The shimmering horizon hardened into a rippling skyline of slate gray roofs. Quay was a strip of civilization nailed to a barren rock which circled a planet, which circled the sun… Arthur shook free the enchantment of space before it flattened him. Hard to do, considering the view he now had.

  Arthur leaned out from the shadow, squinting at the four stumps that moved toward the settlement. One much bigger and still recognizable even from this distance. Suraj, Mina, Roman, and Vall left for supplies and information while Cenn, Snake, and Arthur remained with the Razor.

  He blinked away the glare and turned back into camp. They’d chosen a shallow crater to tuck the ship out of sight. A flat wall of rock at one side made less a shadow than a pool of ink.

  Snake remained on the bridge, systematically turning on the outer maintenance lights one at a time, while Cenn inspected the perimeter with a merriment of murmuring curses.

  Arthur wished he would’ve gone with the others. He was elated at being on a new sphere—could a satellite moonlet even be counted among the spheres of the Asparian system?—but there weren’t any buildings this far out, and certainly nothing to look at but the infinite vacuum of space and the ubiquitous gray landscape.

  Just before returning Occam to the Razor he wondered what would’ve happened had he demanded to go into town with the others. He could’ve stayed in the cockpit, what could they have done to stop him?

  “That’s good, Snake,” Cenn called over the com. She took a hit from her handheld oxygen tank. “Mighty fine place to shack up.”

  Arthur skittered down the slope to join her, “hides us well enough.”

  “Yeah, and not near enough to the oxsphere as I’d like. We’ll suffocate if we get too worked up.”

  Arthur’s hand went to his own tank reflexively, but he stayed his hand, “so, what now? Repairs?”

  “I should have you run some drills in the meck, but we’re supposed to be hiding. I guess your scholarship will have to wait.”

  Arthur was glad she didn’t insist. Not only did he need a break, but despite Cenn saying she would give him a lesson in piloting, the glare she still gave him said otherwise. He wondered how Erin put up with it…Erin.

  Arthur found himself wondering how he would’ve handled Occam. Erin had always been a savant behind the sticks, so the only logical assumption would be that he’d outstrip Arthur in every way possible.

  Cenn drew a slab from her holster—one of the Razor’s detachable consoles. A model of the ship rotated above the glass, orange highlights appearing as Snake synced the Razor’s dash with her slab. Arthur looked up and saw Snake give him a thumbs up through the view port.

  “Oh, that’s all?” Cenn muttered. She sighed, then eyed Arthur. “Ever solo a spark-pike?”

  Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. Daiko had pulled his privileges after he’d almost seared clean through a meck’s hip while Roman lay beneath it.

  “I can swap the socket on one pretty good,” he said.

  Cenn looked at Arthur and then at the ship. He could see that look in her eye, measuring the weight of the task if she were to do it alone, or teach him and do most of the work anyway.

  “Alfa knows, I’m not doing this alone,” she said at last. “You take the port side, I’ll take the starboard. Go slow—I’ll check your work after.”

  Arthur grinned wide.

  “Easy, killer,” she added, “don’t touch a rend bigger than your arm.”

  Before she could change her mind, Arthur snatched the pike at her feet, snapped a salute, and sprinted for the far side of the hull, which was an odd experience given the reduced gravity. They were too far out from Quay to be in their gravfield but the Razor was equipped with one that made him feel half his weight.

  Most of the damage done to the Razor during take off was minimal but a few of the rends were deep. They had yet to receive alarms indicating a breach but Arthur remembered Daiko’s old adage… waiting for a thing to break, wastes your time, and mine.

  Several images came to mind of just how disastrous the launch could’ve been. He nearly killed everyone by rocketing the gate up like he did. Hitori had forced him to watch the reply until he could identify a dozen micro-adjustments for next time—next time? When will I ever need to lift a roll gate to a marooned freighter ever again?— Arthur was glad the Hitori had kept the coms closed during those lessons. At the very least he wanted to be scolded in private, and at the very worst, he was glad nobody could yell at him for getting it wrong.

  We’re not dead yet…

  He twisted the pike’s handle and the tip began to glow coal red, then white. Heat bled off it as he traced the edges of a hand-sized rend. Molten polymer curled into the seam, hardening quickly. This type of repair was a lot like running a paper cone around a cotton-candy drum, only here he was leaving the sugar behind.

  He perhaps lingered too long such a small patch, but the repercussions of mis-repairing a spaceship hull had to be way worse than a circuit match. By the time he’d finished three small repairs, the pike’s tip had thinned to a needle, and needed a replacement socket.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Arthur arched his back, legs aching. Even under microgravity, his body felt spent—the intermittent sleep he’d gotten on the trip to Quay hadn’t cleared the cryo fatigue. And yet, despite the aches and the restlessness, he felt powerful.

  He clenched and unclenched his fist, each repetition faster than the one before, heart racing as he imagined the cockpit sticks in his hands. In Occam he was invincible, capable of doing things he only ever dreamt of. In those dreams he was always the hero—someone with purpose—and everyone else knew it too.

  Footsteps clanked up the ladder behind him. Arthur expected Cenn’s bark, but it was Snake. The man crouched, scanned Arthur’s welds, then tossed him a fresh socket. Arthur caught it, grinning.

  They worked side by side on the larger rends, sparks spitting white against gray rock. When Snake finally set his pike down, he tapped Arthur’s shoulder and pointed at a small black spot on the hull.

  Arthur squinted, and at last saw Snake’s meaning. Snake beant down and plugged the hole up to his knuckle.

  “You think it went through?” Arthur asked.

