It's a beautiful summer morning out on Lake Michigan: the sun is bright, the sky and the water are two matching sheets of perfect blue, and Rich feels like he's drowning. His reassignment to the industrial repair boat Reliant should feel like freedom, a fresh start. He should be grateful. Instead, he can’t shake the sense that he’s been swept overboard in a storm. The cold shock of hitting the water is past, the chaotic howl of the wind and waves replaced by a deadly stillness, and now he's just sinking slowly, watching the surface get farther and farther away.

  Reassessment is sending Rich back to the same boat he started out on, and he keeps wondering why. He spent a couple years interning in the Reliant’s Intelligent Systems Department, learning the basics, before he jumped at the chance to be reassigned to the much smaller engine repair boat Sympatico. He’d wanted a head start on adulthood, and he’d gotten it: a kid had to grow up fast, on the Sympatico, or his next assignment was a permanent posting to the lake bed. Maybe that’s the reason, though. Maybe Reassessment hoped that dumping Rich right back where he’d started would rewind him back to who he used to be, now that the Sympatico's crew of toxic screw-ups has been disbanded and scattered across the whole Fleet.

  That disbanding is no secret, either, since the Sympatico is the unfortunate flagship of the new Admiral Clearwater’s latest prosocial reform project. Ever since she got her balance, young Beatrice Clearwater’s been dredging up a lot of issues that tired old Admiral Harriet Clearwater let slide, like starting to break up the worst crews from the shittiest boats, for instance. It’ll give all the poor underperforming delinquents a new chance at being healthy, wholesome citizens who can finally live up to their full potential...and give everyone else a huge fucking headache.

  Rich's new crewmates on the Reliant will know where he's from as soon as they access his work history, if they haven’t already been warned in advance. They’ll know what he was part of. Even if he was some fresh-faced know-nothing intern on the Reliant once, Rich seriously doubts he’s going to get a kid’s leeway now that he’s coming back a full-grown man with a record so full of black marks they’re basically just one dark, shameful blur.

  The gulls wheeling and shrieking overhead are the same, at least. They’re a passing note of familiarity as Rich pulls his deck-hopper up from its steady flight above the lake’s ruffled surface, guiding it up to the top of the Reliant. The deck-hopper is standard Fleet issue, a clunky yellow-and-rust brick of a machine rather than any sleeker hoverbike, but it's fine because Rich can barely operate the thing as is. Anything fancier would be wasted on him.

  With an embarrassingly loud thud, he lands in one of the little docks around the top deck of the refitted cruise ship. As the engine cuts off, the Reliant's softly genderless voice murmurs to his implants’ comms, “Welcome to your new residency, Technician Merrill. Please enjoy your stay.”

  “We'll see,” Rich mutters under his breath, and steps out, duffle bag in hand.

  He hits the deck okay, and then he takes a few steps forward and has to stop, grabbing for the nearest railing reflexively. He doesn’t feel unsteady enough to actually stumble, just...the deck isn’t moving under his feet the same way he’s used to, and he needs to stand still and fight down a swell of formless anxiety as he gets his balance back.

  It’s the same way he felt when he woke up in Reassessment, on a boat that wasn’t the Sympatico for the first time in years: off-balance and disoriented by the subtle changes of pitch and yaw that came with an unfamiliar ship, trying and failing to reconcile himself to his circumstances.

  The Reliant is more than four times the size of the Sympatico in both crew size and relative tonnage, and Rich is going to have to recalibrate to her in more ways than just keeping his head down and filling out his parole coursework. It’s an unwelcome surprise, even though it shouldn’t be. He should have been able to prepare himself for it ahead of time. But he didn’t, and now it’s one more thing Rich will have to knuckle down and deal with until things finally settle in.

  As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough how Rich is clinging to the railing like a toddler, there’s a guy waiting for him, watching with an expression that looks faintly amused and not-so-faintly unimpressed. He’s only a head shorter than Rich, which makes him decently tall by Fleet standards; comfortably thick in the middle, with cool brown skin and an explosively curly black ponytail, streaked here and there with silver. His standard-issue black jeans and t-shirt are a lot nicer than Rich's, fresh and well-fitted, and his crisply pressed overshirt is technician’s grey, with a department head’s gold rank stripe on the sleeve.

  With a surge of intense embarrassment, Rich remembers standing here in the same place, but five or six years younger and dumber. He’d just scraped through the placement testing required for an intelligent systems technician’s internship, transferring out of equipment repair, and was desperate to prove he belonged with the crowd of much sharper, brighter, fresher intern techs around him…while being acutely, miserably aware that the only way he would lead any rankings was if someone felt like sorting by mass.

  And in front of all of them had been the same guy standing in front of Rich now, giving a stern, deadpan speech about what would happen to the first intern who got cocky about their fresh new grown-up communication implants. No, you don’t have to use data rings anymore, seemed to be the general message, but if you put so much as a finger near the Reliant’s source functions she’ll chew up your brain and I’ll boot the rest of you over the railing.

  From day one, Ben had been the stereotype of an intelligent systems technician; grumpy and fussy and fiercely practical—but surprisingly patient with clueless interns. Now that Rich is old enough to be embarrassed of his own teenage self, he can appreciate how much it might test the guy’s patience, being the head of department on a 200-residency fix-it boat, with not only an extra-large complement of techies, but an equally large complement of arrogant baby nerds. And the worst thing Ben had ever threatened to do was lock an intern’s implants, stuff him into a shipping crate, and have him mailed to the nearest daycare.

  Well, Rich is too big to fit in a crate anymore. So at least there’s that.

  Here and now, Ben gives him a short nod, reaching out to clasp his hand in a brief, professional handshake.

  “Been a while, kid,” he says, apparently ignoring how Rich is twenty-one now and also big enough to pick him up without breaking a sweat. “You still go by Rich?”

  “Uh. Yeah,” Rich says, startled by the courtesy of the question, and the comparatively genial greeting as a whole. None of his crewmates have called him Rich in four years; the Sympatico wasn’t the kind of place you were on first-name terms with anyone. Even Trimmer, the closest thing he’d had to a friend there, still called him Merrill.

  Ben nods again and turns away. “Come on then, Rich, let's get you situated.”

