Reem left Kik alone to do the work, so he got down to business.

He stared at the nose of the mining drone. Its cameras stared back from above, below and to each side of its head. Moving around the sides of the vehicle, he inspected the exterior for signs of damage. Micrometeoroid impacts dotted the hardened exterior but none went deep enough to disrupt the craft’s function.

Inspecting the collection array, the central drill spun as he pushed it. There were no problems with motion there, but he’d have to look at the electronics later. The arms around the drill had no problems either, as far as he could see.

Moving down the length of the craft, he reached the engines just less than halfway back and spotted the first problem. Three of the attitude thrusters were missing. Kik made a mental note to search for replacements later and continued onwards.

The main engine was busted. A fuel line had been cut, emptying the tank out into space. The casing was dented and battered, and some of the parts inside would need replacing. When he opened the maintenance panel to get a look one of the fragile parts broke off with a crack.

Sliding under the vehicle he ran his eyes over the lower hull. This part was less beaten, but there was a rock wedged deep between two segments of the body. He would need tools to pull it out. He wasn’t going to stick his hand in there.

Kik took a moment to float up towards the ceiling. Stopping himself in midair with a burst of compressed air from his suit, he slowly pirouetted in empty space. Scanning across the room, he scoped out each of the crates in turn. His first order of business would be to get tools.

Drifting over to a magnetised tools chest, he pulled off an x-ray scanner attachment for his datapad and a magnetic screwdriver. Turning back to the machine, he snapped one hand. “Let’s get down to it.”

The engine proved difficult to find the problems in. The x-ray attachment helped, but it would only display the top layer of objects inside the cover in any detail. Beyond that would be blocked by the thickening metal.

Once he had removed the cover the pieces became easier to distinguish, but the problems with them remained elusive. Knowing how something worked didn’t help much in finding whether it would work as it should. He managed through comparison of the broken engine to working ones on the other craft. Over time broken pieces were removed and photographed so he could find the replacements later.

Once the engine was a bare hunk with only working pieces remaining, Kik beat the casing back into place. A few taps with a hammer and a spray of sealant was enough to fix any holes in the material. Any missing pieces of ceramic were held back in place by the sealant.

Kik held a sheet of composite ceramic and metal engine casing up to the light. He wondered what had caused the damage. It seemed that most of it had come from blunt force to the motor, but it would have had to strike with great force to damage the motor inside. More impressive was that the ship returned even with its motor broken and fuel lines cut. Perhaps it crawled back on auxiliary thrusters alone. Or perhaps it had been damaged sitting in this very dock.

Finding parts for the engine and replacing them in position took most of a day. When he checked his watch it was already evening. Not that the sun was setting, as there was no such thing as a sunset in space, but the work shift was over. He took another hour to replace the fuel piping before finishing. He hadn’t received permission to leave but he didn’t think he would need any.

He found his way back to his room with the map, making sure to note down the location of the hangar for the next day.

While resting in his cocoon, Kik considered what this ‘training’ was supposed to help him with. Learning how much of hi technical information he had was actually of any use? The skills required to live on a space station? That may be what he was learning but he didn’t feel like that was what the end result would be. It was the same with the balance training with Vist. It improved his balance, that was the result. But the true purpose behind the exercise had been to teach him to fight.

Kik fell asleep thinking of mechanical parts and robotics.

The next day was more hard work. Pulling the rock wedged between the segments was fine. Replacing the missing thrusters was fast too, but checking the other mechanical parts took time - particularly the drill and its surroundings. In the end they all checked out. The fuel tank was refilled, the cracks in the covering were sealed and a fresh coat of radiation resistant paint was applied.

Dusting his hands off and replacing the tools, Kik got a call from Reem. “The merchant convoy is leaving. If you want you can head over and say your goodbyes.”

“I’ll do that. Do you have any way of testing the craft? I’m more or less certain that it won’t blow up if it’s turned on.”

“I’ll bring a test controller down shortly. In the meantime get yourself to that hangar.” The transmission cut off.

The only merchant Kik wanted to farewell was Sal. He had spoken briefly to the other captains but he didn’t know any of them, by name or by personality. Salazar was almost the opposite - he could remember him too well.

Stepping into the hangar, Kik was greeted with his first view of Sal’s ship - and it was as opulent as he might have guessed. Rather than the standard grey it was painted a bright red. Yellow teeth and eyes were stencilled across the uplifted prow and bridge.

The silhouette of the ship was a kite, with the narrow end pointed towards the back. It was held to the ground by sturdy landing gear - no rooftop electromagnets there. All loading happened from a door beneath, ramp gaping open like a mouth. With the bridge poking out the top for the eyes and the engines extended behind like a tail, it reminded Kik of a…

“Stingray,” he said to himself.

