Gaylen breathed in deep.

“Algae.”

“What?” Kiris said next to him.

“They use algae for the air,” Gaylen clarified. “Not just machinery. It’s always a nice touch. Also a good sign about what you can expect from a station. Jaquan, come on and feel this!”

He turned at the sound of his friend limping out of the Addax’s airlock. The slight, unassuming man, clad, as ever, in a mechanic’s outfit filled his lungs with relish.

“Yep,” Jaquan said happily. “That’s organic alright.”

He turned to Kiris.

“We have a ways to go before you’re a proper spacer, woman,” Jaquan said affably.

“I’ll defer to expert opinion,” the gold-skinned, gold-haired, gold-eyed woman said. She didn’t smile, that was still a bit of a rarity, but there was an ease about the way she said it. It made Gaylen smile, and he made sure she saw it before he kept moving.

Setting foot on a large space station for the first time had been an awe-inspiring experience, just as it was for almost every person he’d even brought it up with. Repetition had, sadly, worn the awe down to mere appreciation, as it did with most things. But there were enough stations that were some combination of cheap, ancient, poorly maintained and battle-scarred that he could delight in finding a good one.

One could, perhaps, compare it to the difference between a passionate new romance, and a long-term relationship.

“Bers, what do you smell?”

Weirdly loud footsteps preceded a man spawned by the galaxy’s Outer Fringe, and its mysteries. To Gaylen’s minds, one of the bigger mysteries was how a man who was so incredibly lethal in close combat could walk so awkwardly.

“And no, your beard doesn’t count,” Jaquan added.

The big Fringer split his scarred face in a grin at that, and tugged on the growth that was just as long and wild as the one on top of his head. Then he did take a deep breath of his own.

“Mmm. Blood. Meat. Bourbon.”

“Right. Well, let’s have those things in moderation.”

Bers let out a dark chuckle. They sealed up the Addax, and with nothing to deliver this time around, they simply walked out of the docking port.

Black Brayer Station continued to show early promise in Gaylen’s personal ranking system, odd name notwithstanding. The general arrival area was clean, and the wear on the cleaning drone stations showed that it was no fluke. The air was good, the lighting was just enough without hurting the eyes, there was a big, glowing map right where every new arrival could see it, and the overall layout made for a good flow of foot traffic.

A solid reputation was all well and good, but it was only ever words until personal experience came into the picture.

Then, of course, there was the jobs desk, a common but not universal arrangement for stations that survived by being a freelance trade thoroughfare. A holographic display above made it clear that jobs were available, and the woman behind the counter gave them her full attention as they approached. The display also showed which languages could be used without a translator, and Gaylen went with Gyvo.

“Greetings.”

“Greetings, flyer!” she replied, with slightly affected cheer. “I see this is your first visit to Black Brayer.”

“It is, but we all looked over the rules as we drifted in,” Gaylen said, and lifted out the lapels of his coat. “No guns.”

“I also see that you are listed as available.”

“We are, depending on the job.”

“Of course,” she said, and scrolled through a small screen. “And I see your cargo capacity is…”

“I should mention that we are willing to max out the volume, but not the weight,” he told her. “You need to be nimble out there. Especially these days.”

“Indeed,” she said, with a slight sigh in her voice. “These days.”

She waved her other hand, and another row of information came to life. A smaller motion moved the holographic words and numbers, so that Gaylen’s group had a better view of it.

“The war is winding down, so they say. But the chaos in its wake isn’t going away so fast. Some worlds left devastated, others suddenly important for the first time ever. Major lanes too dangerous to travel, while others are getting clogged with traffic…”

Gaylen didn’t need to hear this, nor did he need an explanation for the display. He knew some of them already. They were known pirate attacks in recent weeks.

“Overall, a recipe for this,” she went on. “Now, I see you’ve been flying for a year and a half.”

“As a freelancer,” he said. “I have a lot more experience than that.”

“Indeed. And I see that in that time, you’ve dumped cargo twice.”