  Rich stares for a second before pulling it together to follow him. He was expecting more than that. Any crew should have questions about what happened, and how much of it Rich was responsible for. Rich has been waiting for some unofficial interrogation by techies wondering what kind of antisocial criminal is getting shoved in with them. Non-violent questions, if he's lucky, but maybe a quick and unpleasant round of more hands-on interrogation in the nearest empty berth or washroom, if everyone's freaked out enough about getting stuck with him. Most of the Reliant’s crew is mechanics, and even if the entire techie department is too soft to administer any of their own discipline, that leaves a lot of heavy-duty personnel available to make Rich’s near future rough.

  But Ben just strolls off, then looks over his shoulder and raises a pointed eyebrow until Rich hurries after him. Maybe he’s gotten lucky, maybe he looks that goddamn sad, or maybe Ben’s leading him into an ambush somewhere lower down the decks. Rich can work with the first two options, and probably survive the third. So he follows Ben as meekly as he can, a few steps behind, and tries to look polite and non-offensive when Ben glances back at him from time to time. Polite is not a look Rich has had much practice with, but maybe he gets points for trying, because they get all the way to the passageway set aside for the IST crew quarters with no detours for getting ambushed anywhere.

  “Here’s your berth,” Ben says, stopping at one of the blank, undecorated doors in the passageway, and gestures for Rich to sync up his palmprint with the door plate over the handle.

  The berth is really nice, when Rich cautiously eases into the room. Bigger than anything short of manager-class on a 50, that’s for damn sure. It’s something like three by four meters, with a thick, wide, new foam mattress unrolled across the deck instead of a built-in standard-sized wall bunk. There are even fresh white sheets and pillows stacked up at the head. Rich can’t help but brighten up at that, glancing back at Ben to see if it’s supposed to be that big.

  “Yeah, we actually fit in the beds around here,” Ben says, a bit wry, and pats his own heavy stomach. Rich actually laughs before he can catch himself, and Ben doesn’t even look offended.

  The rest of the room has a workstation desk and chair, a personal locker with a mechanical combination lock, a dresser, and several sets of wall shelves. There’s even a window over the desk, its shutter pushed back to let in sunlight and a view of the endless blue sheet of the lake. The whole room’s fresh and bright and clean, and not in the pathetic scrubbed-through-the-paint way that Rich had accomplished with his prior cramped little hole of a berth after four years of stress-cleaning. It’s nice. It’s really goddamn nice. Rich had forgotten that his life had ever been nice, and it would be great if Ben could leave him alone now to actually process that.

  “This was your internship assignment before,” Ben goes on, half to himself, “so…well, guess you should still get a tour, though. Drop your bag, I'll show you around.”

  Right. Of course. Setting his jaw, Rich does as he’s told.

  Ben continues not to take him anywhere for any interrogations. Instead, he shows him the group-work meeting room for their end of the deck, as well as the equipment supply room for the sort of out-of-berth work that technicians are called for, as opposed to the mechanics’ equipment supply rooms, which are scattered around the garage bays on all the other decks. Then Ben takes him around and points out all the first-aid stations and the mandatory evacuation routes and the emergency float-rings and the washrooms, and that there’s actually space on this boat for a sundeck with some potted trees and lounge chairs, and a little room with cooking appliances at the end of their deck for residents with the time and credit and personal inclination to make their own food.

  Ben doesn't show him the potted plants everywhere, but Rich notices them anyway, because living green things are a luxury he's almost forgotten about. The Sympatico never had any, because even if anyone had managed to get any, they'd only be used as weapons or kicked into a bulkhead sooner or later. Here, though, there's a plant or two in every room with a window, and a few just standing in out of the way corners in the passages.

  Rich makes mental note of the ones whose pots have popped up their little yellow holoscreens to request water or more sunlight. He'll come back with water or move pots as necessary. Maybe someone else would get to it if he didn't, but he's not going to stand for there being unhappy or dying plants on his watch when it feels like such a luxury to have them around.

  Ben continues the tour, reminding him of the protocols for taking out a deck-hopper on a 200 as opposed to a 50, then pointing out the stairs down to the manufacture and repair decks without making a single crack about Rich's going back to the mechanics’ garages where he started out. Which is really nice of him, considering that Rich still remembers getting heckled for ages after he finally scored his reassignment. He was too big, too strong, too slow…Then again, it was never Ben doing the taunting. Ben’s solid, professional. Not friendly, but steady and uncruel in a way that has Rich starting to relax despite himself.

  It's weird, though, walking the decks of the Reliant after four years away, four years where he grew up from a resentful smartass teenage intern into, hopefully, an adult, someone older and wiser, someone who won’t be repeating the worst of his mistakes. But so much of the Reliant is still the same: Rich finds the layout of the ship is coming back to him, even while he himself feels dislocated and bizarre. It all used to be familiar, and now it's not, even though he recognizes it all. This place used to be his home and then it wasn’t and now it's supposed to be again, but isn’t yet.

  “—And you’ll get job assignments from the queue, or you can go in and select them manually, it probably worked the same on your last ship,” Ben is saying. Rich keeps his mouth shut, because no, not really, because Schwartz was a sloppy useless drunk who caused more problems than he fixed when he showed up at all, and Hendricks was the asshole in charge, who dumped all of the scutwork and most of the important shit on Rich. He remembers how the queue works, though, so he just nods.

  “That ought to be about it,” Ben says as they walk down the corridor to Rich's berth. “So—hey, kid. You still awake?”

  The young man poking his head out the door of the berth opposite Rich's waves cautiously and says, “Oh, Ben—uh, yeah, hi,” in a light tenor voice that's not nearly as high and squeaky as Rich remembers. Rich's gut ties itself in a knot.

  Fuck. That's Basil.

  Basil Wright was still a gangly, greasy, fifteen-year-old mess when Rich last saw him, but since then he’s grown into a tall, slim guy with wide dark eyes, his springy black curls pulled back in a short puff of a ponytail. He's close to Rich’s height now, even if he probably only weighs a fraction as much, and his shoulders are surprisingly broad and nice. He’s lost most of the zits that Rich remembers but he’s got probably even more freckles scattered across his warm brown skin, and on the whole has turned out way cuter than Rich would've thought was possible. Especially dressed down in casual off-shift clothes, a worn green Family Fleet t-shirt with Ivanna Inchworm printed on it and a simple black sarong that shows off a good long stretch of brown, freckled legs...and Rich was an absolute jackass to him when they were both interns.

