Point of Origin, Chapter Eleven- The Past and Its Terrible Phantom Pains, pt 1

[Gray Raven Halts Covien’s REGENERATE Project to Aid in Astrogate Debris Retrieval.]

   [A New High in Defective Bots After Two Weeks of the Evaluation Act.]

[Mayhem Hits a Record Low for Dust Storms.]

  [Nofuel’s Ranger Still Missing after Six Months] 

[Gray Raven Confirms Mayhemic Plateau Tremors are ‘Just a Result of Tectonic Plate Activity’]

  [Price Soar in Bluemeal to be Expected After Shipment Delays From The Kore]

(Top six Covienian headlines, as of Sixthday)

 As I poked my head into the doors of the hangar, late, lazy morning light reached around the Passerine, setting the bird-like transport in a fantastic hue of gold.

  My tired, sleepless eyes studied just how much light there was outside– I was more than a little bit late. 

  Not daring to cross the threshold into the hangar, I looked up at the ceiling of the street, quietly rehearsing an excuse for my tardiness. 

  “Oh, a Hauler Bot got tipped on level thirty four, and I had to take the long way around… Like, a long way around…”  

  I looked back at the Passerine thoughtfully. “No… that won’t work… How about…'Oh, sorry I'm late, there was a … beetle… and it stole– my hat! And I had to get it back. Because, well, I like this hat.”  

  I pushed said hat from my forehead as I rubbed my face tiredly. “There was a tavern owner I know of, who got stolen from, and I had to chase down the thief, but he was a Molxi, and I didn’t know how to fight a person with…  so many… tentacles.”   

  Hovering by the door, I looked past the transport, studying the blackened steel around the hangar opening from yesterday's escapades. I thought absently of the Lightcore, the electricity, the improbability of it all…

  A strange, blank, faceless emotion rose up inside me as I put my hands into my pockets. Instead of focusing on it, I tried to think of a good excuse for my tardiness, but I ended up just looking around the hangar tiredly. 

  The world seemed so peaceful here. Like between the rusty steel walls, and tired, sleepy transport, there was an untouchable, temporary tranquillity– one the sun was blearily trying to bring to life.

  It felt pleasantly warm today, and out over Covien’s plains, I could see a pale, cloudless sky.

  Even inside the hangar, things seemed in order, and quietly neat– the scaffolding was now completely gone, the remaining boxes were stacked near the hold to be tucked safely back inside their metal carrier, and a few fuel lines had been disengaged from the Passerine's side.

  It seemed that nothing was wrong with the universe at this hour, and everything I saw was trying to tell me I was just plain silly for thinking that it was. 

  I looked down, continuing my rehearsal as my tone dropped along with my spirits. “How about ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night, and had to take three hours to come up here because there’s a scriking Guild of Scientists who are hunting me down. For ‘research’. And I need to make sure I’m not seen'.” 

  Something drew my attention to the street, and I saw a Hauler Bot lumber pass, with its three-metre-tall frame carrying four freight class boxes in its black, sturdy arms. 

  It looked down at me as it passed, green eyes studying this little organic creature beside it with the gentle curiosity of a beetle.

   Lewis had said that Hauler Bots were created to help in port’s and hangars in place of cranes. Unlike a crane, a Hauler Bot could go inside a large ship, and get to places that a vehicle couldn’t. Lewis also said they had  very little personality– only a 2.0 percent sentiency-level, and could only follow basic commands. 

  I thought back to all the arguments I had with him about it on rainy, slow days up at the Port– when he would have no customers to complain about, and I had nothing better to do except bother him. 

  I smiled shyly as the huge mech passed, giving it a wave. 

  It nodded and kept on walking. 

 I turned back to the hangar doors. 2.0 percent sentiency, my mis-matched boot–

  Someone stepped out from hangar 42, and before I could correct myself, I felt the impact of a wooden box smash right into my nose. 

  “Hey, watch it!” an Avaiyyatian said as she righted a few small parcels in her arms. The medic saw me with both hands clenching my throbbing face, and her expression eased from anger into a small wince. 

  “Oh, right– sorry.  Not used to short people.”

  I stepped away, blinking back a few tears. “Oh, it’s okay–” I mumbled nasally through my hands. “I’m fine– it’s really okay–”

  Someone else was with the tall Avaiyyatian, and they peered over her shoulder with a suspicious eyebrow raised. 

  “What happened?” captain Rigg asked, looking between my watering eyes and his medic.

  Damn, I hadn't practised my excuse yet! 

Forgetting my pain, I dropped my hands from my nose, pointing down the street without thinking. 

   “Sorry, I'm late… I was… Hauler– had to take the wrong way up– no, I mean long way, not wrong way– long way to a tavern keeper I know– he had tentacles– what? No! No tentacles, there was this bird, and this bird, you see–”

  I slowly dropped my arm, linking my fingers together as I rocked back and forth on my feet. 

  “… made me late…” 

  As Zara and the captain both exitted the hangar to stand in front of me, I saw that captain Rigg was also carrying parcels– and he shifted them as he tried to decode my words with a tired, pensive frown.  Like usual, he had both Pulsers at his side, his hat atop his head– but he was, dare I believe it– missing his coat.

     Zara tilted her head, somewhat amused as a small smile cracked over her face. She wore an expression like she was looking at something interesting in a display window at an exotic, Inner World museum. 

 “God, nothing you say makes sense,” remarked the medic, absolutely fascinated. 

  She turned to the captain, nodding towards me. “Well, since the maintenance hand has finally arrived, she can go with you. And my problem is solved.” 

  I heard the captain’s protests as Zara emptied her armload of parcels into my own.   “Zara, don’t– she doesn’t– don’t make me–”

  I sniffed my lingering tears away, trying to focus on Zara as she turned back to captain Rigg, gesturing down the road. 

  “Well, I would suggest going, you two. It looks busy today.” 

  I looked between the two merchants, my nose still making my tone sound nasally and congested. “I’m sorry, what am I doing?” 

  Zara turned back to the hangar, patting me on the shoulder as she did so. 

  “You’re going to help captain Rigg carry these boxes to a registration office,” she said, giving me a smile that felt somewhat odd given the circumstances. 

  Zara disappeared, and captain Rigg and I were both left to listen to her fading voice as we stood on the street. 

“Good luck!” she called cheerily. 

  I hadn't really known Zara for long, but today's optimistic attitude seemed a little out of place. And fairly disconcerting. 

  Captain Rigg sighed, eyeing the hangar door with a blank expression. 

  “Well,” he said at length, looking back at me. “You finally showed up.” 

  I swallowed, looking behind me. I was almost sure there would be a Gray Raven agent watching my back. “I… was held up. ” 

 Dismissing the problem, the Fletric turned down the street. 

  “I don’t want to know. Come on– we better get going.”  

  After a few hops and a skip I had caught up with the Fletric's long strides, lamenting my small stature once again. 

  “What are we doing?” I asked curiously, looking down at the small packages in my arms. They had labels on them, but none I could read. 

  Captain Rigg was silent for a moment, eyes flicking down to where I struggled to walk next to him. His eyes went back to the road. He didn’t seem overly happy today– meaning, he seemed quite normal. 

   “We’re taking these parcels to a registry,” was all he said. 

   I looked down at the parcels, then to the captain again, lowering my voice. “Are you smugglin’ something??” 

  Captain Rigg’s expression of either disgust or confusion told me he hadn’t missed the excitement in my voice. He kept his eyes on the road, and his voice level. 

  “Yes,” he answered blankly. “We’re smuggling these items. We’re taking them to a Blue Fringe Alliance check-in office to get arrested for carrying contraband items without a receipt of registry.”

  I looked back at the road, shifting my parcels sullenly.

   “You could have just said no,” I muttered. 

  It might have mattered to captain Rigg, but it didn’t matter to me what I did. If captain Rigg wanted me to help his crew scrub his ship, fix his engine, and carry boxes across Lisk, then that’s what I would do. 

  I mean, for seventy five Disks, there weren’t a whole lot of jobs I wouldn’t do. 

  Even smuggling.

  I tried my best to keep pace with the tall captain. For a while, I did okay– but I couldn’t ignore the strange, lingering silence that came with us as we passed three hangar doors and a stall selling orange fruit. 

 I looked at the captain's face, trying to guess what he was thinking. 

