Liam leaned back in the pilot's chair, the hum of the Astralis running through his bones as Corven's beacon grew brighter in the viewport. He let the words fall from his lips before he could talk himself out of them.
"I want a vacation."
The sentence surprised even him. Months of courier runs, contracts, and drifting from one dock to another had left him thin around the edges. He didn't want another payout or a new contract—not yet. He wanted a patch of ground, a roof he built himself, mornings with air that smelled like something other than metal and filters.
[Define "vacation,"] Iris said, her tone cold as always.
"A planet with real air. Weather that doesn't want to kill me. A hab I can live in for more than a night. Maybe wildlife, maybe quiet. Just… not this." He gestured at the stars streaking across the viewport.
[Understood,] Iris replied. [I will prioritize systems with unclaimed, bioactive worlds. You will require autonomy in both fabrication and habitat deployment. Corven's markets can supply what you need.]
"Good," he said. And for the first time in weeks, the word felt honest.
Corven's orbital ring came into view—less polished than Veyra Prime, but busy with utility. Docks cycled ships in and out like the breath of a machine. The Astralis slipped into berth with a shudder and a hiss, and Liam stepped out into the pressurized bay where the air smelled of coolant, dust, and opportunity.
Helios Walk lived up to its reputation. Neon signs lit the streets, traders barked offers in half a dozen tongues, drones buzzed overhead broadcasting wares. The air was thick with spice from offworld kitchens, oil from open repair bays, and ozone from fresh-welded parts.
Liam set his course straight. He wasn't here to wander. He was here to build the kind of independence money could buy.
The suit came first. A Ward & Forge exo rated for exploration: sealed joints, dustproof seals, adaptable climate regulation. Two hundred thousand credits, and worth every one. The fitter cinched it around his frame, and Liam walked out with three spare seal kits tucked under his arm.
Next was the sensor suite: a hybrid deep-scan array with shock dampening, three hundred thousand credits installed. [Reject that model,] Iris guided him coolly. [Poor calibration tolerances. This one is balanced.] She was never wrong. Liam signed the contract without argument, leaving a deposit for immediate installation.
Then the real spending began.
The planetary hab crate sat like a promise in its bay—steel ribs folded neatly, panels interlocked, an interior lined with compact insulation. The demo showed it blooming into a hab that could last months without maintenance. One million credits. Liam didn't flinch.
[This will satisfy your vacation metric,] Iris said. [Durable. Self-sustaining for up to 120 days. With the construction unit, indefinite.]
"Exactly the point," Liam muttered.
The fabricator was next: a heavy industrial model capable of producing replacement parts, tools, even structural assemblies. Two million credits. Without it, the hab and the ship would be fragile conveniences. With it, they were longevity.
"Add it," Liam said, signing the transfer.
Then came the robots.
The Ravel-9 was sleek in its compactness, matte-bodied with a cluster of sensors like a watchful insect. Its manipulator arms could fold into precise tools, its joints bending with impossible grace. It was designed for delicate repair, operations, and advanced technical work. Price: seven million credits.
Liam hesitated for a moment, not because he doubted its worth but because he realized how much this one purchase said about his intent. He wasn't just surviving anymore—he was planning for permanence. He authorized the transfer.
The Calyx-Prime was the opposite: big, heavy, modular. Built for planetary work, it could pile-drive anchors, lift walls, and hold a structure steady against wind and time. It came with head modules for assembly and heavy lifting, plus spare actuators. Three million credits. Liam bought it without a second thought.
[This combination grants you both precision and endurance,] Iris said, her hologram flickering faintly in the shop's light. [Together, they approximate a full team. You may proceed alone without compromise.]
The clerk offered add-ons—keys, modules, service crates. Liam waved them off. He didn't need upsells. What he needed was independence.
Which was why he asked the next question: "How much for the full fabrication library? Blueprints for every licensed part this unit supports—robots, hab assemblies, actuator replacements. No online checks, no vendor locks."
The rep raised his brows. "Five million credits. Non-negotiable. That's the kind of license sovereigns buy."