  “You remember Rich, right? You can catch up. Take him to the mess before you crash for the day,” Ben says, nodding to Basil, and strolls off with Basil looking uncertainly after him.

  “…Uh, cool,” says Basil. “Uh. Hey, Rich. Welcome back?” He eases reluctantly out of his berth and gives Rich a wary look that says he hasn’t forgotten about the way Rich treated him when he was the precious little jumped-up genius boy that landed himself an internship at an age most kids were still doing deckhand chores for their parents. And also that he’s completely aware of why Rich is back now, and that he doesn’t hold out much hope that Rich will be treating him any better the second time around.

  “Hey,” Rich says, as calmly and steadily as he can, “Thanks, kid. Glad to be back.” He tries to stand in such a way as to convey that he’s not actually a violently deranged psychopath, but isn’t actually sure how, or where he should be looking.

  Basil’s got a single leather work glove on his left hand, with a black wrist brace strapped underneath that stretches halfway up his forearm, like he’s gotten hurt somehow, and the last thing Rich wants is to maybe draw any attention to how he’s cataloguing a guy’s weak spots. His stomach curls tighter, because if he’d thought about it he’d have assumed Basil would snag an assignment somewhere else just like Rich was, and that there might not be all that many people left on the Reliant who remember what Rich was like when he was seventeen.

  But Basil is still here, and hasn't forgotten anything, and is probably certain that Rich did everything and more than whatever the rumors might suggest. And it's not like he's going to keep any of his thoughts about Rich to himself. Not here on the boat he’s crewed since he was thirteen, surrounded by techies who practically raised him.

  If Rich thought there was a chance of a fresh start here, he's just gotten a very clear memo otherwise.

  Anything Basil is thinking right this instant, though, he’s cautious enough to keep to himself. “Sorry about the, your ship, y’know, what happened,” he says, obviously trying hard to be nice, and then he stands there staring wide-eyed and worried like he’s waiting for an explosion. When Rich just looks back at him, blankly startled at the courtesy, Basil nods once and then takes a couple of hopeful steps down the passageway.

  “You hungry?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Rich says, much more casually than he feels, because when is he not hungry? He follows Basil, careful again to stay a step behind and to one side, not getting above himself or stepping on anyone's heels, literally or metaphorically. Of course then it's tricky to keep his eyes off Basil's ass under the drape of the sarong, and the occasional flash of leg, but Rich does his best.

  The mess is much bigger and louder and fuller than anywhere Rich is used to, there’s gotta be something like forty people in here all at once: more than could even be assembled in one place back on the 50-crew Sympatico. Basil waves or nods at a whole bunch of people as they walk in, and pretends badly that he doesn’t notice the stares being aimed at him and Rich. He steps up to one of the dispensers and palms the reader plate, gets his food blocks and steps back, waiting expectantly for Rich.

  Rich follows suit and barely keeps from snarling in frustration when it's one block less than he’d managed to get cleared for on the Sympatico, even. It figures, though: he's been reassigned to a new boat, so he’s back to the default ration, with no allowances for the fact his stupid body is three hundred pounds of genetically-modified supersoldier. His metabolic processing rate is frankly insane and he packs on muscle whether he likes it or not, which he doesn’t. His mom and grandparents probably didn’t either, but it’s not like they asked to be born that way any more than he did.

  Really, the only person Rich can totally blame is whoever the first dipshit was a century or so back that got the bright idea to produce a bunch of big, brawny supersoldiers with inconveniently high caloric requirements, then let them loose to go around making kids. Nobody cared if the kids had no desire whatsoever to rampage across battlefields tearing people’s heads off, they still needed platoon-sized lunches anyway. If Rich feels like being generous, he could also blame all the other subsequent dipshits who pitched in and made their own brands of supersoldier, too, and left fourth-generation crossbreeds like Rich scratching their heads over their own damn biology. Sometimes Rich feels like being really generous, and blames the whole entire world and everyone in it, especially when he’s so hungry his bones hurt.

  After pitching an extended campaign on the Sympatico to not literally starve to death, Rich had eventually gotten clearance for an extra portion, enough to keep him functional if not actually happy, but he’s clearly going to have to start all over again here. At least he'll be less hungry after lunch.

  And at least the Reliant’s drink dispenser serves as much tea as Rich would like. He gets a big paper cup of sweet mint, since he doesn’t need caffeine jitters on top of today’s anxiety, and then sniffs appreciatively at the steam. It smells fresh and strong, not scorched or overpressed, so there’s that. This boat’s got no problems keeping rations fresh and clean and ready to eat, so Rich is just going to have to figure out how to get enough of it to himself.

  Basil leads the way back to the middle of the mess, considers the tables with people at them, and then heads toward one of the empty ones instead, settles down and smiles gamely at Rich. Rich, for his part, smiles gamely back, and tries not to eye the careful way he’s holding his gloved hand, like he’s trying to hide it. The kid’s got a sprained wrist, maybe, or some snapped bones. He’s built light enough that it wouldn’t take much for someone to really mess him up. From the way Basil’s jaw clenches and his eyes slide nervously away from Rich’s when he sees Rich looking, it’s clear he expects Rich to be a dick about whatever vulnerability is going on there. So, Rich doesn’t ask, lets his gaze slide right over the issue, and after a minute Basil’s shoulders relax.

  They eat quietly, for the most part. Every so often, Basil glances up and tries to make conversation for a minute or two, gives Rich an update on somebody who Rich doesn’t remember or makes a comment about some leisure activity Rich hasn’t had the time to care about in years, then nervously goes back to nibbling at his block. He still tears the wax-paper wrapping off his blocks a bit at a time as he eats them right out of the packaging, not even bothering with a plate or a spoon or anything, and leaving a scattering of crumbs and paper strips on the tabletop as he eats. It’s still messy enough that it genuinely bugs Rich, but he’s sure as hell not going to say anything about it now.

