The two of us walked out of the office together and discussed the possibilities of what could be in my near future now that I would be working with Erickson Enterprises. It was exciting, to say the least. After spending the last couple years aboard a single station, I was thrilled at the chance to see the stars again. In my heart, there was a small twinge of disappointment though. 

I had embarked on this venture in order to become self-sufficient. I wanted my future to be solely on my own terms. There was a slight worry that I had simply traded one slave yoke for another and sold myself out yet again. After working with Kruger, the idea left a sour taste in my mouth.

Kruger saw workers as nothing but tools for him to profit off of, machines to use until they broke down. Sure, he saw the value of locking in employees into contracts and giving them preferential treatment in order to create a form of propaganda for those who had yet to sign the proverbial dotted line; but, in the end, we were a means to his own ends and nothing more. 

On the other hand though, I had some confidence that the Ericksons wouldn’t abuse my services like the local Torgal branch had. My mentor had nothing but good things to say about the founder and had encouraged me to give it a try. I trusted Jay wholeheartedly and was following that advice. The current captain seemed to be an upright man in my eyes as well, and the idea of working with Echo gave me butterflies. The entirety of the crew I had met were treated as people first and employees second. It was quite the paradigm shift compared to past experiences and brought me back to my days on the Forge. 

Captain Erickson had promised the components I needed for my ship and the time I needed for me to achieve my personal transition goals along with a salary that theoretically would be enough to put those goals much easier within reach.

I just had to believe that the benefits would outweigh the new chains I would be willingly putting on my wrists. 

Echo seemed to notice my introspective mood and piped up after a minute of walking down the corridors back to the docking port. “So, does this mean that I can use your proper name from now on? I would hate to dead-name you when it isn’t absolutely necessary.”

Shaken from my introspection, I gave it a moment’s thought. “As much as I would love that to be honest, it’s probably best to only call me that in private. I don’t think I’m really ready to share that with the entire station.”

She nodded. “Well, I can’t say I completely understand, but if you aren’t comfortable with it, I will respect that. When I was figuring things out and found my name, I didn’t want to hear the old one ever again.” She shrugged. “Your choice though, no judgement.”

“Thanks, Echo,” I told her. “I’m only out to a few people and the people on the station are… Well, most of them probably wouldn’t give a damn. Some would though, and I am pretty sure they would give me enough grief to more than make up for those that don’t.”

That got me a confused look. “Adresta, you are going to be off this station soon if things go as expected. Why care about those idiots? Even if some do give you grief, you won’t have to deal with it for long. And if your boss does, you can just quit. It’s not like you don’t have another job lined up. And I think it's been made pretty clear that you don’t have to worry about our people.”

I almost had to stop in my tracks as we passed through the airlock back onto D’reth Station as her statement hit me. I had a new job. I didn’t have to worry about the station denizens. “I… you’re right… Holy crap.”

It took me a few moments to process the idea. My brain still wasn’t quite ready to fully accept it, though. “I haven’t transitioned yet though. It wouldn’t be right for me to use that name and those pronouns as long as I look like this, right? I still present masc around the station. Nobody would see me in that way.” The Logic seemed sound in my mind, but Echo, while pulling me forward to continue walking, had her own rebuttal. 

“Addy, using the right name and pronouns for yourself is for nobody else’s benefit but your own. Add on top of that, there’s nothing keeping you from presenting femme if you want to from now on. If you really don’t want me to, I won’t correct people, but don’t let others stop you from embracing your truest self. There will always be those that judge. But there are also people who will have your back.”

I was back to my gaping fish impression. Her use of the shortened version of my name didn’t even register in light of what else she had said. “I… can’t argue that. I just got so used to hiding it, it feels almost wrong stopping.” 

Echo wrapped an arm around my shoulders. 

“Okay,” I said finally. “Alright. I’ll still have to be Soren for all of the paperwork and official functions for now until I can change that, but otherwise…” A disbelieving smile forced its way onto my face. “I can be Adresta.” 

Even just saying that sent shivers down my spine as the feelings of rightness settled into my bones. My shoulders felt just a bit lighter as the weight of my outward identity lifted. 

“Yes you can,” I heard from beside me. “And just give it a bit more time, the rest is coming soon.”

The euphoria hit me and I laughed lightly. “Thank you, Echo. That… wow, that means a lot.”

She lightly patted the shoulder her hand rested on. “No lie though, I’m excited to have you around. If I’m going to be lead for the gate project as dad says, we will be working together a lot.

In fact, the Oxide will probably be attached to my ship if there is enough room to house it. I think I would like to work with you more.” 

Echo blushed lightly, as did I. “I uh… I’d like that too. You’re the only other trans person I’ve met face to face since I was a kid. At least, the only one I was aware of. So it would be nice to have someone around that I can talk to, especially if I can ever make my visit to the Celeste Institute.”

“I would gladly be that friend for you, Adresta. I have no doubt that Dad is going to give you a more than fair salary, so hopefully that visit is coming sooner rather than later. I’ll even go with you, if you’d like. Mom and Dad were both there for me, but you don’t really have family to be there for you.” 

I winced. The subject of family wasn’t usually a sore subject for me, but the thought of Echo having loving parents that would stand with her when she took that step gave me some harsh pangs of jealousy. My companion wasn’t blind to my pain, though. 

