The first thing I learned about Dack Jarn's crew was that they were quiet in the places that mattered.
Not silent—Jinx made sure silence never got comfortable—but quiet in the sense that nobody wasted energy pretending. Nobody tried to sell me a myth. Nobody performed professionalism like it was a costume. They moved like people who'd already learned what happens when you lie to yourself.
That was… reassuring.
It was also unsettling.
Because I'd spent my entire academy life preparing for crews that were either corporate-clean or mercenary-loud. I'd trained for officers who demanded respect and pilots who demanded attention. I'd practiced response trees for panic, for arrogance, for mutiny, for failure.
I hadn't practiced for this.
A Leopard-class DropShip that looked like it had been patched with stubbornness and debt.
A Daishi in the bay—Dire Wolf—so large it made the clamps look like toys.
A Highlander that carried itself like its pilot: theatrical until it wasn't.
And a Centurion with new registry plates—Taila's name still too fresh on the paperwork, like the ink hadn't realized it was allowed to exist.
And me.
A pilot in the front chair with a brand-new crew contract and a ship that was suddenly mine to keep alive.
I ran my hands across the Leopard's console in the way my instructors had drilled into me—light touches, checks that weren't superstition but habit.
Fuel flow.
Thruster response.
Life support.
Heat management.
Comms.
Transponder set to "legit enough."
Emergency protocols preloaded.
Outside the cockpit canopy, the landing field blurred under rain and floodlight. The port's skyline was a jagged smear of steel. Everything smelled faintly of coolant and wet rust, even through the scrubbers.
Behind me, the ship carried weight that wasn't just mass.
It carried people.
That was the difference between academy sims and reality: in sims, you restarted. In reality, you didn't.
I kept my voice soft and even over the internal channel. "Pre-lift check complete. Clamps secure. Cargo bay reads stable."
Dack's reply came a second later, calm as if we were discussing weather. "Copy."
No unnecessary words.
Jinx cut in immediately, because of course she did. "Pilot Lady is doing great. Everyone clap."
Taila's voice followed—quieter, careful. "Jinx…"
Jinx laughed. "I'm building morale. It's important."
I should've been annoyed.
Instead, I found myself… grateful.
Jinx was a pressure valve. A noisy one. The kind you noticed only when you needed it.
I opened external comms with the port controller, exchanged codes seen a thousand times in training, and waited for clearance.
While we waited, I let my eyes drift to the rear camera feed.
Three 'Mechs in the bay, held in steel jaws.
The Dire Wolf was a presence. Even dormant, it looked like it belonged to a different category of reality—too big, too much, too final. The kind of machine people built when they wanted to end conversations.
The Highlander was scarred, proud, practical. It looked like it had survived bad decisions and kept the receipts.
The Centurion… looked like a beginning.
And I kept staring at it, because beginnings were dangerous. They tempted you to believe you had time.
I inhaled slowly, tasting recycled air.
I told myself what I always told myself when something felt too personal:
Procedure first. Feelings later.
The port controller cleared us.
I lifted.
The Leopard shook as gravity fought us and lost, engines roaring low and steady. The sensation pressed into my spine—familiar and comforting. A ship didn't care about your doubts. A ship cared about math.
We rose through rain, through cloud, into thin gray daylight. The world below became a wet metal bruise.
Then it became a planet again—curved, distant warning.
I set our ascent vector and engaged the next stage burn.
Only when the climb stabilized did I let myself exhale.
A small relief.
A small lie.
Because the real pressure wasn't the atmosphere.
It was the crew.
---
I didn't know how to be "first crew" material.
Academy had taught me to fly. It had taught me emergency control and orbital procedures and how to make calm decisions while alarms screamed. It had taught me that panic is contagious and discipline is medicine.
It had not taught me how to sit at a mess bench while two women argued over who got to steal the last protein bar, and the man who owned the most dangerous machine I'd ever seen pretended not to notice he was being flirted with like it was a campaign.
It had not taught me how to interpret Taila.