He looked back at her, neither awkward, defensive, nor angry. Word got around on the outer lanes, even if it could take a while. And in the decentralised mess that the Nearer Fringe was, a reputation was valuable currency.

“Yes,” he said. “Pirates. We needed to shed the weight. But your information should also tell you that we’ve been flying non-stop for this year and a half. Two dumps isn’t bad, and you know it.”

“I do know it,” she said. “But it isn’t perfect either. Still, we have a job that has been delayed for two days, due to a lack of available pilots.”

She switched out the pirate attacks for a detailed job listing.

“Our station has an agreement with several farming communities. They deliver produce here, and we see that it gets places where it’s worth all the more. Currently, we are talking about fifty tons of fresh fruit, in two hundred small containers. We want them to reach Arris-Beyond-White within 120 hours.”

The ideal leap-route was highlighted on a small-scale starmap, zigzagging across vast distances that only the lanes would allow a human being to traverse. Gaylen did a quick mental calculation, consisting of the numbers before him, what he knew of the Addax’s abilities, and the weight they would be taking on.

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“Sure, we can do it,” he said.

“Excellent,” she replied, still in that flat, businesslike tone. “Just be aware that this job is on a timer. The recipients know when the produce is meant to arrive, and a delay will incur a growing penalty to your payment.”

“Yes, I see that. Let’s not waste any time, then.”

Gaylen signed up for the run, using both his name and the Addax’s ID signal. Cargo that was merely making a stop was almost never far from the docking yard itself, and the station officer opened a unit that was within sight.

They moved the containers over on several hoverpallets and spread them evenly around the cargo hold. The containers themselves were of a very standard design that had been used on the Fringe probably since before Gaylen’s birth. Many of these particular ones looked like they might actually be first generation, as worn and riddled with minor damage as they were.

Gaylen put his hand on one for a few seconds, feeling the rough surface. It was entirely possible that this mere box had done more travelling than any living human being, bouncing from planet to station to planet until it found itself with some farmers on a quiet backwater. And now here Gaylen was, doing his part in keeping the journey going.

Funny old universe.

He abandoned the pointless musings, and was the last one down the ramp.

“Four hours,” Jaquan said as it closed and sealed. “Four hours and the engine will be fully cooled, and the reactor will be fully charged up.”

“Well, we have one other thing to pick up,” Gaylen said as he brought out his personal comm. He searched for a particular number, and was pleased to find it within range.

“Ah, you’re here,” a voice said on the other end.

“We are. How long have you been waiting?”

“Four hours. It could be much worse.”

“Hitting the outer lanes, on public transport, these days? Yeah, four is surgical precision.”

“We can discuss surgery face to face.”

“We can.”

Gaylen ended the call, and they walked as a group out of the arrival area and to the station’s public hub. It was everything one could expect from a decent-sized space station, with enough forethought and maintenance in place for impressions to remain good. There was a message terminal, a small money exchange, maintenance services, a parts market, dining options, job offerings, holographic displays of the local rules and announcements from the station authorities, and so on.

And of course, the people.

There were hundreds, just in his field of view as he entered the foyer. Most were milling about, or servicing the millers in one way or another, but a few were simply sitting around on long benches. Habit, formed out of way too many close calls, made him look around for any signs of trouble before he acknowledged the person that stood up from a distant bench and came their way.

“And there she is.”

The woman was tall, dark-skinned, long-faced, with her hair arranged in solid locks, and clad in dull-green armour from neck to toe.

“Well…” she said, head cocked to the side, hands on her hips, “what are the chances of running into you guys here?”

They were rather good actually, provided one had some patience, and knew which stations and docking yards to bounce messages along the space lanes.

Gaylen walked into a quick, friendly embrace.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, and meant it.

“Hello again, boss,” she said. “Goldie…”

Herdis walked into Kiris, and Gaylen got another glimpse of that ease he liked so much.

“Welcome back to the low life,” the Chanei said.

“Hey, I think we’ve soared pretty high on occasion,” Herdis said. “I don’t even need to remind anyone what the peak was.”

