My thoughts are cut off by the thud of the ramp hitting the surface. I blink and focus, gazing out at the expanse of Gaia revealed by the open side of the cargo bay. My mother heads down without a glance my way, each step making the metal ramp vibrate.

I pause on the threshold, take one last, deep breath of the familiar smell of Fortuna, and follow her. My boots clomp along the ramp as I descend, and a breeze ruffles my hood. Gaia has plenty of its own problems, but its climate is a breath of fresh air after spending our last job on sweltering, rainy Deva.

Gaia, along with the other planets, built huge landing zones like this when interplanetary trade and visitation was commonplace. Back then, this zone would’ve been full of anything from trade ships to tourist vessels to mercenaries looking for work. Now, the borders are closed to anyone but official government personnel and exceptions like my family. The flat expanse of space is glaringly empty except for us, some very old and rusty spacecrafts that must have been abandoned long ago, and a few unmanned delivery drones marked with Pax’s flag. Drones can’t deliver as much cargo as a ship like Fortuna, and they can be taken down by anything from weather to programming glitches to pirates like the Red Baron crew. But for most human-operated ships, it’s simply too difficult and expensive to risk traveling between planets, so the drones have to do. We’re among the last of a dying breed, surviving only because my siblings’ unique birthplaces allow us to bend the law.

As I step out into the sand, I look up at Nova Vita, huge and bloody red in the sky. The planets arc out from the star in various crescent shapes—watery Nibiru is the closest, followed by little Deva and dusty Pax. Far off in the opposite direction is frozen and war-ravaged Titan, dwarfed in the Gaian sky though it’s at least three times the size of Gaia in reality. I’m one of the few people in the whole system who can boast of having been to each of them, and a few dozen times at that—with the exception of Pax, which we visited on one especially illegal trip that required us to wear full antiradiation space suits. Yet every time I look up from a planet’s surface, I get a pang of longing to explore that vast emptiness between them.

I’m torn from my thoughts by someone clearing their throat. I turn toward my mother, standing a few paces away with both hands in the air. I raise my eyebrows at the strange pose and the furious expression on her face.