Once I gathered my wits, the job began with a flurry of activity. The still crated manipulator arm was huge and the pieces of the thing were spread out across four different containers that were each significantly bigger than my own craft. 

Micro gravity negated the weight aspect mostly, but it was still incredibly awkward maneuvering the large equipment through the busy traffic around the station. The sheer mass of the equipment involved strained right against the limits of what the relatively fine manipulator arms on the Oxide could safely handle. Each piece of the massive machine had to be individually extricated from its crate, removed from the bay (avoiding the structural pillars of the ship along with other strapped cargo) and then ferried to the shipyard where teams of workers could take it and begin the process of installation.  

It was only through close coordination with the station workers and the ship crew floating in their e-suits that we completed the job after nearly four hours of high attention work. 

Echo turned out to be a delight to work with. Even though we really didn’t know each other, once the work started and I loosened up a bit, we got away from the stiff professional speech and relaxed into smooth cooperation. Though she was apparently rather young, she was quite good at her job. We were able to get the arm offloaded without incident on our side. There had been one minor casualty when one of the station workers had his suit damaged by a dropped plasma torch.  

A few minutes after the last piece was handed off to the station workers, Echo lit up comms again.

“So Soren, it sounds like we are going to be staying put for a few days before we make the jump out of system. I’m planning on taking some shore leave aboard the station tonight. Think you could show me around? I would kill for something to eat other than the galley on board the Ratatosk. Don’t get me wrong, the cooks are great, but we don’t get much chance at different selections.”

I short circuited for a moment. I mentally chastised myself that she wasn’t asking me on a date. Just a curious spacer. My voice broke a bit as I replied and I fought hard to keep from blushing over it. 

“Yeah, sure. I can do that. Uh, will your ship be docking, or will you need a shuttle? I have a spare seat if you need it.” 

That got a raised eyebrow from Echo. “How very forward of you to ask. I really ought to take care of docking myself, but we don’t have clearance yet. That’s one of the many things the captain is working on with station command. This big ass ship takes up a lot of room and we have to make sure we aren’t in anyone’s way. And Dad took our shuttle, so…” She trailed off and looked over her shoulder at someone off screen. I saw the icon come up telling me that her end had been muted. 

I watched quietly as her face ran a gamut of expressions over the next two minutes. Hope shone in her eyes as she emphatically spoke to the other person. Disappointment quickly replaced it, but was in turn supplanted by a slightly pleading look. Finally, a face-splitting smile shone and I saw her quickly stand up and a pair of dark-skinned arms hugged her. The mute icon went away, but the excited smile stayed solidly in place as she sat back down. 

“Okay! I convinced the first officer to keep an eye on things until the captain gets back, though I probably need to go meet him aboard the station if I’m going. Otherwise, prepare for boarders! Meet me in the cargo bay you pulled those crates out of. I’ll be there in five!” The line cut before I could reply. 

I hit the thrusters and shot back to the freighter like a tungsten dart from a rail gun. Evidently, Echo had warned the bay crew that I was coming, because I soon saw that they had cleared an area plenty big enough for me to land in. I eased the Oxide alongside the bay and gently shunted the craft into the bay using reaction control systems. I felt my craft jolt as it passed over the threshold into the cargo bay and I activated ventral thrusters to counter the artificial gravity aboard the Ratatosk.

Out my forward view, I saw the cargo master nod at me from an enclosed control room. He hit a few buttons on his panel and the bay doors slid closed. After a few moments, the light on my environmental panel turned green, indicating a safe exterior atmosphere. I stood up and opened the hatch before stepping outside. I stretched, feeling all of my joints rejoicing at the opportunity to relax after the last few hours of busyness. 

The cargo master stepped out of his booth and walked over to me as I stepped down onto the deck. He was a big man, probably had more than twenty centimeters on me and with how big his shoulders and arms were, I could only imagine that he could bench press me. 

“You must be Mr. Matson. Welcome aboard the Ratatosk. I’m Morik, cargo master of this heap. Good work today. You are a skilled pilot to be able to move crates that big so smoothly. I’ve dealt with my fair share of idiots in tugs, so I was glad to be working with a professional.” He gave me a kind smile and held out a hand.

I grabbed it and gave him a small smile in turn, withdrawing my hand after a brief shake. “Thank you, sir. I do my best. Have to, really. This scaver and my skill is about all I’ve got.” I proudly and lovingly patted the hull of the Oxide. 

Morik smiled and nodded knowingly. “Keep to what you know and that skill will serve you well.” He gave me another nod before he eyed a side door for the bay and looked back at me, the smile replaced by a warning glare. “Now then, you be good with Echo. Her father is a busy man, so just about all of us aboard look after her, especially those of us that have been with the crew since the beginning. You will have every one of us on your ass like Sarcadian knife-jaws if she gets hurt.”

I had no clue what a ‘Sarcadian knife-jaw’ was, but something told me I didn’t want to know and an even louder thought was that it didn’t matter. This man alone looked like he could snap me in half. I simply gave an intimidated nod in response. The smile returned to his face like it had never left and he slapped me on the shoulder. He opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by the sound of a whooshing door. I breathed a sigh of relief at the distraction. 