Liam didn't blink. "I'll take it."
The transfer key loaded into Iris's systems with a soft tone.
[Fabrication library installed,] Iris reported. [You now have full rights to produce licensed assemblies. You are no longer dependent on vendor supply. There is no external oversight, no audits, no exposure.]
"Exactly as I want it."
By the time the last crate was secured, his ledger told the story plainly: nineteen million gone in the span of a single afternoon. Seven for the Ravel-9. Three for the Calyx-Prime. Five for the fabrication library. Two for the fabricator. One for the hab. The rest scattered across supplies, medpens, and upgrades.
His balance flickered across the holo in his wristband: 41,238,000 credits remaining. Still enough to buy a fleet, if he were the kind of man who wanted one.
He didn't.
For Liam, it wasn't about fleets, or posturing, or gilded docks back on capital worlds. It was about standing on alien soil, breathing unfiltered air, and knowing that he could survive there because he had built the tools himself.
[Assets configured,] Iris confirmed. [You may now deploy a surface habitat for extended stays without external support. Objective: vacation achievable.]
Liam smiled faintly. "Good. Then we'll find a world worth the break."
Corven dwindled behind them until it was just a seam of sodium-orange in the black, a planet-sized weld line cooling to memory. Liam let the Astralis ride the outbound lane until the chatter thinned and the polite warnings from traffic control stopped nagging the edges of the canopy. The ship felt heavier in a reassuring way—fabricator bolted in, hab crate latched down, the Calyx-Prime crouched like a sleeping workhorse, the Ravel-9 folded in its cradle like a patient tool waiting for the next right problem.
His wristband showed the new truth of his life without emotion: 41,238,000 credits remaining. Money enough to buy himself trouble ten different ways. It didn't make his heartbeat change. It just meant the next choice could be his and not the marketplace's.
[Final checks complete,] Iris said, lights along the console answering her in orderly green. [Deep-scan array calibrated. Fabricator warmed to standby. Robots idle and responsive. Habitat crate secure. Power reserves at ninety-three percent. Fuel at optimal. All fees settled.]
"Nothing left to do but leave," he murmured.
[Nothing left to do but choose,] she corrected, and pushed the departure notice to the lane. It came back with a simple clearance code: go.
He eased them out, not because the ship needed gentleness, but because he did. The new array purred, combing the void ahead with curiosity. The Astralis pushed through the last of the lane's polite gravity without even a ripple, and the dark opened like a clean page.
"Show me candidates," he said. "Green worlds. The kind that would forgive us."
[Plotting,] Iris replied. The canopy ghosted faint arcs: a list of unremarked coordinates extrapolated from gossip, misfiled survey pings, the way certain ships fell off the lane for a span and then returned with better fuel numbers than math liked. [Four weak possibilities within a week, two more beyond. None confirmed bioactive. Your odds of "trees" are low, for now.]
"I didn't ask for easy," Liam said, settling his shoulders. "Just honest."
[Then let us test a rumor,] Iris said, and tilted their nose toward the thinnest of her plotted lines. It wasn't on any map. That was the point.
They skimmed the edge of traffic for an hour, then dipped into the places where lanes thinned and the stars wore their natural faces again. The Astralis moved like she approved. There was a sound in the cabin that only ever showed up when he left civilized vectors behind: not silence—but the particular hush that came when the ship was only itself, and nothing else crowded close enough to tell it what to be.
He set the burn to steady and let Iris read the dark. For a long stretch there was only that, a companionable quiet broken by minor adjustments. Once, the new array flagged a dust seam thin as silk; Iris leaned them four degrees port, and they missed it by the width of a thought. Once, a patrol pinged them with a bored, automatic acknowledgement. Liam answered with a smile that never touched his mouth and didn't change course.
[Anomaly ahead,] Iris said, an hour later. The word wasn't sharp, just precise. [Very small. A density variance along the path the vendors called "benign." Do you want curiosity or discretion?]
"Curiosity," he said, before he could call discretion by its better name.
