“Well, I’ve seen worse.”

“You came here on worst without being in pieces. You need better sense of scale.” 

With a sigh, I raised my eyes from the diagnostics screen to look at the ship in front of Vulka and I. The owner, a barrel chested Strigoth Hauler, slouched nervously off to the side. He had feathers and a beak, like Listher, but they were a mottled brown. His moonlike face and piercing yellow eyes stared owlishly at us as he waited for our diagnosis. The ship itself was in terrible condition. A massive dent, almost bigger than the side of the boxy cargo ship, graced its middle. I was a month into ship repair, and it felt so good to be back.

The zero gee certification had taken a frustrating couple of weeks. Turns out, adjusting to having one eye on solid ground doesn’t translate well to zero gee. It’s one thing to pick up a wrench on a table, but it’s quite another to snatch one out of the air when you can’t as easily use context clues to judge size and distance. Not crashing into the padded walls of the test chamber was nearly impossible. After my second failure, I nearly cried. It felt like I had been lying to Listher and Reggie, and despite their insistence that they understood why I couldn’t perform the way I used to, I still went to bed those nights with a sick feeling. Zero gee was where I felt the most at ease. Weightless, moving in bursts of angles. Being away from it for so long had been painful. 

I looked over to the hauler. “Frank, was it?” I asked. “What happened?

He nodded. “Frank, yeah,” he said. “It was an asteroid. I, uh. Fell asleep at the stick.”

“Ah, yes, right here it says this,” Vulka said, pointing at a spot on the tablet so I could see. “Okay, so you didn’t have AI onboard?”

“Of course not!” Frank said, puffing out his chest. “Those things go crazy all the time, I’m not putting one on my ship.”

Vulka and I looked at the section of the diagnostics for the ship AI. ‘REPAIR/REPLACE’ was written in bold, red letters. We shared a look. Or, I gave Vulka a look and I assumed he was doing the same behind his tinted visor. We had a tendency to be on the same wavelength.

“You care about AI, you do it,” Vulka hissed quietly.

I squinted at him. “Only if you handle cleanup while I invoice,” I whispered back.

Vulka nodded, and I turned to the Hauler. “Sir, the Union wants us to put a rudimentary navigation AI on your ship. If we don’t, they won’t let you fly.”

Frank hooted in indignation. “There’s no way in hell that’s happening. I’m a fine pilot!”

“Has this happened before?” I asked. “They don’t usually make us do this without prior incident.”

“Oh, ‘prior incident’, la dee dah, missy,” Frank spat. “I’ve been hauling for sixteen years! I’ve been a loyal Union member! I pay all my dues! Not about to let some little spacer kid tell me what to do.”

That jab was exactly what I had been waiting for. Frustrated pilots were something I had been dealing with for a long time. Much easier than the general public. It was time for the old workman’s patter, a trick I learned from another old wrench back in Ulthea, and I’ve seen it used by every repair person I’ve ever met. Commiserate, speak like you’ve been lugging the entire station on your back and it would all fall apart without you. The important part was to imply that your organization’s rules were set in concrete, maybe even the stars themselves. That they had existed for millenia, and were as terrible and powerful a force as gravity. Finally, and most importantly, keep talking until they give up.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” I explained. “Both the Collective and the Union are telling us we need to put this thing on your ship. If I don’t, that’s my job, your job, maybe even his.”

I jerked my thumb over at Vulka, who looked up. “Maybe more,” he suggested.

“Exactly,” I said. “There’s a cascade effect, y’know?”

“A cascade?” Frank asked.

“Shit rolls down hill,” Vulka said.

“We lose our jobs, The Haulers lose trust in Brock Station, and then where are we at?” I asked. “I promise, you’re hardly gonna notice this little navigator.”

The Hauler stood there, feathers puffed. He was staring me down, and had to be about half a foot taller and wider than me. I didn’t flinch. If I didn’t back the Spacers and my peers, they wouldn’t back me.

“Fine, listen,” Frank said, reluctantly breaking the silence. “I got a deal with some of the other wrenches here. They’ve been trying to put an AI on my ship for years, but if I just pay you a little extra, you can just not install it and say you did.”

“No,” I said. “I can’t.”

Frank scoffed. “Sure you can. Who doesn’t like a little extra money? C’mon, kid. You don’t need to follow every rule.”

I shook my head. All the workman’s artifice was gone now. Pushback was one thing, but bribery was too far. “I’m not risking my job for you. I don’t know you. I’m going to install your AI, and you’re going to stop getting hit by asteroids. There’s no downside. If you want to complain, you can talk to my bosses so they can tell you the same thing, and maybe get the names of those other mechanics. Sound good?”

