Three weeks after fixing the Meridian Dawn, Keiani found herself staring at her dwindling credit balance in the dim glow of her wrist-comp. Since fixing the Meridian Dawn she had had one job, for a ship’s captain named Mei Chen. The Chen job had paid well, but that was ancient history now.

Word was getting around—not the good kind of word. The kind that made legitimate clients nervous and suspicious ones disappear entirely.

She needed a drink. Hell, she needed several drinks and a new career, but she'd settle for starting with the drinks.

The Forest Star Tavern sat tucked between a pawn shop and a noodle stand on the main concourse level of the Nya Stockholm Station, the kind of place that catered to people who wanted to drink for cheap or grab a decent meal, without the sort of company the dive bars and the dance clubs attracted. Keiani had been there a few times before, drawn by the low lighting and the attractive bartender who didn't ask too many questions.

Tonight, Miko Yoshida was working alone behind the bar, her tattoos visible beneath rolled-up sleeves of her black vintage band shirt. Mixed-Asian and European features framed by asymmetrically cut dark hair with electric blue streaks; those were new, the blue streaks, Keiani noticed; she looked like she'd stepped out of some pre-war punk revival. Her multiple piercings caught the light as she looked up from cleaning glasses.

"Well, well," Miko said, her voice carrying a hint of an accent Keiani couldn't quite place. "If it isn't my favorite brooding mechanic. You look like someone kicked your favorite wrench into a reactor core."

"Beer me please," Keiani said, sliding onto a barstool. "Whatever's on tap and doesn't taste like recycled coolant."

Miko pulled a glass and filled it with something amber and promising. "That bad, huh? Last few times you were in here, you at least managed some of that trademark snark."

Keiani took a long pull of beer—it was actually decent, with a hoppy bite that reminded her of the microbreweries on Kepler Station where she'd spent much of her adult life. "Jobs are drying up. Turns out having a reputation for being too good at fixing impossible things makes people nervous."

"Too good?" Miko leaned against the bar, genuine curiosity in her dark eyes. "That's a new one. Usually people complain about mechanics who can't fix anything."

"Yeah, well, apparently there's such a thing as being suspiciously competent." Keiani gestured vaguely with her glass. "Well, and maybe I’m just paranoid, but I think my old employer may be secretly blackballing me. I tried to blow the whistle on them for sabotaging their vessels, letting them blow and kill the crew somewhere, and then taking the insurance payout. They did it any time they wanted to downsize.”

“Shit, that is fucked up!” Miko said.

“Yeah, I took a job for one of their captains recently and found them doing similar shit, or attempting to, now no job will respond when I apply.” Keiani said.

Miko nodded thoughtfully, wiping down the bar with practiced efficiency. "So what exactly is your skillset? Besides making people uncomfortable with your suspicious competence, like what kind of mechanics do you specialize in?"

"Starship systems in general. Drive mechanics, life support, power distribution, atmospheric processing. I can jury-rig pretty much anything back to working order with spare parts and creative profanity. But for formal education, I specialized in repairing fusion reactors." Keiani found herself relaxing despite her mood. There was something about Miko's straightforward manner that invited honesty. "Used to be a corporate fleet maintenance chief before that went sideways. Lately I've been taking whatever odd jobs I can get fixing things, but even those are drying up."

Miko's expression shifted, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Interesting. Very interesting." She straightened up, that smile becoming more pronounced. "I'll keep my ears open. Might know some people who could use someone with your particular combination of skills and attitude problems."

"Attitude problems?"

"Girl, you walked in here looking like you wanted to punch the universe in the face. That's not depression, that's righteous anger with nowhere to go." Miko refilled Keiani's glass without being asked. "Trust me, I know the feeling. Sometimes the universe needs punching."

Keiani found herself almost smiling. "You think so?"

"Oh, absolutely. Question is whether you're ready to throw the punch or if you're just going to keep sitting here drinking about it." Miko quipped.

Keiani laughed.

***

An hour later, Keiani emerged from the Forest Star feeling marginally more human. Miko's words rattled around in her head as she wandered through the station's corridors, past the late-shift workers and the eternal flow of travelers moving between ships.

She paused at the entrance to the nightclub district, where neon signs advertised everything from "authentic Earth music" to "zero-g dancing" to experiences she was pretty sure violated several health codes. The throb of bass lines leaked through inadequate soundproofing, mixing with the laughter and conversations of people determined to forget their problems for a few hours.

Fuck it. Why not?

She picked a club at random—something called "Drift"—and paid the cover charge with credits she probably should be saving. Inside, the music was loud enough to feel in her bones, the lighting was strobing chaos, and the crowd was the usual mix of spacers, traders, station workers, and tourists trying too hard to look like they belonged.

Keiani ordered a gin and tonic without thinking, the kind of drink you ask for when you don’t want to make decisions. The bartender poured a shot of Borealis Dry—crisp, herbal, with a faint bite of an arctic juniper-like botanical from the planet Jäämaa in the nearby Kuurankuu System—and topped it with tonic and a twist of lime. Minutes later, she was on the dance floor, the alcohol and the pounding rhythm dissolving the knot of tension she'd carried for weeks. Here, in the anonymous press of bodies and sound, she could stop being the disgraced engineer, the blacklisted mechanic, the woman who knew too much for her own good.

She was just Keiani, dancing to music that made no demands and drinking away a day that had started badly and was ending better than expected.

Tomorrow she'd worry about credits and jobs and the slow suffocation of a reputation that preceded her everywhere she went. Tonight, she was just going to move to the music and pretend the universe wasn't quite as broken as she knew it to be.

