After work, the band gathered together and complained about their day, as was their routine.

  Onda broke the pattern by saying what she hoped they were all thinking. "We need off this station."

  "Hard agree," Banderos concurred.

  "No argument here," Tré added.

  McKenzie just nodded and looked toward Sonica for the final voice.

  "I want out, too. This is still so… sudden. Unexpected. Unplanned," she argued, shaking her head with each word. "If, and that's a big if, we go on this jaunt to Perro, where do we sleep? What do we eat? How do we find a place to play? It's too many questions, and I don't have the answers," Sonica argued, the frustration dripping from each successive sentence.

  "Perhaps we work together, along with Jax, to answer some of those questions?" Onda suggested. "It's not all on you, Sonica. I think we all see that what we have isn't a plan, but a shot at a plan, right? Let's go meet Jax and see the ship. We need that to make a real decision anyway. "

  ***

  Station air was never what you would call pleasant. In Dry Dock 7, it was frigid, lifeless, and heavy with the smells of decay. Unlike the tidy berths near the tourist buses, this end of Station 0-K was dim, cramped, and hazardous. It was reserved for vessels too old, too broken, or too complicated for quick repairs.

  It was also the cheapest place to park a ship, so it attracted the destitute. Planet huggers thought metal didn’t rust out in the black, but here it was in all its flaky glory. There are plenty of hazards out in space that can put a ship in dry dock. Once there, oxygenated station air got to work on exposed fittings.

  The whole band stood before the strung-up husk called the Dust Devil. It represented over 10 years of Jax's life, his freedom from the family business, and the complete disaster of his striking out alone.

  At first glance, the Dust Devil was a standard mid-sized courier vessel, nothing much to look at. Couriers, in general, were built for speed and months away from port. Closer inspection would show that while the Devil was the same length, and had the standard convex port and starboard sections, the beam was a bit wider, and the drive bell was a good 2 meters bigger around than normal.

  In the dim light of the dock, cradled in scaffolding, it just looked sad. Patches of the hull plating were missing entirely, revealing the skeletal ribs beneath. A black scorch mark ran from amidships to the tail on the port side, where hull plates weren't missing entirely.

  Jax recognized the band from the times they played the Asteroid Lounge. This was the first time he got to really speak with most of them, though.

  Sonica, whose day job he knew was handling logistics for one of 0-K's hospitality conglomerates, immediately seemed to want to walk away. "This isn't a repair job; it's a death trap," he heard her say under her breath while pulling a data-slate from her pocket.

  She didn't seem to spare a glance at Jax before, but now he was certain she was scrutinizing him. He imagined she saw a lean, nervous figure shifting his weight on the metal grating. He was wearing clean but faded overalls and looked less like a hardened spacer and more like a kid who'd broken his father's favorite toy.

  Jax stammered slightly. "She looks worse than she is. The engine’s the main thing. And the missing plates, of course. I've got the dock’s workup of her, and I know exactly where on Perro Station to procure the parts we can't find here. The hard part is installation."

  "K-9," Tré corrected automatically, then caught himself. "Sorry. I keep hearing my mom’s voice in my head. She worked the Kinnelon station build-outs back when they still used the number-first system. The flip was a sore point for her. Perro sounds friendlier than 'Station Canine,' I guess."

  "They switched the naming convention?" Jax asked.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Sometime before we were all born," Tré shrugged. "All the early stations are number-K. Everything after 4-K or so flipped to K-number. Don't ask me why."

  Banderos ignored the banter. He was already tracing the outlines of a scarred hull plate with his fingers. He gave his 1,000-watt smile, like the blinding flash of a plasma torch. "I can see it," he breathed. "Some layering of new chroma-steel and this ship will emerge from this Dock, a beautiful, powerful vessel carrying us away from Normie Dread."

  "It’s doable," he declared. "I'm already planning the structural reinforcements we need to add." Jax had heard that Banderos was a hopeless romantic. A broken ship in need of saving probably felt exactly right to him. He was glad to have the support.