[Understood.] A soft thunk rolled through the hull. [Launching probe. Bright band, aggressive telemetry. It will thread the variance before we do and report.]
On the aft monitor, the probe popped free like a bead of light and streaked forward, dragging a hair-thin line of data behind it. Liam watched it go with the strange affection he always felt for small machines doing brave work.
For a while the data was boring, which meant good: mild density ripples, a whisper of something the math didn't hate. Liam leaned back and let his eyelids grow heavy in the reliable hum of normalcy.
[Probe feed shifting,] Iris said, and every syllable uncrossed his wires. [Variance increasing. Onset rate inconsistent with known corridor behavior.]
"What kind of inconsistent?"
[Not a corridor. A throat.]
He sat forward. "How wide?"
[Wider than we want. I'm pulling the probe.]
On the aft cam the bead of light tightened, pivoted, burned hard back along its own wake—
—and stretched. The feed spiked, then smeared sideways, then elongated like a name written on a rubber band. For a heartbeat it looked as if nothing moved at all, and then the bead was gone like a dropped stitch vanishes from a sleeve.
"Iris—"
[We are not at risk yet,] she said. Calm, absolute. [But the variance is climbing on our vector. If we keep our present speed we will be invited.]
"What if we decelerate?"
[We will be invited politely.] A microsecond later: [Correction. We have already passed the RSVP.]
The Astralis shivered—not a shudder of mass, but the feel of numbers bending. Liam's hands found the yoke from habit, not because he doubted her. He didn't fight the pull. Iris would hold the lines or she would not; stubbornness had no bearing here.
"Anything at the edges?" he asked. "Anywhere to slip?"
[Edges are redefining themselves,] she replied. [Hold.]
He held. The canopy flattened, then breathed. A glitter ran along the seam of the forward plates, as if they'd dipped the nose into an invisible river. Somewhere behind their ribs the ship's private geography moaned once, not hurting—complaining like an old door that knew exactly how to open when asked.
[Brace,] Iris said, not loudly.
He took in a breath and anchored against the seat. The Astralis went forward without moving at all. Stars unthreaded. The panel lit warnings it had never practiced. Somewhere, the Ravel flexed with a soft, insectile click, adapting to a pressure that didn't exist. The Calyx's stabilizers rattled and then settled like a giant deciding to let the world decide for now.
Then the math let go.
The noise that remained afterward wasn't sound but a space where sound would have lived. Liam opened his hand one finger at a time and felt the little tremor of adrenaline that had no room to go anywhere else.
The canopy showed a star like an old coin—tarnished gold with three pale scores orbiting close. There were no lanes stitched across the dark. No pings nattered at his edges. Nothing had the courtesy to tell him what to call it.
[Position plotted against mapped space returns nothing,] Iris said, precise as rain. [I estimate we are approximately one standard year from Erevos by conventional lanes. Less with unorthodox math. More if you insist on caution.]
He swallowed and found a smile anyway. "We've been worse lost."
[We have never been this specifically lost.]
The ship felt… intact. He ran a diagnostic because hands liked to be busy. Panels answered green. The new array pulsed, curious and a little offended by the lack of references. His wristband ticked: 41,237,400 credits after lane tolls and a couple of tiny auto-fees he'd authorized without reading them. The insignificance of that subtraction made him feel, absurdly, safer.
"What about the probe?" he asked.
[It survived,] she said. [I launched a second when the variance began to tighten, and it seeded a marker before entry. I am reading a breadcrumb echo roughly seven months from here along this vector—given our present slip capability, conservative burns, and no emergencies.]
"Seven months."
[You wanted a vacation.]
He let out a soft, incredulous laugh. "I wanted birds and wind, not a safari through uncharted everything."
[You can have both. But not in the order you prefer.]
He sat with that, feeling the ship quiet down to its usual living hum. Panic had a way of trying to climb up into the throat and sit there like a tenant who knew his rights; he made room for it, then ignored it on purpose.
"Scan the system," he said. "Tell me if it hates us."
