Ray’s mind was a whirlwind. Some of her thoughts were on her work, these feedback transformers were tricky little suckers to crack.

Some of her thoughts were on the crudely labeled “Jobs List” on the mini-storage and processing unit of her tiny cubicle. Her mind lingered on item no. 3: “bakwarsh endusers” it read crudely scribbled in grease pen.

“How in the hole does that old crankpot think I’m gonna be able to do that?! I don’t even have a proper warp isolation suit, that patch-job Nikimatchi I’m working in now is only rated for gamma rays,” she muttered under her breath.

Some of her thoughts were on the “hazardous waste” cargo net that was steadily expanding in hangar bay two. “I gotta get off this rig.”

Her mind wandered back to her delicate task at hand as a shudder ran through the walls around her. Several of the junk bins carefully littered around her tiny cot each gave off their signature buzzes and rumbles. It must be 3:00, she thought to herself. Those ballast plates on grid four were never going to get to scrap at this rate.

The rig in question was a series of old Gamma 400 series transport containers that had been hacked up and spliced together with the hulls and frames of two other massive space hulks. Miscellaneous bits and pieces held the entire contraption together.

This ring of dubious workmanship gave the place gravity at least. Well, gravity of a sort. Oh how Ray longed for real gravity. A constantly repeating stream of shakes and shudders moved around the station like the hands of an ancient clock. Ray knew them all well. A background white noise of vibrations and contrary resonances.

It had driven her crazy at first, but she had come to appreciate it. Something about the pattern of regular irregularities gave her a sense of belonging. Of course she was very aware that the entire mess was quite likely to fly apart at any moment. She swore under her breath, sometimes it felt like they made one move forward and two moves back.

Ray remembered what “real” gravity felt like, unlike most of the people out here in the fringes of civilization. She had been really small, and didn’t remember much else at all about that time, but some sensations were just too amazing to forget. Most of the people here were spacebabies, nobody who had ever felt real gravity was likely to hang around a place like this for long.

People there were and plenty, somewhere around 800 beings of various races occupied the tiny station. It was hard to be sure because the number was always fluctuating. The place was crowded but livable. It had been a welcome sight after two weeks crammed in a cargo container. Plus Ray knew it was much better than some of the places they had been before, which had in turn been better than the labor camps, which had been better than life on the run, which had been better than… Ray shuddered and brought her attention back to the task at hand.

Spacers were interesting people. Whereas most would gladly rob each other blind at the first opportunity, they did share a sort of a basic code. They had a commonality of existence unique only to themselves and impenetrable by any landlubbers no matter how trained or well-spaced they thought they were.

You could usually tell born Spacers and Landlubbers apart, it was all in how they moved. Spaceborn sort of flowed against each other, pushy yet frictionless. All these people could live in such close proximity to each other and only rarely did things get truly out of hand. All Spacers were bound by the same respect for the hull, that thin layer of material that was the only barrier between life and immediate cold death. Not to mention fire and noxious fumes and radiation. There were many way’s to catch your death out here in space.

The fact that a place like this could even be successful was a fluke. A chance crossing of space lanes creating a makeshift waypoint. Much of the traffic of the great outer reaches came through this stretch of space at one time or another, often leaving the space trash behind.

It wasn’t an official waypoint of course. If and when the Galactic Federation (GalFed) ever declared it one, this little dump would be quickly replaced with bigger and better service stations. But the GalFed was so far behind in establishing new infrastructure that a place like this could go unbothered if not unnoticed for decades. Ray had spent most of her life in these in-between places and this one was pure shite, shite being far more valuable in actuality, she conceded.

Old man Stuart was a piece of work. He sat out here at this intersection just waiting for the unexpected breakdowns and past minute course changes. Then he charged exorbitant prices for half-arsed repairs and diluted fuels.

Making course changes mid jump was highly illegal and yet still performed by just about every experienced space jockey in the ‘verse. And for good reason, nobody was going to carry underselling goods to an expired destination if there was any possible way to divert. At least for now, data still moved faster than matter although there were rumblings that even that was about to change. “Good things on the Horizon!” came the spiel over the official GalFed feed- another nice advantage this station had afforded her. Ray had learned so much from those monitors even if the signal did annoying cut out from time to time. She understood that when goods could be there as fast as information it would change everything all over again.

All in all, Cris-Cros Station (which is what the identification plate hanging in the main mess-bay literally read) hadn’t been too bad of a place. Ray shuddered as distant memories of the labor camps and orphanage threated to surface. She pushed them back down.