“Oh shit, that was really insensitive, wasn’t it? I am so sorry, Adresta. I just wanted to say that you deserve to have someone waiting for you on the other side.”

Despite the ‘oof’ moment, a small part of my mind was glad to see Echo making a mistake. It helped humanise the girl in my mind. She wasn’t perfect after all and that was comforting in a strange way. 

“It's alright. I’ve kind of had my whole life to get used to not having a real family. Captain Jay is the closest thing to family I’ve ever had, but he is a busy man himself, so I couldn’t just ask him to be there. It would be nice to not be alone though. I’ve heard that the first few days can be really awkward, especially if you only have the institute staff to help you figure things out.”

Echo seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as I easily passed over her misstep and changed the subject. “Well, yeah. The arrangement of limbs and everything is all the same, but the mind takes time to adjust to entirely new neural pathways. It took me more than a week to get to the point where I could reliably perform the daily exercise program. You have to relearn how to do everything.”

What she said sounded accurate when compared to what I had read. “Sounds like it's really going to be quite the journey. I really hope you are right about it coming sooner rather than later. Now that I’m starting to tell people, it seems like my dysphoria is so much harder to ignore. As long as nobody knew, it was just something I could keep tamped down. I could put on the male face and be fine. As soon as I told Jay, suddenly it wasn’t as easy to put that mask back on.”

My companion hummed. “I remember those days. The first person to know about me was a school mate back on Ilume Station in the Centaurus system. We were both only like eleven steys (STandard Earth Years) old. Dad and Momma M were both off station working and mom was busy in our ensuite office. I was supposed to be working on my schooling, but I had instead been messing around in a free-time use VR environment. My friend, who was also supposed to be doing school work, got into the same instance and found me in a ball gown, trying very hard to properly dance with a handsome prince character.”

We both laughed at the story. 

“I wasn’t very smart about hiding it back then, but I also wasn’t really aware that being trans was something many people saw as a thing to keep hidden. Once our teacher found out that we were ditching class, we got into some trouble, but he also took me aside in a private chat to talk about the concept of being trans. Like you said, once I knew and knew that others knew and accepted it, I couldn’t very well stand being seen as a boy. I started transitioning socially within the year and had my appointment at the institute as my sixteenth birthday present.”

Again jealousy flared in my heart, but I again shoved it back. I refused to be anything but happy for Echo, even if I did wish I could have had similar opportunities. 

“That’s a helluva birthday present,” I said. “And you got that done a few years ago I would assume? It must have cost a fortune!”

Echo giggled into a hand. “Asking about my age now, are you?” I blushed and bowed my head. 

“Yeah, that was almost seven years ago. I’m officially twenty-four s.e.y.. And yeah, it did cost a lot. Mom, Dad and Momma Mikaela all pooled their money together in order to pay the bill. It was the best gift I’ve ever gotten, outside of having a family like them in the first place.”

Hearing Echo refer to who I could only assume was Mikaela Orzhov, the first officer for the Ratatosk, I was reminded of my questions regarding that situation.

“I don’t mean to intrude, but what is going on with Miss Orzhov and your parents? It almost sounded like your parents were divorced, but then your dad said something about visiting his ‘lovely lady’. Now you are calling her ‘Momma Mikaela’, and I’m even more confused.”

The woman looked confused for a moment before realisation dawned on her face. “Oh! You didn’t realise! The three of them are a throuple. My birth mother is Rachel Erickson. She works at the home office. Dad is still married to her, but Mikaela is married to both my dad and my mom. They have all been together since before I was born. I’m so used to it, I didn’t even think to explain, sorry.”

I waved a hand. “It’s alright. Now that you have explained it, it does make a lot of sense. I’m glad they found something that made them all happy. Regardless, it's awesome that you were able to transition so young.” 

As we were talking, we continued our walk and eventually arrived back on the promenade of the habitat ring. Since it was still within ‘day’ shift hours, the promenade was not incredibly busy, so it was fairly peaceful.

Echo picked up the conversation again. “I was lucky, I’ll fully admit. I don’t want to rub it in your face though.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s alright. I’m happy for you, honestly. I decided when I was young that I wouldn’t let anyone just give me things in life. I was born with nothing, I was raised with nothing. I earned every single thing in my life and I see no reason to let that change. I was dealt a crap hand, but I want to prove that I can deal with it and survive anyways. Even your dad offering to pay for the nav computer I need for my ship is only payment for a debt and a means for the company to get access to the Oxide. We both get an equivalent exchange and I also get to keep my morals intact.”

That got a responding hum. “I can respect that. You really are a self made woman, in more ways than one.” She smirked and did her best to keep from laughing. 

I had to let out a groan at the halfway joke. “You aren’t wrong…” A smirk crept onto my face as a thought came to mind. “At least I’m not the old money princess you are.” I delivered the line in a tone that made it clear that I was only teasing.

“Oi! Rude!” Echo hip bumped me and both of us laughed. It struck me then how much things had changed in just the last few days. It was really incredible to me how much of a difference being able to express myself as myself was making in my life. This wasn’t just possibilities of a light at the end of the tunnel anymore. Things were changing and my life would never be the same again.