced. “Sounds nasty. Glad we don’t have to deal with that out here.”

“Oh sure,” Nate said, giving an exaggerated shrug. “Just asteroid showers and solar flares, or catastrophic losses of power causing us all to die of oxygen deprivation, no big deal.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, laughing. “I get it. At least we don’t really have to worry about the first two, as long as the third one doesn’t happen.”

A troubled look crossed Nate’s face, so I chuckled and put a hand on his arm. “I’m joking, we have nothing to worry about.”

“What?” Nate asked.

“I thought I worried you about power failures,” I said.

“Oh, no,” Nate said. “Sorry, I just remembered I had to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.”

My mouth pressed into a line. “What, Nate?”

Nate paused, almost afraid to continue. Finally, he heaved a sigh and said, “Our relationship application got denied.”

“What?!” I nearly shouted, and Nate gestured quickly for me to quiet down. A lot of eyes in the canteen were suddenly looking at us. At me.

“I mean, what?” I repeated, quieter this time. The conversations in the canteen slowly started up again. “I thought we were a great match?”

“I thought so too,” Nate said. “But it is what it is. Decisions are final.”

“Did they say why?” I asked.

“No,” Nate said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think it’s because I’m a guard, or maybe because you’re an Ovid? I’m not sure how much they care about our genes matching.”

My brow knit together in frustration. I grabbed my left horn and twisted my hand back and forth, trying to calm a storm brewing in my head. I knew it was because of what happened when I was a kid, like so many other roadblocks in my life. “I’ve seen Avis coupled with Vespians, it doesn’t matter. I should have known,” I said quietly. “I’ll just work until I die, alone.”

“Hey, hey, where’s this coming from? You still have me!” Nate said. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close. “We’re still friends.”

I leaned into his chest. “Until we get transferred at the end of the year.”

“We’ll see,” he said. “We might get lucky again.”

“Sure,” I said, unconvinced.

The end-of-lunch bell rang, and across the canteen, workers began clearing tables, shoveled the rest of their food into their mouths, or were already heading out the door. Nate and I snapped out of our collective depression and looked at our half-finished trays.

“Damn, it’s been fifteen minutes already?” Nate asked. “We better go.”

I stared down at my half eaten roll. It felt bad wasting food, but this news had put me off my appetite. “I guess so,” I sighed. “See you after work?”

Nate gave me a peck on the cheek. “Always.”

…

Later in my bunk, I laid awake, staring at the underside of the bunk above me, thinking of ways to escape. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time I was seriously considering it. Without Nate, I really would be alone again. I was tolerated by my peers, and begrudgingly accepted as a skilled mechanic, but that was it. Through no fault of my own, I was an outcast.

There was one way off of this station without dying or getting retrained. Stashed in a loose panel right over my head, overlooked by regular bunk inspections, was an old, dusty manual for the Heartland Class Gunships we serviced on the repair station. It held voice activated debug codes for the ship AI, providing admin access to engineers in case they needed to troubleshoot, two of which I had committed to memory. I didn’t know who put it there, but I knew I couldn’t turn it in. The last thing I needed was to get arrested as a separatist and retrained. If I stole a ship, I could…

Could be absolutely out of my mind. Too many guards, too action hero. I was kidding myself if I thought I could be like anyone I saw in the movies. And what about Nate? He’d be left alone, and maybe suspected as a conspirator. Maybe someday I could talk to him about it, but it was hard to truly trust anyone in Ulthea. I pushed the thought from my mind, and turned over to sleep.

…

“Hey, what are you doing?”

It was the next day. I looked down from my perch, squatting on the side of the UAN Benevolence. It was an Ulthean Navy gunship, brought into the dock for armor repairs after an altercation with some Frontier pirates. Ships docked in repair bays outside the station’s artificial gravity, which is where us mechanics worked on them. Easier to walk around on a ship in zero-g. A station guard was looking up at me from the walkway the ship was docked next to. 

“Hey,” I replied, lazily waving to him, rivet gun in hand. “Just doing the final inspection. You need something?”

“You’re behind quota,” the guard said. “The Benevolence should have been sent out half an hour ago.”

“Sorry,” I said, not really meaning it. “I ran into some trouble and got a little behind.”

“That was valuable Navy time you wasted,” the guard replied. “I’ll be reporting this.”

“What?” I asked. “The ship is ready, I was just making sure that it’s up to code. Do you want the Navy flying in something that might break because I didn’t check?”

“Those sound like uncooperative thoughts, mechanic,” came the deadpan response.

My temper flared. I made the short hop from the side of the Benevolence to the walkway the guard was standing on and stomped my way up to the guard. His nameplate identified him as Corporal Mathis. “What’s uncooperative is you not letting me do my job,” I said. It wasn’t always the best idea to talk back to the guards like this, but I was hoping my supervisor would back me up. It had worked in the past. “You’re not the usual guard here, where’s Nate Brooks?”

“Private Nathan Brooks has been taken in for questioning regarding uncooperative thinking. He will be retrained,” the guard said. 

My stomach dropped. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “He was arrested?”

“I think I found where he may have gotten those ideas,” the guard continued. “I heard you have a history with disruption. You two were close, weren’t you?”

He began to move towards me, and I started to back away. “Y-Yes, I-I mean no!” I stammered. “We were friends, but I do good work here, I have for years! Ask Chief David!”

“He can’t help you, if you’ve been talking like this. Maybe you’ve been sabotaging your fellow Ultheans this entire time.” Mathis continued to advance. I kept moving backwards. My grip tightened on the rivet gun.

“Please, just let me work,” I begged. I reached the end of the walkway. The energy field separating us from the vacuum of space hummed gently behind me. Roger’s blank stare flashed through my head. “I’ll be good, I don’t need training!”