Still, she was basically a slave and Mr. Stuart would see to it that she stayed that way. He’d never let her make enough extra money to buy her passage off this whirling death trap. And still, it had afforded her some opportunities. She glanced around the room assessing her slowly growing, pieced together assortment of tools and useful things.

She kept her favorite tools on her person at all times when she wasn’t working, tucking them into the various folds and pockets of the greatly oversized spacesuit. Tools were as valuable as pure carbide. But they were even more valuable to her, the more tools she acquired, the more stuff she could fix. The more stuff she could fix, the better her work prospects. She hoped that would be enough to get her through this miserable experience called life. She didn’t have much else. Well, other than her deep seated defiance to ever go back from where she came.

“Hey there cutie” said a voice much closer than she expected to hear. Her lectro-driver slipped and impacted her left thumb, which was already sore from the last time she had hit it.

“Counter-spin, you jarkass Cosmo! I told you not to ever sneak up on me like that.” She stuck the offended digit in her mouth.

Sometimes she wondered why he didn’t just move on and leave her alone. Still, she was glad to hear his voice. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that life was never certain. Cosmo was always running off on those crazy long shots of his. Ray knew some time he’d reach a little too far or find his hand in the wrong pocket and then she’d be on her own again. That was ok, she told herself. Life was so much simpler when she was on her own. Nobody else to wonder when you’re never going to see again.

She had known Cosmo longer than any other person in her life, if hopping transports and working whatever odd jobs were available could be considered a life. She knew there was more to it. She had had a taste of it, once, long ago, somewhere on the other side of the universe perhaps…

The two of them comprised the last of the group of eight who had escaped the orphanage all those cycles ago. It had been years since she had seen any of the others, she hoped they were still surviving, somewhere somehow. Who knew? With what had happened to poor Daz and all… That had been just awful. She pushed the unpleasant memories down again. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t help improve her current situation at all.

“Sorry baby, I was just glad to see you.” He gave her rear a squeeze as he allowed the low gravity to pull him spin-wise. “I’ve got big news!”

She swatted at him, furious. “Don’t call me baby! I’m not, never have been, nor ever will be YOUR baby!”

“Ok ok, cool your jets doll, I don’t mean no hurt.” He said flashing his best shite eating grin and making his eyes sparkle like only he could. “Plus after I tell you my news maybe we can do a little more of what we did on Rigel 7.”

Ray grunted and threw a spanner at the boy’s head. He dodged but even in this shaky gravity, her aim was good. The wrench found the edge of his skull with a satisfying “thwunk.” Cosmo winced in pain.

“What happened on Rigel 7 is never EVER going to happen again! Get that through your dense head!” Sometimes this boy was just soo unbelievably dumb.

“Ow! That really hurt! Come-on, who throws tools at people?” He rubbed his head as he collected the makeshift missile and offered it up to her like a sacrificial appeasement to an angry god. She swiped it from him as he shot her one of his stupid grins. How could she not feel a little something for that face, that ridiculous stupid face, under those ridiculous stupid curls. She accepted his offering.

“Where have you been all this time? You’re three weeks later than you said and you never sent me a single message, nothing!” She refused to let the welling tears escape her accusing glare.

He stared at her blankly for a few seconds. “I did! I did send messages, a couple of them.” He shrugged his left shoulder. The last was from the relay station at EmTee three-eight-four. It was confirmed by old man Stuart himself!”

Hmm, maybe that explained why the old creep had been getting more and more grabby lately. It was very much against spacer code to not pass on personal communications of any sort. Men! The hole with all of them! Just let him try something and he’ll get what that perv on Felonious twelve got, or worse. Her fingertips brushed the handle of her favorite awl, the one she had secretly named Needle after part of an ancient story she had once read.

“Babe, I have been all over the place! I dead-manned on a cargo hauler out of Galacia Major, they didn’t even ask for docs. I have been out past Lastbeacon on the edge of the Rift!” Cosmo had a way of always turning any information into some sort of brag. It was infuriating and somehow adorable at the same time.

“There’s nothing out past Lastbeacon, that’s why it’s called LASTbeacon.”

“There is too, been there. The jockeys are out jumping the Rift now, lots of ‘em.”

This WAS interesting news she decided. “Where from?” she interrupted.

“That’s the part I’m trying to get to if you’d just let me finish. There’s this little forgotten moon in an otherwise dead system that had some 1st stage terraforming done on it ages ago.”

“Did you go there? Have you SEEN it yourself?”

“On high rez from within the system. We didn’t go dirtside. It was a quick run, just offloaded to a system craft and back again. Evidently they have some sort of refinery operation going on there. The fuel wasn’t half bad, way better than the crap out of here. It’s supposed to be great, they have most of an atmosphere and are even growing their own food!”

