Your Survival is Dictated by Your Listening Ability

“We’ll start at the nose.”

Acha watched intently, trying to commit Fasti’s every movement to memory as he circled the ship, pointing out each inspection point. She was keeping up - barely. Thankfully, his voice didn’t carry the droning authority of a high-school principal. Listening to him was surprisingly easy.

“Senatla checks most things herself with near-perfect accuracy,” he explained. “So our workload is lower than it probably should be. We just verify the things that wouldn’t be obvious, and the ones that get expensive if ignored.”

He ducked beneath the craft’s belly and crouched beside the landing gear.

“The first and least likely problem is something stuck in the gear bay.”

Acha looked up at the smooth underside of the ship, at the openings where the landing gear would retract seamlessly into the hull.

She blinked.

“What could even get stuck in there?”

He shrugged.

“Lots of things. Mostly biological. Stuff that moves to inconvenient places and then… stays there.”

She glanced at him.

“Has that actually happened to you before?”

He nodded, shivering slightly at the memory.

“Bird strike during landing approach. Technically you can fly with the gear extended, but you can’t enter atmosphere like that. It’ll rip clean off.” He stood again. “So, better safe than sorry.”

She nodded and followed him as he moved toward the rear of the ship. After checking the back landing gear, he gestured toward the engine pods.

“I’m not qualified to service the engines themselves, and they’re heavily monitored anyway, so nothing to worry about there.”

He paused, then walked to where an engine pod connected to the main fuselage and pressed a concealed switch. A seam appeared, followed by a soft mechanical whine as another panel unfolded into a ramp.

Acha leaned forward, already recognizing the space before he finished speaking.

“This is the cargo hold.”

Or what remained of it.

The interior was almost completely occupied by a large sealed crate.

She pointed.

“What’s in there?”

Fasti shrugged.

“I was told it’s computer system parts. But I’m not paid to snoop in people’s packages.”

Acha frowned.

“But… what if there’s a bomb in there?”

He blinked.

“Why would someone put a bomb in a private courier? What’s there to gain?”

She hesitated.

“I… don’t know. But what if it’s something illegal?”

He shrugged again.

“Not my problem. We get boarded, the package gets confiscated, we get paid for the inconvenience, and the sender gets tracked down. There’s lots of paperwork involved when you hire a private courier.”

She crossed her arms.

“Like what?”

“One clause states that while a package is aboard my ship, the sender’s location can be monitored. It’s buried in the fine print.” He smirked slightly. “A lot of people get caught because they don’t read the fine print.”

She planted her hands on her hips.

“If you’re an undercover agent, you can just say so.”

An unexpected laugh escaped him.

“I’m not. But private couriers are often contracted to help catch smugglers. To them, we look like the safest option.”

He sighed.

“The contracts rotate constantly so smugglers never know who’s safe and who isn’t.”

She blinked.

“Then… what are we?”

He smiled.

“I can’t tell you that. What if you’re an undercover agent?”

She groaned.

“Well played.”

He grinned and turned back to the ship.

“Anyway. Next, we check the cargo door seams.”

He ran a finger slowly along the edge as he spoke.

“I’m feeling for dents or bumps that could let air escape. The ship checks this automatically, but it’s a structural weak point, so we double-check.”

He pointed to the opposite side of the frame.

“Run your finger along that edge. Tell me if you feel anything.”

She nodded and carefully followed the instruction. Her heart pounded. Missing something felt equivalent to sentencing them both to death.

She felt nothing.

Unsatisfied, she checked again.

Only then did she realize he was watching her.

She turned, already knowing what he was about to say.

“What?”

He smiled gently.

“You’ll know the first time if something’s wrong.”

She nodded, withdrawing her hand, mildly embarrassed.

“What’s next?”

“The main door.”

They repeated the process for the door, and then Fasti shut it behind them.

Acha watched as he moved deeper into the rear of the ship and followed after him. It was far more cramped than anything in the front. And far more confusing.

In every direction there were flashing lights, computers, tanks and pipes, wires - everything she could possibly imagine packed into one narrow space.

When Fasti began explaining it, she was lost within ten seconds.

She truly tried to follow along. She nodded at the right moments, watched where he pointed, and focused as hard as she could. But the moment he started talking about faster-than-light travel, her thoughts slipped loose entirely. Words like fuel efficiency, hyper-precise computer control, warp bubbles, and thrust vectoring floated past her without meaning.

By the time he finished, she wasn’t entirely sure she still remembered how she had entered the room.

Fasti turned to her, expression neutral.

“Does that all make sense?”

She hesitated.

That hesitation was answer enough.

He sighed.

“Thought so. That’s alright. You’ll learn. I’m not paying you for nothing, after all.”

She blinked, momentarily startled.

She had almost forgotten she was being paid.

Nodding quickly, she stepped past him toward the entrance hallway - there wasn’t enough space for them to swap places inside the compartment. They traded positions at the doorway instead, then made their way back through Senatla’s interior toward the cockpit.

The dashboard was still alive, glowing quietly as if it had been waiting for them.

Fasti dropped into the left seat without hesitation. Acha paused beside the other one, unsure whether she needed permission.

He noticed immediately.

“You can sit down. No need to wait.”

She nodded and slipped into the second seat. It was surprisingly well padded, comfortably hugging her back.

A thought crossed her mind.

“Fasti?”

“Yeah?”

“Do all your earnings go into Senatla?”

He hesitated, then grinned - almost sheepish.

“You’re a good guesser.”

She smiled faintly.

“I thought so. I’m guessing few courier ships are equipped to this level of comfort.”

He nodded, though his attention had already returned to the dashboard.

The seats were close. Very close. If either of them leaned sideways - with a little bit of straining - they could probably kiss the other on the cheek.

Acha wasn’t entirely sure why that was the first thought that entered her mind.

She firmly pushed it away as Fasti began speaking again.

“Yeah, it’s probably one of the better ones in its size class. Bigger ships might be fancier, but that’s mostly because they’ve got more space to work with.”

She nodded, trying to follow what he was doing now. Boxes of information floated across the console as he dragged them into neat alignment.

He noticed her watching.

“Oh, sorry. I should explain.”

He pointed to each display in turn.

“This is basically our flight plan. This is where we are now, and this is the path we’ll take once we’re airborne, hitting these checkpoints. Then this is our route after leaving the atmosphere, this is our jump route, this is cruise, and finally our landing plan.”

She nodded slowly as the structure began to make sense. Each box contained a name, coordinates, and an estimated time that updated every second.

He continued.

“The path gets relayed to every vessel within range, and to ground control. That’s how collisions are avoided. The computer keeps everything updated since conditions change constantly. Too many variables to stick to exact timings, even when the computer’s flying.”

Another nod. Understanding was still distant, but at least the shapes of things were forming.

He finished arranging the displays, shrinking the flight plan into the corner. The remaining panels expanded smoothly to fill the console.

“On older ships you had to manually check everything for errors,” he said. “Modern ships flag problems automatically. But I still like seeing it all anyway.”

She nodded again, hoping that one day the information would stop feeling like noise and start feeling like knowledge.

Fasti cracked his knuckles.

“Alright. Ready for your first job?”

She nodded immediately.

“I’m ready.”

He smiled.

Then he switched on the engine controls.