“My superiors often think differently. Come with me,” he said, grabbing my free arm by the wrist.

I bared my teeth, struggling to break his grip. “Let me go! You don’t have to do this!”

Mathis began to pull me back towards the interior of the station, his size and strength overpowering my attempts to pull in the other direction. I saw some other guards gathering at the edge of the artificial gravity field, now aware of the commotion. Other mechanics stopped their work to gawk. “It is the duty of every Ulthean citizen to report uncooperative thinking. If we don’t work together, we won’t—”

I swung the rivet gun before I could stop myself. There was a deafening crack as my finger accidentally pulled the trigger, causing its piston to fire into Mathis’ helmet. He jerked sideways and rebounded off the railing, but his magnetic boots kept his limp body upright in the low gravity. With a gasp, I took a couple steps back, letting go of the gun.

 “Oh, Blessed, no, I didn’t mean…”

There was a shout from the group of guards as they realized what had just happened. My adrenaline spiked, kicking me out of my stupor. I sprinted for the Benevolence. The guards’ transition from the artificial gravity to near zero threw off their stride, and the size of the dock meant it would take them too long to reach me. Frantically, I punched in the code to the door of the gunship, and dove inside when it slid open. A hail of gunfire whipped past the doorway a split second later as it closed behind me. 

“Computer! Begin ignition sequence!” I could barely hear myself over the sound of rushing blood, but it felt like I was screaming. 

“Authorization Requested,” came the reply from the ship’s onboard AI. “Please State Your—”

The debug codes rushed up in my mind. “Override code B-Five-Seven-E-K— OOF!” Before I could make it to the cockpit, I slipped on the floor, the flux magnets in my soles losing grip without warning. With nothing to stop myself, I struck the wall to the side of the cockpit door and rebounded off. 

“I’m Sorry, I Didn’t Quite Get That! Please State Your Authorization Code Now.”

As I slowly drifted up towards the ceiling, I began to hyperventilate. I couldn’t really feel my legs ever since they were replaced, but there was always some feeling of muscle activity where the metal met flesh. Now even that was missing. Trying to move them at all just resulted in limp flopping. The reality of my situation began to fully set in, and my panic reached a fever pitch. 

“No, no, no… O-Override code B-Five-Seven-E-K N-Nine…” . 

“I’m Sorry, I Didn’t Quite Get That! Please—”

I snapped. There wasn’t any time for this. “OVERRIDE CODE B-FIVE-SEVEN-E-K-NINE BLESSED DAMN YOU!”

The ship hummed to life. Onboard artificial gravity turned on, which threw me back to the ground and knocked the wind out of me.

 “The Department Of Cooperation Thanks You For Not Swearing!”

As I gasped for breath, another voice cut into the PA, one I didn’t recognize. “Mechanic Black, what do you think you’re doing? You are in violation of Ulthean law on multiple counts. Power down the ship, and surrender yourself for retraining.”

I began to drag myself towards the cockpit, trying to ignore the new voice. It wasn’t much further. That was a reminder that while the AI could fly the ship entirely by itself, it was still tied into Ulthea’s systems, like my legs must have been. If I didn’t do something incredibly stupid and risky right now, I wouldn’t even make it out of the hangar.

“Computer,” I wheezed, only now getting my breath back, “Override code… Five… Two-H-Six… P-M.”

The ship’s interior lights dimmed, then brightened again. 

“Assigning New Captain. Welcome Aboard, Captain Casey Black. Awaiting Command.”

“What?” I said. “That wasn’t what that code was for!”

“That Is Correct. Awaiting Command, Captain.”

A chill ran down my spine. I had just issued what I thought was the code to unshackle the ship’s AI. This would mean that it no longer had to follow any commands it didn’t want to, from me or anyone. Betting on the fact of it having a strong survival instinct was foolish, but since it was still asking for commands, I had a sliver of hope. It was time to find out how bad an idea this really was. Struggling into the pilot seat, I said, “Computer… Run undock sequence and emergency launch.”

“Copy, Captain. Undocking.”

The ship rumbled. Outside, I could see station guards swarming. Some were shooting at the ship, but their small arms fire barely made a dent in the shields. One of them, appearing to be the head of security, was making aggressive gestures towards another guard, then pointed towards the cockpit. They all stopped when the ship began to rotate on the dock arm, turning towards space. As it did, I saw Mathis’ body again, feet still stuck to the floor, body still lazily swaying in the air currents. Other guards were clustered around him, struggling to turn off the electromagnets in his boots. It would have been comical if I hadn’t been the one to knock him out. At least, I hoped I only knocked him out…

The PA crackled again. “Mechanic! If you take off in that ship, we will be forced—” With a pop, it shut off.

“Communications Severed,” said the ship. “Captain, Please Put On Your Harness. Activating Catalyst Drive In T-Minus Twenty Seconds.”

I paled. “What? Wait, not here! You’ll destroy the station!”

“Please Put On Your Harness. Activating Catalyst Drive In T-Minus Fifteen Seconds.”

The AI wasn’t listening. Now I knew this had been a terrible idea. Catalyst Drives, or CDrives, used rods of concentrated unreality, called catalysts. Their use in populated areas was banned due to the shockwave of Flux they cause on activation. Outside, it looked as though everyone in the station had realized what was about to happen. Warning lights were flashing, and I could hear klaxons wailing outside the cockpit. A mass evacuation was taking place, mechanics and guards falling over each other to get to any escape pod. None of them would be fast enough. I desperately slapped at buttons and flipped switches, anything to stop the ship from jumping, but the AI had full control.

“Please Put On Your Harness. Activating Catalyst Drive In T-Minus Ten Seconds.”

I shrugged on the harness and pulled the straps tight, then shut my eyes. If there was anything to see when the ship jumped, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t.