I tightened the last bolt and rolled out from underneath the large sewing machine. The type of bolts I’d used were overkill, but the sewing machine would die of old age before it fell off the wall again.

I put my tools in my belt pouch and stood up. “There you go. I fixed the damaged gears and bolted it to the wall. It would be advisable to run a calibration when you turn it on.”

The nearby seamstress glanced up from the leggings she was hemming. “Thank you, Rachel. I asked Maintenance to look at it a while ago, but Steve was too busy. I know he’s the only one in that area and doesn’t have an assistant at the moment. I didn’t think it would actually fall off the wall, or I would have added that detail to the repair request.”

Busy. Right. Busy playing pool with Mack all day instead of doing their jobs. Steve’s last assistant had quit, and he hadn’t bothered hiring another since my overseer, Mack, let him assign smaller stuff to me.

Technically, minor repairs like this were supposed to be done by the Maintenance group, not a junior assistant from the Cargo Bay. The captain either didn’t notice or didn’t care since things were getting done.

 “No problem. I’m happy I could help.”

The seamstress stood up. “Since you’re here, could you take a look at the light fixture in the fabric room? The ticket has been open for over a week.”

“Sure. I can take a look.”

This may have been a hundred light-years away from my official tasks in the Cargo Bay, but I wasn’t about to protest or voice a complaint. Minor repairs were far better than dealing with my overseer in the Cargo Bay.

I propped a ladder beneath the misbehaving light as I dismissed my internal complaints. There wasn’t much to do in the Cargo Bay in the middle of a voyage, and helping with maintenance tickets kept me from getting bored.

After removing the screws, I let the light fixture dangle on the supporting chain that all spaceship lights were required to have. I pulled out my favorite gadget, a handheld device called an Analyzer.

I pressed a few buttons on the advanced piece of equipment and held it close to the light fixture. A red light scanned the fixture before an image and words appeared on the display screen.

I had saved up to buy this high-end model and its advanced software, and it had been worth every piece of astro gold. The screen told me exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. It even included a diagram of which wires had to be spliced, and it even provided links to various tutorials in case I needed them.

I hummed as I fixed the light, idly daydreaming about sending my university an anonymous letter complaining that the three years of classes hadn’t prepared me for repair tasks like replacing the cooling elements on the artificial gravity capacitors. That would have them scratching their heads.

Less than a minute later, the light was fixed. I marked the work ticket as fixed on my Analyzer and closed the ticket. The seamstress looked up from calibrating her sewing machine as I came out of the room.

“It’s fixed. Do you need anything else?”

Politeness was a necessity on a cargo hauler like this one. More than three-quarters of the ship was comprised of holding bays and storage areas packed full of trade goods. With just over two hundred crew members, space was at a premium.

Besides, I had nothing against the seamstress. She had been polite even though her work ticket had been sitting for weeks on end without a response or update. She was just happy to have it fixed. It was crew members like these who I enjoyed helping.

She smiled. “Thank you so much, Rachel! I can’t think of anything else. I hope you enjoy your evening.”

“Thanks. You too”

I walked down the corridor and checked my Analyzer for any urgent work tickets or emergencies. As per usual, the Cargo Bay list was completely empty. With a sigh, I opened up the Maintenance list. Hundreds of tickets were open, but all of them were low priority.

My shift was over in five minutes, so I headed back to the Cargo Bay to ensure nothing else needed to be done. Mack would have contacted me via my communication device if anything had come up, but it was still policy and protocol.

I reached the main Cargo Bay loading dock just as he was leaving his office and asked him, “Is there anything left that needs to be done?”

“Nah, mid-voyage is dead boring. Always is. See ya tomorrow, Rookie.”

“Sounds good.” I headed down a different corridor. Mack might not be anywhere near the top of the ideal boss list, but he was far from the worst. His disorganization allowed me a lot of freedom in how I handled my duties, which was a huge perk.

I headed to the mess hall and sat at an empty table while waiting for Cynthia. Using my Analyzer, I checked my email. Other than a newsletter with Analyzer tips, there was nothing. My brother knew my shift; he would call my personal computer in my room later.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

No replies to the many resumes and applications I filled out and submitted regularly, although I wasn’t really expecting one. It might be easy to get into the large galactic universities to train for the numerous careers among the spaceships, but getting a job on board was an entirely different story.

Even though I had started submitting resumes the instant I entered university and continued doing so throughout all three years of schooling, there had been only one inquiry.

I’d been so nervous that I’d done extensive research on the spaceship. I had almost certainly been hired because I hadn’t expressed any interest in what we were hauling, even though it was a standard question for a Cargo Bay position in case we needed additional safety training for hazardous materials.

An official trading spaceship like this went through too many spaceport inspections to risk hauling something seriously illegal, like death phasers or compulsion smokeweed, but certain crates with obscure labels undoubtably contained things that were in the grey area of importing regulations or only banned on certain planets, which we may or may not have been scheduled to visit.

