A year had passed since Caleb Drexler had worn anything that could respectably be called a uniform. He stepped off the battered shuttle onto Platform Seven of Nya Stockholm Station’s Docking Ring 3, eyes adjusting to the flickering blue-tinged lights above the arrivals strip. The air was thick with ozone, sweat, and fermented yeast—fresh from the station’s breweries and the bodies of those who patronized them.

He walked with his head up, shoulders squared, but his eyes mapped exits and soft targets with automatic precision. The main concourse was all neon and glass: rows of ramen stalls, pawn shops, and clustered kiosks hawking cheap knockoffs of old Earth tech. Wall screens above each archway cycled between ads for SpacePils and bands slated to perform at local venues. One ad caught his eye—The Forest Star Tavern, promising local brews and quality food.

He noted the address and made his way there. It seemed as good a place as any to start.

The tavern stood out from the chrome-and-plastic clutter of the station. Its exterior was paneled in real wood—probably harvested from the nearby moon of New Suomi—and trimmed in copper that had aged into a soft green patina. Inside, the space opened up with exposed beams and warm lighting, the kind that made you forget you were in orbit. Metal signs hung on the walls advertising Baltic and Finnish drinks, and the long bar gleamed with polished hardwood. The crowd was a mix—dayworkers, tradesmen, port staff, office drones, and even a corporate suit or two. The food looked palatable. The vibe felt right.

Behind the counter stood a striking woman—mixed Asian and European ancestry, sharp jawline, ears glinting with piercings. Her midnight-black hair was styled into a sleek asymmetrical bob that framed her face in the dim bar light. She wore a fitted black t-shirt with the bar’s logo in a faded retro font, layered under a well-worn leather vest marked with patches from bands and events. Her jeans were dark and snug, tucked into ankle-high boots that balanced style and practicality. As she poured a half-litre from a tap shaped like a Norse god’s hammer, her movements were fluid and practiced. She set the drink in front of a grizzled merchant, then caught Drexler’s gaze from halfway across the room—bright, unwavering.

She watched him approach through the smoke and noise. She had the look of someone who’d read every face at least twice, and she clocked Drexler’s unease before he made it past the first barstool.

“Hey stranger!” she called. “What do you want to drink?” She didn’t miss a beat as she cleaned a pint glass with a bar rag.

“Beer. Something local. Surprise me,” Drexler said, voice even.

She smirked and tipped her chin at the stool. “No problem. We don’t serve that pisswater SpacePils here anyway—just local stuff from the sector, or Baltic and Scandinavian imports.”

He took the seat. The merchant beside him inhaled half his beer in a single gulp and let out a sigh that could’ve powered a wind turbine. She poured from an unmarked wooden tap, plopped the glass in front of Drexler, then leaned in, elbows on the counter.

“You ex-military?” she asked. “Or just like the haircut?”

Drexler shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Only if you plan on making trouble.”

He almost laughed, but caught himself. “Not today.”

She straightened, gave him a look equal parts boredom and challenge, then turned her attention to the other end of the bar, where a trio of teens were deep in some secondary school drama. This sector had a younger drinking age than where Drexler grew up—19 in the old North American Union. Most of the Unified Systems settled around 18, but European homesteader sectors often kept it lower, around 15 or 16. Still, he doubted those teens would be let into nightclubs or allowed to buy hard liquor.

A street musician threaded through the crowd, strumming a battered guitar and singing about cold planets and colder mothers-in-law. Drexler watched the kid skip over the hard-faced and the desperate. The boy stopped near the bar for a moment, caught the bartender’s eye, and received a silent nod before playing on. It was an invisible truce between busker and staff: don’t push, don’t ask, don’t overstay.

Drexler glanced at his beer—pale amber, clear, with a centimeter of foam in a 500cl glass. What the English-speaking world still called a “pint,” though technically a bit larger. It was an IPA: crisp, floral, bright, not too bitter, with a decent kick. He closed his eyes after a long pull and let the noise wash over him. He could almost pretend this was home—if home were a floating can halfway across inhabited space, full of Finns, spacefaring merchants, and broken wanderers. He supposed he fit that last bill now. All baggage, no direction. He took another drink.

A shout went up from the job board near the restrooms. A wiry man in high-vis coveralls cursed at his wristpad, holding it up for all to see.

“They cut the shifts again!” he barked. “Half the listings gone overnight. Sons of bitches want us all dead or bankrupt!”