The Hauler clenched and unclenched his fists, clearly thinking. Finally, he waved a dismissing hand and walked off, muttering. “Ulthean bootlicker…”

I watched him leave the dock, then shrugged and turned back to Vulka. “Do you think boots taste any good?” I asked. “Never licked one myself.”

“Isn’t every Ulthean citizen born with boot in their mouth?” Vulka teased as he made his way to our tool chest.

“They use tiny rubber ones,” I chuckled, following after. “They don’t give you the real thing until you’re old enough to know better.”

Vulka took a set of mag-slippers from his toolchest. “Perhaps you could try mine?”

I looked at his dubiously edible footwear skeptically as he put the mag-slippers on. “How often do you clean your suit?” I asked.

“Whenever I see you sniffing air every couple hours,” Vulka said. 

My disgusted face must have given him the reaction he was looking for, because his static pulse of a laugh burst through his suit speakers. “So easy! I’m tying your arms, I wash suit each day. Special decontamination shower in my room.”

“Blessed help me, I will jettison you,” I said, tilting my head in mock prayer.

We set to work, starting with diagnostics. Though the damage seemed like just a big patch job, an impact like the one Frank survived could have knocked out any number of systems. Vulka worked with the ship’s mainframe inside while I looked at the impact zone to set up a repair schedule.

+

“Hey Vulka, do you think Listher really is endangered?” I asked over our comlink. 

A staticky chuckle came through the link. “Ah, interesting non sequitur. What brought your thoughts there this time?”

I tried to roll my thoughts back to where they started, but got lost along the way. “He just jokes about it a lot. He jokes about pretty much everything. It’s hard to tell when he’s serious.”

“Well, on this he is telling truth,” Vulka said. “Last I heard, there were only around fifty of his species left in galaxy. Pirates hunted them, mostly.”

“How does he joke about something like that?” I asked, stunned. “It sounds horrible.”

“Worst of hunting happened when he was young,” Vulka replied. “He’s had decades to come to terms with his place in galaxy. Being part of Brock Station helps. Many out of place here, by force or by choice. Easier to feel comfortable with others going through the same thing.”

I considered his words for a minute. “Even you?”

“Of course,” Vulka said. “Because of me, there’s one less moon in my home system. My people don’t believe in execution, so: I was exiled, and found Brock Station some years later.”

I mentally recoiled at Vulka’s confession, but realized I had no room to criticize. My own mistakes weren’t any better. “Was it an accident?” I asked.

“Yes and no, maybe I will tell you about it some other time.” Vulka said. “There is no judgement here. Even Helga hints at memories she would rather not discuss. Perhaps we are bad people, or we simply feel as though we are bad people. Here, we have place where we can live as though we aren’t, with a community who feels the same.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ve gotten to that point, though. My wanted posters are still up.”

“At least they have nicer photo now!” Vulka teased. The airlock hissed open, and I turned to see him emerging from the ship. He brandished his tablet. “Diagnostics complete. We’re lucky, only shield systems compromised.”

“That’s good,” I said, consulting my own tablet, glad to have the change of topic. “But I don’t know how lucky we really are, considering the paint color we need for this thing is on back order.”

“Now you’re tying my arms,” Vulka said, grabbing my tablet. After a moment of tapping, a static sigh floated through the air. “Of all the things. We can get Nav AI tomorrow but paint is delayed two weeks. Wanderer’s eyes…”

It was then that the PA beeped, and the station announcer’s voice filtered through the speakers. “Casey Black, please report to the station command center. Please report to the station command center. This message is for Casey Black. Thank you.”

In the silence, Vulka and I looked at each other. “Have you ever been called there?” I asked.

Vulka shook his head. “I’ve repaired some consoles there, but it’s rare that anyone is called to command center like that. Sounds like you better hurry.”

…

As I made my way through the corridors, I couldn’t stop anxiously messing with my horns. The command center was where station defense and traffic control was, which meant practically anything, but not much good. My legs were moving as fast as they could go without turning into a jog. Everyone around me was a blur. Some might have called out to me, but I was too much inside my own head.

The elevator ride to the command center was the longest I had taken yet, or maybe it just felt long. When the doors opened, I could hear down the hallway that Helga was speaking to someone. The tone of the other person sounded familiar somehow. I hurried down the hallway and entered the room.

On a big screen at the front of the room, I saw a face that nearly made my heart stop. A large Felid wearing worn out Ulthean military armor. Orange and white with black stripes. A strong jaw and bright eyes that lit up even more when they saw me. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling.

“Nate?!”