“Exactly,” a familiar voice came from behind. “That’s her model. Those in the know call her the Sudden Flight though. And who might you be?”

Kik turned around and found himself face-to-chest with a heavy example of a man. He wasn’t tall, but he was gifted in… other proportions. Rotund would be an understatement. His brilliant yellow spacesuit did what it could to contain him, but somewhere along the line Sal had decided that it wasn’t enough and wrapped an additional belt around his midriff. Flesh bulged out on either side but at least the widest point was contained. His face behind the half-open visor was a dark shade of brown.

Stepping back and looking up at Sal, Kik nodded to him. “Nice to meet you in person. I’m Kik, temporary captain of the Benefactor.” He neglected to shake Sal’s hand but the person in question didn’t seem to care.

“Ha! Captain at your age, temporary as it may be? I you don’t have any plans I’ll hire you once your contract’s done.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’d prefer to stay with the Benefactor.”

Sal stepped forward and punched Kik in the gut. Kik doubled over, gasping and dry-retching. “Your loss. You’ll never hear that offer again. I’d stay, but the solar winds aren’t as patient as me. You’ll have to hear about my seventh wife another time.” He paused. “What’s that you say?”

Wheezing, Kik looked up. “Shame.” His head fell towards the floor again.

“Well then, my little captain, have a safe trip! Bon voyage!”

Kik nodded, standing straight as Sal reached the bottom of the ramp. A small silhouette in a matching yellow spacesuit awaited him at the top of the ramp. Sal threw himself to the floor before it, bending over awkwardly in the low gravity and kissing the steel. Finally he arose and they headed into the ship together.

An announcement came through the system. “All clear of the hangar, doors opening in two minutes.” Kik took that as his cue to leave.

Returning to the craft he was working on, Kik found a handheld controller. Its display flashed a message. “Good luck!” It was complete with a pixelated smiley-face icon. He snorted and swiped the screen clear before starting.

The controller did nothing. It turned on and transmitted a signal, but it didn’t reach the craft. The transmitted signal was without doubt on the right bandwidth with the right code. The problem had to lie with the drone.

That particular problem was a killer. This time the fault wasn’t with a mechanical part - that could be traced - but with a transmitter or receiver.

The fault turned out to be a burnt out motherboard near the antenna. He cut the wires and pulled it out. Once he had printed out a new circuit board and wired it back in the drone started without problems. Running through the range of motions it was capable of, the auxiliary motors turned freely and the central motor heated up on command. He had the common sense to not live test the motors inside a closed hangar.

Once everything had checked off Kik called Reem down. He arrived yawning, having only just finished his own sleep cycle.

“So are you done?”

“It was a pain figuring out how everything went together.”

“You know, if you had looked through the station computers, you would have found the plans on there.”

Kik looked dejected. “Oh.”

“It hardly matters now. So where’s the controller? Let me put the bird through its paces.”

Flicking through the controls one after another, Reem nodded in satisfaction. “It all checks out. Thrusters two and eight are a bit sluggish on their turns, but they’re opposite each other so it will cancel out. It won’t be hard to compensate for.”

“Now what?”

Reem turned to Kik and stared at him, his eyes slitting to their customary glare. “Now I suppose I owe you some information.”

Reem took a moment to collect his thoughts, clearing his throat and patting his chest. “I’ll start with the heavy stuff. So tell me, how much do you know about the organization that calls themselves the Order of Honesty?”

Kik shook his head. “I can’t say I’ve heard of them.”

“Then they probably haven’t introduced themselves as such. They’re a group of terrorists that style themselves as a mercenary company with a purpose. That’s just who they are though, not what they do. They tend to run around the sector, swaying the power balance in warzones. They most commonly intervene in internal power struggles. They also have well spread underground connections.”

“So where does the terrorist part come from?”

“Planets their forces visit never truly settle down. Even after they leave there are uprisings and unrest. Nothing can be proven, of course, but the incidents always start shortly after their forces leave. They always happen too. It’s given them a curse-like reputation, but rather than magic it’s more likely that they’re the ones causing it.”

Kik scratched his cheek. “That sounds bad if it’s actually them doing it. But then again you say that they only visit warzones. Wouldn’t the government be the most unstable after they’ve just fought a war?”

“Not if they won convincingly. Victory will keep the people happy for a few years as they savor peace and rebuild. After that perhaps they will look less kindly upon their rulers, but for a time the land must regrow. Their conquests break this rule - leaders are assassinated days after they proclaim victory.”