They all looked at each other. There had been unanimous agreement to keep quiet about their part in the whole Black Tiger business. If any potential gods out there were willing, and the handful of other people who knew kept their gobs shut, it wouldn’t come back to haunt them some day.

“No,” Gaylen said softly. “You don’t.”

“We did good, though.”

She became rather solemn.

“News is still drifting in, bounced out from the Federation. It’s taken a while, but the picture keeps getting clearer. About what was done… over there. And what was done about it.”

Gaylen nodded very slightly. Keeping up with galactic events was a very imprecise science when one lived on an ever-moving freighter, but the picture she’d mentioned had had time to condense and take shape in lounges and bars and trade hubs across the outer lanes.

What the Hegemony had been doing with genetic and social “undesirables”, and the titanic operation that had been launched to free as many of them as possible. Somehow, through a series of coincidences, the strands of fate had bottlenecked so as to make it up to them whether the op could ever even be launched.

It was the sort of thing that might earn one a big head. Or a death mark. So they all just shared one more silent moment, before Gaylen took it upon himself to steer things back to business.

“So… you’re signing back up?” he asked.

“If you’ll have me, yes,” Herdis said. “My kouru is done, and coming back home to the family was wonderful and all that. But the fact is that I earned way more riding on the Addax than I do as a response medic. So… I gathered everyone together, and we agreed: I’ll do this part-time, and my old job part-time. The money is good for us, and one of the benefits of an Anastahan marriage is that a family can easily see someone off on stuff like this.”

“It’s not just the money though, is it?” Kiris said to Herdis. She had that knowing look.

“Oh, those eyes of yours,” the soldier-gunner-medic said.

“These eyes of mine,” Kiris replied, and fluttered them a little.

She let her golden orbs, connected to a brain with cognitive empathy far above the human norm, rest on Herdis’s brown ones.

The Anastahanian smiled again, though in a new way. She was proud. Pleased with herself.

“Well… there is a bonus to all of this. I am the uncontested hero of the household, even if I leave the more dangerous bits out of the stories. Mother and wife Herdis, out on the wild lanes, visiting rugged worlds and isolated space stations, exotic peoples and strange wildlife, souvenirs like nothing else…”

She was very pleased with herself.

“Yes. It’s a nice bonus.”

“Excellent,” Gaylen said. “Then I won’t be hearing anything more about how your skill set deserves a pay raise.”

She crossed her arms with an affected huff. Bers guffawed.

“Played yourself, vura!”

“Fixed rates all around, I know, boss-man,” Herdis said. “But a soldier, a gunner, AND a medical professional does deserve a fat payout. But I’ll settle for hearing you say how lucky you are to have me.”

“We are lucky to have you,” Gaylen said. “There. Now, do you have your old rifle, and all your things station-side?”

“My old rifle, touched-up and better than ever. My medical bag, also touched up.”

She patted her arms.

“Got a new, non-standard weave for my suit. Spent a lot of free time in a gunnery simulator, AND a rifle range. I’m ready. Way MORE ready than I was when I first signed up, and you all remember how valuable I was.”

“Sure, sure.”

She’d patched all of them up, to some degree. To say nothing of the work her trigger finger had done.

“Anyway. Who warmed my seat for me while I was gone?”

“Kiris manned the gun at times,” Gaylen said. “We had a few freelancers pass through. Different people for different runs. Last ones was a set of twins from Ciinto Res. They left on our last stop before this one.”

“Ciinto Res?” Herdis repeated. “There’s a news item.”

“Yeah,” Gaylen said. “And they really didn’t like to talk about it.”

“I can understand that. Anyway…”

She looked excited.

“Where are we off to?”

“Right now, I’m off to a seat.”

He looked around the atrium, and business signs that hung outside of the balconies. One advertised mild drinks, quiet, and boasted of the comfiest seats on the station.

“You folks do as you like, but I’m going over there for a while.”

Kiris hooked her right arm into his left one.

“Just remember,” he went on. “We have four hours.”