Caleb stood, walked toward the board, and tried not to look like he cared. The terminal was old but functional, its screen smeared with fingerprints and dried sauce. He scanned the listings, each tagged with a neon price and a risk rating:

- Shagora Freight, loader: 23 credits/hr — “musculoskeletal strain likely”

- KomTek Data, infogrid maintenance: 18 credits/hr — “electrical hazard, minor”

- HelixClean, waste recycler: 19 credits/hr — “biological hazard, moderate”

- Nya Stockholm Security, temporary: 15 credits/hr — “physical risk, nonlethal”

He scrolled to the bottom, hoping for something that paid more than it cost in pride or pain. Nothing. Not unless he wanted to start killing for credits—and those offers weren’t listed in public.

He pressed his thumb to the reader. His ID flashed on the display:

DREXLER, CALEB — STATUS: TEMPORARY RESIDENT. CREDITS: 4.8

“Fuck,” he whispered. Enough for his beer and maybe one more. Worse than he’d thought.

The man in high-vis laughed, but Drexler ignored him, scrolling again, slower this time, as if repetition might conjure a miracle.

At the edge of his vision, the bartender watched him, hands cleaning a glass in small, precise circles. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Most people on the station had stared up from rock bottom at least once.

The music shifted—a melancholy dirge, faintly Russian or maybe just sad. Drexler leaned against the terminal, jaw set, weighing his options. He could sign up for the loading shift, blow out his back for a day, and afford a meal, some beer, maybe a place to sleep. Or… what? Supposedly he had final pay coming from the military, but it was delayed. And when it did arrive, it wouldn’t last long.

He closed his fist around the data-jack port, knuckles white. Then, with a flick of his other hand, he selected the “accept” button for the first shift on the list.

The terminal beeped. A schedule marker appeared on his wristpad, blinking red, angry, like an infected wound. He let go and headed back to the bar.

The bartender gave him an understanding half-smile and poured another beer. “New on the station and it’s already not going well?” she asked.

Caleb finished his first beer and grabbed the second. “Yeah, pretty much,” he said. Then took a drink. “But at least the beer’s good.”

“Haha, I like it. Finding the bright side.” She smiled. “I’m Miko, by the way.” She held out her hand.

Caleb smiled, set down his beer, and took her hand. “I’m Caleb. Nice to meet you, Miko.” Her hand was warm, smaller than his, but strong.

“I’ll cover those two beers,” Miko said, meeting his eyes, “if you promise to keep coming back.”

Caleb blinked, surprised. Then smiled. “Well, you don’t have to threaten me with a good time. Sure.”

They chatted between her rounds, and Caleb felt a flicker of hope. Maybe he’d made a friend. And even if she was just playing the long game to sell more beer, it was working—and it felt nice.

Eventually, his wristpad vibrated. Shift time. He said goodbye, drank a glass of water, and pulled up a map to navigate to the worksite.
***

Drexler followed the wayfinding with a soldier’s detachment, feet landing on the faded hazard paint. A few of the early shift workers already congregated at the corner coffee vendor, eyes bloodshot and voices low. Most didn’t look up as Drexler passed. The ones that did gave him flat stares.

The main warehouse for Shagora Freight was an echo chamber of metal on metal. The air thumped with the sound of containers slamming onto hover-skids, automated winches whining as they loaded pallet after pallet onto staging platforms. A dozen laborers moved with the sullen coordination of the overworked, all in basic grays and scuffed boots. The only person in color was the foreman, a barrel-chested woman in a high-vis vest with RU-IZ printed in white block letters over the left breast.

Drexler picked her out instantly. She had the eyes of someone who’d spent a decade learning how to measure a man’s work ethic at a glance.

“Drexler,” she barked, before he’d even crossed the threshold.

“That’s me,” he answered.

She pointed at the far wall, where a cluster of orange crates stood stacked three high. “Start with those. Inventory says twenty-six units but you count it. You mark anything wet. Anything hissing, you call me.”

“Understood.”

“Good. You finish your section, you float to the next. Nobody clocks out until the lot is clear.”

He nodded and started toward the crates. The surface was slick with some kind of condensation, but the grip held as he got his arms around the first one—easily twenty kilos, though the spice pod inside rattled like it was half-empty. He hefted it onto the hover-sled, muscles registering protest but not quite pain.

“Nice form,” said a voice to his left.

Drexler looked up to see a man about his height, wiry, face cut by the kind of lines that only came from years in low-gravity mines. The man’s right hand was gloved, the other bare, revealing an old tattoo of a wolf howling at a fractured moon.