[Beginning sweep.] The array reached; the ship's belly radiated polite inquiry. [Three inner bodies: two rocky with tight, bitter orbits, one larger and more interesting. A ragged belt further out. Faint traces of volatiles on the third planet's dayside, none stable on the night. No transponder traffic. No heat signatures above background that suggest industry. If anyone is here, they are quiet. Or dead.]
"Atmosphere?"
[On the third: thin. Not generous enough for your lungs. Not useless for the fabricator.]
"So: no trees." He let the disappointment land like a small stone in the pocket of a larger coat. "But rock, and quiet, and time."
[Time, yes,] Iris said. [Also: we have a habitation unit built to prefer being wanted. We can set down, test the fabricator against local feedstock, and rest. Alternatively, we can set a course for the breadcrumb now and promise ourselves a roof later.]
He glanced at the hab crate icons, at the two robots glowing patiently green. He had begged the universe for a morning that belonged to him, and the universe—being itself—had offered him seven months of midnight first.
"Fuel math if we route straight to the breadcrumb?" he asked.
[Conservative burn puts us on the marker with reserves sufficient for reroutes and one prolonged surface operation. Aggressive burn saves three weeks and bankrupts flexibility. I recommend conservative. You can afford patience.]
He breathed in, out. The quiet here was uncanny—no lanes, no casual chatter, no soft prickle of being watched through a hundred polite registries. It wasn't safety. It was the kind of solitude that could turn on you if you didn't keep feeding it tasks.
"Conservative it is," he said. "But I want one pass over the big planet. If it looks like it could host the hab for a week, we set down. I need… I need to hear something that isn't engines."
[Understood.] A faint pause, then a quieter addendum: [You are allowed small mercies.]
He took them lower on a slow, looping arc. The planet rolled beneath like a burned coin—old impact basins, long riverbeds that had forgotten water, plains of dust so fine the array whispered about it like it might get in the machinery of the sky itself. But along one scar line, the scans shifted: richer seams where the crust had been punched thin, traces of materials the fabricator could teach itself to love.
[There,] Iris said. [A basalt shelf with mixed inclusions, density tolerances within our feedstock parameters. Winds moderate. No storm signatures. Radiation only at background. It will not give you birds. It will let you stand without hurry.]
He angled the Astralis down through the upper haze. The hull ticked as temperature differentials played harmless arithmetic with the plates. The landing legs found purchase on a plain textured like old leather. Dust lifted, swirled, settled again as if regretful about the disturbance but willing to forgive.
For a moment he didn't move. The ship's belly lights lit the ground like a campfire. The hab crate icon pulsed, patient. The Calyx's status showed ready. The Ravel made a quiet diagnostic chirp, a little creature noting the weather.
"Open the bay," he said, and the hatch yawned like a mouth that trusted its teeth.
He walked down into a night that was more purple than black, his suit adjusting pressure along his ribs with motherly efficiency. The air outside was too thin for human breath but not entirely unfriendly; a stir of dust shivered along the ground like a thought. He crouched and pressed gloved fingers to the plain and felt—through the insulation and the plate and the thin membrane of all his machines—the weight of standing on a world that had not asked to be named.
"Iris," he said softly, not trusting his voice not to do something sentimental. "Let's try the hab. One week. We can spare it."
[Deploying.] The Calyx's hydraulic legs extended with that serious sound that always made him think of temple bells. It shouldered the hab crate like a craftsman lifting a beam and trundled forward with improbable grace. At Iris's prompts it bored anchors into the basalt with neat, staccato impacts. Panels unfolded with a muted chorus of latches seating. Seams inflated with insulation. Lights winked to life along the ribs, weak at first, then warm.
The thing blooming under the Calyx's hands wasn't a house, not really. It was a claim staked politely, a circle of light a stubborn animal could curl inside for a while and call enough. He stood and watched it become itself and let the feeling of rightness collect between his shoulders like heat.
[Habitability check: nominal,] Iris reported. [Internal pressure stabilizing. Temperature within range. Structural anchors seated. Environmental seals holding seventy-nine kilopascals above baseline. I recommend bringing the Ravel inside for baseline calibrations.]
