Chapter 57 · Old bones

The air inside the hangar was warmer than outside, thick with the smell of sun-baked metal and old lubricant. The roof filters hadn’t been serviced in years; light came through in narrow shafts that turned the dust into slow-moving stars.

Eli stood still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. The Steady Hand filled the center of the space like something both proud and forgotten. Around her—piles of spare plating, stacked coils, a few disassembled engines—lay the remains of a collector’s obsession.

Laro had always been that way. When they were younger, Eli remembered him skipping family dinners to help the mechanics, trading pocket credits for a handful of cracked servos “just to see how they tick.” The habit hadn’t faded; it had only gotten more expensive.

“You traded half your toys for this one, didn’t you?” Eli said softly.

Laro gave a short laugh. “You noticed. I love this ship.”

“I’d know your hoarding anywhere,” Eli said. He looked around—the empty racks where old thruster assemblies once sat, the outlines on the floor where small crafts had been parked for years. “You cleared it out.”

“Couldn’t afford to keep everything,” Laro said. He kicked a loose bolt away and watched it skitter into the shadows. “Besides, she’s the only one that mattered.”

He rested a hand on the hull, brushing off a thin layer of dust. “Never had the time to finish her. Business kept growing. More contracts, more offices. Mom calls this place a museum of poor decisions.”

Eli smiled faintly. “She’s not wrong.”

“No,” Laro said, “but she’s not right either.”

Stent’s voice cut through the warmth of the moment, flat and precise. “The vessel’s structure is sound. Minimal corrosion. Power couplings appear compatible with a class two drive.”

Laro turned. “See? Even the ice sculpture approves.”

Stent ignored the comment, moving along the hull with the calm of someone conducting inventory rather than inspection. He ran a scanner along the port thrusters, then the auxiliary conduits. “The drive will fit with minor modifications.”

Eli watched him for a moment, then looked back at Laro. “You’ve really thought this through.”

“I didn’t,” Laro said. “Not until I saw your ship baking out there on the field.” He gestured vaguely toward the distance. “You’re not going to get far in that tin can. This one’s old, but she’s got bones. She deserves the space again.”

Eli’s throat tightened. “You’re sure?”

Laro’s answer came quick, almost defensive. “Don’t make it sentimental, Vanto. I’m not giving her away. Just… lending her to someone who’ll make her useful.”

“You mean someone too reckless to refuse,” Eli said.

“That too.”

The Steady Hand’s ramp came down with a long, hydraulic sigh that sounded almost like relief. Dust rolled inward, catching the light, and for a moment the ship seemed to breathe again.

Inside, the air was cooler, dimmer—old insulation and recycled air, but not dead. The corridor leading forward opened into a cockpit designed for more than survival. Three full seats stood in a graceful arc before the viewport, surrounded by consoles whose panels were still polished under the dust. The pilot’s chair sat on a raised base with a manual override built into the armrest—a ship meant for hands, not automation.

He knew this layout already. As Laro had said, a ship like this had been one of the first their parents had had when they started their shipping business.

Just behind it, a narrow passage opened to a small navigation room. The walls were lined with empty brackets where the old systems had been stripped out. Eli crouched beside one of them, already measuring in his head.

“We could pull the new astronavigator out of the Mynock,” he said, almost to himself. “Still has its calibration fresh. Would fit right here.”

Laro leaned in the doorway, grinning. “Always the practical one.”

“That’s the only reason we’re still alive,” Eli said.

The midsection opened into what could actually be called living space. Two cabins branched off the corridor—the first compact but tidy, with bunks that looked like real furniture instead of collapsible walls. The second, clearly the captain’s, held a double bed, a narrow dresser, and even its own fresher with sink and mirror. Eli stood in the doorway a moment, stunned. “A ship with plumbing. I might cry.”

Beyond that, a proper common room stretched wide enough for a table, a couch, and a half-assembled dejarik set resting on the floor.

“I was fixing it,” Laro said defensively.

Stent regarded the scattered pieces without expression. “A simple table will suffice.”

