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It’s been exactly forty-two days since I took control of this barely functioning deathtrap and swore I’d never go back to that life.

For the record? I never wanted to be a bandit. Didn’t have a choice. Back then, it was starve or sign on with the worst kind of people. But I was never like them. Never liked what they did. So when some ex-Guardsman spaced the whole crew and left me standing there like an idiot with the keys to their broken-down ship, I figured it was my shot at doing things right.

Turns out, going straight is a lot harder than it looks.

I needed work. Something legal. Figured I’d use my engineering skills, except… apparently, “practical experience” means nothing without a fancy certificate. Not a single honest shipyard would hire me. So now, I’m stuck on a backwater salvage station, working for a guy who smells like coolant and old socks. Zeta Proxima Repair & Salvage—where ships come to die, and so do ambitions.

Day one, I got assigned thruster recalibration. They assumed I knew what I was doing. I did not correct them. Mistakes were made. A minor explosion may have occurred. Torvald (my esteemed boss) told me, “Next time you touch anything, say a prayer to whatever gods you believe in.”

Day two, I got put on parts inventory. “No touching,” they said. That should’ve been easy. Except the security system thought I was stealing because, apparently, my biometrics flag me as a known associate of a wanted crew. Spent six hours locked in a cargo hold while Torvald argued with station security that I was too stupid to be an actual threat. They let me go. No one denied the stupidity claim.

Day three, I tried to quit. Torvald laughed and said, “You break it, you fix it. Welcome to the crew.”

So here I am. Forty-two days later. Still broke. Still stuck. Still technically the owner of a stolen ship that barely holds an atmosphere.

But I’m alive. I’m free. And one way or another, I’m going to make this work.

“One wing on the ship is better than two in the void.”

—Scootch