"So, here's the thing about Freelancers. People - usually us - like to say we're unique, and special, and God's gift to the universe. Really, the truth is that we come in three categories." The bittersweet smell of cheap coffee drifted past as a man in a stained security uniform set a tray down behind Sparks. She turned away from the camera for a moment to watch. The security tough was packing, a bulky pistol resting at his hip like a caged rhino. But who wasn't, these days? Soft smiles were rarer than hot lead. Most cases, seemed they were more dangerous too. Satisfied that the man was more interested in the sports vids than her, Sparks returned her attention to the recording, raised three fingers.

"Number one." One finger dropped. Her nails were rough, bitten short. Sparks couldn't remember chewing them. Hadn't since she was a girl. Seemed she was slipping back into a lot of old habits lately. The cafe was the sort of dump you only got on freelance stations, all greasy filters and greased palms. The sort of place you could slap down three credits to stare out the window until security decided it was time to move you on. A mecca for the lost and lonely; and for those who wanted to join them. It was a long way from the gardens of Manhattan, in more ways than the physical. "Heroes. Your Edison Trents, your Winston Tobias's, your Rachel Wethers. People who are either suicidally brave or just plain suicidal. The sort of people who'll stand up and take on a fleet because it's the right thing to do, if you believe the stories. Probably more story than truth at this point, if we're being honest.

But this message isn't about heroes." Perhaps it was, once. A second finger dropped to a callused palm. "Two. Well, kinda-self evident after heroes, isn't it? Villains. People who slide in a freelancer transponder for the anonymity of it, who aren't so much human beings as animals looking for an excuse. People who'll burn a convoy as easily as escort it, buy a new identity with the proceeds, and head right out and take another run at the same.

Funny thing, this message isn’t about them either." Sparks smiled at the camera, a tired grin that was more muscle memory than mirth. "This is about the third kind of freelancer. What they do is really, really simple. They choose a job. They do it, and then they get paid. Easy. No high-minded ideals, no low-minded villainy. I’m Sparks, and I’m one of those freelancers.

Mechanic, engineer, and a little bit of everything else. I’ve worked on pretty much everything from a mail-runner to a combat-capable cruiser." For a little over a week. Sparks pushed on, perhaps a little too quick. There were some things you didn’t say at a job interview. "Not so crash-hot with jumpspace navigation, but I’ve worked on conventional courses pretty frequently. Chemical rockets and old-school dynamics I can do too, along with the usual fusion drives. Patched up a few commsats, too. Just about the only thing I can't do is fly the things.“ She shrugged. "No big deal. Always preferred the engine room anyway.

I’m looking for work. A transport’d be nice, but anything big enough to take on an extra hand’ll do. Don’t have a ship of my own burning holes in the wallet, so we can talk about wages when I know what you’ve got available. I’d prefer something headed out to Barrier Gate, but right now I’m willing to settle for anything that’s not here.” Sparks waved a lazy hand toward the grimy bench. "That’s pretty much the gist of it. Have vaccsuit, will travel. Let me know if you’ve got anything. I’ll be at this address until, well. Until I get a job.”

Or until she ran out of money. Sparks hit a button and killed the comm.

"Hi, Nick." The faint glow of the screen silhouetted the same two-credit café, same pitted plastic cutlery and patterned polymer floor. Nightfall on Heisenberg, and the station’s internal lights had faded to dull glow; simulating the night-day cycle of a world no human being had seen outside of history vids in more than eight hundred years. The phrase ‘old habits’ seemed completely inadequate to describe that sort of determination, but it was the best Sparks’ sleep-addled brain could throw up. Her own sleep cycle had been drifting steadily out of sync with the station’s, mornings slowly drifting into evenings, until she’d given up on keeping track altogether. Who cared if she got up at six in the evening? It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to be. Sparks swallowed a mouthful of something that looked like coffee and tasted like biohazard-grade waste and glanced back at the camera.

