Stars rush by viewports in a blur as Whiskey Rivers FTL hurdles them towards their next drill site. The recycled air has a slightly dusty scent. No amount of air purification can catch all the mining dust.

The bridge is clean but rusted, with tape holding consoles and controls together. Wires hang from the ceiling, bundled in a messy but organized fashion. There are bucket seats for four people. Sanders leans over the controls, hands moving from a rusted metallic console to a set of handles and knobs older than he is. He enjoys these moments when he’s alone with the stars. Growing up on Titan, he dreamt of life away from the agro domes surrounded by stars.

He sings quietly to fill the soft drone that is constantly present. “Oh, the corridor we walk’s tired’n’broken/things we do been done before...” he continues humming, he can never remember all the lyrics. A control sticks, and the humming takes on a frustrated edge. Sanders’ massive tawny hand wraps around the shifter, veins popping out of his muscular tattooed forearms.

“Sumabitch, not again.” Sanders shakes harder, grunting and grumbling at it. The damn thing always gives him trouble. 

The stick pops off in his hand. “Well, shit.” He taps the comms, “Broke a shift again.”

Sanders tries to put the pieces back together. His fingers fly over a set of controls. The stars outside the viewports continue to move faster.

Sanders taps the comms again. “Ah hell, Xiang!”

Xiang breaks the static with an annoyed, “What!?”

“Broke a shift again! Less you wanna overshoot by a few light years, need a slow.”

Xiang fires off Candarin too fast for the translators to catch. The comm line goes dead.

Sanders’ fingers fly over the other controls. The ship slows, the stars are no longer rushing by in a blur.

“Thanks, Xiang! Can ya do the shifter next?” he asks.

There’s a short, groggy laugh. “No!” then the link cuts out.

Sanders continues to try to fix the piece he broke, humming again.

An alarm’s shrill pulse echoes through the ship and lights the corridors with orange flashes. Sanders is drooling on the console sound asleep, broken shifter clutched in his hand. The alarm causes him to sit up and bang his head on a panel that shifted. He rubs his head, hits three buttons to start scans, then silences the alarm.

Sanders taps his comms, “Captain...”

Chakrum walks onto the bridge, yawning. “To a bridge,” Chakrum mutters, rubbing her scarred face as she walks up behind Sanders. “Ya break a skip?”

She picks up the piece and in less than ten seconds has it fixed. Sanders can’t keep the thing together; she has to fix it for him at least once a week. Probably has to do with the fact he’s from Titan. They don’t grow up on ships but under domes. He’s a helluva a flyer though, and Chakrum’s pleased to have him.

Sanders rolls his shoulders. A series of cracks and pops sing from his joints. “Ever always, Cap. Sensors read retirement level titanium, tungsten, magnesium.”

Chakrum runs a mahogany hand through her curly black mohawk. “Hm?”

Sanders works the controls, and he grins. “Ain’t it purty? Eye ‘em readouts!”

The levels are off the charts. Filling the screens like a heartbeat going too fast. Chakrum blinks her rich brown eyes and rubs at the sleep crusted in the corners. She lets out a long, low whistle as she traces the lines on the screen.

Is a game change. “Any claim?” Chakrum asks.

Sanders reads another screen and shakes his head. “Ever’one know far space ain’t nothin’ but empty.”

Chakrum’s pale finger taps the screen with the readouts and she grins. “Not empty. Raise our flag by book so Feds no stomp’n.”

Sanders started the paperwork the second he got the readings from the first scan. Another screen’s up where he’s filling it out. “Yep, goin’ now.”

“T’anks, Sanders. Am get Carrera prep bay one,” Chakrum says, unwilling to waste a second. They need to land and start mining immediately to avoid anyone stealing their load.

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As she’s walking off the bridge, a bloated corpse hits the viewport. Mouth open in a terrified scream, angst frozen on the collapsed face.

“A fuck!?” Sanders shouts, jumping out of his seat, crossing himself.

Chakrum glances out another viewport as the corpse floats by. She shudders, pounds her chest twice and touches her forehead, heart, then lips. She mouths a quick prayer for the poor bastard. “Floater. Full scan a region debris.”

Sanders widens his scans. The screens are still. He shakes his head. “Just our chunka rock.”

As they creep around the asteroid looking for a landing site, the forward lamps catch a glint of refracted light. Sanders swings the light back and does a focused scan. The screen reacts, and a shaded metal structure comes out of the wiggly lines and static.

Sanders scratches at his unruly beard and adjusts a knob, trying to clear up the image. “Eye some kinda artificial structure... Scan now.”

Chakrum folds her arms and flicks a snap on the stressed, faded elbow of her oil-stained work shirt. She chews her lip, eyes floating from the window to the screen. “What inna ‘at?”