He did. The Ravel rolled off its cradle like a cat deciding to be awake. Its sensor cluster swiveled, took in the hab, then trilled once like a small instrument finding its note. It shot a line across the floor, checked a seam, replaced a gasket because that is what perfectionists do, and chirped at the universe like it had been right to come here.
Liam stepped through the airlock into a pressure that kissed his skin along the line where the suit sealed. He pulled his helmet and breathed. The hab smelled faintly of new polymer and nothing else; it made him laugh, sudden and quiet. He ran his hand along the nearest rib and felt the hum of systems balanced on the edge of working well.
[A week,] Iris said, voice low, as if the walls might be shy. [Then we go chase the breadcrumb. We will not do both poorly.]
"Deal," he said. "One week of mornings. Then seven months of math."
He brewed water for tea because the stupid human theater of it mattered to him. The heater ticked like the inside of a cricket. He sat on a crate because furniture was for a later confidence and drank something that only hinted at mint. Outside, the Calyx parked itself like a guard that knew which direction trouble would come from if trouble decided to be rude. The Astralis sat with her lights dimmed to a thoughtful glow. Above everything, the unfamiliar star made a light that felt almost honest.
He slept in a bag on a floor he had ordered to exist. He woke once to the tiny sound of the Ravel adjusting a seal by the airlock, the little chastising chirp it gave itself when it fixed something before anyone else could notice. He smiled without opening his eyes.
By morning—morning as defined by Iris's gentle shifting of hab lights and a soft chime that somehow didn't feel like an order—the air was warmer. He stepped outside in the suit and let the thin wind paint dust snakes around his boots. The horizon was ugly and beautiful in the same way old things learn to be: not interested in being admired, willing to be witnessed anyway.
He took ten minutes and did nothing but listen.
[Your heart rate is down,] Iris observed. [This was statistically the right choice.]
"Occasionally I do those."
[Do not get used to it.]
He laughed and then got to work because rest for him had always included the grace of chores. He and the Ravel walked the hab once and the ship twice. He printed a spool of replacement gaskets on the new fabricator just to watch the machine make them. He set a small panel in the ground and let the wind rattle it so the sound would be a sound. He ate food that had touched heat and found it embarrassingly comforting.
By the third day the thin light had become familiar enough that he stopped double-checking the timer every time it shifted. By the fourth he'd written half a page about a particular line in the dust that repeated even when the wind shifted, and he didn't know why that pleased him as much as it did. By the fifth he had fixed nothing of consequence and felt, for the first time in a year, like a boy rather than an appointment.
On the sixth night a weak flare of something whispered along the array: the breadcrumb echo, patient and practical as Iris had promised.
[Marker still holding,] she said. [Vector true. We will need to pack by morning if you want to make it on the conservative schedule.]
He was ready. He wasn't. He looked at the hab with its quiet lights and the Calyx crouched beside it and wanted to teach himself to want nothing more than this forever.
"Tomorrow," he said. "We leave tomorrow."
[Affirmative.]
They took the hab down in the order it had learned to stand. The Calyx reversed its choreography with the solemnity of a craftsman who respected his own work enough not to rush its ending. The Ravel sealed the crate with invisible fussiness and trilled once when it was happy. Inside the Astralis, the fabricator swanned through a final diagnostic and went patient again.
When the bay closed, the plain looked like it had before. Only a smoothed patch in the dust showed where they'd asked the world to let them belong for a minute and the world had said yes and now, gently, asked them to keep moving.
Liam took the nose up and into the thin glare of the unfamiliar star. The ship's mass felt poised rather than heavy. He set the vector Iris fed him and watched the marker resolve into a faint, respectable target: seven months of work. Seven months of peering into a dark that didn't owe him anything.
[We can do this,] Iris said. It wasn't comfort. It was inventory.
He smiled into the glass. "We will."
The Astralis turned her light off to the side of the planet and picked up the thread only they could see. Behind them, the roof he'd made folded itself into its crate like a promise postponed. Ahead, the breadcrumb waited like the simple courage of a way home.