Was he angry? I wasn’t sure. His face always looked severe. If he was angry, what could he be angry about? Was it me? Was it the Lightcore? Was it the unwanted fine that his equally unwanted maintenance hand had incurred? Did he know I was looking at him? Was it making him uncomfortable?  

 I cleared my throat, looking back at the shrinking door of hangar 42. Maybe I should just ask what had been on my mind. 

  “Is… Charge still angry?” I asked with a wince, looking back to the captain. “About what happened yesterday?” 

  Captain Rigg took a moment to respond. “I… I’m not sure how that affects you, Miss West.” 

  I looked back at the road, shrugging. “I know, I know… It’s just– I don’t want to make anyone mad. But he seems to get upset no matter what I do. I try to help… and he gets angry. And I do nothing… and he gets angry.” 

  Captain Rigg shook his head, keeping his blue eyes on the street, the people that passed us, and their weapons, if they had any. 

  “Well, you have to understand that he isn’t really angry at you,” the captain said at last. “Some folks just have something inside 'em that’s been twisted up.”

  I looked back at the pavement, shifting the parcels in my hands thoughtfully. “Did something bad happen to him?” I asked, trying to place meaning to the words captain Rigg was saying. 

  The Fletric shrugged. “He… won’t talk about it.” 

   “Have you ever asked him?” 

   “No,” captain Rigg answered, after a moment. “I… I’m not sure that would help.” 

   “Why not?”

   The Fletric hesitated, shifting the weight of the parcels in his hands. “I’m not sure that’s my place.” 

  “Oh.”  I looked down at the ground for a few paces before looking up again. 

  “Well, my friend Lewis says that everybody alive has something to contribute to… society… I think.” I pursed my lips, thinking about the clever engineer in question. “I guess Charge’s thing just isn’t being nice.”

  Captain Rigg sighed again. “That's an interesting view.”

 When a few metres had passed and he didn’t add anything else to the conversation, I surmised that he didn’t really want to talk. I wondered what had happened? He seemed okay to talk to me by the hangar railing a few days before, but now he seemed even more closed off, and curt. 

 Maybe it was the Lightcore. Maybe it was Zara ditching him with the strange Covienian maintenance hand for the morning. Maybe he was just born this way and no amount of thinking about it would change the way he treated me. 

  “Where is Charge from?” I asked, my unprompted question stunning the silence that had fallen between me and the old man. 

  Captain Rigg blinked. “He... uh– grew up on Seco 9, I think.” 

  I nodded. “I’ve heard about that one– largest populated planet after Tir. Main exports are… sand-reed and… oh I can’t remember the other one.” I shifted the parcels in my arms, a new thought entering my head. “Was the Seco system a part of the Blue Fringe War?” 

 “They’re not under one government– so only a few tribes joined.”  Tiredly, captain Rigg looked sideways at me as we walked. “And it's technology. That's Seco 9’s main export.” 

  I looked up to the roof of the street as I thought about it. The capillaries of wires, vents, and pipes reminded me of something, but I was never quite sure what. I wondered if any of the ventilation units came from Seco 9.

  “That makes sense,” I said after a moment, then looked back at the captain. “Where did you grow up?” 

  Captain Rigg’s eyes wandered strangely to a passing sign post as he squinted at the words. “All over.” 

  I looked away. That wasn’t a very satisfying answer. 

  “Was it in the Y-sector?” I prompted. 

  Captain Rigg didn’t look at me. 

  “No.” 

  I waited for him to elaborate, but no elaboration came. 

  “Then how do you know Covienian street sign?” I asked, making the Covienian motion for ‘how’ by placing my thumb to the inside of my wrist. It was rather hard with the parcels in my arms, but I managed to squeeze the sign out, awkwardly cradling the boxes in the pit of my elbows. 

  Captain Rigg sighed, looking around the street for something. Probably the registry. “Learned it when I was young– a good friend of mine taught it to me.” 

  “Oh.” I looked down at the ground for a moment. “I thought you didn’t like Covienians.” 

  Captain Riggs' eyes stay affixed to the road up ahead. “I don’t.” 

  My shoulders dropped. Oh. 

  We walked a few more metres, hurrying across a shuttle let-out that was crowded with people and Bots alike. “The Freelance Guild of Merchants–” I started, more questions coming into my head as I walked. “How old of a guild is it?” 

  “Very old,” captain Rigg answered, eyes still searching for something on the street. 

  I pursed my lips, thinking. I needed to know more about the universe if I was going to survive longer than two weeks when I left Covien. I needed to know about guilds and governments and all that other stuff that I tuned out when Lewis started talking about it. 

  “How did you join it?” I asked pensively, remembering strangely that some of the other Entrillian guilds required some odd initiation to their ranks. “And was it before or after the war?” 

  Captain Rigg looked like he wanted to rub his eyes again, but his hands were full and he couldn't. For some reason, he ended up looking quite miserable when he answered. 

  “You join the Guild by testimonials of admission.”

  “What does that mean?” 

  There was another sigh from captain Rigg. “It means… You need other people to testify to the Guild Head that you uphold the beliefs of the Guild.” 

  I made a face. “That sounds weird. What is it, a religion or something?” 

  Captain Rigg stopped on the road, wearing the blank face of someone who was not in any way happy, and probably hadn’t been for a while. He turned to me, and I stopped beside him. 

   “What’s with all the questions?” he asked. “What is it? Do I look like a walking library to you?” 

  I looked him up and down, confused. He looked like an experienced traveller– like the very person I would want to ask a question to about the Kosmoverse, because it looked like he would know. Despite this, I thought it best to shake my head. 

  “Then why all the questions?” captain Rigg demanded, seeming more tired, and in more mental anguish, than I had ever seen him in.

  I shrugged as best I could. “Well, I’m leaving Covien in a few days and… I… I want to know more about this stuff, I guess?” My eyes traced the people that stepped around us on the busy sidewalk– anywhere except captain Rigg and his intense eyes. “And you look like you know a lot more than I do?” 

  Shutting his eyes, captain Rigg tilted his head for a moment as he breathed in, and then out. I looked back at him as he shook his head and continued walking. 

  “It’s not a universe that can be summed up in words, Miss West,” he said finally. 

  I skipped a few steps to catch up with him again. “Well, knowing something is better than knowing nothing.” 

  Next to me, captain Rigg shook his head as we passed a hangar opening that had three Entrillian water freighters inside it, currently being emptied of their expensive cargo. “Well, I'm not a library. Go read a book if you want to know more.” 

  I frowned. 

I couldn’t read. I could barely piece together my own name. I decided this was not a good piece of advice. 

  “But I don’t want to go to a library,” I said under my breath. “I… I want to ask you.” 

  I didn’t know if captain Rigg heard me or not, but either way he didn’t respond. The only change was that he shut his eyes for a brief moment, opening them with a breath he seemed to struggle to push out of his lungs.

  I gave up waiting for him to respond, and trudged beside him, looking up at a passing sign above me. It was coloured the same yellow that Smiley was. 

  “When are you leaving?” Captain Rigg asked tiredly, breaking the silence. 

   I took my eyes from the sign overhead and studied his face, surprised he had not only spoken, but had asked me a question. 

  “From Covien,” he prompted, repeating his question again. “When are you leaving?” 

  “Well, I–” I looked back at the street. Words. Words would be good. He was waiting for me to use words. I should use some. 

  “On-on Eighthday. Same as you guys, I guess.” I swallowed, sparing him a small glance to gauge his emotion. The action was as ineffective as trying to roll a square wheel.

  “There’s a Leokesh freighter going to Eve.” Subconsciously, I thought about the ticket in my pants pocket on my leg, where it had been safely kept for days. “It’s been one hell of a ride to get the ticket, though. I’ve been here for… a long time.” 

  Captain Rigg frowned thoughtfully as he continued to study passing signs and meandering people. He seemed to be thinking about what I said, and that wasn’t a realisation I enjoyed. 

  “Is that why you helped Xander?” asked captain Rigg after we hurried quickly across a shuttle lane. “So you could get Offworld?” 

  I looked back at captain Rigg, shocked. That question felt like a cargo train coming out of a block of butter. I blinked.

  “No, I…” I looked away, trying to dig for words in my brain. 

   I realised that that was quite a Covienian way of thinking– to only help someone because you wanted something from them. Cause and effect were a joke to me– I could never think like that because I was never clever enough to think that far in the future. My snap, in-the-moment decisions never had the luxury of time like that. 

