How had she ever even thought about loving that idiot Cosmo!? Could two people ever have been more perfectly mismatched than us? So ran the thoughts that lingered in Ray’s mind.

She had been on this rock for almost six months now. It had not been as fun adapting to gravity again as Ray might have hoped. It had not been fun at all. The vomiting had mostly stopped although every now and then she had to pause whatever she was working on and lie down.

She hadn’t been sleeping well but then that lug-nut Cosmo had brought her back a hammock from one of his endless excursions. It had been nice of him and had worked perfectly- the gentle swaying reminded her of a low-G sleep sling and allowed her mind to drift off. Still, that didn’t mean she was any closer to forgiving him, not after what he had pulled.

Go back to work, go back to work, go back to work, her mind nagged at her. Sheesh even her own mind was against her. She went back to work.

It was alright she supposed, she would make it. With enough time she may even come to like it. The atmosphere was great, fully breathable if a little on the light side. She only needed to wear a simple oxygen condenser when doing heavy work. The food was certainly better than any place she had been before. Crazy ol’ Flynn was a great boss even if he was a little kooky. Her quarters were more than adequate- best she had ever had in fact. She had taken her choice of several nice but ancient starliners and numerous other craft that had been carefully arranged across the surrounding landscape.

Ray had set up a small apartment in one of the oldest vessels that still had working plumbing. However, she usually packed her hammock and simply slept near whatever project she was currently working on. So many times the solution to a difficult disassembly came to her while she was sleeping on it. Perhaps not literally, but nearby, as close as she could be and still get cozy.

That was the way her talent operated, she just sort of saw how things fit together- how they must work, or at least how they might work. She wasn’t always right and had already destroyed several bits of valuable scrap by accident, rendering them much less valuable. Flynn would simply laugh and make her do it again until she got it right. Nothing ever seemed to bother the jovial little man.

Now that she had her sleep cycle sorted out she was finally starting to get some work done. Flynn had been more than patient throughout her recovery and adjustment period, taking advantage of the time to show her around the place. She now knew about every single item that could be extracted from a starship and sold for more money than the labor it took to do so. She also knew approximately where in the surrounding hills each of these items was to be stripped, stored, processed, or whatever procedure it took to extract it’s value.

Of course Flynn kept all the best stuff under lock and laser-beam in one of the various cobbled together sheds and lean-to’s that surrounded the old silo and Flynn’s home. The circular arrangement of buildings sat atop the hill at the compound’s center. Flynn rarely let anyone go into those sheds claiming he preferred to arrange their contents himself. Ray shuddered to think about the teetering stacks of parts they must contain.

Then there was the worthless stuff and even that was carefully sorted and stored. Flynn tried to find a buyer for everything. Even when he couldn’t, he still kept the junk and tried to find a use for it. He was remarkably resourceful, that way. At least half of the buildings in and around town had been constructed from the scrapped hulls of various spacecraft, purchased from or donated by Flynn. The mountainous pile of worthless plastic Tandarri* body panels made great drip pans, funnels & parts sleds. That reminded her, some of those panels might come in handy for a Valorian hydro-system flush too. She had only done one of those so far and it had been a messy nightmare.

The whole thing was quite an operation and Ray was starting to enjoy her work now that she was feeling physically better. She wasn’t the only help Flynn had either- if not the only one the cantankerous old man allowed to live on the grounds. The others were called in as needed- usually commuting in from Port Phillip which was the largest settlement the small moon had to offer.

Flynn’s other workers were all boys. There was Ursa and Bursa the twins, quiet Jimmy, and of course Dreagar who was the oldest and most bombastic of the group. They all worked together pretty well. That is, except when Flynn wasn’t around- then Dreagar tended to think he was in charge. He’d bully or cajole the others and occasionally make a half arsed attempt at a pass on Ray. Fortunately she had pretty well perfected her “Get the fark away from me!” glare which so far hadn’t failed to fend him off. At least since that time behind the old Rhondian Cruiser.

They had all finished overloading a scrap trolley and the others had taken it back ahead of them. The two of them had been left walking back alone and Dreagar was trying his completely inadequate best to chat her up. She had been pretty much ignoring him like always, when out of nowhere he grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her in to him- for what? A kiss, maybe?