  Rich eats his portion slowly, carving slices off with a disposable spoon and eating one careful bite at a time, even though he’s hungry. He’s on edge here, can't help it. There are so many people here, so many of them behind him, and it's not that he thinks anybody's going to knife him or anything, but getting slapped or punched in the back of the head is still a likely enough event if anyone doesn't like the look of him. His reflexes are under good control, but if he gets startled like that it won't matter whether he keeps from breaking bones or not; no one's going to include their own minor provocation in the report, he'll have started the fight.

  It's a constant distraction, a running calculation every time someone passes behind him or raises their voice, and it makes it harder to focus on Basil's occasional comments. Rich is doing his best to listen attentively and be polite, but he has to be grateful that Basil keeps falling quiet again.

  ...There are so many people in here, but somehow it still feels weirdly quiet. Rich frowns at the table, the scrubbed-clean surface, and listens for whatever he’s missing. Something that’s not there.

  It takes him a few long minutes, nodding and smiling absently to whatever Basil is saying, before he realizes what it is. It’s the Reliant—or rather, it isn’t. Back on the Sympatico, Rich could hardly run to the washroom without her pinging him for something, the only tech who ever worked with her to manage the implant-heavy tasks on her endless work queue. But the Reliant hasn’t made a peep since she welcomed him onboard.

  He reaches out, cautiously, and pings his new ship.

  Richard Merrill, IST: query

  Reliant: Define query, Technician Merrill.

  The immediacy of the response and the crisp formality of the command line is disconcerting. Technically correct, but startling anyway. Rich blinks at the tabletop, nods and laughs a little at whatever Basil just said, and pings back.

  Richard Merrill, IST: technician support needed?

  Reliant: All essential tasks are being addressed by senior technicians. Please refer to the task queue for further task options.

  It’s a firm, clean, clinical denial. AI don’t have personalities, Rich knows that, they’re not people, not conscious, but it still reads as politely dismissive. Like he just stopped Admiral Clearwater to ask her how her day was going and she humored him with a “Fine, thank you,” and kept walking.

  “…Can show you around the rec rooms, or…if there’s anybody you wanna say hi to,” Basil is saying, has been saying, while Rich ate his meal blocks and stared at nothing. “Any, uh, any friends from last time you were here?”

  Rich blinks, quirks a small, sardonic smile at him, realizes that might be offensive and hastily wipes it away again, slicing another bite off his last piece of block, trying to make it last a bit longer.

  “I don't think so,” he says carefully, instead of 'I don't think I know how to make friends now, I sure didn't back then.’

  Basil actually laughs—not in a mean way, it doesn’t sound like, but more in a ‘Yeah, right?’ way. Catches himself a second later and bites his lip, carefully considering the tabletop.

  “Okay, well,” he says, eventually. “You should probably meet, like, the rest of the department. How many people did you have in your old one? You were on a 50, right?”

  “Yeah,” Rich says, “and, uh, there were…sort of three of us. It was mostly me, though, and Hendricks when he bothered. You guys are still a big department, right?”

  “Yeah, probably the biggest outside the Washington, except for we’re crazy understaffed right now,” Basil says, and shovels the last of the food block he’s eating into his mouth. “There’s eight of us. It’ll be nine with you here now, I guess, which is great because we’re supposed to be at twelve, like mathematically, since a fix-it boat rates three techies per fifty crew which, um, sorry, which you know already, duh. Sorry. I know we’ve been trying to order in some more guys for awhile now, get some new interns in, fill out the whole rating and spread the workload out a bit further, but, y’know, it’s been a weird couple seasons…um.

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  “Ben’s still department head, and Raoul got promoted to captain, I dunno if you heard! There’s a couple people we interned with here, though, that stuck around like me or…or came back, like you. I mean, not just like you, but came back. Also. Uh.” He glances across at Rich’s neatly stacked food wrappers, lingers for a second like he’s about to say something. Doesn’t. Just sits awkwardly and then taps a gloved finger to his bare palm to pop up a pale blue personal holoscreen with a game Rich doesn’t recognize, which stays at Basil’s eye level as he sinks down in his chair to mess with it.

  “Are you going to eat that?” Rich asks, more abruptly than he’d meant to, but Basil’s left his second block just lying there between them, like maybe it’s an offer, and Rich physically can’t make himself not try and see if he can take it.

  “What?” Basil asks, and looks at the block. “Oh, nah, I’m fine actually, go for it.”

  Rich finishes the last of his own portion in two bites and then grabs Basil’s offering, still chewing. The block fits neatly in his hand, and he doesn't bother with the spoon this time. He’s halfway through it, eating quick and efficient now to get it down before Basil names any terms or tries to qualify how much of it Rich can have, before he realizes Basil is looking at him weird. Startled, confused. Not like he’d even thought of naming a price.

  “So, uh,” Basil says, and runs his bare hand over his hair. “Skipped breakfast, huh?”

  Rich shrugs, still chewing. “It’s been a busy day,” he says defensively. “I get hungry when I got a lot to do.”

  “Oh, right,” Basil says, nodding. “Yeah, I—me too. I get it.”

  Like fuck does Basil get it, he’s baseline human and always has been, obnoxious baby genius shtick aside. But the sympathy feels as nice as the extra block. Rich suddenly misses Trimmer so hard it hurts, drives spikes of an awful panicky lostness up his throat and into the backs of his eyes. Trimmer and his lunch ration and his foul mouth and his sharpened straightedge. Rich was supposed to protect him, it’s dumb to feel lost and sick and unsafe without him there, but…fuck.

  No one from the Sympatico is allowed to know where anyone else has been sent off to, let alone contact them, not until they’re off probation, and the last time Rich saw Trimmer he was already bleeding and the last time Rich heard him he was screaming and swearing like he was terrified, and—Rich hasn’t seen Trimmer in a week. He might not see Trimmer ever again.

  Rich puts his head down, breathing carefully through all the stuff he doesn’t want to keep thinking about, and finishes his extra block in a few more bites. Maybe eating slowly makes it feel like he's had more, but he’s got new crew to be introduced to, and right now he's done with drawing out the wait for what happens next.