  Aster Rigg may have said that he didn't grow up here, but he certainly acted like he did– and for someone who hated Covienians so much, even I found that ironic. 

Well, I think I did– Lewis had to explain that word to me, but he didn’t do it very well. 

  “Well, no. I actually helped Charge and Xander in the registry because they came up to me and wanted to know where the grey market was.” 

  “And did you know?” captain Rigg asked, slowly.

 I laughed. I wasn’t answering that. 

“Well, I sent them down to Kovals', because I thought that would help– but later that day when I was down in the Shaft and saw Xander getting attacked by those Mechanics– I mean, I couldn't just walk away, could I? Ha– He was literally hanging from the side of a shuttle let-out!” 

  Captain Rigg appeared to be processing my words as we approached a large cut-out at the end of the street. “Hanging… from a shuttle let-out…and attacked by mechanics…” His ears twitched angrily. “Right.” 

  We reached the cut-out at the end of the street, and found it to be a glorified window into a small office. There was one other person conversing with the attendant, so captain Rigg and I waited behind them patiently.

  The captain shifted beside me, dark-blue eyes studying me expressionlessly. I wasn’t sure why he looked so angry. “So, Xander didn’t just fall over? He was attacked by Kovals' mechanics?” 

  I nodded, an unsure feeling rising up in my gut. Despite my better judgement, I pressed on. “He was hanging from a let-out? So I pulled him up I helped him find his hangar– and so Zara wouldn’t yell at him when he got back, he pretended that I was the maintenance hand he was supposed to find." I paused hesitantly.  “Didn’t… he tell you what happened?”

  Captain Rigg seemed to be trying to extract one of his molars by using just his jaw muscles. Looking away sharply, he started muttering, ignoring my question completely. 

  I took that as a no. 

  As the person in front of us left with a receipt in his hand, captain Rigg stepped forward. The bench was supposed to be shoulder height for a normal person, so I couldn’t really see over it, or the attendant who was behind it. 

  Captain Rigg put his parcels on the bench.

 “Good morning to you–” he said gruffly, negating the meaning of the normally pleasant greeting. “I’m here to get a declaration of hazardous materials.” 

   I tried my best to peer over the bench, seeing a small glimpse of blond hair and a sour expression. 

  Oh great, a Covienian. 

  I tried to reach up and put the boxes onto the bench. If I had less, maybe it would have been easier– but I had an armload, and I couldn't just drop them onto the wooden desk. I tried to push one onto the bench with my nose. 

  It wasn’t the most flattering thing I had done. 

  “I’ll need to inspect them for your declaration receipt,” I could hear the attendant say. 

  Captain Rigg looked over at me, inspecting my attempts in trying to free myself of my burdens. 

  “Fine, fine… That’s six, in all,” he absently told the attendant, pushing the parcel that I had been struggling with onto the bench.

  Now free, I put the rest next to the boxes that captain Rigg had carried, just as the attendant started popping their lids off and looking through them. I saw the old attendant's face light up with a strange hue of pink as he used a pen to shift the contents. 

  Satisfied, he moved on to the next one. 

  “Kerrelian batteries,” the Covienian remarked pensively, his voice hoarse and croaky with age. “The fine for these poppers have gone up a hop and skip since my time. In Entrillian space, that is.” 

  “That's why I’m registering them here,” the captain responded blankly. 

  The Covienian grinned, winking a wrinkled eye. “Well, it’s only thirty Pieces here, so you're smart.” 

  While the attendant busied himself with the rest of the boxes, and captain Rigg started slowly counting out Disks from his pocket, I looked around the street, vaguely aware that this end of level forty seemed busier than usual. 

 I sighed uneasily, trying to release the tension in my shoulders as I watched a shuttle lumber past, carrying a handful of passengers. 

  I scoffed mentally. Ah, the luxury of the rich. Get off and use your legs, you cowards. 

  “...Could I do that here? Or would I need to go to the… uh, what was it– the Local Registry?” 

I heard the end of captain Rigg’s question, and looked back at the counter curiously.  In horror, I turned just in time to see the attendant take the fine that the Passerine had received yesterday. 

  “Aye, you can do that,” said the attendant, squinting at the glowing print sceptically. “Take a little longer, but you can do that.” 

  As soon as the fine left captain Rigg's hand, a sinking feeling hit my stomach. 

  “You’re paying that here?” I asked nervously. 

  Captain Rigg didn’t understand the emotion on my face. “Yes,” he answered flatly. 

 I didn’t think Captain Rigg would pay it so soon. What if Lewis hadn’t got my message yet? What if Loose had argued with the Port Bot instead of telling him my message? What if Lewis had been decommissioned and was on his way to the grey market to be sold for parts? What if he was going to suffer the same fate that poor, poor Zero did, even though I stole Lewis’s arm back for him?  

  And what if everything I did would never change anything, ever?

  Looking away, I swallowed nervously. 

  I made this problem. I should be the one to fix it, not captain Rigg or his crew. And I thought I had, but maybe this was too soon for Lewis to do anything. He would never do anything like this, fast. 

  Especially if it involved Offworlders. 

  As a way to calm myself as the attendant hesitantly punched the fine’s details onto a nearby console, I tried to think of a few times when Lewis had done anything quickly when I asked him to. Unfortunately, all that came to mind were the hours I had waited for him to mop the Port, or the time he made me wait a whole day to play Sines and Ladders with him because he was waiting for a ‘notice from Tri-Dock management’ about mop water.

  The noise of confusion that the attendant made pulled me out of my little cloud of worry. 

  “This is strange,” he remarked croakily as he looked at the fine in his wrinkled hand. “It says here that you’ve already paid this.” 

  A surge of hope shot through my heart. 

I gripped the bench, willing myself to see over its ledge as I stood on my tip-toes.  

 “Really?” I shrieked, unable to contain my excitement.   

  Captain Rigg shifted uncomfortably where he stood. “What?”   

  The attendant squinted at the screen. “Yeah, has a note here that says ‘that’s not being careful.’” The Covienian laughed, scratching the back of his head. “Well, I'm not too sure what that means.” 

  For a moment, neither did I– I picked through my memories to find its meaning. I laughed quietly, still looking at the screen. 

  Right before I went into Rusty’s tavern, Lewis had told me to be careful, like he had a thousand times before. I smiled, looking down. 

  Obviously, Lewis thought blowing up Lightcores wasn’t holding true to what I told him I would do.

  But that just didn’t matter–

He was alive! 

  Captain Rigg looked down at me before looking back to the attendant. The old Covienian was handing him back the fine with a coarse laugh.

  “Seems this fine’s been paid for already, son.”

  Listless, captain Rigg nodded slowly, putting the fine back into his pocket. “Right, right- my mistake. Sorry about that.” 

  The attendant gestured to the boxes on his bench. “Right then, so these are good to go.” He placed a small piece of paper atop the last one, and handed the whole thing to captain Rigg. “Better keep good track of that, or they’ll be Eth to pay if you get caught hauling those batteries without it.” 

  Captain Rigg gathered his parcels, and I did my best to gather the rest; he said a brief thank you to the older man, and we left– dutifully making our way back to hangar 42.

  Like sand painfully sliding down the narrow throat of an hourglass, a few moments went by while captain Rigg stared at the ticket in his free hand.   

  “Why would Tri-Dock issue us a fine and then have someone else pay it?” the captain mused next to me, finally breaking the tedious silence. 

  I pursed my lips, shaking my head listlessly.

   “Can’t say I know, captain Rigg.” I spared him a glance as we crossed the street, and found the Fletric already looking at me. His eyes held the expectant expression of someone who was used to getting information from unwilling people. 

  “I think you do.”

  Sweat pricked at the back of my neck as I walked. “No. I think I don’t.”  

 My eyes darted around the street in search for the doors of hangar 42, and I hoped desperately that the action didn’t look as suspicious as I felt it did. 

     “Miss West.” Captain Rigg’s tone was sharp as he stopped on the busy sidewalk. “Stop.” 

   I didn’t have a very good gauge for emotion when it came to people who were older than me, but I did have a feeling– this strange sense that whispered in my ear, telling me when it was a good idea to run or stay. 

 This strange, nebulous feeling appeared with captain Rigg’s command. And it didn’t tell me to stay. Despite it, I did stop on the sidewalk– facing the captain apprehensively.

  “What about me makes you think I’m an idiot?” 