Ray wasn’t sure as she hadn’t waited long enough to find out. Reaching out, she had grabbed his shoulder to steady herself then brought her left knee up high and hard. She pulled her body up with her arms to make sure the point was driven home. It had been. “Ohhhh shiiii…” was all the boy had managed to get out as he crumpled to the ground. She hadn’t had much trouble from him ever since. Ray hadn’t really meant to hurt him, the reaction had been instinctual. What was the dumb boy thinking would happen anyway?

Men were pretty much the same wherever you went, Ray found. Even her cute but dismally stupid Cosmo… He hadn’t changed and somehow Ray knew he never would. She still wouldn’t respond to his physical advances so as usual he was always gone chasing after some space tramp or other alien tail. As if she’d ever get close with him, there was literally no telling what strange alien rash he had contracted one week to the next. He was always off either doing that or finding some bar to stim away away his meager earnings, and don’t get her started on the gambling. That boy would bet on anything. He always took the ridiculous long shot bet too. Always, every time. If he was betting on Reluvian snail races he would pick the one that was already half dead.

The poor boy just didn’t understand basic maths very well. She had tried to teach him on several occasions but he would just get mad and say something like: “All you girls are so bossy, always trying to tell me what to do.”

“I’m just trying to help you” would be her reply but he would storm off. That stubborn, bulk-headed, ridiculous Cosmo. She didn’t know how she could still have feelings for him.

Lately though, the thing that was on Ray’s mind more than any other was something she never expected to be. She missed space. She missed the feel of a ship or station or some hulk of metal under her feet. She missed the imperfections of artificial gravity. More than anything though, she missed the effortless weightlessness of Zero G.

Real Gravity, planetary gravity got to feeling oppressive, there was no escape from it. She felt it’s weight, like a giant blanket that wanted to smother her. Even on the best and biggest stations (out the dozen or so she had been on) you could always find some spot where the gravity “warbled” a bit. That wasn’t the case on hard ground. Gravity was everywhere, it permeated every object pinning it in place, all the time. Ray knew she was adapting and it was going to get better but the thought of not knowing when she’d get to space again made her feel very claustrophobic.

Maybe she could find some way to get some sky time soon. Cosmo’s story about Flynn’s wet dock had been partially true. Flynn had a wet dock in orbit but it was an ancient Caladonian model and evidently in a bad state of disrepair. So far it was just used to anchor the larger hulks before he could make the arrangements to bring them down.

Bringing out of commission starships to the surface was fairly inexpensive. Well in actuality it was quite expensive but in comparison to the valuable parts it was cheap. It was however a one way trip and it saddened Ray whenever a ship was grounded that she felt could have been made space-worthy again.

Oh well, she thought to herself. It was a good job and there were always more ships. Flynn would buy up every one he could, sometimes two or three at a time, the bigger the better. He had the room for it. The surface of the moon was mostly flat, as if there had been no natural water in it’s history to create much of a landscape. Real estate was plentiful and cheap and Flynn seemed to be pretty tight with Mayor Phillip McRackin who was the top drog around here. Ray was pretty sure the guy was just letting Flynn use as much ground as he needed. His bone yard of massive corpses in varying states of disassembly stretched out over 200 acres and was always expanding. Sometimes they’d drop two or three new ships a week.

Still, it was a shame to have that space dock up in orbit not being used. It had to cost Flynn something to keep it up there.

One day she decided to ask Flynn about it. They were surveying a few acres of ground that was going to become the final resting place of the Mynock’s Dream. The poor old ship had been a pleasure cruiser but a faulty power coupling had caused a fire that the onboard suppression system had failed to control. It had happened right in the middle of orgy season and all 127 passengers and most of the crew had been lost.

“At least they died happy.” Flynn had said and launched a round of his raucous laughter. “Don’t worry, the spacefleet long since cleaned out the bodies, well most of them anyway. What I mean is, they cleaned out everything that wasn’t fused to a bulkhead.” He tossed her a wink and fired off another burst of laughter.