“Hey! Good to meet you in person. I hope Morik didn’t give you too hard a time.” Echo jogged over, quickly adjusting the rolled sleeve of her cropped black jacket. Said jacket was worn on top of a tight red tank top and a pair of form fitting black pants. She was gorgeous. 

“Uh… hi. I uh, have the shuttle.” 

Echo gave an amused side eye. “I see that. You ready to go?” I nodded dumbly. “Okay then. Morik, I’ll be back after while; maybe around twenty-two hundred hours, ship time? I’m sure Cal can keep an eye on things until Dad gets back. Grab me on the holo if you need me, though.” 

She made a motion at me with her hands and I took that as the signal to get going. The hatch was still open from my departure just a couple minutes prior, so I stepped in and quickly tossed my bag off of the rarely used co-pilot’s seat and into the locker next to the hatch. 

Echo was just behind me in boarding. If she saw me moving things around, she didn’t comment on it. Instead, she was peering around the small cabin curiously. “An interesting little ship you have here.” She gestured at the aft door from the cabin. “I assume that leads into the cargo hold, but don’t most of these little shuttles have unpressurized holds? I don’t think I’ve seen a ship this small with a pressurized bay before.” 

I was somewhat impressed that she had realized the significance of the door, and entertained her question while preparing myself and the Oxide for launch. “Well, the cargo shuttle that I took that compartment from had the capability to haul passengers instead of cargo, and thus was equipped with a pressurized bay. I kept the systems in place and got them working again because I didn’t have an apartment at the time I built this thing. One of my personal stowage lockers in the back still has a foldaway bed for those times that I want to camp out on some asteroid or something.”

My passenger’s eyes grew wide as I explained the uncommon feature and its origin. “You’re telling me that you built this ship? This isn’t just some weird one-off design?” Disbelief dripped from her voice, replacing the subtle cockiness that had been laced through it up to that point. 

Me, being rightfully proud of my hunk of junk, managed to get past my usual shyness to boast about my accomplishment. “I most certainly did. I learned a lot about ship construction and repair from my mentor, who ran a mobile repair ship.”

There was a quick twinge of fear in my heart as the thought of my former mentor came up. Our last conversation hadn’t exactly gone well. I pushed that thought away though in light of the conversation. 

“Took me several months of digging through scrap heaps and negotiating with dealers to cobble this thing together, but every piece of it was put together and made to work by my hands. I got it certified for flight a couple years back now.” 

Outside, the depressurization alarm sounded as the massive bay doors began sliding open. I confirmed that the hatch was closed properly and strapped into my seat. Next to me, Echo seemed to get the memo and did the same.  

“Ready to fly?” 

“Yeah! Let’s go!” 

I gently used my ventral thrusters to lift off the deck and strafed to the side until I once again felt the shift of my vessel crossing over the boundary of artificial and micro gravity. Outside the cargo bay, we were greeted by the incredible sight of D’reth Station framed by the star of Telemachus cresting over the horizon of the planet below with its broad dark rings of metal rich rock and stellar dust. 

The station, old as it was, was not very pretty up close. Without that close-up view though, the three-spoked wheel and spindle space station looked straight out of the old advertisements for the ‘Unspoiled Paradise of the Telemachus System!’ that still floated around the station. Ships of all shapes and sizes darted around it, conducting business as usual. It was easy to ignore that many of those ships were just scavengers, though, and imagine them as shuttles carrying the wealthy and adventurous looking for their fortune. 

In the glaring light, much of the debris field that orbited the planet was washed out and nearly invisible. One could almost get a glimpse of what Telemachus IV itself might have looked like before the corporations had stripped it. Brilliant oranges and greens shone through the usually dense cloud cover in the atmosphere and the rings presented a stark contrast to the bright planet.

The viewport compensated with radiation shielding and light filters, but even so, the view was picturesque and reminded me of why I loved flying so much in the first place. 

I was not even a speck in the scope of the star system, let alone the galaxy. So much was out in the expanse, and I wanted to explore it all. Of course, I wanted to do it without the dysphoria, but the thirst for exploration burned strong within my heart. 

After a moment I remembered myself and looked back at my companion. Echo was similarly gazing out the viewport. I found myself becoming slightly jealous that she got to travel between stars as a matter of course. Cargo running wasn’t the most glamorous thing, but it certainly beat scav work. I was saving every credit I could so that I could get my way out of this system and cast myself among the stars, but that was already her life. 

I shook my head at the thoughts in order to dispel them, but only partially succeeded. In the meantime though, I still had things to do. It occurred to me that I had planned on going out into the debris field to pick up more salvage that day. Plans changed, though, I figured, and taking care of the daughter of the captain that my boss so wanted to please seemed like a worthy endeavor. 

With years of habit serving me well, my finger found the comms panel and keyed in the station’s frequency. “Scaver Oxide-77 to D’reth Station. With you alongside freighter Ratatosk, requesting approach and landing.”