  I looked down at my feet, kicking the ground. “I don’t think you’re an idiot…” 

  Captain Rigg looked around the street wildly, anger and unbelief suddenly plastered over his face as he raised his voice. “Then why do you– oh gods, why does everyone– keep on lying to me?”

  I looked at him with eyes that didn’t quite understand. I had opened my mouth to answer, but realised stupidly that I didn’t have one. 

  Captain Rigg continued, turning to shout up the road angrily, now. “Why has it all of a sudden become okay to lie? Because, oh, well– excuse me, but I thought we lived in a society where that was frowned upon!” As he faced away from me, I wondered vaguely if he would notice if I left or not. 

  “Obviously, it doesn’t matter who you are– deckhand, medic, engineer, maintenance hand– bloody copilot for all I care– anyone can lie to anyone now!” 

  The parcels in my hand became heavy and strange, and suddenly, I wasn't really comfortable with their weight anymore. “I… I only meant to help, captain Rigg.” 

  He turned away from the street, shifting his glare back to me.

  “Well, thank you for the offer, Miss West, but we don’t need your help. We survived long before we got here, and we’ll survive long after. You’re not on my crew– you're an out-worlder mechscrubber that lied about who she was so she could fix her problems– and threatened to turn us all over to an illegal group of mechanics to get what you wanted– So what are you? Trying to make up for it now, or something?” 

  I swallowed, a strange, tight feeling wrapping around my lungs like a rubber band, compressing them tighter and tighter. I cleared my throat pathetically in an attempt to get rid of the feeling.

  “I thought– I thought maybe… I could help you guys-”

  Captain Rigg brushed past me, walking onwards to find his crew and hangar. “Well, don’t–” I heard him say over his shoulder. “We don’t need your help.” 

  Don’t help? Who says no to help? Who in their right mind says no to not paying 100 Pieces? Fear and unsureness took hold of my tongue, and before I could stop my mouth, I was already in the middle of a sentence I hadn’t thought through.

   “But you don’t have to pay the fine–” I tried to make my tone sound as non-aggressive as possible, but I still had to raise my voice over the clamour of level forty. “I know things are hard for you guys but… maybe this could be one of things you could be grateful for?” 

 Captain Rigg stopped on the street, holding terribly still.

It was not the kind of stillness that peaceful people had. 

 “Grateful?” he echoed. 

  I watched him as he turned in place, his eyes darkening with anger. Repeating the word again, captain Rigg took a step closer. “Grateful?” 

  Oh dear. 

  I had made a mistake. 

  “And what exactly are the things that I should be grateful for? That you were late today, and we’re behind in repairs?” He took another step closer, his voice raising as he did so. “That a Lightcore nearly blew us all to Eth yesterday, and- and- we were all saved by some random coincidence? That an illegal group of mechanics attacked my second engineer and my deckhand? And that same deckhand felt the need to lie to me about it?” 

  Every particle of my body wanted to shrink away from the captain and his angry words, but all I could do was take little steps back as he talked, trying to assign his words to meaning as the roar of a passing Hauler interrupted my train of thought. 

 “Who are you to tell me what I should and shouldn’t be grateful for?” Captain Rigg laughed bitterly, becoming more and more animated as he shouted. “Next, you’ll be telling me to be grateful that I got you instead of a real maintenance hand.”

  Someone pushed past me on the street, and I forced myself to ignore my inability to focus on the angry captain as he spoke. 

  “The things that I have to be grateful for are low and feeble, Miss West, but you can be sure as hell, I don’t need your help to fix them.”

  I tried to blink away the overwhelming street lights above me. The electricity in their cables seemed to hum and pulse like rhythmic, cybernetic insects waiting just inside the wall of the street–and it got louder the tighter my lungs felt. 

  Another Hauler passed. It was louder than the first. I wanted to close my eyes– I wanted to make the electricity stop. 

  “You’re here to work two days, get paid seventy five Disks, and then leave. Not to know more about my crew than I do!”

  I blinked up at him. The noise of the street suddenly wasn’t the biggest thing bothering me anymore. 

  He was… angry at me… for knowing more than him? 

 He turned away sharply, continuing his rapid, bothered pace down the street. “Oh yes– but I don’t have to pay one fine! I’m so grateful!” he shouted, weaving through a crowd that paid him no mind. 

  I stood on the pavement, watching as he walked away, wide-eyed. 

  “I… I thought it would help!” I called after him, some of my words getting lost in the hustle of the street. “Captain Rigg? I– I was only trying to help!” 

  He didn’t turn around. Instead the Offworlder kept walking away, back to the rusty confines of hangar 42. 

  For a moment, I didn’t follow him– something heavy had glued my boots to the street floor, and I stayed there, listlessly. 

  Suddenly, I wasn't on the street of level forty anymore. I was in the Port, behind an information console, listening to Lewis demanding  that I fix a mistake I didn’t even know I had made. 

   The breath I blew out of my lungs shook me gently back into reality– back into the noise of level forty, with its crowds, and cables, and badly cycled electricity. 

 I looked down at the parcels in my hands, the heaviness that glued me to the street climbing up my spine and weighing down my shoulders. 

  “Classic Evren,” I muttered to no one in particular. “Made it worse and you don’t even know how.” 

That evening, the Passerine’s engine room was a terrible place to be for exactly six and half reasons. 

  The number might seem strangely specific, but I definitely had enough time to count and organise them– over and over and over again.

  The first reason was the most evident and obvious point of misery, but was one of the only reasons I was there- the endless task of placing the plates back onto engine One. 

  The second reason was, coincidentally enough, the second engineer, who was quite set upon making every interaction just as short and bitter as he was. When he wasn’t watching me or and correcting the way I did the simplest of tasks, he was down in the fuel-well, making himself a bother and a nuisance with his unhelpful and sometimes, I admit, hurtful comments about my work ethic.   

  Apparently, it was completely normal to lash out at everyone and everything in a ten tap radius when you'd made a mistake and nearly blew your transport to hell. Well, I knew he hadn't make a mistake, but he thought so– and that was enough to exacerbate every pre-existing ill quality in the small, angry Secodack. 

  Which led me to the third reason- the ever glowing, ever humming, suffocating presence of the Lightcores- a feeling I had found intoxicating a few days ago, but had now turned eerie and unsettling. It lingered like hot air on a humid day, inhabiting the space in a stagnant, warm kind of way, that was, needless to say, unpleasant. 

  The fourth reason was the driver I was using, which quickly became covered in sweat from the palm of my hands. The rubber on the handle was, I believe, meant to be non-slip, but after an hour the ‘non-slip rubber’ became just another constant of the universe that I proved absolutely wrong. 

  The next reason was so horrible that I counted it as two– captain Rigg, Zara, and Sevus would walk back and forth and on the engine room walkway, talking about some of the most exciting things I had ever heard– things like prices for docks, planets they were planning on buying cargo from to to sell in the medium; people that might have the various parts they would need for the journey, rationing out electricity so they wouldn’t have to rely on the Lightcores, water rec machines, flour, cords–

   I was sure that every time they walked past, to and from the hold, a little part of me died because I couldn’t ask them what they were doing, and why Kerrelian batteries had to be licensed in Entrillain Empire ports and not Blue Fringe ones. 

  And still, the lingering, tight feeling of unhappiness from that morning had settled in my ribcage and compressed my lungs every time I thought about the argument I had had with captain Rigg on the street.

  Or more accurately, the argument captain Rigg had had with me. 

  I wasn’t sure what I had done, but whatever it was, it was bad. 

I wanted to apologise, but then again, I wouldn’t be sure as to what for– and if I waited long enough, the tightness in my chest turned into little bits of anger, and the need to apologise passed. 

  It didn’t matter, I told myself tiredly, let them think what they want about you. 

  Whenever Mechanics, tavern keepers, or just people in general found themselves angry at me, I always tried to figure out why. And if I couldn’t, I’d move on. It was a simple process, and usually I gave it about 3.5 seconds before giving up. 

  But for some reason, this felt a bit different. After a few hours of wondering why, I realised in horror that I wanted these merchants to like me, now. 

  I scoffed mentally at the idea, hearing Smiley’s well trained voice of mockery– well, you should have realised that before threatening to hand them over to a mech-mafia gang, Evren. 

  I paused what I was doing-

 -Gods, I hated hindsight. 