  Jax turned to Onda, expecting another ally, only to find that she was on high alert.

  "I admit, it's difficult to get a read on you, Jax. When you handed me the key to your jumper, it was so audacious it felt like a classic attempt to buy the girl with a grandiose gesture. I'm still expecting you to make some clumsy move to get closer to me. But you're not. It's weird."

  She walked away, then turned to face him again."So, you get us to Perro, we spend the time and money buying parts for your ship, and then what? We're stuck on Perro?"

  Jax swallowed hard. Shaking his head as reassuringly as he could. He realized that this was not going well. "I pilot you back to 0-K. We install the main capacitor and the missing hull plates. Then we plan the next trip out. Together. A combo courier run and paid live performance. I’m asking for a partnership. I fly, you fix, I fly, you play, we all get off the station, and stay off the station. Wherever we all want to go. Velocity."

  “Velocity,” Banderos intoned, nodding.

  McKenzie had already emerged from the rear hatch. "I looked over the engine room. It smelled like burnt insulation and overheated copper, which is to be expected from the other damage. I'm surprised how tight it was in there, but the layout was familiar enough," she reported, addressing the band. "The engine framing barely fits between the walls of the hull. It's a larger-than-normal power plant. That's unusual, even for a fast courier."

  "Is that worrying?" Sonica asked.

  "No. Not worrying per se. It's a sign of a high-spec, customized rig, the kind we don't really see on the tourist buses we usually work. A hot rod, really. After a thorough inspection of the blown power components and the fried conduits, I can say that while it's a big job, it's entirely solvable. I'm still a yes."

  Jax and the rest of the band followed as Tré did an inventory walk-through, making notes of the supplies, the escape pods, and the storage capacity. "I don't know what I'm looking at for those hull pieces, but the systems that matter, like life support and basic navigation, seem functional once we get power back on. That's your expectation, too, Jax?"

  "Yeah, those systems were shut down normally once the Devil was here in dock. When we have reliable power again, they should come right up."

  Tré got to Jax’s cabin and went in without a word. Jax was thinking about the mess he'd left of his shipboard bedroom when his thoughts landed on two hard-shell cases tucked under the bunk. He hoped they would go unnoticed.

  "What's this?" Tré asked, pulling one out. "They aren't tool kits. They look like instrument cases, though none I've ever seen before."

  "Those! Those are just, um, supplies. Personal effects. Don't touch those, please."

  Jax noticed Sonica tightening her hands around her slate during the exchange.

  "You gave Onda the keys to a rented ship, but you're jumpy about what's under your bed?" Sonica asked, her voice flat. "This is not a clean deal, Jax. Why should we get on a jumper with you?"

  "Look," Jax pleaded. "It's personal. I know you see the sorry state of the Dust Devil and are looking for any reason to just walk away. I can't, though. I can't walk away. I don't have your talents. All I have is this ship. Bringing you here was stupid." Frustration unmistakably colored Jax's voice.

  He bit back the worst of it. He tapped some well of resolve before speaking again. "I know the Perro trip IS risky for you. Trusting the 5 of you with my ship is risky for me, too. But I believe in your talent. I believe in your skills. I believe I can help you. I also believe it's the best bet the 6 of us have at a life beyond Okay."

  "It's the perfect punk rock decision. Because we’re stuck too," Onda encouraged, addressing the group. "And we need what this sketchy chunk of metal can offer." She pointed at Jax. "We’ll go with you, but you keep your hands off the jumper chip. We'll fly with you to Perro, you'll buy the parts, and we all return with the parts. That's the test. You fail that, we drop you and sell the Dust Devil for scrap."

  Jax was taken aback. Sell the Devil?

  Banderos crowded into the passageway, cutting off his line of thinking. "Deal?" he asked, extending his hand to Jax, who fumbled to shake it. If he really believed in this plan, then there was no risk of having to sell the Dust Devil.

  "Deal," he declared, trying to muster some steel in his voice.

  "Welcome to Negative Space, Pilot. Now, let’s get this shopping list finalized," Banderos stated and walked away.