“Fine. So what’s their motive for doing this, then?”

“I was just getting to that.” Reem held up a small piece of machinery in his hand. “Recognize this?” It was a battery for a disruptor staff. It was identical to the one missing from Vist’s gift to him.

Kik’s eyebrows shut up. He brought them back down quickly but Reem had already noted the reaction, so there was no point lying. “I’ve seen one before. It’s a battery.”

“Correct, but there’s more to it than that. This technology wasn’t made by human hands.”

He paused for a reaction. Kik didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

“Keeping silent? It’s an alien product. It’s created by the Grasu Alliance. If you don’t believe me I can provide you with evidence of their weapons using them.” He brought up a diagram of a rifle on his datapad.

“No, I believe you. But what does that mean?”

Reem frowned at Kik’s lack of reaction. “Possibly nothing. Perhaps something. At least it means that the Order trusts alien technology more than their own race’s. And they have to have a supply route coming in somehow. That means they have trade. Trade means connections. And connections mean influence.”

“I think I’m starting to get what you’re saying. So the Order of Honesty is funded by the Grasu to spread dissent around the sector? I assume there’s some sort of benefit they gain from our inner turmoil.”

Reem nodded. “Have you heard of the Grasu?”

“Yes, they’re a polymorphic race of aliens based around three core bioforms…”

“Not what they are, their political position.”

“Right. They occupy the sector coreward of us where they struggle against humanity for a majority vote.”

“Exactly. And if they won the struggle other human sectors would move in and push them back. Humanity tends to band together against outside threats after all. So their only option is to make sure those sectors have enough trouble of their own and then win the sector in one push.”

Kik thought this through. “That seems fair. Thanks for the warning. But what does this have to do with me? I’m hardly going to go out and associate with terrorist groups.”

“You may not knowingly do so but you can still get caught up with them. Many of their contacts in the underworld are closely tied to Erstine. I would imagine that you’ve met a few already. And there’s one more person you should be aware of. Your father was a member of the Order. This was before you were born, but he would still be in contact with people from it.”

Kik nodded slowly. “I never knew.” His voice took on a wistful tone.

“Anyway. On to your mother. How much do you know about her past?”

“I know she grew up in space after leaving her home planet. She worked as a merchant or some such before meeting my father and for a short time after. Eventually they got married and found their own ship. That’s about all the major details about her I can remember.”

“So you don’t know. She used to be a pilot and engineer in the Conglomerate navy. She was a damn good one too. The two of us were in the same flight for a year, before she finished her time and left the military.”

“So you’re a pilot too? And then how come she never mentioned it to us?”

“I doubt she saw it as important. She never cared for medals or credit. She preferred to choose the target of the spotlight than sit in it herself. It may have been one of the reasons she ran away home, because her family tried to make her stand out too much.”

“Wait, she ran away? She told me she was allowed to go.”

Reem sighed. “I suppose she never got over that. Perhaps she did love her parents, although I’m certain the feeling was hardly mutual. Yes, she ran away. She stole a long-range scout from her family and flew off to who knows where. They just disowned her and let her go.”

Kik nodded. “I see. But enough about the details, you promised me stories. Pay up.”

Reem chuckled. “Nothing gets past you. Fine. I do have a few war stories for you. Let me tell you about the time our carrier, the Judgement of Ryxonis, ran into a lost Raffarian transport ship…”

Kik lay back in empty space and let the words wash over him. Reem was a good storyteller - animated and descriptive, although at times he would lapse into silence as he reflected within himself. Kik had to cough once or twice to regain his attention.

By the end of the tale Kik reached up to his face and realised he was crying. Reem gave him time to calm down before asking him anything.

“So how was the story?”

“Fine. Just fine. Do you have another?”

Reem sighed. “I suppose we’re not going to get anything else done this shift. Alright then, let me tell you about the time…”

Kik lowered his head again and listened, tears streaming down his cheeks. The taste of brine filled his mouth as the stories drew to their inevitable conclusion.

“So, what happens tomorrow?” Kik asked, as the pair returned to their rooms. “More stories?”

Reem’s mouth curved further up. “Not quite. You haven’t freed yourself from my clutches yet. This is only the end of day three. There’s still more than half a week left. I’ll be sure to push you hard in the remaining time.”

A grumble escaped Kik’s lips. He had forgotten about the rest of the training. “So what are we going to do now?”

“You’re going to learn how to fly.”

Kik’s head shot upright. “Training by an ex-military pilot? Count me in.”

Reem shrugged. “Something like that. It might not be as interesting as you think.”

