Out of the the forty hours in the day, I spent most of them hard at work, above and beyond the standard fifteen that my schedule demanded. I ended each day with sore muscles, and after the revelation that the showers charged for every minute over two and every degree over freezing, I had little to help me relax. I looked forward to the quiet moments when I could be in my room alone, when Tau was still out doing who knows what and I could make use of what little floor space we shared to stretch.

  It was one of these moments that my reluctant roommate intruded upon, coming back earlier than usual to find me standing naked with one leg behind my head.

  “Don’t you knock?” I demanded, quickly grabbing a lumpy pillow to cover up my indecency.

  “Don’t you wear clothes?” he retorted. “Why the fuck are you doing acrobatics shit naked?”

  I sighed in exasperation and snatched a pair of boxers from my drawer. “Because it helps me relax? And it’s not acrobatics, that’s when you jump through the air and stuff.”

  “Right, sure.” He side-eyed me suspiciously as I hastily dressed. “I guess we’re both dudes anyway, right? We were bound to see each other’s junk eventually anyway.”

  My hands shook with anxiety, and my face burned. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  Tau growled, then stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m not making fun of you. I may not like you, but I’m not about to start bullying you for something like that.”

  I grabbed my agitated tail and held it still across my lap as I sat down heavily on my bed. “Thanks,” I said softly.

  “No problem, dude.” He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “I know you’re gonna say it’s not the same, but I get what it’s like to feel wrong in the body you were born with.”

  “I wasn’t-” I began, but stopped myself.

  “I’m going to shower,” Tau said gently. “Try not to flash me again when I get back, alright?”

  A sudden, sharp chime from our communicators filled the room; the notification read ‘I need you in the reactor room ASAP -Nova’.

  “Ugh, I already used up my shower credits!” I whined.

  “Tough luck, gay boy.” Tau kicked my discarded uniform onto my lap. “Look on the bright side. We finally get to work with the reactor!”

  “I’ve been so curious about it,” I admitted as I zipped myself into my jumpsuit. “You’re right, a second shower isn’t gonna void my contract.”

  “There you go!” Tau praised, clapping me roughly on the shoulder. “Oh hey, when did you get the cast off?”

  “Earlier today. I guess it must have happened a while ago.” Lying about my past had become easy after explaining myself to every curious crewmate who wondered where I came from. It was starting to hurt less, too.

  “I thought you had the cast put on, like, two weeks ago,” Tau said, squinting at me. “And that the Doc had to re-break it.”

  I shrugged. “Come on, Nova said she needs us down there fast.”

  I jogged at a brisk pace, taking care not to be so hasty as to incur a fine from Harlyle. I leapt over the ninety degree gravity step between crew quarters and the rest of the ship in a graceful bound, and kept walking without missing a step.

  “Hey, hold up a sec!” Tau called from behind me.

  I stopped when I reached the lifts, leaning against the wall and inspecting my nails fretfully. I looked up as two men in blue walked by, and politely greeted them by name.

  “How do you know those guys?” Tau demanded. “You never hang out after shifts.”

  “I know everybody’s name,” I insisted. “Don’t you?”

  He scoffed. “Sure you do.”

  “Try me,” I challenged as I allowed myself to fall backwards into the gravity shaft. The sensation of slowly drifting down brought a smile to my face.

  “I’ll pass on that,” Tau said with a roll of his eyes as he followed.

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  I shrugged, and kicked off the back wall, rolling in midair before landing on my feet just outside the lift. “By the way, that was acrobatics.”

  “Just when I think you can’t be any more annoying,” Tau grumbled. He wobbled as he exited the shaft, and his stomach gurgled loudly. “Shut up!” he growled.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I replied defensively, hands held high.

  As we closed in on the reactor core, I pointedly greeted another three passing crewmates by name, just to prove the point. When we arrived at the sturdy doors, I keyed the intercom, and stood back for a response.

  The doors opened, revealing the three spires that formed the ship’s heart. Two of the three’s rings spun as before, while the rings of the third rested lifelessly on the floor. As we approached, their shiny surfaces seemed to shift between violet and green based on our perspective.

  Nova was hunched over a control panel beside the inactive reactor recording notes on her comm. When she looked up and waved, her fiery mane waved with her. “Thanks for getting here so fast, you two!”

  “No problem, Nova. Is everything okay with the reactor?” I asked.