This was as good a time as any, ray laid it on him. “So you ever consider getting that orbital platform up and running? Seems like a ship like this wouldn’t need a whole lot to make spaceworthy again.” Surely he would see the brilliance of her plan.

“Oh not this old boat, no no not this old boat. Nobody would buy it, and even if they did nobody would fly in it. It’s history would haunt it wherever it went, you know how spacers are. Naw, best to just to just let it die along with the poor souls that were on it.” He continued on before she could retort. “You know me, I’ll buy anything if it’s cheap enough but I didn’t even want this one the first two times it came across the auction block.” It kept showing up however so after the 3rd time through with no bidders I sent the auction house an offer to clear it off their hands for the metal price alone. And wouldn’t ya guess it but they took me up on it, the crazy superstitious fools.” All we’s got in it is the tow and drop fees and it’s got Romian reactor cores in it, four of ‘em, those alone will put us in the profit.” Flynn’s eyes always lit up when he was thinking about how he was going to dice up a juicy new morsel.

She blasted him with both tubes at once: “Ok so not this ship, but don’t you see stuff at auction all the time that could easily be fixed? That Corbonian Corvette out on the far lot only had a bad motivator near as I can tell, and we’ve got a couple ships sitting here with workable replacements. ‘Course it don’t do no good now that she’s down here but if we had the platform up and running we could’ve fixed her in orbit. A spaceworthy ship’s gotta be worth more than it’s weight in scrap, right?” She took a breath.

Flynn patted her condescendingly on the head and gave a long sigh. “Ah yes my girl, I like the way your mind vectors, reminds me of myself at your age. Unfortunately there’s more to it than that. You see, repairing the old birds is only half the battle. Any ship that’s already decom’d has already been paid for by the insurance company. The only way I get ‘em so cheap is to pay the scrap price. I’m just lucky enough to be the only recycler out here in this neck o’ the boonies.”

“Can’t you buy non-decoms.”

“’Fraid that’s a whole ‘nother orb-game my dear, too many big money players fighting for the non-decoms. I can’t compete with those high-cred operations. They’ll pay way too much for any old jalopy just to keep us little guys from getting into their biz.”

She conceded that point. It was true everwhere, it took money to make money. This left the big companies at a distinct advantage. “Well ok, forget those then. Is there any way to make a decom, not a decom anymore?”

“Sure, allthings possible, but that would require the repair to be performed by a legitimate, GalFed certified engineer an’ there’s no way I’m gonna pander to those bozos out here.”

“Why not? If you could make more money, wouldn’t it all be worthwhile?”

“Not for me, truth be told.” His voice dropped and he went into the calm grandfatherly mode Ray loved so much about him. “I’d never be able to pass the tests for that my dear. You see I’m reeeal good at breakin’ stuff down. Jus’ can’t put stuff together for shat.” He squeezed off a single laugh. “Thats why I got into this biz. Been breakin’ stuff down my whole life. Might as well get paid to do it on my own.”

Ray had been deep in thought throughout Flynn’s yammering. “Let me do it then! I can pass the test, I know I can.”

He threw her an “as if” glance. She was not deterred. “I’ve been putting stuff together my whole life. I’ve been taking broken fragments and finding ways to mix them up into something that works. I can fix anything, especially if my life depends on it. I once adapted oxygen scrubbers for Ventorrini space liners to fit a Geneovan freighter otherwise we weren’t going to make it to port before the supply ran out. It’s what I do because it’s what I’ve always had to do.”

“Yes my dear but you don’t understand, the test requires years of training, and you have to go through school, and it costs a lot of money and it’s really just a big GalFed fleecing scheme. You won’t learn anything that you can’t learn better on your own around here. Look at me, thats what I did.”

She was ready for him at the pause. “How many years of training? How much money?”

“Look my dear, this universe just ain’t made for people like us. It’s the ones in charge that has all the power and all the best stuff. You’re a smart girl, hell you’re the best worker I ever had. You do the work of 2 guys twice your size and 4 times the pay. You play your sticks right and maybe one day you’ll have your own outfit like mine out there amongst the stars somewhere. Hell maybe someday you’ll take over for me when I’m dead, you’d like that wouldn’t ya?”