Cosmo loved to embellish and never quite had the whole story, but a moon, a real moon.

“Gravity! Any word on the gravity?” she demanded.

“Nothing 2nd hand, but I talked to the ship’s navigator and he says something of that size would put in around point seven six galactic standard.”

Point seven six was great. It was close enough to point eight for her taste and point eight was perfect. Anything over point nine and you just felt so sluggish and tired all the time. She didn’t know how the worlders could do it, they must have amazing lungs. She felt a little apprehensive about going low pressure full time. It probably required some sort of breathing apparatus and she didn’t much care for having to lug around heavy o2 cannisters all the time. But she knew she could, would adapt eventually, if she had to. It’s what she did best. It was worth it for point seven six, not to mention space to move in and fresh air to breathe. Air that wasn’t the scrubbed and rescrubbed farts and belches of hundreds of beings. Suddenly her entire outlook on the universe brightened ever so slightly.

Cosmo interrupted her musings. “There’s more! I think I got a job for you there.”

“What?! Talk! Now!”

“Well, before we jumped out I bribed the comm officer for some time on the short-wave. Cost me my best deck of sticks.”

“The job, what’s the job?” Ray demanded.

“I’m getting to that, I got in touch with a guy called Flynn, runs a scrapheap moonside. He buys whatever space hulks and derelicts he can get his hands on. Brings ‘em down and strips ‘em for parts. Sells the scrap on the surface and boosts the good stuff back up to orbit where he has a space-dock. I think he sells most of it on the gray market.”

Ray was impressed, that was quite an operation for a non-commercial outfit.

“Anyway’s he’s willing to take a skilled apprentice on a two year contract after which you can continue on salaried or go your own way. I told him all about you and he sounded interested.”

“What specifically did you tell him, Cosmo?”

“Just that you’re the best wrenchmonkey east of the Dracara Nebula. And that you can fix anything. I told him about what you did on the frigate from Alacarzi. I may also have mentioned something about being a tier two shipwright.”

“You know I’m not a shipwright,” she flashed with frustration.

“You’re the best shipwright I’ve ever seen, Raybeam!”

Ray hated it when Cosmo used her full name, well the name they had given her at the orphanage. The simple space-names given to the children of the stars. Stupid names all of them, hardly any thought put into them at all. Cosmo continued on before she could object.

“That vacuum headed engineering officer WAS a tier two shipwright and he couldn’t figure out a way to get us moving again. Everyone on that boat owed you their lives! That makes you a tier two shipwright in my book any day, better in fact.”

Ray silently beamed inside and tried not to smile. His faith in her abilities was nice, even if horribly misplaced. Sure she could fix just about anything if she had long enough to figure it out, but she didn’t really know what she was doing. Well that and anything remotely technical was all magic to Cosmo. His skills lay more along social lines, an area Ray had little interest in herself.

“Anyway, he wants to meet you, I’ve set it all up. All we have to do is get there.”

Cosmo was always overly optimistic. Ray remembered the string of misinformation he had fed her about this place, before he had pretty much sold her into slavery to old man Stuart. Just meeting with someone was very different than being offered a job. She had a job here, but it was a complete dead end, perhaps literally. Still, there were worse tyrants in the ‘verse, much worse.

“Ok, well lets say they do need help and they don’t mind spacetrash like us. Who’s running the place?”

“Well that’s the best part! It’s this guy called McRaken. ‘McRacken’s hole’ is what they’re calling the place. Think he’s ex-spacefleet or something. Not sure of the details, but he’s got no love for the Federation. Still he’s supposed to have some good connections and seems to be legit, word is he’s dead set on keeping the place independent. Been out there for at least 30 orbits so his claim seems to be good.”

Ray let him talk as she pondered the possibilities.

“You know how it is though, we gotta go now before word gets out. The place is open for business but very unofficial at this point. We paid for the fuel with goods and spare parts. They preferred it over fedcred.”

This was all good news. In fact it sounded too good to be true but so did everything that came out of this boy’s mouth. Still, he seemed to have good instincts even if he was a bit careless at times. So far, every move she had let him talk her into had been at least sideways if not slightly better. There was always some glaring catch that he was masking however.

“Alright, go on, spill it. I know you’ve got some kind of cockeyed scheme worked up.” she informed him incredulously.

He grinned but then turned somber. “You’re not gonna like it,” he confessed.

Here it comes, she thought to herself. “Go on, hit me. How long do I have to stay in the container this time?”