  Like all of Smiley's thoughts, I pushed it away, focusing instead on how much I disliked the engine room right at that moment, instead of my newly burgeoning realisations of outward approval.

  Finally, and foremost, the last, horrible half reason for being in the engine room was literally just as simple as being relentlessly hungry. I hadn’t had time to trick the Vending Unit into giving me more food this morning, so I told myself I would just make up for it the coming night– 

  An easy decision, made in the easy, early morning hours when I hadn’t been working all day.

  There was one thing that made up for those six and half reasons why I hated the engine room, and that thing was Xander Nemeshianci– who saw I was sadly struggling with the higher plates on the engines, and had offered to help me. 

  The six and a half reasons slowly faded away as he talked– at first, with himself, and then, with me. 

  “... what do you mean,” Xander was saying, holding a heavy engine plate as I screwed wire brackets back onto it, “‘you cannot see the difference??’” 

  The driver was still slippery and horrible, so I had to use both hands to hold it as it rotated noisily. “I mean, ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about'.” I looked up from the plate briefly to look at Xander, a challenge in my tone. “You really could be lying to me.”

  Xander laughed, incredulous. “Lying?–” He lifted the plate and pressed it gently back onto the engine, using his free hand to probe around his left eye. “There’s totally a difference.” 

  After fastening the plate, I turned fully to balefully squint at the older Geo in the cramped engine cavity. “No, there isn’t.” I gestured with the driver in my hand to his eye. “How did you even say it happened?” 

  Xander was still prodding his eye. “The Beast of Sesiream- one of the biggest fights I had. It came to my side and scratched it out.” He shrugged. “After a few weeks, the Rings found me a new eye, and put it in.” 

   I waited for Xander to tell me he really was joking. Blinking a few times, my grip on the driver loosened. “Great Ferryer...” I whispered in horror. “Can they really do that in the Kore?” 

  Xander nodded, closing his right eye and looking around the engine room. “Sees exactly like my other one, except this eye is more hazel.” 

  I squinted. I didn’t think it looked different, but maybe I was bad at noticing things. 

  “What did you do in the weeks you didn’t have an eye?” I asked, picking up a new engine plate from the ground. 

  Xander looked down at one of his smaller braids. “Well, I fought. Three fights, actually.” He rubbed a wooden bead between his fingers. It was a deep, but faded red. “My Ak-hocosi– my mentor– she gave me this bead for winning those battles with just one eye.” Xander looked up and smiled. “She always said I could do more with half, than others could with all. Ha– I guess she was right!” 

  I put the plate back down and looked at the bead in Xander’s hand. The braid was small enough that it had been threaded onto the entire end, instead of just into one of the strands.

  “How long has it been?” 

Xander opened his mouth to answer, but was silenced as one of the Passerine’s engineers scoffed somewhere in the engine room. 

  “Oh no, brace yourselves everyone–” came Charge’s flat, disembodied voice from deep within the fuel-well. “Xander’s about to do math.”

 The Light Geodian gave the fuel-well a squint before looking back at me. 

“I was ten years and four, so it has been–” He counted off under his breath in his own tongue, holding up a few scarred fingers. “Ten and three years.”

  “You’re only twenty seven?” I asked incredulously.

  Xander nodded. “Twenty seven, yes. I think...”

 Huh. I looked at all the scars on Xanders arms, then back to his braid. Only twenty seven years in this life, and he already had enough scars to rival those three decades above him. 

 I pointed to the bead above the red one. It resembled gold, but  seemed to only be painted-over wood. “What’s that one?” 

   Xander tilted his head, looking at it. “Oh, that one? That one was from Bastien Cecili, the guild head of the Freelance Guild of Merchants. He said it was for loyalty.” 

  Xander turned the bead, revealing a symbol. “Do you recognize this?” he asked with a smirk. 

  I frowned– strangely enough, finding the symbol to be distantly familiar. I looked back at Xander. “I've seen that symbol on some of the old houses in Surface Side.” I laughed, looking back at the bead. “Have you been to Covien before?”

   Xander shook his head. “No, but our guild head –Bastien Cecili– was raised here. He likes to read about Covienians' older traditions- ones they don’t use anymore.” 

  I frowned. “Your guild head is a Covienian?”

  That was strange. I never really thought of Convenians travelling far into the world of offworlders. They were all here, bitter and angry about life, and making everyone else suffer for it. 

  “He is one of the good ones,” Xander said, pulling one of his longer braids from behind his back. He pointed to a few beads threaded into the bone-white hair. “There is an old Nefnat woman who bakes bread on Phobia– she gave me this after teaching me to read Entrillian.” He pointed to a squarish looking one under it– seeming to have been painted, with wide, messy strokes with green and purple. “Here, this one stands for a memory. One I cherish with much of my heart.” 

 Looking at all the beads and colour in Xander’s braids, I smiled. 

It was a map of his entire life. Oranges and pinks bled into blues and greens– like childhood fading into the long, tired years of life. Some seemed sad in nature, just by the stark whites and blacks– others, more cheerful, with bright symbols of unknown origin. 

  Reaching out, I felt the surface of an opaque, glass bead, the colour of the sea. It had a geometric spiral engraved into its face. Even though it was colourful, It felt… sad?  I looked up. 

  “Where does this one come from?” 

  Xander looked down at the bead I was looking at, at the end of his long braid. He took it gently, rubbing a finger over it like he was scared it might break. “It came from someone’s else’s Hatir…” 

  I hesitated, watching the Dark Geodian study his own bead on the braid. I cleared my throat, feeling like I had invaded his privacy somehow. “So, how do you get them– the beads?” 

  Xander put down the braid, shrugging. “There are many ways– but they are all serious. People close to you, family members, parents, even yourself. The first two beads are given by your parents.” He pointed to his left side. “The first left bead, from the father. And the right side, by the mother.” 

  He pointed to his right side, where many beads had been woven into the pale hair. 

“So, they’re like, memories?” I asked, looking back at him.  

  “Uh… not quite.” Xander swung his braid back over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow in a non-condemning way. “Your family– they did not teach you of the Hatir?” His eyes flicked to my empty braids. “Is that… is that why you have no beads?”

  I shook my head, swallowing. 

 The hell if I know. 

  Xander pointed to my braids. “Why, then, do you wear Kepeshi?” 

  I looked down, picking one up. “Kepeshi?” I repeated the word, feeling rather stupid. 

  In response, Xander turned his head and pointed to a single braid on his right side. It was threaded a little higher than mine, but it mimicked the position on my own head. “We share it– I noticed the first time we met at that registry place. I only have one, though.” Xander deflated a little bit, for some reason seeming sad with that information.

  As Xander saw my interested, but still rather confused expression, he clicked his tongue, dismissing his momentary pout. “Here, I will tell you the reason we braid our hair and put our Hatir– the beads– in them.” 

  Behind Xander, I saw Charge pull himself out of the fuel-well and root through a toolbox on the walkway above. 

 I looked back to Xander as he gestured with one hand, sweeping it across the space in front of him. “It is said the very first Geodians were made after everything else was made.” 

  “Oh, I know that story!” I said, recalling one of my favourite folktale projections that Lewis had put onto my Data Tab. “‘At the dawn of the spheres of time, what was not used in making the stars and suns–” 

Xander finished for me, “and what was not used in making the fields and dirt, was used in making the great and mighty people of Gheo’dia, ordained to be the pillars of the universe.” He smiled, teeth still too bright for his skin. “That is a good story, and also a good way to explain our ways. There is a word in Xenophosi: hatiresh, and it means to harmonise.” 

  Xander held up another braid, his fingers untying the weave and tugging the strands free. “And in that language, hatiresh also means balance, or to balance something.” 

  I looked from the braid, confused. I didn’t understand. “Why does it mean two things?” 

  Xander blew out a breath as he looked around the engine cavity. “Well, I guess…” He looked back at me. “Well, have you ever heard harmony? In a song?” 

   I shrugged. “I think so?”

  “What did you hear?” prompted the Light Geodian. 

  I thought about it, trying to place the memory into words.  “It was… it was a Flirin troupe, come to sing in a bar on Surface Side, so I couldn't hear them very well outside of the window, so… there were a few voices, but they all sang a different part. It didn’t sound bad, though.” 

  Xander clicked his fingers. “Right– so you could say that the voices that sang, were balanced by each other– set apart at the right places, but working together to create a song. The practice of Hatireshi is much like this. Ancient Geodians believed that in braiding our hair, we honour and remember such a creation, as the creation that is in ourselves.” 