Taila moved like someone who expected to be punished for existing. Even when she smiled—which she did sometimes, now, quickly and shyly—she smiled like it was a stolen thing.
Jinx moved like someone who expected to be punished and decided to laugh first so nobody could take the last word.
Dack moved like someone who had already been punished and decided he would never again let the universe do it cheaply.
That was the shape of them.
It was… compatible, in a strange way. Like broken gears that still managed to mesh because they'd been filed down by the same kind of force.
And then there was the other thing.
The thing Jinx had pulled me aside for.
I had thought I understood unusual crews. Mercenary units sometimes formed bonds out of necessity. Pilots sometimes paired off. People sometimes slept together because the future didn't offer guarantees.
But "harem" wasn't a term we used in training.
"Harem" was something I'd seen in cheap port fiction or heard crude jokes about from cadets who wanted to sound worldly.
Then I'd met Jinx, who said it like it was a tactical doctrine.
And Taila, who blushed so hard I thought she might melt through the deck.
And Dack, who didn't encourage it with words—only with the steady fact that he didn't push anyone away.
I didn't know what to make of it.
So I did what I always did when I didn't know what to make of something.
I collected data.
---
Jinx cornered me on the second day of flight.
Not aggressively. Not like a threat. Like a cat deciding you were the warm spot.
It was in the corridor outside the cockpit. I'd stepped out to run a manual inspection on the aft junction panel—pure habit—and I'd found her leaning against the bulkhead as if she'd been waiting.
Her outfit was port-combat casual—tank top, shorts, and a jacket that had more plating than fashion had any right to allow. She looked ridiculous and dangerous, which I was learning was her preferred balance.
"Hey, Pilot Lady," she said brightly.
"Jinx," I replied.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"I prefer direct statements," I said.
She grinned. "Cute. Note taken."
I waited. Silence was a tool. People filled it if you let them.
Jinx's grin softened slightly. "Okay," she said. "You're calm. I like calm. Dack likes calm. Taila likes calm but pretends she doesn't because she's allergic to admitting she wants things."
I said nothing.
Jinx leaned closer, voice lowering into something that wasn't a joke anymore. "So. The harem thing."
There it was.
I kept my face neutral. "You mean your… relationship structure."
Jinx's eyes sparkled. "That's the most polite way anyone has ever described my chaos. Yes."
I watched her carefully. Not because I feared her physically, but because this was social terrain, and social terrain can be deadlier than vacuum if you misstep.
"What are the rules?" I asked.
Jinx blinked once, then smiled wider—as if she respected that I went straight to it.
"Rule one," she said, tapping my shoulder lightly. "Nobody gets coerced. Ever. Not with pressure. Not with guilt. Not with 'it's expected.' If someone says no, it's no."
I nodded.
"Rule two," she continued, "Taila's boundaries are sacred. She's new to… everything. She gets to set the pace. She gets to freak out and come back. Nobody punishes her for needing space."
I nodded again, more firmly.
"Rule three," Jinx said, "we don't do jealousy like idiots. We talk. We don't sabotage. We don't compete by hurting each other. If someone feels left out, we fix it like adults."
I almost smiled. Almost.
Jinx caught the flicker and smirked. "Yeah. I said adults. Shocking, right?"
"Continue," I said.
"Rule four," Jinx said, voice turning lighter again, "Dack is the axis, but he's not the owner. We're not property. He doesn't get to collect wives like trophies, and we don't get to treat him like a prize to steal. It's… a crew thing. A trust thing."
That surprised me more than I expected.
I'd assumed "harem" meant a hierarchy.
Jinx was describing something closer to a pact.
I kept my tone careful. "And if someone joins… they join all of you."
Jinx tilted her head. "Ideally, yeah. Some people might click more with one person at first. But long-term? If you're here, you're here. You don't get to pretend Taila doesn't exist. You don't get to treat her like a stepping stone to Dack."
I glanced toward the cockpit door.
Taila had been in there earlier, quietly watching star maps with Dack, asking questions like she was trying to be useful by understanding the sky.
She hadn't spoken much to me yet.
But she'd looked at me with something like hope and fear mixed together.
