Jinx

Outrider Echo cooled on Landing Pad Nine like an old dog settling into a familiar spot. Her hull ticked and pinged as the metal contracted, shedding the heat of atmospheric entry. Around her, the Kaeloni Reach spaceport hummed with the low, steady noise of a place that never fully slept. Fuel haulers crawled between ships, and dockworkers shouted over the whine of cargo loaders. Beyond the floodlights and in the darkness, music bled out of a bar that didn’t bother with a sign because everyone who needed to find it already knew where it was.Finn Silver sat on a cargo crate in the open bay of the ship, legs dangling, watching it all.He was twenty-three but looked younger. Brown jacket, cap pulled low, boots that were too new for the frontier. His posture looked as if he were waiting for something to happen, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, like a kid sitting outside the principal’s office. He’d crewed with Crank for six weeks now, and in those six weeks he’d learned how to load cargo, cycle an airlock, and keep his mouth shut when port authorities came asking questions.He had learned little else. Not because Crank wouldn’t teach him. Because Crank didn’t seem to care.Rafferty “Crank” Jack approached the ship. His boots sounded on the ramp as he walked into the cargo bay, carrying a small supply crate under one arm and a bottle of Kaeloni rye in his free hand. The outlaw was in his late fifties, gray in the beard, heavy in the shoulders, wearing the same faded jacket he’d worn every day since Finn had met him. He set the crate down without ceremony, dropped into the fold-out chair across from Finn, and cracked the bottle.He didn’t offer any.“Port boss says we can hold the pad through zero-eight-hundred,” Crank said. He took a long pull from the bottle and stared at the far wall of the cargo bay. “After that, it’s double rate.”“What’s the next job?” Finn asked.“There’s always a next job.”“That’s not an answer.”“It’s the only one I’ve got, Jinx.”Finn’s jaw tightened at the name. He’d told Crank a dozen times his name was Finn, and a dozen times Crank had ignored him. Jinx. Like he was a curse. Like everything he touched went sideways. Crank had pinned it on him the first week after Finn knocked over a fuel canister during a supply run and nearly set fire to a docking cradle on Verathi Station. The name stuck because Crank wanted it to, and what Crank wanted on his own ship was what happened.They sat in silence. The lantern between them cast a warm light upward, leaving their faces half-shadowed. Outside, a loading crane groaned, and someone argued about docking fees in two languages. Inside Outrider Echo, it was still.A girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, appeared from around the ship and stood at the foot of the loading ramp with a tray of food packets balanced on one arm. Her thin, dusty clothes held a variety of patches, creating a mystery around the garment’s original fabric. One of the port kids. Every frontier spaceport had them. Orphans, runaways, station rats who survived by selling food, running errands, or stealing what they couldn’t sell.“Rations?” she asked. “Fresh today. Five Geld each.”Crank didn’t look up. “Get lost.”Finn reached into his jacket. He pulled out a ten-Geld coin, more than he should have spent, and held it out. “I’ll take two.”The girl climbed halfway up the ramp, handed him two packets, and took the coin. She glanced at Crank, then back at Finn. Her fingers closed around the coin fast, holding it like something she was afraid someone would take back. She looked at Finn for half a second longer than she needed to and dropped her eyes.“Thanks, mister,” she said, and disappeared into the spaceport dark.Finn tossed one packet to Crank. It landed on the supply crate next to his bottle. Crank looked at it, then at Finn.“You just spent ten Geld on ration packs worth two.”“She needed it more than I did.”“That’s a fine attitude until you’re broke and hungry on a station that doesn’t hand out charity.” Crank picked up the packet, turned it over, and set it back down. “You keep that up, Jinx, and the frontier will eat you alive.”“Stop calling me that.”“Stop earning it.”Finn stood up. Not angry, but something close. He walked to the edge of the cargo bay where the ramp met the spaceport ground and looked out at Kaeloni Reach. The floodlights made hard shadows between the ships, people moving in and out of them. Everyone here was running from something or toward something, and most of them couldn’t tell you which.“Why do you do this?” Finn said.“Do what?”“All of it.” Finn turned around. “The jobs. The running. Living out of this ship like it’s a coffin with an engine.”“Watch your mouth about my ship.”“I’m serious. Why?”Crank took another drink. A long one. He set the bottle down and leaned back, arms crossed, the ...