  Very quickly, the end of his braid became a bunch of loose hair. “Just like existence relies on the balance of many parts, so do we– as living, breathing beings.” Xander wove the braid back into form as I watched curiously. After tying the braid, he pulled on its end, as if to test its strength. 

 “And from many parts, we are made strong- like this braid, yes?” He pointed to a gold bead near the middle of the braid. “So where else would we wear our Hatir- our merits and memories? We wear them in balance with everything else.” 

 Grabbing one of my own braids, I tugged on it in thought. I looked back up as Xander rubbed his face sheepishly.

“There are many, many ways one can interpret Hatiresh, but that is what I was taught.”

  I looked back down at my long, thin braids, asking my original question.

  “So the beads… are memories?” 

  Xander opened his mouth, and then shut it. He frowned down at me. “Well, no– I mean, yes–” He made a frustrated noise that bordered on pleading. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” 

  From across the engine room, Charge laughed and looked up from his toolbox. “Oh no– Corporal Obvious zone out again?” 

  I scrunched up my face, the driver tightening in my hand as I directed my gaze at him. “No, I was listening. It’s just… I don't understand completely.” 

  Charge pulled some wires out of the metal box, giving me an unimpressed look. “Oh, if only you had a Disk for every time you said those words–” Charge swung off the walkway and into the fuel-well, his voice coming up from the bottom of the circular pit. “Then you might have enough money to put yourself through a real school.” 

  I sighed, turning back to the engine plate that I had discarded to listen to Xander.  I gave it to the Geo, wordless, as I pulled another bracket back from the engine. 

   “Don’t listen to him,” I saw Xander sign in shorthand, but I shook my head, directing my attention on fastening the bracket to the plate. 

  All of my energy and focus revolved around the screw and the driver. I didn’t want to think about anything else. 

  "The thing is… I should know,” I said finally, pulling another screw out of my pocket, not daring to look Xander in the eye. “I should understand, and I don’t. I… I never do.” 

  Xander shrugged. “Is it only natural. There are not many Geodians around that practice true Hatiresh– or some that do, but don’t know what it means.” Xander shifted his stance, sighing. “I didn’t understand it until my Ak-Hocosi explained it to me.” 

  Pulling out another screw, I fastened another corner of the bracket onto the plate. “What was her name?” I asked. “Your mentor?” 

  Xander hesitated.

  “Rema,” he said softly, eyes going back to some distant, troubling memory. His free hand rubbed the ocean coloured bead I had admired previously. “Rema Utu. She was the ex-fighter that raised me when I was sold to the gladiators.” 

  Raised him?

  “How old were you when you… when you were sent there?” I dared to ask aloud. I took another screw out of my pocket as Xander thought about it. 

  “I was… no more than four when I was sold– I think. I cannot actually remember how old I was. I might be wrong.” 

He shrugged, and seemed the same, but I could tell that underneath his calm, unbothered expression, there lingered a stale and metallic taste of grief. The kind that I could feel in the walls of the Warehouse District, or the low abandoned levels beneath the Shaft– where so many people before me had grieved about things that were stolen from them. Covien, and its stripped resources, people, and their families… Some days the grief just felt like equipment no one wanted or needed anymore, but as I looked at Xander, it felt like a blunt knife that had been handled so much it couldn’t cut anyone anymore– 

  Rusted, dusty, tired. 

  I looked down, trying to piece together his words. He had obviously come from a family, but was given by that family to a cruel ring of gladiators, and years later, he was rescued by not his family, but a Freelance Merchant captain–

  –and a grumpy one, at that. 

 I bit the inside of my cheek as my head started to hurt, frowning down at the driver in my hands. 

  Xander saw my troubled expression and chuckled, still holding the plate. 

  “That I was given as a slave, is that what makes you distraught?” 

   I shook my head. And then nodded. And then shook my head again.

 I didn’t know what I was feeling. I fought my brain for words it didn’t want to give me, but all I could think about was slaves and storms, and– and Smiley, for some reason. 

  “Do not worry over such things, little Geo,” Xander said quietly as he looked down at me. “There are many evils we must face in this existence, so let us not concern ourselves with the evils of the past, for there is very little you, or I, can do about them.”

  Xander smiled kindly, trying to seem reassuring as he switched hands and smacked my shoulder, gently, this time. “I am sure the future will have enough for us to worry about, yes?” 

  I looked up at him. 

 Oh boy. He had no idea. 

Before I could respond, the sound of an argument came in through the crew room door.  Captain Rigg stepped onto the walkway, looking back as he did so. “Supplies? At Novasena? Are you out of your Light-forsaken mind?”

  Sevus followed as the angry Fletric stomped his way across the walkway. The cook had a cloth in his hand, and was in the process of wrapping it around his clawed hands as he talked. “Captain, we’ve gotten supplies there before– and if we're worried about saving money, then–”

  The captain turned back around sharply, and the skinny cook nearly walked into him. 

  “The answer is no,”  he told the Nefnat.  He made a motion with his hand like he was slicing through something decisively. “We are done getting screwed over by these Outer Fringe dealers. Do you really think that Novasena is going to offer us better prices for food than Covien? At least here, we have a little control. Novesena’s supplies rely directly on what pirates have stolen from”–captain Rigg gestured to the engine room largely as his voice rose in pitch– “passing merchants!”

  He walked out of view, and I assumed he was walking down the stairs into the engine room. “We’re going in, and then we’re coming out, faster than a Neburay in a Y-sector flare.”

  Zara had also followed the argument, and she leant against the crew room doorframe, her tattooed arms crossed as she listened. 

  “It’s not all pirate controlled, Aster. Novasena could have what we need,” the medic inserted, raising her voice so it could be heard at the other end of the engine room. 

  Captain Rigg came into view, and Xander watched him from the mouth of the engine cavity as he looked around for something. 

  I remained where I was. 

  “Tarik!” captain Rigg shouted pleadingly into the engine room. “Tarik, please come here!” 

  Tarik– who had been working in the fuel-well with Charge– poked her head up to look at the captain. 

 He looked down at her, somewhat surprised at her proximity. “Ah, there you are.” He cleared his throat. 

  “Novesena–it’s a crime-filled, pirate-run, black hole of bad luck?”

  Tarik thought about it for a moment in the tangle of technology and equipment. 

  She nodded, climbing out of the fuel-well tiredly. 

  Captain Rigg looked back to his medic and Ecomaster. “See?” he said, gesturing to the old woman. “f Tarik says it’s a bad idea, it's a bad idea. What more do you want?” 

  He paused, taking a breath. “Let's just get what we can here, from Upper Lisk, and when we get paid on Novasena we’ll fly to Witchazel to restock. It’s one tap to the next sector. We can be there in a matter of days. Trust me, I've done the run before. Like it or not, this is our best option.” 

  Sevus looked up, one eyebrow raised as his tail flicked in annoyance. 

  “Remember what happened last time we made port on Witchazel?” the Nefnat asked pointedly. 

  The captain rubbed his chin, thinking deeply about what obviously appeared to be a bad, bad memory. “That was a… simple misunderstanding.” 

  “Let's hope so,” muttered Xander solemnly, grabbing his crutch and stepping out from behind the engine. 

  Captain Rigg put his hands on his hips.

  “Xander, what in Ethreal are you doing in here?” 

Hearing the name, Zara stepped fully into the engine room. Her accusing green eyes found the Light Geo, and she pointed a finger down at him from the walkway. 

“Hey, Rubber-for-brains– I thought I told you two hours ago to get off that damn foot–”

  Xander stepped out of the cavity, his crutch squeaking noisily. “Well, I was resting here.”

  Rolling his eyes, captain Rigg crossed his arms. “Like hell you were,” he muttered, his accent thick with disdain. I wondered vaguely if it got worse when he was upset. 

  Charge finally made an appearance, popping out from the fuel-well and climbing onto the sync-box with fast, practised movements. 

  “I can be called forth as witness, Captain.” The Secodack had forsaken his orange cloak and was wearing some drab grey coveralls, covered in grease. “I can attest that it was just the first meeting of the official brainless braid-buddy club.”

  Xander looked over at him. “As the founding member, do you want to say a few words before we close?”  

  Charge ran a hand through his messy, but braidless, hair. “I don’t exactly meet the mandatory fields of requirement, pal.”