That look didn't belong to someone trying to compete.
It belonged to someone asking if she was allowed to be included.
"I understand," I said.
Jinx studied me for a second, and her grin went smaller—more honest.
"Do you *want* it?" she asked quietly.
That was the real question.
Not whether I could tolerate it.
Whether I would choose it.
I inhaled slowly. "I don't know," I admitted. "I've never had time for relationships. I was… busy becoming competent."
Jinx nodded, as if that was familiar. "Yeah. Same."
"I do know," I added, "that I don't want a crew built on lies."
Jinx's eyes softened. "Good answer."
Then she leaned in closer and whispered, conspiratorial again. "Also, if you say no, that's fine. But Taila will spend three weeks convincing herself it's because she's not enough, and Dack will quietly murder the concept of happiness and go back to being a lone wolf, and I'll become unbearable on purpose."
I stared.
Jinx smiled brightly.
I exhaled. "That seems… manipulative."
"It is," Jinx said cheerfully. "But also true."
I found myself letting a small smile happen. It felt strange on my face, like I hadn't used the muscles in a long time.
Jinx pointed at it like she'd won a prize. "There. See? You're already in."
"I didn't agree," I said.
Jinx shrugged. "You didn't refuse. That's basically a contract in merc terms."
Then she moved past me down the corridor, and as she walked away she called over her shoulder, "Oh—final rule."
I turned slightly.
Jinx said, "No men."
I blinked. "No men."
She stopped, looked back, expression suddenly sharp in a way that wasn't teasing. "Taila suggested male crew candidates for the ship," she said. "I asked her if she wanted another man looking at her like Dack does."
My throat tightened.
Jinx didn't add details. She didn't have to. The way her voice went careful told me everything I needed to know about what Taila carried.
"She said no," Jinx finished. "So it's no."
I nodded once. "Understood."
Jinx winked and vanished around the corner like she hadn't just laid down a boundary that could save someone's sanity.
I stood there for a moment, letting the ship's vibration hum through my bones.
Then I went back to the cockpit.
Procedure first.
Feelings later.
---
Taila didn't speak to me much at first.
Not because she disliked me.
Because she didn't know where to put me.
I was new. New meant danger. Not always, but enough that her instincts treated it like truth.
The first time she addressed me directly was on day three, when she came up to the cockpit doorway with her slate and said quietly, "Lyra?"
I turned in my chair. "Yes."
She hesitated, then asked, "Is it normal to feel sick before a drop?"
I considered the question carefully.
"It can be," I said. "Especially when the drop matters."
Taila swallowed. "I've only been in sims. And… I don't want to freeze."
I kept my voice calm. "Then we build habits. Habits carry you when fear tries to steal your hands."
Taila's shoulders loosened a fraction. "Dack says that too."
I nodded. "He would."
Taila stared at me for a second, then said—almost shyly—"You're… like him."
I blinked. "Like him."
"Calm," she said quickly, cheeks warming as if she'd said too much. "Not… loud."
From the corridor behind her, Jinx called, "She means you're hot in a 'reads manuals' way!"
Taila spun. "Jinx!"
Jinx laughed.
I felt my cheeks warm slightly, which was annoying. I didn't blush. I was a professional.
But apparently my body had missed the memo.
Taila looked back at me, mortified. "Sorry."
"It's fine," I said.
It wasn't fine.
It was… oddly pleasant, in a way that made my brain itch because pleasant things often preceded disaster in my experience.
Taila stepped into the cockpit, closer than she needed to be, and stared at the nav plot like it was safer than looking at me.
"You're really flying us," she murmured.
"Yes," I said.
Taila nodded slowly. "It's… nice. Having someone who… knows."
That landed harder than it should have.
Because I knew what it meant to build your entire identity around being useful.
Taila had been used like a tool.
Now she was trying to become a person again.
I shifted slightly, giving her space. "You're doing well with the Centurion," I said.
Taila's cheeks warmed. "I'm not good."
"Yet," I corrected.
Taila glanced at me, startled.
Then she nodded once, like she was filing that word away.