The DJ switched to something with a driving beat that seemed to speak directly to the frustration she'd been carrying. Keiani closed her eyes, let the music take her, and for the first time in weeks, felt like maybe—just maybe—things might work out after all.

After all, Miko had said she'd keep her ears open. And if there was one thing Keiani had learned in her years working the frontier, it was that bartenders always knew where the real opportunities were hiding.

***

The Forest Star Tavern always felt warm and familiar, even at 0800. Though the station’s clocks were synced to Stockholmsnova—the capital of Swedish Colony, the planet below—there wasn’t really a closing time for most things. Shift work ran around the clock, and travelers from other systems kept their own schedules. It was quieter than during the local evening, but hardly empty. Regulars kept to their corners, heads bowed over mugs or wrist-screens, letting the background hum of synth-folk music do most of the talking. A small group of travelers—likely ship crew or itinerant officials—were deep in a lively discussion at the center table.

Miko perched behind the bar, looking a little tired—probably just having started her shift. Today she wore a black skirt and a ripped-up band t-shirt, her hair streaked with electric blue he hadn’t seen yesterday. Dark lipstick and eyeliner framed her face like punctuation. She clocked Drexler the instant he crossed the threshold. Her smile was thin, but it held a private warmth.

“You look like someone who just crawled out of a recycling vat,” she said, voice pitched low.

He grunted and slid onto the nearest stool, dropping his duffel at his feet. “That’s about how I feel.” A tired smile tugged at his mouth.

“You look nice today, though,” Caleb said. “I like the hair.”

Miko smiled. “Thank you, Caleb.”

He liked the way she said his name—unhurried, deliberate, like it meant something.

She poured him a mug of something dark, the label on the bottle scuffed beyond recognition. She had a mug of the same—starting early, apparently. “How’ve the graveyard shifts been? Haven’t seen you much during mine.”

He took a sip. A coffee-stout: strong, roasty, malty, and caffeinated enough to jolt a corpse. “They’re shit, but my account’s not empty. The bartender on nights always looks half-dead.”

“Signe?” Miko raised an eyebrow. “She does sport fights in the evenings. Not the most attentive after, but no one better at keeping rowdy graveyard crews in line.”

“I noticed. They seem scared of her,” Caleb said. “Anyway, I was hoping to ask a favor.”

Miko’s eyes narrowed, but her hands kept moving—wiping a glass, rearranging coasters, always in motion. “Of course you were. But you look different today. Lighter. Or maybe just less haunted. Despite looking more tired and dirty than usual.”

He snorted. “Didn’t sleep. I was working.”

“On what?” she asked.

He hesitated, feeling the weight of the duffel at his boots. “I’m looking at a ship. Halcyon-class. Needs every repair you can imagine, but it’s solid underneath.” He glanced at her, searching for judgment.

She didn’t blink. “You think you can flip it?”

He shook his head. “No. I want to fix it and use it.”

That earned a real smile. “Oh?”

He shrugged. “Got tired of eating freeze-dried misery. I know how to fly, and I studied engineering at the Naval Academy.”

She set the glass down with a clink. “Okay, Caleb, hiding some skills. So what’ll you haul?”

He drummed his fingers on the bar. “That’s what I need to figure out. If I can float a few thousand credits up front, I can file salvage and start repairs.”

Miko’s gaze sharpened. “A lot of my customers run small ships or crew them. Standard freight pays six to eight a kilo, less after docking fees and bribes. If you’re lucky, you keep half.”

He groaned. “So even with a full hold, I’m not making much?”

She sipped her drink. “Cut corners on fuel or skip maintenance, maybe you keep more. But then you’re one blown gasket from becoming a cautionary tale. That’s local stuff. Further out, higher value cargo pays better—but that’s where the pirates play.”

“Okay. Do you know how to file the paperwork?”

“Yeah. If you’ve got the slip number and hull ID, we can pull it up in the station authority database.”

Caleb started to rattle them off, but she waved him around behind the bar. “Just show me.”

The terminal blinked awake. The ship was listed, docking fees delinquent for three years, declared abandoned. Miko pulled up the salvage claim: 15,000 credits. Steeper than he’d hoped, but maybe doable if he landed a few high-paying jobs. At least it meant the maintenance crew he’d overheard wouldn’t be muscling in, he doubted they had that kind of money just lying around.

He nodded, relief flickering in his hazel eyes. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

Miko smirked. “Add it to the tab.”

He smiled, and she touched his back—just briefly, guiding him around the bar. Caleb relished the contact. He liked Miko. More than liked her, maybe. But he couldn’t quite tell if she was just being kind, just playing the role of friend and bartender, or if there was something more behind the warmth in her voice and the way she looked at him, in how she'd touched him just now.

She leaned in, voice low. “You hear about the Janab’s Belt route? A few crews say they’ve run into pirates out there. You get that ship, keep your comms on and your head on a swivel. I don’t want to lose a good customer.”

He gave a tight smile. “I always do.”

She straightened and moved to help a trader at the far end of the bar. Drexler nursed his coffee for another minute, letting the warmth settle the tremor in his hands. He watched the afternoon shadows crawl across the pitted bartop, watched Miko move through her little kingdom, and tried to picture himself on the bridge of a working freighter—free, beholden to nothing but the next jump and the next payday.

He liked the idea more than he expected.

He stood, shouldered his bag, and caught Miko’s eye one last time. She nodded, subtle and sincere.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

He grinned. “Not planning on it.”

Outside, the station’s corridors were thick with shift change—bodies moving with the resigned momentum of people who knew their place in the pecking order. Drexler moved against the tide, every step carrying him closer to the paperwork that might—if he was lucky—make the Andra Chansen his.