  Xander sighed, turning away. He didn’t grace Charge with an answer, and honestly, I respected that. 

  “Would you need the hand-Hauler, then, Captain?” 

  As Aster and Xander talked about supplies, Tarik pulled herself to her feet, and saw me watching her. 

  “Done with the plates?” the old lady signed, stepping into the engine cavity. 

  I gestured to four plates still on the ground. “Nearly done, ma’am.” 

  Tarik inspected my work, pressing on a few of the plates already up. She pointed to a screw on one plate near the mouth of the cavity. 

  “Loose,” she signed, pointing to the driver in my hand. 

My next course of action was obvious: I had to fix the mistake. 

  Quickly, I rushed to Tarik’s side to right my wrongs. At least this was a mistake I could fix easily. At least Tarik told me how I had messed up– I had no idea what to do with the captain. 

  As Tarik pressed down on the metal, and I fiddled with the screw, I listened to Xander and captain Rigg’s conversation. 

   “Where are you going?” the Light Geodian asked. “To get supplies?” 

 Captain Rigg pointed to the roof. “To the surface. I was told there are re-suppliers there.” 

Turning, I took the driver from the plate, taking a breath to interrupt the conversation– there was somewhere so much better to get supplies from– 

    We don’t need your help. 

  I shut my mouth as captain Rigg’s earlier words cut through my impending interruption. I shook my head, turning back to the plate. 

  I didn’t want to get shouted at. Not in front of everybody. Not here. Even I had my limits for humiliation. 

  Vaguely, I was aware of Tarik watching me curiously, blinking under the thick lenses to her goggles– but remaining, as usual, silent. 

  I looked up at her, unwilling to explain. 

  “ –in Surface Side? Can’t we just take the ship up there when we leave?” Sevus was asking. Too much of the conversation had gone by for me to realise what they were talking about at first. 

  I didn’t know a lot about ship supplies, but I did know a lot about Covienians, and that they would chronically overcharge the crap out of passing Offworlders. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it was an in-planet joke I was too much of a foreigner to get. 

Another thought clicked in my brain, and I turned back to the engine room

  “Actually, the–” As soon as I had started, I stopped. I berated myself once more. 

  Captain Rigg had said not to help. So I wouldn’t.

  I frowned down at the driver in my hand. 

  Why would I, anyway? He’s a mean, old, merchant captain that doesn’t appreciate people. Good riddance if he gets ripped off. Good riddance if he flys away and never comes back. 

  Tarik's hand on my shoulder startled me out of my thoughts. “Say something, you?” she asked with her other hand. 

  I shook my head, deciding a wordless answer would be best. 

  Both Tarik and I looked back to the conversation as captain Rigg gestured to the engine room at large, continuing his conversation with the rest of the crew.

   “ –We’ll be back sometime after dinner, but the rest of you can focus on finishing up here.” 

  Charge deflated off the sync-box. “Ohhhhhhh– how come Zara always gets to go on supply runs, now?”  

  Zara threw what looked to be a balled up piece of paper trash at the Secodack’s head from where she leant against the walkway railing above. “Because I’m backup, flea-brain.” Zara’s strange drawl to her voice made the words seem even more offensive. “Maybe be a little more useful and you can go next time.” 

  Charge assumed a posture that implied he was about to launch himself onto the walkway through sheer will, or anger, but he said nothing else. 

  I scrunched my face up as I watched captain Rigg pick his way through a few bottles of gas-like substance on the ground.

   I was in agony about being silent when I knew that all these merchants were about to be ripped off, cosmically. 

  But captain Rigg had said he didn’t need my help– so I should listen to his advice and be quiet. 

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Xander fiddle with his crutch, muttering. 

  “What's wrong?” Charge asked, standing beside the large Geo. He had recovered from Zara’s barb quickly, and was back to his normal self. This seemed to happen quite often. 

  Xander frowned, holding the walking aid up. “The adjusting bar is no good.” He rattled it, and it sent a bunch of metallic parts clicking into the engine room. “I cannot use this.” 

 “Again?” Charge took it from him. “Hang on, let me look at it.” 

   In a second, the Secodack had the thing in pieces , and both Sevus and Xander leaned over curiously to watch him refasten some kind of bolt from the inside. 

  “Hey,” Sevus said, pointing to something inside the crutch. “That spring! That's a piece of my tin-pry.” 

  Charge looked up at Sevus, a satisfied grin on his face. “Pretty clever, ain’t it?”

  My eyes went to where Tarik was still pressing on plates in the engine cavity, muttering noiselessly to herself  like perfectionists often did. I thought back to the snap-corn– her words– her non judgemental looks at my bandaged arm. 

  Thoughts started to rush through my head, and I was powerless to stop them.

  What if they can’t afford food here? What if they don’t make it to Novasena? Tarik, Xander, even Sevus– they had been kind to me. Throughout the interphase, these people brought a little bit of humour and light to a part of my life when I had never been so afraid.

  I looked back at Xander, who was talking to Charge about the crutch, and I frowned.  I started thinking about the six and a half reasons why I hated being here– and then I started thinking about all the reasons why I didn’t.

  Captain Rigg be damned.

   I wanted to help his crew. 

  I stepped out of the engine cavity.

  “Wait!” I shouted, halting captain Rigg’s steps just as he reached the stairs.

 From the railing, Zara's eyes swung to me curiously– devoid of their habitual glare. 

  Tarik was looking at the back of my head, and Charge and Xander eyed me from just a few metres away. 

 Next to them, I addressed Sevus–

  –the Passerine’s Ecomaster. 

  “There’s a better place… to-to get supplies. Down in the Shaft. It’s below all the warehouses, and-and it’s where the local freight ships get their supplies. It’s… it’s cheaper.” 

  “Really?” Sevus looked over at captain Rigg. “Did you know that?” he asked, his pointed, feline-like ears twitching in curiosity. 

  Captain Rigg folded his arms, frowning down at me. “No, I didn’t,” the older man said gruffly. “Roves told me–” 

  “How much cheaper?” Zara asked above me, interrupting.

  I swallowed, trying to keep my calm under the glare of captain Rigg. “A lot. A, uh… tavern… keeper… I used to work for used to get food from there. He said it beat other Upper Lisk suppliers three times over.” 

  “Why didn’t you say so sooner?” the medic asked, mildly confused. 

  I scratched the back of my neck as Tarik came to stand next to me. I was aware of her steel grey eyes switching from captain Rigg’s expression, and then back to me. 

  I hesitated. “I uh, I didn’t think of it until now.” 

  Tarik frowned at me, wordless. 

  The old lady knew I was lying. 

  Captain Rigg started walking back towards the middle of the engine room, stepping over bottles of gas, and cords. 

  “Where is this place?” asked Xander, who had stopped eyeing Charge as he put his crutch back together. As he looked away, I saw Charge stuff something in the end of the crutch, quickly. 

  Ignoring the Secodack, I pointed down at the ground. “The Shaft.” 

  They all looked somewhat confused, so I explained further. “It’s like a mini-settlement beneath all the warehouses you probably saw when you flew in. It’s got… good soup.”

   I didn’t know why I added that in there. Like everything else, it felt like relevant information before it left my mouth. Not after, though. 

  I saw Charge look up from his work. “It was raining like the Voidmother’s tears when we flew in, so we don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

  “I could show you the way–” I started. 

  Captain Rigg stopped just shy of the fuel-well. “Thank you, but no thank you, Miss West. We know what we need.” 

  I sighed inwardly. 

 I had tried, I guess. 

It was up to him– as the captain of the ship, he would have the last say in what they did and didn’t do. 

I didn’t even know why I'd tried, anyway. 

  I turned away, muttering. “Well, if you don’t want my help… you don’t want my help.” 

  Tarik looked at me once more, and then again at captain Rigg, who was currently trying to will me away with just his expression. 

  She cleared her throat noisily. 

  Everyone looked at her, all showing varying levels of surprise, including me. Tarik had just made a sound. 

  I saw her near-imperceptible squint before directing her attention to the captain. 

  “You know,” she signed thoughtfully, “I could go for some soup.” 

  Charge stood up, handing Xander back his crutch. “Same. It’s been weeks since we've had real food.” 

  The Secodack pointed at me. “Let's just get the maintenance hand to show us where the cheaper places are so we can eat something real before we leave this crummy planet.”   