Kik turned up early at Reem’s door the next day. The door was locked, so he swam laps in the zero gravity, floating between doorways and turning around at each end.

Reem slid open the door. “Fine. Let’s go. I’m not going to get any peace with you moving around out here anyway.”

Kik stuck close to Reem in the journey through the station. They didn’t run into more than one person on their trip so he had plenty of time to ask him questions. “How big’s the craft I’m going to fly? Is it a fighter? What’s its tonnage?”

“You’re not going to be flying anything yet. I don’t trust your first lesson with valuable equipment, especially not in treacherous space like this.”

“Wait, didn’t you say I was going to be flying?”

“I said you were going to learn. You don’t have to do something to learn it.”

“But don’t you learn better by doing the actual thing?”

“That’s exactly why we have simulations.” Reem stepped into another room, this one marked with a blue light for storage space.

The room lit up to reveal three icosahedrons - twenty-sided shapes. They were suspended in space by a set of wires attached to the floor, walls and ceiling. Five of the faces, the ones pointing towards the entrance, were kept clear of the wires.

“Get in,” Reem said. “And strap yourself down. The lesson starts now.” He pressed a button on the side of the middle object. The five faces without wires opened away from the whole. A single seat inside was revealed, surrounded by wiring and controls.

Climbing in, Kik finished asking his questions. “So what am I going to fly?”

“A mining drone.”

Kik stopped. “A drone? Not a fighter?”

“Why, is a drone too easy for you?”

“No, but… it’s not cool.”

Reem brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his spacesuit. “And who’s going to see you pilot this anyway? Why does it matter if you look cool if your only audience is me and the simulator? Stop worrying about whether you look stupid and start thinking about whether you have any piloting skills at all. Although I admit, the fireball you’d make when ramming a fighter into an asteroid would be cooler than if you used a mining drone. Expensive but cool.”

“Point taken.” Kik finished buckling himself down.

Reem closed the lid when Kik was ready and the lights inside flickered on. The container was bathed in a yellow glow, with a single red light flashing above the terminal.

Looking around himself, there was a keyboard to his right but it was locked against the wall. Kik assumed he didn’t need it. For controls he had a joystick for direction, throttle for thrust and an array of unmarked levers. Sealed inside the virtual cabin, he took off his helmet and placed it on the ground beside him. A faint breeze played across his face from the ventilation.

Reem’s voice came in over a speaker. “I’m starting the simulation now. Your fuel will be unlimited to start with so just play around as much as you like and get used to the controls. I’ll be watching from out here so try not to embarrass yourself too much.”

“Alright, go ahead.” Kik tensed up and grabbed the joystick and throttle, prepared for anything.

The light up on top switched to a steady green shine. The screen lit up to the black of space and a white dot appeared on its centre. A line of text beneath it read ‘3,000’. His controls flickered on in orange.

“That circle in the centre of your screen is your destination. The first task is to stop inside it, but get used to the controls first. Try accelerating.”

Pushing forward on the throttle, a slight tug of acceleration pressed Kik back into his seat. An orange line through space appeared. It travelled from behind him through a spot beneath his feet to directly ahead. A number beside it appeared and increased. Kik counted as it rose. “20… 120… 250… What does that arrow and those numbers show?”

“That’s your current velocity relative to your target point, in kilometres per hour.”

Kik eased back on the throttle. The pull on his body receded and the number settled down to 325.

“How come I feel weight when I accelerate? I’m just sitting still in a machine after all.”

“There’s a small gravitational field generator in the machine. It can only reach about a fiftieth of a gravity unit when you’re in contact with it, but it’s enough to let you feel a pull.”

Kik eyed the machine with newfound respect. Running gravity generators outside a vacuum wasn’t cheap - particularly the dark matter storage.

“How about you try turning the craft? You’re not going to learn anything if you laze around all day.”

Kik twisted the joystick to the left and returned it to rest. The craft’s forward motion turned into a spin. The yellow line flashed in and out of view, the number beside it unchanged, but the craft itself lost all sense of a solid heading. Kik was pressed against the straps to the side of the module.

Pushing forward on the throttle as they turned, the craft went into an out of control loop the loop, spinning around the same central position relative to its path.

Letting the thruster out again, Kik slowly reduced the craft’s spin. Moving the joystick in the opposite direction to the craft’s turn, he brought down the speed until he had to stop or he would overcompensate.

Testing out the vertical spin by pushing the joystick forwards or backwards, Kik pointed the nose at the destination and cracked his knuckles. Time to do this.

