(Vol. III Nardia, Again)

  [POV: Nardia]

  The spaceport gate peeled open, and the floor changed under Nardia’s boots—gravity biting in with that subtle, gut-level shift that never showed up in the sims.

  Her heart kicked anyway.

  Finally. Out of GDC’s soul-draining remote training and into a place where mistakes got people hurt.

  She tugged her suit collar straight like it mattered, pulled a breath through her teeth, and stepped through.

  Team Rashid’s “base” waited beyond the gate: a cavernous hangar, maintenance arms folded like sleeping giants, bright white lights pouring down on a floor so spotless it almost looked fake.

  …Clean.

  Too clean.

  Nardia slowed, scanning for the things an adventurer’s outpost was supposed to have. Scorched panels. Mystery shrapnel. A tool that moved on its own because some idiot had wired an AI into it without permissions.

  Nothing.

  Her dream of a chaotic, glorious disaster-zone died with a quiet little whimper.

  A figure in black waved from farther in.

  “Hey. Over here.” The voice carried across the hangar, calm and sharp at the same time. “Been a while, Nardia!”

  Her chest jumped hard enough to hurt.

  “Ahmad!”

  She jogged over, and Ahmad L. Rashid met her with arms folded—leader posture, all angles and stillness. Up close, the look he gave her wasn’t just assessment. It had that annoying, guardian-type weight to it, like he’d already decided she was his responsibility whether she liked it or not.

  He studied her face for a beat.

  “You got bigger,” he said. “And you look… sturdier. More put-together than last time.”

  “That’s… the weirdest compliment.” It came out louder than she meant.

  “Also—don’t say it like you’re appraising merchandise.”

  “I’m praising you.”

  “I know! That’s why it’s worse!”

  His mouth twitched, almost a smile. Almost.

  “Since the trainee’s here,” Ahmad said, turning on his heel, “I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew.”

  “Please.”

  Nardia snapped her spine straight, forcing herself not to bounce on her toes, and followed him into the hangar’s guts.

  Metal clanged somewhere deep behind the shadow of a massive carrier. A voice followed, rough with fatigue.

  “Ahmad, I seated that panel like you asked—…huh? New face?”

  A man leaned out from behind a bulkhead, wearing something that wanted to be a lab coat but had long since surrendered. Oil stained his shoulder. One sleeve was singed. Stubble shadowed his jaw, his hair stuck up like it had lost a fight with a pillow, and his eyes had that hollow, too-many-nights look.

  Ahmad jerked his chin at him. “This is Genichiro Shiraishi. Designed the Shiratori—one of the our ships, as you konw. He’s… the tech guy.”

  “Yo.” Genichiro stepped closer, wiping his hands on a rag that probably made things dirtier. “Nice to meet you. Not an official mechanic, but Ahmad grabbed me and now I live here. Woke up one day and I was responsible for half the damn ship.”

  “Don’t make it sound like kidnapping,” Ahmad said. “I invited you.”

  “‘Invited.’” Genichiro barked a laugh. “You told me to bring a sleeping bag and my toolbox, and then I didn’t go home for two weeks.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “You stayed because you enjoyed it.”

  “I did not—” Genichiro cut himself off, glared, then glanced away like that was somehow safer. “Shut up.”

  It sounded like an argument they’d had a hundred times and both of them liked too much to stop.

  Nardia blinked, trying to sort the information into something that resembled a team structure. “Um… so Genichiro is… what, exactly?”

  Ahmad answered without missing a beat. “External contractor. Fixes the ship without permission. Modifies it without permission. Sleeps wherever he wants.”

  “Hey.” Genichiro stabbed a thumb at his own chest. “Say ‘independent specialist.’ Make it sound less criminal.”

  “Fine,” Ahmad said, deadpan. “Independent specialist. Provisional.”

  “Provisional?” Nardia repeated.

  Genichiro’s eyes narrowed. Ahmad just shrugged.

  Nardia stared between them. “You can’t have a ‘provisional’ contract relationship. That’s not how contracts work.”

  Ahmad’s shrug turned into a full-body non-answer.

  So that was Team Rashid. Adventurers: free spirits. The rumors hadn’t been exaggerating.

  “Ahmad— fuel pump pressure’s drifting again—” A boy’s voice cut in, bright and fast. “Oh. New person?”

  A black-haired kid came running in with an armful of supplies. He moved so quickly it looked like the bags were dragging him instead of the other way around.

  Ahmad pointed. “Thomas. Errand runner. Pilot apprentice.”

  “Errand runner comes first?” Nardia said.

  “Reality’s harsh, trainee big sis,” Thomas said with a grin that was too practiced for eleven. “I work harder than anyone here and my rank never goes up.”