The galley occupied one side of the room, gleaming under layers of dust. Real burners. A small refrigerator. Even a freezer.

Eli opened one of the compartments and let out a low whistle. “Cold storage. We won’t have to live off ration bricks.”

Stent adjusted a panel near the door. “Assuming the power couplings still function.”

“They will,” Eli said. “They have to.”

Toward the rear, a bulkhead door slid open to reveal the cargo bay—wide, tall, and echoing, the engineering section built into its left wall. The scale of it dwarfed everything they’d called a ship before. Standing there, Eli could almost forget the Mynock’s cramped corridor and recycled air.

“This isn’t a ship,” he said quietly. “It’s civilization.”

Near the port side, sunlight slanted through a tear in the hangar’s roof and struck the hull just right. The faint chalk scrawl became visible under the dust — two uneven words written across the original nameplate: Faded Glory.

Eli blinked. “You renamed her?”

Laro followed his gaze and snorted. “That? No. Dad did, years ago. He came by once while I was patching her hull, said ‘she’s steady, sure, but she’s faded,’ and left that behind like a signature.”

He rubbed the chalk letters with his thumb; the dust clung to the lines, stubborn even after all these years. “I kept meaning to clean it off. Guess it stuck.”

Eli smiled faintly. “Seems right, though. Ships change names when they earn them.”

Stent stepped closer, scanning the hull plating. “Designation is irrelevant. Structural integrity remains constant.”

“Maybe,” Eli said. “But names keep us honest.”

They stood in silence for a while, watching Stent circle the ship. The Steady Hand—no, the Faded Glory—seemed to wake under the attention, stretching her long, worn lines in the filtered light.

Eli finally said, “She’s beautiful, Laro.”

Laro’s voice softened. “She will be, once she flies again.”

Laro turned toward the tool racks, the brief sentiment gone as fast as it came. “We’ve got work to do. I’ll get the mechanics here this afternoon.”

Eli straightened. “We’re paying for it.”

“You’re not,” Laro said immediately.

“Then we’re not taking her.”

Stent, unhelpfully precise, added, “Compensation establishes proper transactional balance.”

Laro glared at both of them. “You’re impossible. I’ve got the parts lying around—thrusters, couplings, even a spare power conduit. You don’t owe me a credit.” He pointed at Eli, a hiking expression on his face “Plus, he’s family, he gets discount.”

“Then let us cover the mechanics’ pay,” Eli said, tone softening. “You know as well as I do they’ll work better if they think we’re footing the bill.”

Laro hesitated, torn between pride and pragmatism. Finally, he exhaled through his nose. “Fine. You pay their wages, I’ll provide the parts. That’s the deal.”

“Good,” Eli said. “Now it’s official.”

“Officially stupid,” Laro muttered, but the edge had faded.

He looked around the hangar once more — the ship, the dust, the empty spaces where his old projects had once stood. “She’s yours to wake up. Just… don’t make her regret it.”

Eli glanced at the chalk letters again, bright against the dull hull. “We won’t. By the time we’re done, she’ll earn the name for real.”

By late afternoon the hangar no longer felt abandoned.

The quiet had been replaced by the percussion of tools and the low murmur of mechanics arguing over calibration charts. Laro’s crew arrived exactly when he said they would—seven veterans of freight work, sunburned and unhurried, men who treated old ships like sacred puzzles.

Eli had moved the Mynock inside before they came. The little freighter squatted near the rear wall, her dull hull throwing back the light like a guilty secret. In this vast space she looked almost embarrassed—every scrape and crude patch amplified by contrast with the ship beside her.

“She looks even smaller in here,” Eli admitted.

Stent didn’t look up from the diagnostic panel. “Perspective adjusts with improvement.”

“Thanks,” Eli said dryly. “That makes her feel better.”

Laro passed by carrying a hydrospanner longer than his forearm. “You two can debate philosophy after she flies. Right now, we’ve got heat sinks to clean and a compressor to rebuild.”