Accelerating forwards, Kik checked how far he had left to go - 2,991 km. He would accelerate until the 1,400 km mark, turn around and accelerate back.

Most of the drift was a boring wait. Kik’s only job was to compensate for slight errors in the craft’s heading.

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Once he reached the turning point, Kik eased the throttle and spun the craft around. Checking his speed, he was up to almost six thousand kilometres an hour.

The second half was similar, but he had to look over his shoulder to see his heading compared to the target. Most of the time was spent sitting there tapping his fingers on the joystick.

Kik undershot and then overshot the kilometre-wide target zone twice. It took him five minutes to get inside and another three to reach a point the simulation considered unmoving. Finally he passed it and the inside faded to black again, except for the blinking red light.

“That wasn’t so hard,” Kik said to Reem outside. “It was a bit boring if anything. I know at least that much piloting from flying larger ships.”

“I see. I’m sure you’ll be challenged soon. We’re changing up the rules a little bit. You still have to stop on top of the destination but this time there are objects you have to avoid. Think of them as micrometeoroids. I your cushy ships with their defence batteries you don’t have to worry about them, but this is an unarmed and unarmoured drone. One hit from a micrometeoroid and you’d be badly damaged, if not crippled.”

The screen faded back in again, the layout the same as the last simulation. But this time there were yellow lines dotted across the screen. Each of these lines were in fact rays, indicating the direction of motion of a moving point. The lines darkened to red as they drew closer to the actual object itself, hurtling through space at interplanetary speeds.

Kik piloted his way along with the same method, but this time he had to change his heading every so often as it crossed on of the lines. He finished this stage without trouble too.

The training progressed as fast a snail in high gravity, with Kik flying for an hour each time Reem set a new parameter on the training. Larger elements were added, from larger asteroids with their own microgravity to a planet Kik had to traverse around. The arrow showing his momentum bent around objects with gravity - so rather than momentum it would be more appropriate to say it predicted his path.

When the micrometeoroids were added back in alongside the larger asteroids, the processors were unable to keep up and the machine started lagging. Kik had to restart once or twice as he was hit from below or above by a micrometeoroid that had popped into view a few seconds ago from behind an asteroid.

Kik didn’t reach the final level till that evening. In it he had to traverse the outer orbit of a black hole. On top of the multitudes of micrometeoroids and asteroids slowly drifting past him towards it, there were also gravity fluctuations and radiation bursts that stretched out from the hole in massive sheets. Wandering into these for too long would, over time, shake the craft to pieces or destroy its electronics.

In exchange, the target was placed a mere two hundred kilometres away. It was still a struggle reaching the target zone with the repeated emissions. They would disappear almost as soon as they arrived and pop up in another location.

Finally he was able to clear the level by noticing a pattern in the disturbances. When they appeared in a certain spot, they wouldn’t appear there again for a brief period. Once they appeared on one side of his vision, they would soon appear on the other. There was some sort of rotation going in in the singularity which was affecting the outside. He couldn’t figure out the complete picture with his limited sensor range but he could guess what was going to happen next in the area he could detect.

Once he had stopped in the final target zone, Kik called out to Reem. “Is that all you’ve got for me?”

“Not exactly. We’re done for today though. Get back to your room and get some rest.”

Kik sighed. “Fine. I was starting to enjoy this though. It was actually a challenge at the end.”

“Don’t worry, there will be plenty more for you to worry about later on. Meet me here again tomorrow morning and you’ll see what I mean.” Reem stayed behind and typed on the keyboard inside the simulator as Kik left.

Kik turned up before Reem again and waited. As the person in question drifted down the corridor, a few minutes late, Kik pestered him with questions. “So can I pilot a fighter today? I want to shoot something. And when will we get to the real thing?”

“Relax, relax. No, you’ll be using the same craft as last time. It’s back in the middle simulator once again. There are a few more challenges waiting for you before you move onto something a bit more complex.”

“Such as?”

Reem gestured to the open capsule. “Why not jump in and find out?”

Clambering into the capsule again, it sealed and turned on. As the screen lit up Kik noticed a new bar on the top of the screen, just above head height. It was currently full.

“What’s that indicator at the top?”

“That’s your fuel level. If it’s depleted before you stop in the area, you lose. Well, it’s half the fuel the craft can carry, but in reality you need the other half to get back to wherever you launched from.”

The screen flickered into life with a black screen and a series of yellow lines across it. Kik looked for a red dot, indicating an object with gravity, but he didn’t find any.

“Did you start me off back at the start again?”

“No, you skipped the first level. But before you complain, try it out. It’s harder to complete than it looks.”