Yet.
She left the cockpit a moment later, and as she did, she paused and said quietly, "Thank you."
Then she was gone, leaving me alone with the hum of engines and the weight of people in my ship.
I realized I'd been holding my breath.
I forced myself to exhale.
---
We trained during the flight.
Not in ways that wasted fuel or risked the ship. In ways that built readiness into the crew like bone density.
Dack ran Taila through sim drills in the cargo bay—portable rig strapped to a crate, helmet on, hands learning the rhythm of Centurion controls. I watched through a camera feed while monitoring the ship's course, and I saw Taila's progress in small things:
Less flinch.
Less hesitation.
More breath control.
Jinx hovered like a chaotic instructor—sometimes teasing, sometimes encouraging, sometimes abruptly gentle when Taila's fear spiked.
And Dack… Dack was steady.
He didn't praise for no reason. He didn't comfort out of guilt. He simply gave Taila a structure strong enough to lean on until she could stand on her own.
It was a kind of care I hadn't seen often.
I'd seen instructors.
I'd seen commanders.
I'd seen people who protected you because you were an asset.
Dack protected them like they were *his responsibility*—not ownership, not control. Just… duty.
That made me understand why Jinx loved him.
And why Taila looked at him like he was sunlight she didn't know she deserved.
It also made my chest feel strange when I thought about being included in that circle.
Because inclusion meant risk.
Risk meant pain.
And pain was what I'd avoided by staying "busy becoming competent."
Maybe competence had been my excuse.
---
On day four, the contract world came into view.
A muddy planet with broad cloud bands and jagged terrain—mining country, convoy roads cut through badlands, stations scattered like teeth.
The kind of place raiders loved.
The kind of place disciplined raiders could turn into a graveyard.
I ran descent calculations while the crew strapped in.
Dack's voice came over comms. "Status."
"On schedule," I replied. "Atmospheric entry in twenty-eight minutes. Wind shear is moderate. Visibility will be poor."
Jinx sounded excited. "Poor visibility means we get to be dramatic."
Taila's voice was smaller. "Do we… drop immediately."
"Not immediately," I said. "We'll orbit once and confirm the LZ. Then we unload."
Taila exhaled like she'd been holding breath.
Dack's voice softened slightly—only slightly. "You're in the Centurion today."
Taila swallowed. "Yes."
"Limited exposure," Dack added. "You stay near the convoy. You follow calls. You don't chase."
Taila's voice steadied. "Copy."
Jinx cut in, bright. "And if anything tries to eat you, I eat it first."
Taila muttered, "Jinx…"
Jinx laughed. "I'm reassuring."
I watched the crew through internal cams as they moved into drop readiness.
Taila adjusted her harness twice, then three times, then forced her hands to still. Jinx bounced lightly like she had too much life to fit in a chair. Dack sat like a stone that had learned to breathe.
And me?
I set the ship on the descent vector and felt the familiar tightening in my stomach—not fear, exactly. The clean pressure of responsibility.
I keyed internal comms and spoke softly, because for some reason it felt important that they hear it from me:
"I will bring you back," I said.
There was a pause.
Then Dack said, "Copy."
Jinx said, "Aww."
Taila said quietly, "Okay."
The planet filled the canopy.
Clouds swallowed us.
The ship began to shudder as atmosphere grabbed our hull like a hand.
Heat built along the skin.
The Leopard trembled, but it held.
Because it was ours now.
And because I was flying it like my life depended on it.
It did.
As the turbulence rose and the sky turned the color of bruised steel, I found myself thinking—not about procedure, not about fuel, not about thrust—
—but about the conversation with Jinx.
About rules.
About boundaries.
About the strange possibility that what these three people were building wasn't a weakness.
It was a formation.
A star.
And I—Lyra Sato, too busy for romance, too trained for softness—might be standing at the edge of it, deciding whether to step in.
The ship bucked again.
I tightened my grip on the controls and forced my mind back to what mattered first:
Get them down.
Get them out.
Get them home.
Everything else could wait until we survived the next lesson.