  He's not looking forward to meeting his new crewmates, whether or not there's been time for Basil to tell them all about what a dick Rich was before. Either way they'll have heard the rumors. Either way they'll notice Rich's build and the blood-red hair and realize he's gene-tweaked, recognize a soldier mod when they see one coming at them, figure out real fast that he's basically the most dangerous new crewmate they could get from a toxic ship. Obviously they'll be thrilled to see him.

  Basil is a lot less sulky than he used to be about cleaning up after the meal, although not much more careful; he misses a strip of wax paper and doesn't even seem to notice the crumbs. Rich gathers his own packaging up and sweeps Basil's crumbs onto his tray before following the guy to put everything into the recycling chute.

  There’s a department chat board, with brief employee profiles for every member; on their way out of the mess, Basil pulls it up and flicks it in Rich’s direction, and the invite pops up a second later.

  “In case you, y’know, need anything?” Basil says, with an uncomfortable little shrug. He glances over and winces at whatever flash of expression he catches on Rich’s face. “I mean, it can be hard. On a new ship and everything. You’d figure it’s just another boat, but it’s…I’ve heard it can be really different. And we’re your department now.” He ducks his head, reaches up to fidget with a curl that's worked its way free from his ponytail. “There are some good guys here, y’know, they’re…they’re nice. They’re cool.”

  Rich doesn't even know where to start with this. There's a tiny, stupid part of him that's going ‘It is hard, he knows! He's being nice!’ wanting to drop his guard completely at the first sign of sympathy. The rest of him is bewildered and suspicious. Basil has to want something, or this is some kind of trap, or something, it's just…He's so awkward. It's not smooth, polished kindness, a gift on a platter with a neatly hidden snare. If this is supposed to be a trap, it's clumsy as hell.

  “Thanks,” he says, a bit late, and accepts the invite with an uncertain smile.

  “Yeah!” says Basil, brightening, and flashes Rich a brief, nervous little grin in return. Tucks that curl behind one ear and slows down, falling in next to Rich instead of in front of him. They walk in silence together for a minute before Basil says, “It’s cool you’re back. Maybe we can…” he shrugs jerkily, eyes sliding away—there are still freckles on the sides of his neck, on his freaking ears, and it’s weirdly reassuring to focus on those instead of on why he’s saying what he’s saying, what he’s thinking about that Rich can’t guess. “…Maybe we can hang out, this time. More, I mean. Have you ever played Spellcraft?”

  “No,” Rich says numbly, brain going into overdrive. Why would Basil want to hang out with him? Rich can't think of that many reasons, but there’s always protection. Basil's grown up a lot, but he's still a skinny nerd, still a tech who probably isn't much good at defending himself. And then there’s that wrapped-up arm of his...If someone's been giving him a hard time around here, it’d just be common sense to try and get on Rich’s good side, give him some reasons to maybe get involved next time things heat up.

  “Sounds like fun,” he adds, with no idea what kind of game Spellcraft even is. He can do protection for Basil, that's fine. Way simpler than other possibilities.

  “Cool!” says Basil, brightening even more, hopeful. “It—it is, I mean, I like it, and there’s a couple of other guys in our department who like it, and some mechanics too, and my friend Mitch comes by to play with me sometimes, so that’s cool. O-only if you wanted to, obviously.” He pauses, steps slowing. “So this is our department’s rec room. A lot of the guys like hanging around in their own berths to get sit-down work done, but if you’re getting sick of your berth and wanna socialize you can always head down here, or like, out onto the sundeck, and sometimes there are guys hanging out. I did kinda…send out a message I’d bring you down here if you wanted to come?” He fidgets, maybe reading Rich’s expression as irritation—glances down the passage at the door to the rec room again. “I guess, maybe you didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but…we’re all gonna be working together tomorrow, so I thought you should get to meet everybody? You don’t have to.”

  “I—wait, what?” Rich says, which is absolutely not the right response, not acceptable. He should be worrying about making the right meek, cooperative impression on everyone he's about to meet, but he's preoccupied with, “Seriously? You can go onto the sundeck to work, just—whenever? I mean, is that legal, or do you have to choose the right shift, or bribe someone, or what?”

  “Y…yeah?” Basil says, blinking. “I mean, no? I mean, no! No, it’s just, I mean there’s not a lot to look at when it’s dark out, and y’know you get a sun-headache if you’re using screens in full glare for too long, and we can’t fit a bunch of people out there all at the same time anyway without it getting kinda rowdy, so usually people just hang out for an hour or two? And then move on?” He considers. “And the gulls know people eat out there, so like, you gotta watch your food. But—no, man, if you tried to bribe Ben about anything I think he’d probably just give you that look, y’know, until you apologized and walked away or like…combusted, whichever.”

  Rich snorts a laugh and then bites it off, hoping Basil isn't offended, but he brightens and gives Rich a pleased smile, so he meant it to be funny, that's okay.

  “I remember that look,” Rich admits, shaking his head. “Okay, cool, that's cool.” He's going to spend so much time on the sundeck he's going to fry, it'll be great. “Alright, let's…meet people.”

  After all, they can't throw him overboard on the first day, probably. Just make him wish they would.

  Ben has not come to the rec room to be introduced, but the other six of Rich’s new crewmates have, which is a lot more than he was prepared to see when he came around the corner. Six people—seven, when Basil settles down on the arm of one of the couches—isn’t a lot of people, objectively, but Rich is used to a department of three guys who all hate each other and this is a small room and just—it’s a lot of people, okay. Some of whom have to have specifically woken up from their sleep shifts to come have a look at the new guy. Rich tries not to let his nerves show on his face, but isn’t at all sure he’s managed.

  “So, this is Rich,” says Basil, and throws a look around. “Anton, you've been here since me and Rich were interning, you probably remember him. He’s the new guy from the Sympatico.”

  “We heard,” says one of the guys, with a meaningful smirk, and oh, okay, there it is. “And we’re all so excited to hear more, I bet. Got any juicy war stories, big guy?” The other guys all stop looking at Rich and look at—James? Average height, pale coloration, brown hair, blue eyes, still in dark work clothes—Rich flipped through the profiles for about a split second, but he thinks that’s James. None of the others look all that happy, but they wouldn’t, if they were hoping on being able to gossip behind Rich’s back for a while before he caught on.