  Nova shook her head dismissively. “Naw, Suzy’s alright, she’s just down for maintenance. I figured while she’s out I could show you what keeps the lights on and the ions thrusting.”

  “Can’t this wait?” Tau asked. “I promised the guys I’d be by the rec room tonight for cards.”

  “This won’t take long,” Nova assured us.

  “I’m okay with it taking long,” I volunteered, earning a glare from my roommate.

  “Maybe if you ask your usual amount of questions it will,” Nova jabbed. “Come here, take a look at this.”

  The control panel was covered with switches, levers, dials, and simplistic analog readouts. There wasn’t a touch screen in sight.

  “Looks old,” Tau remarked.

  “It is,” Nova confirmed. “But remember that old usually means fixable, if you can get your hands on the right parts. Do either of you know how to fix a touch screen?” After a pointed pause, she continued. “Exactly. How about this, then?” She pulled a screwdriver from a toolbox on the floor beside the control panel, and unscrewed one of the switches. She pulled it out slowly to reveal two striped wires, one red and green, the other black and green, connecting it to a mess of cables within.

  “Trace the wires, check for shorts, and solder in new ones if necessary?” I guessed.

  “Clean and lubricate the switch itself,” Tau asserted.

  “Both wonderful answers,” Nova praised. “While you two work on that, I’ll tell you about how Sue, Susy, and Susanne work.”

  I got down on my knees and opened up the side panel of the control box. Before reaching my hands in, I double checked for a power shutoff switch, and made sure it was off. Confident that I wasn’t in danger of electrocution, I dove in in search of wires with green stripes.

  As I worked, Nova began her explanation. “These are known as Spire-Ring Reactors, and though they’ve largely been phased out for more compact models, their design is highly dependable and mostly fixable with fabricated components. These rings here,” she gently kicked one of the heavy metal rings lying on the floor, “are magnets. As they levitate and spin, they help force the reactants closer together, which causes them to become volatile. When you add a little kick from a fission battery it starts to fuse, releasing shitloads of energy.”

  “What do they run on?” I asked, squinting into the darkness within the control box.

  Nova produced a flashlight from a holster on her hip and passed it to me, then from a holster on her other hip she passed Tau a spray can of lubricant. “Deuterium and lithium,” she explained. “As they collide, they break apart into tritium and free neutrons, before coming together in the form of inert, stable helium, which gets piped back to the ion thrusters.”

  I quickly located the wires and traced them back to their origins, finding a few cracks in the colorful insulation. “Do I tape up the cracks or replace the wires?” I asked.

  “What’s the easy answer?” Nova asked.

  “Tape?” I guessed.

  “And what’s the cheap answer?”

  “Tape,” I said again. “So tape it up?”

  “Not so fast. Which answer is best for Susy?” Nova asked finally.

  “Probably replacing them,” I admitted. “So I should do what’s best for the equipment, even if it costs more or takes more time?”

  Nova sighed heavily. “In a perfect world, yes. However, your supervisors will tell you to get it done quick and cheap. You’ll both have to learn to walk the line between efficiency and efficacy.”

  “I want to replace the wires,” I decided.

  “Good!” Nova seemed genuinely pleased with my decision. “Tau, you pick out new wires from the toolbox and solder them to the switch; Rook, you carefully excise the old ones, keeping track of where they go.”

  I rummaged through the toolbox for a pair of wire cutters, and carefully set to clipping.

  “Alright, where was I...” Nova muttered. “Done, pretty much. We have tanks of liquid reactant on the floor above that feed down into the spires. The energized helium plasma is passed through power exchangers which suck out the excess energy and store it in a more energy-dense transfer plasma, which then runs through those pretty purple pipes all over the ship.”

  I pulled the old wires free, and Tau slotted the switch back into place. While he screwed it in, I soldered the new wires in place, and wrapped the connections with electrical tape.

  “Well done, boys!” Nova patted our shoulders proudly. “And you didn’t even bicker! Are you two friends yet?”

  “Don’t push it, Nova,” Tau warned, but there was a smirk on his face. “We’re cool, that’s all.”

  “I’ll take it! Come on, I’ll buy you a snack for keeping you late.” Nova threw the power shutoff switch, then flipped the switch we just repaired. Next, she methodically began flipping switches and adjusting dials. The rings slowly lifted from the floor, wobbling as they spun into position. “Okay, readout looks good,” she finally announced. “Let’s go!”