Cynthia walked in, and after a look at the long line up by the buffet, she slid into the chair beside me. “The strawberries are back on track! The first ones should be ready tomorrow, but it’ll be a few days before there’s enough to grace the dining hall.”

In other words, the high-ranking crew members would get first dibs.

I smirked. “So it was the fertilizer regulator?”

She elbowed me in jest. “Smart-aleck. Whatever you did fixed it, although Steve hadn’t found anything wrong when he scanned it previously.”

Why someone in charge of Maintenance would use the cheapest Analyzer on the market baffled me. My Analyzer had told a different story, but I didn’t dare say anything or talk down someone in a superior position, even if they weren’t present.

I shrugged. “Perhaps it was just starting to go, and I scanned it when it was acting up.”

Both of us knew the truth, but neither of us could say it out loud. Every spaceship had dozens of sensors and audio pickups in every public room and corridor. They were supposedly meant to locate the crew members or intruders in an emergency or a pirate attack, but the surveillance worked equally well to watch for any signs of discontent.

Cynthia stood up. “Let’s go see what they managed to cook up in the way of dinner tonight.”

I reluctantly followed her. Even my advanced Analyzer wasn’t sure what to make of some of the food that was occasionally served in the areas where low-ranking crew members ate.

I spooned things onto my plate and gingerly added a small spoonful of anonymous, grey paste to one untenanted corner. The sign proclaimed it to be pork casserole, but it looked very similar to some of the glues I had used earlier today.

Once back at our table, I ate some salad while waiting for Cynthia to work up enough courage to try the grey paste. I had no qualms about letting someone else hazard the food they served here. The cooks always tested new recipes on the assistants, and this was the pork casserole’s first appearance.

Cynthia’s face scrunched up, and she quickly lifted her napkin to her mouth to spit out the offending sludge.

My caution had paid off once again. “That bad, huh?”

She shuddered as she replied, “That was almost as bad as last week’s soup.”

That was not a good thing. I used a corner of my napkin to remove the tiny spoonful from my plate lest it contaminate everything else from its isolated corner.

“Ah, here you two are.” Logan slid into the seat beside Cynthia. The computer technician set his plate in front of him. “You probably haven’t heard yet, but there’s going to be a large software update tomorrow after lunch. The official announcement is coming out in a couple of hours.”

Cynthia sat up straighter. “Which systems are they updating? The sprinkler timers always go haywire if they touch that system.”

“The captain found a big sale, so we’re updating the thruster software and doing a major upgrade on the Main Database Console. That system hasn’t been updated in decades, so this will be a big improvement. We’ll have shut down a lot of systems while it updates though.”

 “When are they doing this update?” I asked, already thinking ahead. “Are we going to lose artificial gravity?”

Thrusters weren’t something you wanted to update while docked in case they kicked in momentarily or sputtered when firing up, but if we lost gravity, it could cause less-than-entertaining situations in the cargo holds. The retraining straps were just as reliable as the rest of the aged equipment on this ship.

Logan shrugged. “Mid-afternoon. The thrusters have to be taken offline during the update. We’ll upgrade the ship’s AI at the same time, which means we’ll be on basic life support until the upgrade is complete. We’re hoping we won’t lose gravity, but it’s a possibility. No more than an hour at the most.”

“Thanks. I’ll have to ensure the big equipment is all strapped down.” Having a loader float above you when the anti-grav might kick in at any moment was a guaranteed way to send your heart racing.

“No problem.” He dug his spoon into the grey paste on his plate.

I kept a straight face. “Logan, I dare you to put a bowlful of that stuff on the snack table in the bridge.”

He paused to examine the paste and my expression. I had plenty of practice in hiding my true emotions after three years of university. The faintest glint of mischief might show in my eyes, but only those who knew me well could spot it. My wording would have given me away though.

He slowly put his spoon back down. “And what’s in it for me if I do?”

All of us knew he would never do such a thing. Pulling pranks on the captain and bridge crew could easily get him fired and left at the next planet we docked at.

I kept my voice passive. “I’ll let you win the next chess game.”

“That isn’t a game. It’s an archaic system that in no way makes allowances for spaceships and space travel.”

“Please try the paste. It will convey the exact message that I have for such a response.” Chess was a perfectly good game as far as I was concerned. It may have been so old it creaked, but the strategy it taught was still useful.

Logan shook his head. “This is why I rarely eat here. I think I’ll go in search of my team and eat with them. Why the cooks keep trying to poison you trainees is beyond me. It just gives the medics more work.”

“Traitor. Where’s your courage?”

He refused to give into my faint challenge, simply stating, “My courage simply prefers to dine on fancier fare, so I shall bid you a good evening.”

Logan wandered off in search of food that wasn’t so dubious. In his position, he was able to eat decent food with the overseers and similarly ranked crew members.

Cynthia and I finished our dinner and went to our private quarters since we were expecting calls from family members. One the biggest perks on this ship was that everyone got their own room. It was barely big enough for a small bed, but we didn’t have to share it with others.

*   *   *

The polished version of this story will be released on Amazon in several months.

This rough draft will remain free for people to enjoy.