Kik ran out of fuel just over halfway the first time. He used half on accelerating then more on dodging asteroids, and by the time he turned around and started to decelerate he was out.

Trying again, Kik completed the level, but the slower speed took him much longer - almost two hours.

As he progressed through the levels, Kik struggled to find a balance between speed and fuel consumption. Faster speed meant less dodging was required, but dodging and deceleration took up more fuel. Slower speed meant more evasive movement was needed over the same distance but less fuel was used on those and stopping again.

The end of that day finished with Kik stuck on the final level - this one was a problem, as his previous tactic called for some complete stops to avoid bursts from the black hole.

The next day was Kik’s sixth day aboard the station. In the morning he managed to luck out and finish the final level, pushing through and dodging the danger zones almost by accident.

Kik let out a small cheer as he glided to a halt in the target zone. “Did you see that?”

Reem provided a voice of wisdom. “I did, but don’t get overconfident. There’s still a challenge or two left.”

“Well what is there? I completed all the missions already.”

“But do you know how to take off and land? That’s the hardest part of piloting.”

“Oh. Well it can’t be that bad, can it?”

Reem didn’t reply, letting Kik experience the next stage for himself. The screen lit up again, except this time instead of a complete black the ship was surrounded on five sides by metal walls. Only ahead was the blackness of space.

Kik kept the joystick steady and pushed the throttle forward. The drone rocketed from the hangar. Turning around and looking behind him, Kik could see a box containing nothing other than the hangar he had emerged from. It receded in the distance as the craft accelerated forwards.

Reaching the target after an hour and a half, the white target zone switched off after he drew within ten kilometres of the area. Instead an irregular chunk of rock sat in the area, spinning on the spot. It was just over a hundred metres in diameter.

“That’s what you’re going to land on,” Reem told Kik. “You’ll need the keyboard for this one. I should have left it unlocked for you. Touch up against it when you’re ready. First type ‘low’ in. That will reduce your maximum engine power and give you more control over your speed.”

Kik did so and the drop on his fuel gauge decreased. He had about three percent left in the meter, which should be enough to cover the last few kilometers and make a landing.

Kik drifted in under his previous momentum, giving occasional bursts of the engine to speed up or slow down and avoid incoming micrometeoroids.

“Alright,” Reem said as the ship drew ever closer to the asteroid. “Align your base to the rock then type in ‘control’. That will lock your heading in place and let you steer with only your attitude thrusters. Keep an eye on your remaining fuel, too. You have under a percent remaining.”

Kik did as he said and then moved around. Nothing changed about the controls except that turning used up no fuel and the thrusters were more ineffective.

“You’re going too fast,” Reem said. “Ease up there.”

“What do you mean? I’m only going at five kilometres an hour,” said Kik, turning his head around to see an approaching wall of rock.

A red damage display flashed on the screen as the craft’s momentum switched direction - he had bounced off the asteroid. His landing gear was wrecked and his lower attitude thrusters were damaged.

“We’re still going? I’m supposed to land with this damage?” Kik asked. He throttled towards the rock for another try, but before he could reach it the screen turned black.

“You used all your fuel,” Reem told him.

After another failed try, Reem gave up. “Alright, get out of the seat. I’ll change around the length of the level to give you more practice. I’m falling asleep from the time you take to get from a to b. You need more practice with the ending or all that effort will be worthless. Let me guess, when you pilot a spacecraft you let the autopilot control the landing sequence?”

“Well I’m hardly about to gamble with a multi million credit piece of equipment.”

“Boring attitude. You don’t learn anything that way. You’re young. Make some mistakes. Live a little.”

Reem replaced Kik in the chair and typed his way through a series of commands before getting out again. “Alright, that should be set up for you to practice landing. You’ll only have to travel thirty kilometres to get to your destination now.”

Trying out the altered settings, Kik managed to land on his twelfth try. All he had to do once he was against the rock was type ‘connect’ and the craft would lock to it, its segmented body twisting to align with the texture. He kept going on the practice map though, wanting to get his technique up to a reliable standard.

He made one try at the full-length simulation but got impatient and was hit by a micrometeoroid before he could reach the end. A broken line spilled out his remaining fuel and he ran out far before reaching the end.

The next day Kik prepared himself for progress and wasn’t disappointed. He breezed through the exercises until the final, the last simulation. Before he could start, however, Reem powered off the machine.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll turn it on again in a second. But before you start, just hear me out. You don’t have to finish this level if you don’t want to. You’ve already passed the test. Just accumulate as much practice as you can and we’ll leave once you’re ready to try out a real craft.”