  “James,” says Basil. “Be cool, like, for once.”

  “I’m the coolest guy here, kid,” says James sniffily, and grins at Rich. “Look at him, big tough motherfucker like that, he’s not gonna run off crying because someone asked some questions. Behavioral Adjustment doesn’t turn you back into a baby that fast.”

  Rich cocks his head to the side, feeling everything sharpen around him as he focuses, settles his weight and prepares for whatever it's gonna be. “You know,” he says conversationally, “on a 50 like the Sympatico, there's nowhere to run to. You get used to solving your own problems, with,” he spreads his hands, shrugging, making everyone here aware of how thick his arms are, how broad his shoulders, “whatever comes to hand.”

  He clenches his hands into fists the size of most people’s faces and stares at James fixedly, leaning forward, tense like he's ready to lunge, and watches the badly-hidden unnerved look grow. Then he straightens again and deliberately relaxes, hooks his thumbs in his belt loops, glancing around as casually as he can manage to make sure no one else feels like throwing in on James’ behalf. They don't seem to. Looks like everyone’s cool with letting the resident jackass stick his neck out for them all on his own.

  “But I’ve been told this is a different kind of ship,” Rich goes on. “I'm sure there aren't any problems here that we have to solve one-on-one.”

  “Yeah, it is,” says Basil, and something pulls abruptly, unpleasantly tight in Rich's chest at Basil’s tone: harsh and disappointed. When Rich glances at the couch, though, Basil is frowning at James, eyes narrowed. The kid goes on, “And no, there’s not. James, go get some sleep or a snack. Fix your shit.”

  “Go back to Family Fleet, Wright, before they miss you,” James says, with a not-very-convincing laugh, and throws one more slightly unnerved look at Rich before pushing himself up with exaggerated carelessness and sauntering in the direction of the door.

  The others all watch him go, with varying degrees of concern ranging to annoyance, and then, as one, look back at Rich, who’s stunned at how easy that was. The guy didn't even try anything, that taunt was it. Not that this is over yet, but. Huh.

  “So, uh,” says Basil, tentative again.

  “Sorry James is a dick,” says Anton bluntly. Rich remembers him vaguely from interning, though he was already an adult tech at the time. He’s older than Rich by something like five years, and hasn’t changed that much while Rich was gone: he’s still a short, soft guy with tanned skin, jaw-length sun-streaked brown hair, and thoughtful pale blue eyes. He's watching Rich with definite wariness, but he sounds completely sincere.

  Rich blinks at him for much too long before managing, “Yeah, uh. Me too. I mean, sorry that he's a—not that I'm a—yeah.” Anton gives him a sweet smile and a dutiful-sounding laugh, pushing his hair away from his face, and Rich is thrown even further off balance by it. Anton’s a tiny scrap of a guy who comes up to Rich's elbows, probably, and he's probably as vulnerable to pushy jackasses as Basil is. It only makes sense for him to mind his manners around someone Rich’s size, but it’s still awkward to think Anton might be...sucking up, or something. It makes him feel like he really is a dick.

  “I’ll try to talk to him,” volunteers one of the guys Rich doesn’t remember from before. He's handsome, with brown skin and glossy waves of black hair, and he scoots off the table he was sitting on, heading towards the door. He pauses on the way past and reaches out, moving slow and cautious, to pat Rich on the arm. “He just thinks it’s funny to poke people’s buttons, he’s not that bad.”

  “He’s a little bit that bad, Miguel,” Basil says, and the guy shrugs at him, rolling his eyes, and then ducks out the door.

  Okay, Rich decides. This is weird. It's officially weird, and the only guy who made sense has been chased off, and no one seems to mind, although there was a certain frozen stillness during Rich's little threat display. Maybe James is the bully around here, and that's why they're happy to have him leave? Except that he's not that big a guy, definitely not that built of a guy, and he didn't hold himself like he was planning to get physical, now that Rich is thinking back on it. So, no, nothing makes sense.

  And—shit. He completely forgot, he's supposed to be meek, and here he was just posturing in front of all these guys. They know for sure he's dangerous and antisocial now. Which explains the way most of them are still looking wide-eyed and white-knuckled.

  He'd better be polite as hell now and hope they forget it somehow.

  “So you met James,” Basil says, in determined tones, like he’s going to get this introduction thing done come hell or high water. “Miguel seems to think he just needs a buddy, so he’s gonna go try to talk him around for the hundredth time, I guess. You know Anton, uh…so. Introductions.”

  He goes around the room, and Rich nods and does his best to keep up. Vince is a tall, fat guy with dark skin and a shaved head and the sleepy eyes of a man used to night shifts; Nate’s an average-sized guy with light gold skin, black hair and a warm smile; Phil’s old and a little stooped, with a cascade of greying dreadlocks and dark weather-worn skin and a complete indifference to making eye-contact. They’re all getting introduced by what he’d assume is their first names: Basil rattles them off fast enough that Rich knows he’s going to have to do some homework if he wants any hope of remembering who’s who. Presumably he’s supposed to call them by first name too, Vince and Nate instead of Dawson and Chau, as bizarrely intimate as that feels with people he doesn’t even know. Basil is one thing, Rich knew the kid as a squeaky-voiced teen, but with guys Rich doesn’t know it feels like disrespect, like an excuse to take offense and start a fight.

  “...And that’s everybody,” Basil finishes up, and gives Rich that nervous little grin that’s becoming more and more familiar. “We usually have two people on the night shifts at a time and three or four people on day shifts, since we gotta be on-call all the time in case somebody needs a hole patched but there’s less routine work at night. Uh…we were gonna start you on days, second or third shift, ‘cause you’re new and it would suck to show up and get dumped on first shift out of nowhere. Unless you like nights?” He looks abruptly concerned, giving Rich the big, worried brown eyes. “We can switch stuff around if you like nights. I like nights, I’m pretty much always on fourth and first shifts, I’m kind of nocturnal, but, uh, I know that’s not normal, like, at all, so.” He stalls out, looking like he thinks he might have screwed up and insulted Rich somehow and is waiting to be smacked for it.