Sanders’ hands move over the controls, but there’s nothing but static and blurred lines. Adjusting knobs he shakes his head. He’s never seen tech like this off the colonies or inner planets. “Scans can’t penetrate the door. Hollerin’ now.”

Sanders hits another series of buttons, but there’s only a low beep and static. He shrugs. “Not even auto-response.”

Chakrum rubs her angular chin and sucks her teeth. She folds her arms again, staring out the window at the barely visible door. She cracks her neck, rolls her shoulders, and shakes herself. “Am eye it Reeves.”

Sanders readjusts himself and shakes his head. “A tingle somethin’ bad’s down there.”

Chakrum laughs hard and slaps Sanders on the back. “Ono’ll come, him go stir crazy.”

Sanders smiles ruefully. “Just don’t want none goin’ sideways.”

Chakrum hits the comms, “Reeves, Ono, meet me atta hopper. Ono bring’r babies, Reeves needa full kit.”

A few seconds of static before Ono’s rich baritone comes back, sleep clutching his words as he says, “Sounds good, I’ll be ready for mayhem, Cap.”

“Everything onna up, need any adds onna kit?” Reeves asks with a lilting Irish brogue.

Chakrum loves that Reeves tries spacer speak. She’s getting better at not laughing. She shrugs at the comms. “Floater knock twice. Xiang in charge. Carrera, Endo, prep bay one extraction.” Turning to pat Sanders’ broad shoulder. “Get continuous scan.”

Chakrum walks into the shuttle bay, pulling ancient worn space gloves on and snapping them into place. There are patches on the palms where she’s worn through them. The suit is decades old, she’s been using it since she was seventeen, before that it was her mothers. With all the repairs and patches, it looks like the quilt Sanders wraps up in when they have to lower the environmental controls to save fuel and credits. Stepping onto the shuttle, Chakrum clicks her helmet in place.

Before long Reeves shuffles in causing her dark natural curls to bounce, med kit slung cautiously over her shoulder. She adjusts her old gray environmental suit and lowers herself strapping into a bucket seat.

Right behind her is Ono running a hand over his bald head before popping his helmet on. Chakrum’s always thought it looks like the stars chiseled him from the sky. His suit is too small and strains at the seams, but isn’t as bulky as the ones Reeves and Chakrum wear; its newer and more streamlined. He’s strapped up with more weapons than any one person should own.

“What do we know?” Ono asks.

Chakrum shrugs with a sign for nothing or no.

Easing the hopper out of the small shuttle bay takes concentration. They descend towards the asteroid. It’d be nice to know what they’re flying up on, but she knows it’s not smart to sit on a payload this big. Scavengers, pirates, and slavers are venturing further out. Ono and his guns keep her fear at bay.

Funny thing is, Chakrum shouldn’t even be flying with either of her companions. Both should be dust returned to the stars by now.

Terrans iced Ono for a hundred Terran years; one of their first cryogenic prisoners. They jailed Reeves on Terra for fifteen Terran years then added fifty on ice when that didn’t deter her from breaking the law again.

Chakrum didn’t understand what either did wrong. Ono said the Terrans wanted to make an example of him. Reeves said the same, she healed the wrong people? He helped people live their lives as they should be. All spacers know there aren’t two genders, more like dozens. But Terrans used to force folk into one box or the other. They’d look at body parts after birth to determine the child's gender, which Chakrum finds hilarious.

Used to be illegal on Terra to help folk be themselves. Ono did anyway, told Chakrum it was his duty to help his community. He’d been through the transition himself. Had to take shots and do all kinds of things to be his true self. Spacers just spend twenty belt minutes in a med booth if their body parts and true self don’t match. Out in space, no one cares who you are, who you love, or what your identity is, long as you’re a good person. Help others, give what you can, show compassion, kindness, and respect.

Back in Ono’s early days there used to be all kinds of classifications and distinctions. Aren’t now, at least not with spacers. Reeves is a doctor, healing folk and helping them get necessities. They got problems out in space, but nothing like what Terran's faced back when their rock was still called Earth.

Chakrum’s glad to have them, even if communication can be hard sometimes. They tried to adopt spacer speech, but they’re Terran's and they talk like Terran's.

Reeves’ feet tap the floor of the hopper, forcing deep breaths in and out. She doesn’t enjoy being in the space suit. The constrictions trigger memories from incarceration, she’s tried to erase a thousand times. “Don’t all your horror vids start this way, Cap? Drop into VR with something that looks too good and next thing everyone’s in pieces.”

Chakrum gets the gist of what Reeves is trying to say. She rocks her hand side to side and checks her sidearms clip. With a breath she tries to speak slow enough they’ll understand her the first time and she won’t have to repeat herself. “We knock, gonna hope none home. Ain’t no buoy, no claim record.”

Ono glances out the viewport at the asteroid coming closer. “Scavengers, slavers, or terrorists?”

Chakrum shrugs and turns her focus to finding a place to land.