  “That’s because you keep adding jobs to your own list,” Ahmad said.

  “Hey, don’t say that out loud!” Thomas pouted, then brightened again like his face had a switch. He stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you! I’m the errand guy, but I’m a professional errand guy.”

  “Is that something you should be proud of?”

  “It’s the only thing they’ve left me,” Thomas said, and for half a second his grin sagged into a lopsided grimace. Then it was gone. “Right?”

  Nardia didn’t know whether to laugh or apologize.

  Ahmad did neither. “Nardia’s a GDC trainee. She’ll be moving with us for a while.”

  “Cool!” Thomas leaned in like he was letting her in on a secret. “If you need anything, ask me. I’ll complain, but I’ll do it.”

  “That’s… oddly reassuring.”

  “It should be.”

  As they walked, Nardia kept stealing glances at the base—at the ship frames, the stacked crates, the silent maintenance bots. It all looked organized. Maintained. Sanitary, even.

  Which was wrong.

  Her idea of an adventurer’s home was sparks and yelling and some kind of hazardous gas hissing from a pipe nobody wanted to admit existed.

  Ahmad caught her scanning. “What are you looking for?”

  “N-nothing,” Nardia said, immediately lying like a professional.

  Ahmad’s stare made lying feel stupid.

  She cleared her throat. “I just… thought an adventurer base would be more… you know.”

  She flailed her hands, trying to mime chaos. Fire. Danger. A flying wrench.

  Thomas laughed under his breath. “You look disappointed.”

  “I do not!”

  Her voice jumped an octave. It always did when she got cornered, and she hated that Ahmad knew it.

  Ahmad’s mouth twitched again. “You expected sparks and mystery fumes?”

  “Maybe!” Nardia snapped. “Like—tools moving on their own, alarms going off, someone screaming about ‘containment breach’—”

  “That’s not an outpost,” Ahmad said. “That’s an accident report.”

  As if to prove his point, a maintenance drone rolled past with a soft whirr, its sensor eye sweeping the floor like it was hunting for loose bolts—and found none.

  Nardia froze. “Wait, so you’re saying—”

  “Adventurers take stupid risks,” Ahmad said, walking on like this was obvious. “But we don’t want to die. Clean work keeps you alive.”

  It was… reasonable. Annoyingly reasonable.

  Thomas rocked on his heels beside her. “She really did want the dramatic version.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did.”

  “I didn’t!”

  Ahmad let the argument play out for three steps, then cut in. “Remote training only went so far. Speaking of which—Nardia. You finished the program, right?”

  “Of course,” she said, too fast. “All of it. Written exams. Practical sims. Top five percent.”

  Thomas whistled, impressed despite himself.

  Ahmad’s eyes softened a fraction. “Not bad.”

  The praise landed warmer than it had any right to. Nardia’s throat tightened. She hated that too.

  “You were quick on the uptake last time I saw you,” Ahmad went on. “The field is different. It will try to eat you. But… I’ve got expectations for you, Nardia.”

  Her face went hot. “Expectations are— I mean— I’m glad, but—”

  What was this stupid itchy feeling under her ribs? Like pride and panic were throwing elbows in the same small space.

  Ahmad stopped and turned, taking them in—Genichiro half-hidden behind a tool cart, Thomas balancing his supplies like a circus act, and Nardia trying not to vibrate out of her skin.

  “That’s the team,” Ahmad said. “More or less.”

  “‘More or less’ is way too vague!” Nardia shot back.

  Ahmad’s voice went flat again. “You’re a trainee. Watch first. Memorize with your eyes. If you memorize with your head, you’ll die.”

  “That’s terrifying!”

  “Joke.”

  “It didn’t sound like a joke!”

  Genichiro, from behind the cart: “...It wasn’t a complete joke.”

  “Genichiro!” Nardia whirled on him.

  He lifted one shoulder. That was his idea of an apology.

  Ahmad faced her again, and this time he let the smile fully show—small, quick, like he didn’t want to get caught with it.

  “Come on,” he said. “From today on, you’re—”

  He held her gaze, and the hangar’s bright lights suddenly felt like a spotlight.

  “You’re Team Rashid.”

  Something heavy dropped into Nardia’s chest, not painful, just… solid. Real.

  She nodded once, hard.

  “…Yes.”

  The hangar swallowed the sound, and for the first time since she’d stepped through the gate, the clean floor didn’t bother her.

  This was the start.

  Her first step toward becoming an adventurer—whether the base had mystery shrapnel or not.

  Somewhere deeper in the hangar, a comm panel pinged once—sharp, urgent.

  Ahmad’s head turned a fraction. Then he kept walking, as if he hadn’t heard it at all.