  Rich barely restrains himself from patting the kid on the head. “I like days,” he assures Basil, carefully mild. “I can do second and third shift no problem—I’m used to working 0600 to 1800.” He thinks, then admits grudgingly, “I can do extra if you need it, but I’m not gonna be at my best by fourth shift.”

  “Cool,” says Basil, smiling in relief, and glances around at the other guys. “I think that’s everything, uh. Welcome to the Reliant, I guess!” He pushes himself up and stretches. “And since I’ve been up for…awhile, right now, actually, I’m gonna get back to my bunk. If you need to know anything just, like…” he pulls up the chat room again, then collapses the screen into the palm of his hand, and Rich nods. Basil gives a little wave with his gloved hand and heads out of the room.

  On the one hand, Rich can't make it look like he's clinging to the guy, like he's scared to face people on his own, but on the other hand there are a lot of nervous and judgmental faces looking at him right now and he would really rather not deal with that. Phil is the only one who doesn't look even slightly terrified of Rich right now, and he's staring out the window, apparently lost in thought. Rich remembers him from before too, and how he always had a detached air, like whatever crisis was going on didn't pertain to him. Including giant, dangerous soldier mods, apparently. It’s actually kind of reassuring.

  Rich glances around, trying to be polite and not meet anyone's gaze too directly, and nods to the room at large.

  “Nice to meet everyone,” he says, “I’m sure we’re going to work together just fine,” as polite as any puppet from Family Fleet. No one seems to think it's weird or stupid, which he guesses is good. “I'm gonna head back, try and get settled in.”

  Everyone says some variation on “Nice to meet you,” like a whole damn chorus of puppets, except for Anton, who says “Great to see you again!” which has got to be a straight-up lie. Unless it's about the protection thing, maybe.

  “Yeah, you too,” Rich manages, and flees. Basil hasn't gotten very far, and he doesn’t tense up or turn and keep a wary eye on Rich as he gets closer—just slows down, glancing back, until Rich is next to him. Falls in step.

  They walk quietly for a while. Basil looks distant, preoccupied, and Rich has a lot to think about.

  Eventually it occurs to him to say, "We had, what, four other interns last time I was here? Are the babies all asleep right now, or what?"

  Basil grimaces, which makes Rich’s heart shoot up into his throat and stick there.

  "We’re kind of between interns right now,” he says, and Rich expects him to follow that up with ‘Because we knew you were coming and didn’t trust a huge dangerous guy from a toxic boat around kids’ so much that it takes him by surprise when Basil goes on: “because of, you know, the spring storms…Rocket and Hiram graduated off to grown-up assignments fine, but Sean’s mom freaked when Admiral Clearwater, y’know. Passed away during that last storm, because everyone says it was the strain of navigating that did her in. His mom made him change careers, pulled him out of the internship! Like anyone would let an intern go pilot, anyway! And from what I’ve heard a lot of parents are doing the same thing, the spring semester’s turned out like a grand total of two IST interns and they’re both girls so they went to the Medusa, I think. Ben’s kinda worried about it. The fall storms are gonna completely suck if we don’t have any kids around to pick up the slack while we’re piloting.”

  It’s a weird relief to remember that not everything is actually about Rich: when ancient old Admiral Clearwater finally passed on while piloting the Washington through the worst storm of the whole last season it was shocking, tragic, and also inevitable. Rumor had it that her teenage clone of an heir had charged onto the bridge and took over her predecessor’s link with the ship before the body had even cooled. People have been saying the second Clearwater handled the whole, staggering workload a ship required from its techies during a superstorm so brilliantly and smoothly that no one outside the Washington’s techies had noticed a thing until the storm was over.

  Rich had been busy piloting the Sympatico through the same storm, himself, and hadn’t heard that the first Clearwater was dead until days later. Rich had felt weird about it: more guilty that he wasn’t properly sad than actually sad.

  Clearwater had already been in her forties when she first commandeered the Washington, the very last aircraft carrier that the crumbling United States of America ever had commissioned, because having the biggest boat with the most airplanes was somehow supposed to make everyone stop caring about the climate collapse and stop having civil wars and go home. The Washington was done just in time for her freshly promoted Admiral to arrange for the carrier to be deployed to one of the largest and most stable bodies of drinkable water in the increasingly unstable northern hemisphere, instead of some ocean somewhere to shoot people for no reason.

  With the core of the Free Society of the Michigan Fleet in place, the Admiral then spent the rest of her life building it into a stable, independent community well away from landside chaos, a safe haven for refugees from all over. She was nearly ninety by the time she hit that last storm, and even if everyone knew she wasn't actually going to live forever, the fact that she didn’t still managed to be a shock.

  Storms always screwed Rich up, though, left him hollowed-out and exhausted. Miserable, but so distant from his own misery it looped right back around to indifference. During spring, by the time he was done recovering from one storm another one would come along, and so Rich had more to worry about than if the new Admiral was going to do anywhere near as good a job of keeping the Fleet afloat as the old one managed.

  So the storms came and went and Rich had done his duty and kept the Sympatico afloat, day after day, week after week, until finally the overwhelming chaos of spring had finally settled into the relative calm of summer, and the Sympatico had gotten broken up anyway. And now Rich is here, just trying to keep his own head above water.

  “I’m not a kid, but I’m good at picking up slack,” Rich offers, after an awkwardly long pause. On the Sympatico he did nothing else.

  “Glad to hear it,” Basil says. “It really has been crazy busy around here. You don’t have to worry about anyone liking you, you know, if you do your share of the work you’ll be a fucking hero, I promise.”

  Rich brightens up at that: he can’t help it. Even if Basil’s just being nice, he’s still being nice, being incredibly reassuring. It can’t be that easy, of course, nothing’s ever that easy, but it sounds like a good place to start. Do his work, keep his head down, don’t cause trouble, be…someone who’s liked, who other people actually want around and appreciate.

  “I can work,” Rich assures Basil. “If there’s one thing the Sympatico taught me, it was how to fucking work.”

  “Well, awesome,” Basil says, and then there’s a stretch of much more comfortable silence than the last one.

  Rich notices after a bit, though, that Basil keeps glancing over at him. Finally the kid goes and opens his mouth, clearly trying to nerve himself up to say something, but then closes it and looks away again, swallowing down whatever he was intending.