  Captain Rigg’s frown deepened. “Now, hold on–” 

 “Real food?” commented Sevus quietly from beside him. “What about the one hundred and three sandwiches you’ve eaten in the last interphase?”

  Charge pointed a finger up at the tall Nefnat. “Look pal, two slabs of bread and a gram of nutrient paste don’t really constitute a sandwich.” He grabbed one of Sevus’s free arms, shaking it with both of his small hands. “My poor, fragile form yearns for actual sustenance.” 

  Sevus pulled his arm free, frowning. “Get off me.” After he had freed himself from the Secodack, the Nefnat folded his arms. 

  “I don’t usually say this but– Charge is right.” The Nefnat gave a little sigh as he looked down. “It been a few months since we’ve eaten anything but greymeal.”

  “I mean, cheap supplies are cheap supplies,” Zara said, ignoring Sevus and Charge as she looked at the captain. “I say it's worth giving at least a look.”

  Captain Rigg looked up at the medic, and pointed at me. “She’s a maintenance hand, not a tour guide.” The Fletric dropped his hand. “We’re not making her traipse across this settlement, and we’re not wasting time on some wild Whisper Chase, either.” 

  Xander looked up from scrutinising the changes Charge had made to his crutch. He looked at me. “I am sure Evren would not mind helping us.” 

  Tarik slapped me on the shoulder, which nearly sent me sprawling onto the floor. Her metal arm obviously was a lot stronger than her natural, organic one. 

She gave captain Rigg a smile. “I’m sure she wouldn’t!” the old lady signed exuberantly. 

  Captain Rigg stood with his arms folded, eyebrows furrowed, and the eyes of his entire crew on his reaction. His chest rose and fell a few times as he looked at Tarik. 

  She inclined her head, her expression changing. 

  At first, I was confused, but then I realised a silent conversation was being had. 

  Finally, after an unyielding and obvious blink from his first engineer, captain Rigg threw his hands up and turned away. 

  “Fine! We leave in fifteen minutes–” He stomped up the steps to the walkway, “–everyone be ready or I'm leaving without you.” 

Ever silent, Tarik Kepper walked beside her captain, eyes drifting calmy around the concrete road under her thick lenses. 

  She watched the crew from the back of the group– marred, pointed ears habitually listening to their chatter. Listening to the crew talk was all she ever did some days, and filtering through three conversations happening at once seemed just as natural to her as signing their names.

  She liked the randomness, the absence of pattern in speech and chatter. 

  She liked the noise. 

  It was something that reminded her of home. 

  The maintenance hand had her hood up, and was dutifully weaving her way through the strange, metallic settlement, careful to always remain at the front of the group– and never at the back with her, or more importantly, Aster. 

  She eyed the man in question as he looked at his feet– expressionless face conveying no more than a static-filled information screen in the Passerine’s cockpit. 

  Tarik had always known him to be a person of reason– and any time he had acted otherwise were severe moments of equally severe concern. 

  She also knew it was none of her business, but Tarik had been alive long enough to recognize foolishness when she saw it. And today, she had seen it in full.

  Despite this, she remained silent and still– and she waited, like she’d waited in the past, and she listened, like she always did. 

   Besides, speaking wasn’t really her forte. 

  She put her hands in her pockets, only her organic hand feeling the coarse fabric of the jacket she had donned for their adventure. Her other hand only felt the pressure of the pocket. The down side to cheap Fringe cybernetics, she thought absently. 

  Beside her, captain Rigg sighed, rubbing his right eye like he always did. 

  “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, Tarik…” the Fletric said quietly.

 The old Tironian hesitated. She had been waiting for him to talk, yes– but she hadn’t expected him to be so blunt. 

  “In... general?” Tarik signed, taking her hands out of her pockets. “Or just today?”

  As they walked, the captain watched a walkway above them pass, a strange narrow bridge between the next level of shops. It was a necessity– there wasn’t enough room in Lisk for everyone to have their shops or establishments on the ground. They had to build all the way up to the roof, and connect those shops with stairs and walkways, and metal platforms. 

  Vaguely, it reminded Tarik of their hold.

  “How far are we going to keep falling?” the Fletric said at last, eyes falling back to their temporary maintenance hand. “How many street urchins do we have to employ before things start getting better?” 

  Tarik nudged his shoulder. “Have something against street urchins, do you?”

  Captain Aster guffawed, switching to sign. “No. I just thought… The less the girl helped us, the better.” He shook his head, speaking out loud. “But now… I realise that was a mistake.”

  “Ah, your pride hurts.”

  The captain waved off his first engineer as they passed a more vibrant Covienian square covered in holographic graffiti and signage– not an uncommon sight down in the deep places of Lisk, Tarik was realising.

  “I told her we didn’t need her help. I told her that we didn’t want it… But she went and did it, anyway. Just, went and helped us out of a mistake we didn’t even know we were making– if this place she’s taking us too is any good.” Aster looked down, placing his hands in his pockets, muttering under his breath like he was scared Evren might hear him, even though she was far down the street. 

  “And she did it so… carelessly, and naturally, like it was the most normal thing to do in the world. She… helped us. It made me so angry… at her. At Xander… at me… At everything.”

  As Tarik listened to the Fletric speak, she found herself thinking of the countless arguments she had overheard in the last few phases. The countless disagreements. The countless disturbances. The countless regrets that everyone on the Passerine was amassing in some silent, but existent way. 

  She cleared her throat– the action was difficult and painful, and rudely involuntarily. She wanted to curse her body for the fifty five odd years of muscle memory it had stored up without her permission. 

“Well,” Tarik signed slowly, trying to gather her thoughts. “I’m not really sure what’s going on, but…” Tarik put a hand on captain Rigg’s shoulder, making him stop on the sidewalk. The rest of the crew kept on walking, unaware that the pair had paused on the pavement. 

  The old Tironian continued. “Old mechanic’s opinion– you want? I’ll tell you what I think. Types of people? Two. Ones like you– and some like Evren.” Tarik used very standard signs, trying not to use more descriptive Tironian motions– she always lamented that Entrillian motions were so vague. It made conversations like this extremely difficult. 

  “People like you– destined to be angered by people like Evren– kind, without necessity, doing the right thing– even when people angry at them– Why? Because you the same.” 

 Captain Rigg watched her sign, eyes tracing her fingers sceptically as he tried to assign the motions to actual concepts and sentences. 

  “Same kind of person, just with more phantom pains.” 

  The captain sighed, looking away tiredly. “Where are you going with this, Tarik?” 

  The mute mechanic dismissed him. “Finish, let me. Look... The past… phantom pains, it has. And phantom pains are… the hurt we feel when something has been taken away. You want to do good, or right, but– something stops you.” Tarik pointed to her arm, the metal one, the one with supports that had been drilled into her collarbone. “My arm– the Blue War took. War– what it does. Steal. Steal, and steal again. Limbs. Hopes. Family. Lives.” Tarik pointed to Aster. 

  “Maybe, the war is still stealing things from you.” 

   Aster sighed, again– but this time, in deep resignation.

  When he spoke, his voice was blurred with the soft, but unpleasant spirit of grief.  “Phantom pains, huh?” He looked down with a soft chuckle, hands in his pockets, voice low and troubled.

 “I think it’s a little too late for me to get rid of them, ‘Rik.” 

    Tarik slapped him on the shoulder, using her metal hand on purpose. 

  “Hey!-” 

She waved off the captain’s cry of protest. 

  “Enough–” Tarik demanded. 

  When she didn’t elaborate, Aster spread his hands at the aged mechanic. “Of what?” 

  “Stop acting so immature. You, over forty years old. Apologise to the kid.”

  After a blank look from the Fletric, Tarik eyed him warily, feeling she might have overstepped her boundaries. 

She had a lot more that she wanted to say, but found it didn’t come to her fingers. Her hands stilled, and felt heavy with the memories and motions she no longer had the will to say. 

  Her throat started to hurt. 

  She sighed, shaking her head. 

 “Never too late– to fix what’s wrong,” Tarik signed, before turning away.

  Hands in her pockets again, Tarik stepped quickly to catch up with the crew, who were already at the end of the street. 

 She hoped captain Rigg would not misunderstand her meaning– this time she cursed not her body, but her mind– for the long years of muscle memory, it too, had gathered. 

  Clearing her head, Tarik remembered that this wasn’t actually her problem– it was her captain’s. 

   And if Aster wanted to fix it, he would. 

  Tarik had signed her piece.