She was taken aback by the unexpected offer for a moment. Running a chop-shop like this all on her own? That would actually be something fairly amazing. Oh, what she could do with a place like this. The first thing she would do is get that space dock up and running.

She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a stop. “Tell me about this test, I want to know more about the test?”

“Alright, alright,” Flynn said annoyedly. It’s not so much a test as a course you have to take, you have to memorize all kinds of maths and read a lot of stuffy books. It’s really just a big waste of time, and all for what? For a measly document that don’t mean a thing.”

It didn’t sound too bad to her. Ray had read every book she could get her hands on for as long as she remembered. Deep down and way far back she had some vague memories of someone telling her what all the different symbols meant and how to say them. She had felt comfortable and secure, like someone had been looking out for her, wanting her to succeed, helping her. She got that same feeling whenever she read a book. She liked books, she liked learning anything and everything she could.

“That document will allow me to repair starships? Legally?”

“Well yes, you have to join a guild too. There will probably be fees and other things”

“I can do it! I want to do it. Tell me about the test.” She insisted.

Flynn seldom got mad but she knew she was trying his patience. He preferred to go through life all ‘my way or the skyway’, but he didn’t really know all there was to know. He didn’t know how bad it was out there. He hadn’t seen what she had seen and he hadn’t had to do the things she had to survive.

“Now look, little lady, I’m done talking about this now. We have a shatload of Vulbarian hub spars to pick up and then we’re starting on the Gandalfian Frigate tomorrow. You needs to be droppin’ this for now and focus on your work.”

If he was mad at her, she was furious with him. Her beams just weren’t penetrating through to him!

Ray grabbed Flynn’s collar and pulled his face close to hers. It was a difficult task and took all of her still recovering strength. She locked her eyes on his.

“Look! I had to cut myself out of a storage locker 6 months ago when that jackarass Cosmo left me for dead. I did it with a pocket laser scalpel which was the only tool that brain deficient moron left me in there with! I was in there for 19 days, 19 days!” she was screaming at him now. “I remember every single one of them! I lived in my own shat and drank my own urine. I can beat a stupid test.”

“My dear,” he started but she had already recovered and cut him off at the pause again. She plastered him with the sharpest sternest glare in her toolkit (arsenal?) and dialed it up to high power.

“Tell me everything you know about this test right now or I’m going to walk straight into town and find someone who will.” She softened ever so slightly. “And then we can go get those Vulbarian hub spars.”

*Note on Tandarri technology- The Tandarri are an amazingly intelligent race that have developed some of the highest level technology in the KU (see note 2). Unfortunately they have absolutely no artistic tendencies and thusly their powerful and cutting edge starships all look like identical rectangular boxes of varying sizes. This has hurt their sales for centuries which is disappointing as they really are quite well made and long lasting starships. This lack of style has given Tandarri starships a certain stigma. A common line amongst the spacefaring elite is: “Well at least I didn’t show up in a Tandarri cruiser.” Recently the Tandarri came to terms with the fact that they were lacking something the other races possessed and hired some of the top artisans in the universe to come up with exotic and swoon worthy designs. They then apply these designs to their existing great flying boxes by attaching low cost plastic molds to the exteriors. Unfortunately the entire effort has not improved their sales numbers as everyone who is interested in buying one of these great flying boxes purely for their “roomy interior” or “impressive fuel efficiency” immediately strips off the useless, slightly dangerous, and often flamboyantly silly exterior panels. This is what directly influenced the comedian lkjewrsldkfj in his famous joke: “What’s worse than showing up in a Tandarri cruiser? Showing up in a fully dressed Tandarri cruiser.”

Note 2- KU or known universe – commonly understood to be “the greater Zarlogian cloud of known space” as defined by the illustrious Zarlogg the Great (forever praise his name) Galactic President and only true God of the universe. This ever expanding theoretical cloud is somewhat of a misnomer as the great philosopher Gnarb the Extoller wrote in his highly controversial 437 part series: “Space: How can any being truly claim to own it?”