  Snake shrugged. He made a tiny circle with his thumb and finger, then peered through it like a scope.

  “I agree. We should check,” Arthur said.

  Snake nodded, patted his chest—he’d go look from the other side.

  Arthur looked through the Razor imagining Occam’s slumbering form beneath him.

  “Wait, I’ll go,” he said.

  Snake stopped curious, then lowered his chin, eyes flat.

  “What? You’re better with the pike,” Arthur tried to keep his voice even.

  Snake sighed, then jerked his chin toward the access port. Before Arthur took the ladder down, Snake stomped once, flashing a light beam into the breach, two fingers to his eyes, then back to the hull.

  “Got it.” Arthur said, taking the rungs as fast as he could. Just before he slipped into the entrance, Cenn called over to him from atop the hull.

  “Woah woah!”

  Arthur stopped, one leg in the Razor one leg out. Cenn pointed with her pike and Arthur thought for a moment she was going to throw it at him.

  “Where are you going?”

  The truth felt slippery on his tongue, what was he doing?

  “A hole in the hull, I’m going inside to check for damage.”

  She looked to the roof and back to Arthur.

  “Snake sent you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cenn stared at him, then back to the roof. Finally she huffed. “Don’t be long, I want to finish this before they get back.”

  Arthur kept his mouth shut, not trusting himself to say any more, and slid inside.

  The short tunnel spit him out into the loading bay. Occam loomed there at a forty-five degree angle, clamped to the skeletal frame like a knight bound in chains. Auxiliary floor lights burned dim red, shadows licking over its plated form. The memory of their first encounter back in the garage, flickered in Arthur's mind. It had been demonic at first glance, but it was different now, and in more ways than Arthur could describe.

  Arthur looked for the spotlight that Snake would be shining into the hole but couldn’t see anything. No internal damage then, but he did an additional sweep just to be sure. Already he could feel Cenn fuming as she waited for him to return but Occam was more than a little distracting.

  His gaze snagged on something curious—Occam’s cockpit ladder was extended, the hatch open.

  “Did I…” he said absently, “I thought I closed that.”

  He hopped down from the platform leading back outside, not realizing how high up it was. Though the microgravity helped his buckling knees, he still wondered why he’d jumped in the first place. He stared at Occam, somehow knowing that his time in the meck was responsible for it.

  He was climbing the ladder before he realized he’d crossed the distance. His curiosity at the open hatch returned as he stepped inside. Hitori was waiting for him inside.

  “Took you long enough.”

  “Sir?” Arthur gripped the bar running across the top of the threshold, “I was just wondering why the service door was open.”

  “Oh, that's all?”

  “Well, that and Snake sent me to check the hull,” Arthur waved vaguely at the bay behind him.

  “Find anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So, of course, you’re here now to check Occam for damage. Taking the initiative…”

  Arthur met the projections eyes, no longer under the illusion that this was his former mentor yet still noticing a human-like glimmer.

  “Of course,” Arthur said.

  “Well, a spot check would take hours. The HUD interface would be much quicker.”

  An understanding passed between them, and Arthur slid into the cockpit.

  Hitori’s shape rippled and the gunmetal coating covering every inch of the interior was replaced by the Razor’s bay. The dash appeared hovering in front of Arthur. He initiated the gravwell by reflex.

  Arthur looked to Hitori, expecting some sort of admonishment but none came.

  “Integrity at 99%,” Arthur said. “Same as when we landed.”

  “Good.” Hitori paused, then, “and the rest of Occam?”

  “The rest, sir?” Arthur looked over the diagnostic, he could spend a lifetime analyzing every read out available to him.

  “It’s always best to give it a shake, see what comes loose.”

  The clamps attaching Occam to the frame hissed as they released him. Arthur’s stomach churned with delight.

  “What about Snake and Cenn?”

  “What about them?”

  He hesitated a moment longer then said, “are they off the bay doors?”

  Hitori smiled and nodded, as the doors split down the middle. The gray light of Quay filled the bay as Occam was lifted out of the Razor.

  The sense of being large returned to Arthur, more naturally than it had before.

  Cenn and Snake walked backward on the ground as Occam stepped out. The HUD zoomed in on their faces as Arthur squinted to get a better look at them. Snake looked abashed, as though already seeing how this was his fault, but Cenn was yelling—then her voice came through the com belatedly.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Shaking things loose,” Arthur said as he tiptoed around the camp and up the small depression.

  Cenn wasn’t cowed; she stomped toward the meck, furious.

  “I’ll just be a ways off,” he insisted, “opposite of the town. Be back in a bit!”

  Arthur gave a tight smile as he turned to leave, and heard the coms click off. Hitori nodded his approval.

  Arthur couldn’t stop smiling. In moments, he was tripping over himself, running into the barren wild.

  Patreon

  HYPERBOREA by Studio Zolo: In the desolate desert of the North American Sector, the government harvests the Soul Energy of siblings Eos and Maxima in secret. When their powers attract the attention of a dangerous criminal organization, their routine lives are shattered. Eos and Maxima must search for freedom and the truth about their past as hostile forces close in. The answers they seek lie behind one word—HYPERBOREA!

  RICKSHAW RIOT by Ben Wolf & Luke Mensa: Video game mogul Erik Shaw wants nothing more than to make money off of gullible gamers, so he creates the AllVerse–a world where gamers can play any game they want at any time. But when Launch Day goes horribly wrong, Erik and 1.3 billion gamers get stuck inside this new digital world with seemingly no way out. With literally no other options, Erik adopts the worst game and class ever: Rickshaw Riot, a fetch-quest game which has hidden benefits–if he can find them.