“Jax,” he said, sticking out the bare hand.

“Drexler, Caleb.” Caleb said.

“Military?” Jax asked.

Drexler hesitated. “Not anymore.”

Jax nodded, no follow-up questions. “Tidal-wave back spasms,” he said, jerking his head toward the hover-sled. “That’s the luxury here.”

“I’ve carried worse,” Drexler said.

Jax grinned, teeth bright against the grime. “Give it two hours.”

They worked in tandem, Jax setting the pace and Drexler matching it without a word. Every ten minutes, Foreman Ruiz would stalk the row, eyes peeled for laggards or slackers. She never slowed down, just pointed or shouted, keeping the rhythm with threats and promises of docked pay.

They cleared their stack in just over an hour. Drexler wiped his hands on his pants and stretched his shoulders, feeling the old knot at the base of his neck begin to tighten.

“Not bad,” Jax said. “You want the trick for the pods with the blue strip? Shift your grip at the base. Less chance of microfracture.”

Drexler nodded, filing it away. “You been here long?”

“Long enough to regret it. You?” He replied.

“First day.” Caleb replied.

Jax laughed, a real sound this time. “If they stick you with Sector E next, don’t eat lunch.”

Drexler raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Recycling. The smell gets in your teeth.” he said.

Before Drexler could reply, Ruiz appeared at their side. She was sweating, the collar of her vest darkened by the humidity. “Jax, take the new guy to Sector E,” she said. “They’re short a hand. And you—” she jabbed a finger at Drexler— “move it. We’re on overtime but no extra pay if you fuck around.”

Jax led the way, whistling a tune quietly as they wound through the service corridors. He stopped just before the door to Sector E, pulled a packet of mint from his pocket, and offered one to Drexler.

“Seriously. Chew it.”

Drexler took the mint, popped it into his mouth, and stepped into the recycling wing. He hated mint. The herb or the tea, sure that kind was find, but the fake-mint flavoring in gum and breath mints and candy and toothpaste, no thank you, but he sucked on it anyway.

He was not prepared.

The smell was an immediate, physical assault—rotted protein and acidic cleaner, with a baseline of something sweet and wrong. The recycling vats bubbled with spent foodstuffs and compost, sluiced down from every public vendor on Ring 3. A grated catwalk ran above the main funnel, where the waste was sprayed, strained, and then pressed into blocks to be sent to the bug farms or dropped to burn in the atmosphere below. The liquid would be reclaimed and recycled though.

Their job was to keep the funnels from clogging. Jax pointed him to a plasma scraper, set him at a spot where the buildup was thickest, and left him to it.

Drexler knelt and got to work, the tool buzzing with barely-contained energy. The hardened bio-gunk broke away in viscous chunks, splattering onto the grating and sometimes onto his arms. He tried to keep his eyes on the work, but every few minutes the stench would surge and he’d have to swallow against the urge to gag.

His hands ached by hour six. Sweat rolled down his back, stinging as it mixed with the residual chemicals. By hour ten, the skin at his wrists had begun to chap from the constant rinse of graywater. He lost track of Jax somewhere around hour seven; the man had been pulled to a different catwalk and hadn’t returned.

By shift’s end, Drexler felt his muscles running on fumes. He staggered to the sanitation station, stripped off his gloves, and ran cold water over his hands. The water beaded and rolled off, unable to fully cut through the grime.

He toweled off and was about to leave when Ruiz appeared, blocking the corridor. Her vest was off, but the air around her still crackled with authority.

“You’re not clocking out,” she said.

Drexler blinked. “Shift ended twenty minutes ago.”

“We’re behind quota. You stay until the counter reads zero.”

He stared at her, disbelief warring with exhaustion. “I’ve done twelve hours. Either add credits to my account or let me clock out.”

Ruiz’s mouth twisted. “You think I care how long you work? We’re not running a charity. You want credits, you do the time.”

“Then pay me for it.”

“You don’t like it, go back to wherever you washed up from. There’s fifty others will take your slot by morning.”

He met her gaze, saw not anger but calculation. She wanted him to break, to leave so she could hire cheaper, hungrier hands.

Drexler took a step forward, close enough to smell the mint on her breath. “I’ll finish my section,” he said, voice ice cold. “But after this, you dock me again, I’m reporting you to Station Authority.”

Ruiz smiled, slow and predatory. “Try it.”