"Thanks for the offer. I’m honestly surprised at how much attention this little ad got." Sparks spared a look behind her. Except for a bored-looking drone and a pair of waste-disposal techs poking at what could have been sandwiches, if you closed your eyes and didn’t chew too thoroughly, the café was empty. That was good. An empty café meant fewer potential eavesdroppers. Or someone else is clearing the field. She shook the idea free. Stars, when did she get so twitchy?

"Farther afield sounds good, actually. I’ve been here for long enough already. Too much longer and I might start to put down roots." Sparks smiled, but she said it as though she were a doctor identifying a tumour. Mhm, it’s in deep, but if we operate now, we might just save her… "Er, that said… Like I said, I’ve had a few more offers then I really expected. I was thinking one, maybe. If I was lucky. Some old lady who needed a corridor swept out in zero-G for a buck-fifty an hour-type work. So to have had a number of people come back offering postings on fully operational starships…

I’m a little surprised, I guess, is what I’m getting at." She raised her arms in a helpless shrug, bones made thin by years in low gravity. "And as much as I wish I could accept all the offers, yours included, I can’t split myself in that many directions. One’s just about all I can manage these days.

So, sorry Nick, but I have to politely decline. At least on a full-time basis. It’s nothing against you." At least, nothing against you personally. The man was a Rheinlander. Sparks had had enough of Rheinlanders and their Fatherland to last her a lifetime. No, signing on with one was too much risk for too little reward. "Depending on how things work out, I might still have time for a bit of freelance repair work here and there. You know, if you’ve got an odd job here or there that doesn’t need me to stick around. Drop me a line. You’ve got my comm codes."

She raised a hand to her forehead in mock salute. "Good luck out there, skipper."

"Rachel, hi. Sparks here. I got your message a few days back." Sparks had found a booth in the café, had settled comfortably into the gel-padded seats, her back to a corner. Even the service drone had drifted back to its charging port, wherever in the maze of the station’s maintenance corridors that was, and the only noise was the steady hum of the life support. Sparks felt it like a pulse, the drone of fans, the almost-imperceptible pushes and pulls of attitude control thrusters. The constant noise was as reassuring to her as a mother’s heartbeat.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, and nice to meet you too. I’m not going to play about too much here, you and IRG make a great offer. Hope you don’t mind, but I did a little bit of digging on what you guys do. Couldn’t find much, funnily enough. Still, going off what you said? Large scale construction? Cutting edge research?" Sparks’ grin was reminiscent of the cat that got not only the cream, but the cow and dairy too. “So, am I interested? Oh, hell yes. But.”

Sparks’ grin dropped by degrees. She forced it back up and tried not to think about what she was saying. Here it was, an opportunity she would have killed for a few years ago. Still would have. Work out on the edge of human space and the edge of human knowledge. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted? Yes, but… And there it was. That ‘but.’ That moment’s niggling hesitation. She exhaled, couldn’t meet the camera’s unblinking stare. Found something interesting among the coffee stains on the table instead. “But, no. Ingenuus isn’t for me. Sorry.”

A long moment, and Sparks returned her eyes to the camera.

“I’m sure you do good work, important work and, if you’d asked me a year ago, I’d probably have been hammering on the hull for a half hour by now. But, really, here and now, I’m not looking for important. I’m not looking for firsts, or cutting edge, or keeping secrets.” Sparks smiled, flippant again. “Got enough secrets of my own to look after, thanks. It’s a great offer, Rachel, and I’m honestly tempted, but where I am right now…

Where I am now, I’m just happy to keep a ship flying.” She shrugged like she was shrugging off bad weather. “Thanks again, and I wish your group the best. Really, I do. Who knows, maybe we can work together some time in the future. Just not right now.“

Sparks raised a finger to the datapad and cut the video. It was a long minute before she made herself hit ‘send’.

