He looked up when I knocked on the bulkhead. And then he scowled.
“Oh,” he said. “Right. They said you’d be comin’ round today.” He gave me this exasperated look, like he wanted to be sure I knew how much I was intruding. “‘Cause, y’know, I definitely have time to train some soft-pawed Terran how to get in the grease. Not like I’ve got a mountain of shit what needs doing.”
I tried to smile. What else could I do? Everyone always went for the Earth thing first. “Well, I did spend a fair amount of time on Mars, too. I’m not half-bad at-”
“Whatever. If you’re such an expert, then get to work and get out of my hair.” He gestured toward the next hatch - and the two shuttles I could see nestled in side by side beyond. “Fuel couplings are all fuckered on the big bitch. If you want to be helpful, tear it down and clean ‘em out.”
I think he expected me to argue. It’d be a dirty job, and rather more complicated than it looked. If I was right, both of the shuttles were the new Mons units, and I’d have to strip out a good section of its assembly to get at the couplings.
But he’d just thrown a gauntlet, and no way in hell was I backing down. So I offered him my best, most polite smile, and walked straight past him.
My expectations weren’t wrong. Getting the damn things out was a job and a half by itself. By the time I’d reached the couplings, the floor of the bay outside the shuttle had been littered with carefully-grouped parts. That was the bit I was really worried about - taking it apart was only half the battle. After that, I’d have to get it back together.
I’d found my prize, though. A smile stretched from ear to ear as I leaned over the drive unit, working the first coupling free. Once it’d clunked to the ground, I reached for a plas-knife and got to work.
It wasn’t until I’d gotten halfway through scraping out the coupling that I realized I had a spectator.
He stood a few paces back from me, a statue among the parts and debris. His face was unreadable, all furrowed leathery wrinkles and salted stubble. His eyes flicked up to me, and I shrank back. They were pitch-black wells, staring right down into my soul.
And then he nodded. Just once, and it was just the slightest inclination of his chin, but somehow, I felt like I’d passed a test.
“Here,” he said, stepping forward. “It’s a bitch to get at the last bit by yourself. Hold it upright. And give me the damn knife.”
When I froze, taken aback, he snatched the plas-knife from my hand, gesturing wildly for me to move. “Come on, come on. Don’t got all day, kid.”
I lifted the coupling, angling it toward him, and he gave another nod - approving, this time. A knot in my chest loosened. After the countless lectures I’d gotten back home, I hadn’t been quite sure about joining TerraCorp.
There was something soothing about the whole process, sitting there and muttering curses and whittling away every ounce of burned-on crud coating the coupling. Something cathartic. The steady clinking of metal on metal filled the docking bay, the only sound to break the silence but our profanity.
Until I heard a low, rough voice mutter from across the part. “Hey.”
I looked up, and he was glaring back at me - right back to looking annoyed, no less. Hell, with this bastard, having to drop his asshole act probably hurt as much as having to train a totally-green rookie.
“Name?” he said, turning his eyes back to the coupling.
I grinned, wiping the expression carefully from my face once I remembered myself, and scraped another speck of shit loose.
“Rick.”
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