Kik breathed out. He had logged far over thirty hours in the simulator in the past three days, but was he ready for the real thing? “Alright. I’ll let you know when I feel prepared to try my hand.”

The final level was as hard as expected. Kik took his time on the landings and even then he failed many times. The worst part was the tidal effect of the gravity. It wasn’t noticeable when he was moving at high speeds, but it actually caused a slight movement in the craft. When he was only moving at a walking pace in the final landing, a gravity fluctuation would easily knock him off course. It was also rare for him to even get close to the target due to his fuel running out.

As he failed time and again, Kik grew more frustrated. Why couldn’t it go right? He knew what he had to do so why wasn’t he doing it correctly? As his frustration built and caused mistakes, those mistakes themselves caused more frustration. His annoyance built over the day until he realised his problem.

Taking a few rounds to relax himself, he deliberately crashed into micrometeoroids. After a few tries of this, he regained his sense of calm and feeling for the controls.

Before he took off, though, he considered his next move. Was he gaining anything here attempting something he probably wasn’t able to do? Or would he be better off applying his efforts somewhere else?

“I’m ready to move on,” he said to Reem.

“What? Oh, you’re done huh. Tired of breaking a bunch of virtual dots to bits? Want to try it with a real drone?”

“Well I’m not going to learn anything on this exercise with the time I have left.”

“Alright then. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to postpone the flight until tomorrow. It’s almost time to finish the shift. I’ll have a final check over the craft early tomorrow so we’re ready. You’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow too, so you’ll only have one shot. Come down here tomorrow and run the simulator through yourself, get some final practice before we start.”

Climbing out, Kik jerked the cramps out of his legs before floating down to the floor. “That sounds good to me.”

Kik tossed and turned that night but finally got to sleep when his tired mind shut down.

The practice the next day was standard and easy. Kik didn’t know how to change levels, so it was stuck on what Reem had last changed it to. It was a long-distance trek with celestial bodies both large and small. He powered through two of them before Reem showed up to take him to the site.

Following his mentor through the corridors, Kik noticed that they began to be more populated. He also noticed that people were giving Reem strange looks.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“Oh, I usually don’t show my face around the station so there are more rumours known about me than facts. They’re probably just confused about why I’d turn up in the middle of the station with an unfamiliar twelve year old. I’m sure they’ll be saying that you’re my illegitimate child by the end of the day. It’s not that far from the truth, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I am your godfather.”

Kik stopped for a moment. “What’s a godfather?”

“It’s an old tradition, it doesn’t have any legal meaning now though. It used to mean that if something happened to your parents I would take care of you. It’s not quite that simple now though.”

“How so?”

“Oh, the conglomerate cracks down on laws caused by religion. As you might guess from the name, the origin is religious. So in the eyes of the law, you and me have no connection. I could adopt you I suppose, but it won’t have much meaning since you’re already in a contract with Erstine. That, unfortunately, is legally binding.”

Kik sealed his visor and thought this through in silence, but Reem interrupted him with a tap to his temple. “We’re here.”

Opening the door to the drone control room, Reem waved to a man by the door and continued inside. At least here it seemed he was recognized. Perhaps the man was just too busy with the terminal to notice.

The space was more than triple the size of the simulation room, in two of the dimensions at least. Compared to the three isohedrons in the simulation room, this one contained eighteen. They were arranged in a six by three grid across the floor space.

Kik stopped near the door as Reem continued inside. “Why did we bother coming here? These are exactly the same as the simulators back in the other room.”

Reem shook his head. “These ones are connected to the network of small craft. They don’t have any capability for simulation, but instead they control and read events in the real world.”

Kik buckled into a capsule as Reem sealed it behind him. “Good luck out there.”

“Thanks,” Kik managed as the capsule sealed with a hiss.

The screen lit up, pixelated but more than understandable. Looking around, Kik realised the view was from the hangar he had fixed the craft in. Looking around he could even spot the spaces the bins of tools and parts had previously sat. They were gone now, sealed away in preparation for decompression.

The hangar doors before him cracked open and split to the floor and ceiling. The air inside the hangar rushed through the widening crack, although Kik of course noticed no difference.

The black of space opened up ahead through the widening jaws of the station. Sunlight glinted off rocks hanging in orbit, shining through the asteroids to the edges of the system and beyond.

After taking a moment to enjoy the view, Kik got moving. He started easy on the throttle, as his destination wasn’t dead ahead for once. Once clear of the station he swung around to face the comet on the edge of the asteroids and throttled forward.