  “What?” Rich says, getting nervous all over again.

  “Nothing,” says Basil. And then, when Rich frowns worriedly at him, “Okay, just, it’s dumb, that’s all. It’s, I mean, you’re a lot bigger than—uh, than I remembered, which is normal! You know, you grew up, we both grew up, but—your nose is different, it’s a different shape now? I was thinking how it’s weird, how you look the same, but like…different.” He fiddles nervously with a loose curl, eyes darting away. “I said it was dumb.”

  Rich frowns to himself, wondering what the hell is weird about his nose—oh. Right.

  “Broke it a couple years ago,” he says. “My nose. I had a minor disagreement with a bulkhead.” Which is definitely what you call it when a guy trips you and you go face-first into a steel bulkhead.

  “A, oh!” says Basil. And then, like he can’t help himself, “A disagreement about…what?”

  Rich shrugs. “Relative velocity.” It'd been right after yet another disorienting growth spurt, and he wasn't used to the length of his legs and arms yet or he could've caught himself. He wasn’t used to the extra muscle, either, or he wouldn’t have broken nearly as many of the asshole’s ribs afterwards. First time he’d really gotten himself in trouble, if not anywhere near the last.

  But Basil lets out a sharp, startled little burst of laughter and then covers his mouth a second later. His freckled cheeks are flushing rosy brown and there’s a smile crinkling up his eyes no matter how hard he tries to look penitent and sympathetic, and—huh. This could be an issue, maybe. It's definitely a thing, Rich thinks, an unexpected smile tugging at his own lips.

  “Did you win?” Basil says, a little strangled, and grins at Rich, brief and startlingly bright. “‘You should see the other bulkhead'?”

  Rich laughs out loud at that, because that's not how people look or sound when they're making fun of his build. That was an actual joke not at his expense for once.

  “We eventually negotiated a compromise,” he says, through the laughter. “I wouldn't try to go through it face-first and it wouldn't cause further bodily harm.”

  Basil is snickering for real now, light and sweet and wicked and—cute, okay, he’s cute. That’s definitely going to be an issue, Rich already wants to let down his guard with the guy.

  “Well, for what it’s worth,” Basil says, and reaches out, pats Rich’s arm, leaves his hand there for a second to squeeze. “I wouldn’t bet on a bulkhead if you wanted it down. I’d be in your corner for that one.”

  “Appreciate it,” Rich smiles, and thinks, Yeah, especially if the bulkhead was coming after you otherwise. Then he stops. This is, it has to be about protection, Basil being nice to the scariest guy around so he'll scare anyone else off. Except…Basil didn't act scared in the mess, wasn't looking around him nervously like someone might be dangerous to him, and he wasn't cautious at all about kicking James out, or nervous of anyone else in the room. The only person he's acted nervous around is Rich.

  Well, fuck. He's nervous around Rich, he’s scared of him, Rich showed up twice as big as before with a broken nose and a bad reputation and he was such an asshole to Basil when he was younger. So of course Basil’s going to play this smart. Of course he's trying to make sure Rich won't come after him. Even if Rich never got physical with him back then, it's no wonder if the kid doesn't think he can bet on that after Rich’s education on the Sympatico.

  It puts a sick little curl in Rich's stomach, makes exhaustion pull at his shoulders and drag at his feet. Basil has every right to expect Rich to be dangerous now. Rich is dangerous now. The kid’s got no reason yet to believe that Rich isn't going to hurt him, wouldn't hit him unless he started it, and would do his absolute best not to break anything even then.

  Maybe if Rich keeps being friendly back, keeps being careful and good, Basil will eventually realize he doesn't have to worry, his plan worked and Rich isn't going to get rough. And then he'll probably avoid the hell out of Rich instead, but at least it won't be out of fear.

  “This is me,” Basil says, and scans his palm at the door decorated with a big poster of a fire-breathing red dragon. Someone’s taped a paper seed-packet of basil—the plant basil—over the dragon’s face, and Rich would bet a lot of credits that it wasn’t Basil himself.

  Rich catches a glimpse of his room as he turns around in the door—a stack of old paper books, scattered pieces of what looks like disassembled machinery, clothes all over every horizontal surface. Basil glances back, flushes darker and pushes the door further shut, so he’s just peering out through the crack.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he says, and he would sound hopeful if Rich didn’t know any better. “I think it’ll be—I mean, I think we’ll be, uh.” He stops, takes a breath, and then finishes, “Cool! Goodnight!” and closes the door.

  “Goodnight,” Rich says to the closed door, bemused: it’s barely even afternoon. But then again, Basil’s nocturnal. This is probably midnight for him. No wonder he’s a little scrambled if it’s right before bedtime.

  Rich sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair, and goes into his own nice, spacious berth to catch his breath and marvel at his luck. No one’s expected to take a work shift on their first day aboard a new boat, and the rest of the day stretches out in front of Rich in a long, luxurious span of hours. Time all to himself, time to do whatever he wants. He thinks he’ll put his stuff away neat and tidy, and then he's got a shot of vodka waiting for him—he’s worked out to the ounce how much he can have per shift until he figures out where to get another jug—and some paperwork to start in on filing for his nutrition requirements, and a bed he can actually stretch out on to enjoy the vodka and relaxation time. He doesn’t even know what he’ll do with that time. He’s going to need to get some hobbies.

  Getting out his full jug of vodka, he slides the window open, breathing the sweet fresh breeze off the water. "One for the lake, may she rest easy," he murmurs by rote, and pours the first drink out to the water below before pouring his own.

  Then he stands there at his window, sipping the vodka. The sunlight spills over him, a warm clean gold, and he finds himself smiling as cautious hope rises inside him.

  “I think we’ll be cool,” Basil said.

  Maybe they actually could be.

  We're so glad that people like our boat boys. After The Storm is seventeen chapters plus an epilogue and will update here to read for free on Sundays. Once it's finished, we will probably have the sequel novel, Run Aground, ready to post. You can find the full novel of After The Storm as well as the five additional novellas available at Smashwords under the series title, Stories From The Michigan Fleet.

  Please enjoy!

  <3 Roach