“Just two weeks, maybe less. But the bad part is, it’s a vac-hold this time, so you’ll be locked in and bagging it. But you’ve been through way worse than that before.” Ray grimaced at the thought, she’d probably be losing weight again and her already thin frame didn’t have any to spare.

“And we’re much tighter on mass this time so you’ll probably have to sell most of your tools, but you know you can always get more tools.” He tacked on that last and worst blow with such a light touch it took a few extra seconds to sink in.

Ugh, this was going to be brutal. Not her precious tools, they were like her children. Her mind quickly began processing which few tools she absolutely would refuse to give up.

“Oh and one more thing.” What else could there possibly be? “Do you think that crappy suit of yours will hold pressure for a few days? There’s a bit of a delay between offloading and when I’ll be able to spring you out.”

“It’s not even my suit, the old fart would never let me take it.”

“Yeah, we’ll just have to steal it then.” The rest of his words were slowly sinking in.

“Wait did you say three days? Three days in a suit?!” Ray was mortified.

“Yeah three, maybe four tops, but that’s the absolute max, I promise.”

“Four days!? Are you insane? Nobody can take four days straight in a suit, the same suit! I’ll go mad! Forget it, I’m out. You’ll just have to go on without me, I’ll have to find some way to catch up later on.”

“It’s not going to be very pleasant for me either you know. This captain I’ve got lined up is a class A prickle, I’ve worked for him before. Sure he takes on unlicensed crew from time to time but he views us as less than sentient, gutter trash, totally expendable. Remember Dex?”

Poor Dex.

“I swore I’d never crew for this guy again but this is the only way. I’ve tried every angle. The whole thing hinges on this one particular docking chief I’ve been buttering up since we got here, and he’s shipping out on the very next cluster run. Who knows how long it will take me to grease another one of those guys and even if I do, I can’t promise it will be any better than this, maybe worse. And by that time, the job will be long gone. If we want this we gotta jump now.”

Ray hated it when Cosmo made sense. “Ugh, I can’t believe you’re going to talk me into this.”

“I promise you’ll live through it, sure it will be a bit rough but you’ve been through worse.”

“Yea, I wish you’d quit reminding me,” Ray stabbed back. “Look, why do you even want to drag me along with you everywhere? Wouldn’t it be much easier to just hop the next freighter and try to get as close to the bright core as possible? I’m just extra baggage.”

“You know I can’t do that, I can’t just leave you behind.”

“Sure you can, it’s easy. I’d do it to you if I had the chance,” she lied.

Cosmo’s face went unusually stoic. “Well I couldn’t and I don’t think you could either. Not after all we’ve been through… Not after Solara and little Quark…” the last came out as a barely audible whisper.

That had been a sad day indeed for the both of them. Cosmo’s little sister and Ray’s younger brother had been “adopted” in the same group. That was the way it worked at the orphanage, the youngest kids always went first. Ray had hated Cosmo before that, just another horny boy trying to get with any girl who was half-way willing. After that day though, she just couldn’t feel hate anymore, couldn’t feel much of anything. It was as if her soul had been burned away. The last of their family taken from them. It was an experience they had in common.

There was just a glimmer’s chance their siblings were still together, somewhere… She felt the unpleasant emotions welling up inside her again but knew this time there would be no pushing them back down. Tears came to her eyes and she mashed them shut.

“Well that and other reasons too,” Cosmo added, in an uncharacteristically shy manner.

“What other reasons?” Ray asked, guessing and not wanting to hear them.

“You know, don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I don’t know. You’re going to have to tell me,” she lied again.

“Raybeam Starchild, I love you. I would do anything for you, I would travel to the ends of the universe for you.”

The tears came unbidden now. “Cosmo Starborn, you have no idea what love even is, I don’t have any idea what love is, how could you possibly say something like that to me? How many other girls have you said that to?”

“None. Not one.”

“But there have been other girls, lots of them, I’ve seen you say any sort of crazy thing to get them to drop their force fields. Why should I think these words would be any different?”

He paused for just a moment and then replied with the utmost sincerity. “Because none of those girls were you. You’re the only one I could never get and you’re definitely the only one I’ve ever loved.”

“Cosmo, you are the biggest, most full of shite, lyingist most astronomically confounding boy I have ever met,” she squeaked out between angry sobs.

“I know”, came the soft reply followed closely by that maddeningly adorable stupid grin.

The tension suddenly broke and they both laughed hysterically. She would go with him. She didn’t know if she loved him or if she could ever love anyone at all but in that moment she became certain of another thing. She WOULD follow this boy to the ends of the universe.