His flight was a short one this time, a mere eight hundred kilometres of void travel. He should make it to the target within twenty minutes. The asteroid field was thick but the station’s position near the edge of the swarm meant he could escape through lower density paths to clear space.

Traversing the asteroid field posed no challenge, but problems set in when he turned around to decelerate. He was out of the shadow of the station so the sun filled his view. Sections of it were blocked by asteroids but not enough to clear his screen.

The screen darkened and took what pressure it could off of him, but the ship’s sensors were played around with by the bright light.

“How am I supposed to deal with the sun?” Kik asked Reem. “I can’t pilot like this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” was the reply. “Just watch behind you. Your instruments there should be enough. On the way back your sensors should have accumulated enough data over time to figure out exactly what is coming from where.”

Taking Reem’s word for it, Kik continued on to a slow drift above the surface of the comet. Its tail blew away from the sun in a stream of gas and vapour, disappearing into nothingness in the space between the stars.

Starting the landing sequence, Kik inched towards the icy surface. Switching to auxiliary thrusters, he settled down the craft, its landing gear sinking into the ice at the point of contact. Clouds of material were kicked up by the impact. Kik had the peculiar sensation of seeing the dusty film appear but not the object that caused the disturbance, the landing gear edited out of the image by the display software.

Aligning the craft’s body to the comet’s surface, Kik spoke to Reem. “So I’ve landed. What do I do now?”

“Start collecting. Just type in ‘deploy’ and the collector will do its own thing. Once it has enough ice and water it will stop and you can return.”

Giving the command, a progress bar flashed up on the screen. It jumped up in chunks whenever a new segment of ice was cut off and stored. Looking around while bored, Kik could see many spots on the comet where the surface had been scarred by drilling or cutting. His was far from the first craft to harvest the comet for water.

Reem contacted Kik again once the progress bar was complete. “To get off the rock, just reverse your landing sequence. Type in ‘end’ before the action to cancel it. So to disconnect from the rock type ‘end connect’, then for the next stage ‘end control’, and finally to get up to orbital speeds type ‘end low’. From there it should be a quick flight back to the hangar. Takeoff is considerably easier than landing.”

Doing as Reem suggested, Kik managed the launch with no problems. He reached almost halfway back before running into a problem.

A tiny rock struck the craft in one of its cameras. It was next to invisible as it came almost directly from the sun. It didn’t break anything permanently, but the grass cracked and most of the right side of Kik’s display turned a broken mess of cracks. The camera was shaken loose by the impact and as the craft accelerated the right side of his view wobbled. A red damage message popped up on the screen.

Kik managed to reach the halfway point and turn around, but he still couldn’t see anything to his right. He could see in that direction if he stopped decelerating to turn his screen, but then he wouldn’t stop before hitting the station.

In the end he had to trust the return trip to luck and hope that there were no more micrometeoroids in his way. He kept an eye over his shoulder, specifically on the right side, and couldn’t see anything approaching. But there was always a chance one would appear from a blind spot behind an asteroid.

At last he reached the hangar, having taken a single glancing hit which did nothing more than dent the plating. Slowing himself down and backing into the hangar, Kik let out a sigh of relief as he stopped moving. The hangar doors closed shut behind him and atmosphere filled the hangar again. A repair crew emerged to look over the craft as the screens faded to black.

Kik clambered out of the cockpit and met Reem’s handshake.

“Congratulations,” Reem said with a grin. “You pass. You have the level of piloting skill that I would expect from an older fighter pilot trainee.”

“Just a trainee?”

“Don’t get too cocky. There are more kinds of people than there are stars in the galaxy. Countless numbers of them are amazing pilots. Maybe you’ll get there one day, but you still have a long way to go. Count yourself lucky, though, that you have so long to get there.”

“So basically I’m bad but I could be better with practice?”

Reem shrugged. “Only you can say that. I don’t know how you’d go in a real dogfight. If you manage to keep a cool head - and that’s just an if - you might do rather well.”

Kik unsealed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. “So what happens now? Can I fly a real fighter? Finally?”

Reem laughed. “Still going on about that? I would like to. Unfortunately starfighters don’t come cheap. If you can get yourself one and let me have a spin with it, I’d be more than happy to teach you to fly it. Until then, though, I don’t think there’s much chance.”

Kik sighed. “It was worth a try. So what comes next? More simulations?”

“Not quite. You’ve already had your eight days aboard the station. It’s time to move on.”

“Already? Fine. Where to next?”

“I hear there’s an interesting jungle which needs attention for some rescue mission or other. A passenger is awaiting your departure.”

“Sounds like it could be fun.” Kik buckled on his helmet and followed Reem to his next job.