"Hi, Leslie." Sparks gave the camera a tired grin. She'd left the cafe behind, driven out by an influx of night workers changing shift, and found a public bench pushed up against a corridor wall in the station's lower levels instead. Gravity was spotty down there, walking the borders of the station's fields, somewhere between the suggestion of force and total weightlessness. Sparks didn't mind. It was quiet and, if she dimmed the lights she could almost convince herself what she was feeling was the thrust of a ship, rather than a temperamental generator.

"I got your offer a couple of days back. Fairly obvious, I guess, given as I'm calling you back, but cut me a little slack. It's been a busy night." She nodded towards the datapad, and paused halfway when she realised Leslie couldn't see it. "Long story slightly less long, I had a few more offers then I had any real right to expect. Not that I'm complaining in the slightest, but it's more comms traffic than I've had in a while. I'll spare you the grisly details, but the general gist of it is that you've got a deal."

Sparks panned the camera around the bare, empty corridor. "As you can see, I'm not too caught up on luxury right now. A room and board on the Galley sounds pretty good, assuming you're not one of those captains that likes to make use of every square inch of spare space on a cargo run. But I'm sure we can work that out if it comes up. I can talk, and I don't think there's a ship in Sirius that has a clean sheet as far as Gallia's concerned, so that's hardly a point against you.”

The reclusive kingdom made a habit of shooting down anything that so much as jumped across the border without a permit, from what she'd heard. Perhaps the only power – only human power, she corrected – in the sector more trigger-happy was the Coalition, and at least they had the decency to keep to themselves most of the time. No, Sparks was in no hurry to pay King Charles a visit.

"It's not as though I'm at tremendous risk of going anywhere, so just let me know when you'll be Rheinland and I'll make sure I'm at the terminal. If you could shoot through the ship's ID beforehand so I can get in, that'd be great.” That, and it would prevent Sparks having to present her own outdated and, if you were being particularly picky, falsified, ID to station security. Freelance security and mercs were no-one's definition of through, and independent stations were notoriously lax when it came to access, but that didn't mean she had to invite trouble. "I'll see you there. Look forward to working with you!"

"Mr Morrison. Henry. Sorry to keep you waiting on this reply, I’ve had my hands full with work lately. Hardly an excuse, I know, but bear with me." Sparks was slouched in one of Adventure Galley’s two bridge terminals, half a dozen glowing screens arrayed before her like a multi-million credit cinema. Given an eternity and a shot of hallucinogens, she still would have struggled to think of anywhere she would rather have been. Sparks grinned and minimised everything except the basic readouts and the recording. “First up, thank you the invitation. I barely expected to draw the notice of a freelance hauler, much less an organisation as big as Bowex.”

Sparks glanced back down the hallway behind her, a door hissing shut as Leslie moved about somewhere below decks. “I’m flattered by the offer, and if I’d got it a few days earlier, I’d probably be on that transport by now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still really interested in working with Bowex, and I’d love the chance to talk to you about it, but-”

She raised a hand, waved the camera at the ship’s bridge. "I’ve already signed on to fly here, and I wouldn’t feel right walking out here to come and work full-time for you guys. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be interested in doing some contract work for Bowex. We can work pretty much anywhere, I’m just not willing to put on the company uniform just yet.

I’m not sure if Bowex is looking for contractors, but I know that we’re looking for work." Sparks’ fingers tapped a steady beat on her arm-rest. She kept her face impassive, casual, trying not to let slip just how much she wanted the work. Freelancing was all very well and good, but she knew a steady wage paid the Galley’s bills a lot better, and as long as the Galley was making money she got paid. Sparks couldn’t afford not to be making money right now. “So, if that’s an option, I’d definitely be interested.”

The camera trundled back towards Sparks. "If that sounds workable to you, the Adventure Galley’ll be coming into Cambridge on the twelfth. It’ll be taking on cargo for a day or two, so we can either meet on Cambridge or, if you can spare a freighter, we can come to you. Whatever’s easiest. They’ll just be the two of us; Leslie Durant and I. We don’t take up much space, I promise."

Sparks’ thin shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "Looking forward to hearing from you.”