She tried to shrug it off, but his words had stung. She’d never wanted to be in maintenance. In fact, she’d wanted, and had trained for, Saul’s job: defence technician.

It was a fancy title, but the job description amounted to punching anything that threatened the station or the station’s crew. As a defence technician, she would have patrolled the corridors, watched over the security systems, and led teams to remove lifeforms that found their way onto the planet. During times of war or when significant threats arose, defence technicians were drafted into first-response teams.

Maren was qualified for the job, but her recruiting manager hadn’t been able to find her a position. “There’s a glut of defence technicians right now,” she’d explained, folding her manicured fingers under her pointed chin as she offered Maren an insultingly sympathetic smile. “What stations are really looking for are maintenance workers. I could get you a position on a very prestigious station.”

Maren had tried to hide the look of disgust that had spread across her face, but she didn’t think she’d been very successful.

“Look,” the recruiter had said, settling forward in her high-back leather chair. “I know it’s not what you want, but it’s the best I can do for you. Once you’ve got a job—especially on one of the bigger stations—it’s easy to move between sections. Work as maintenance for six months then ask for a transfer to defence, and I can almost guarantee you’ll get it.”

It had sounded good at the time—better than being unemployed, at least—but the promises had so far proven empty. Maren had applied for a promotion to defence at exactly six months after her employment on Station 334, but it had been rejected, just like the following three applications.

Maybe Saul has a point, Maren thought as she punched the bolt and hissed as she got a scraped knuckle for her trouble. She didn’t look like defence; she was small, even for a woman, and her muscles refused to develop past toned, no matter how much she worked out.

She wasn’t about to give up, though. Working in defence had been her dream since she was a child. A few weeks after her tenth birthday, her school had played a news segment on a rescue mission. Eight technicians fought and killed a mass of the aggressive plant creeping Helen that had trapped twenty workers inside their station. After the fight, they interviewed the team’s leader. He’d been bruised, bloodied, and sweaty, but Maren had been captivated by the intense, fiery triumph in his eyes. She’d never seen someone look so alive.

The captain had become a minor hero after the battle, and news articles cropped up about him every few months. Maren had read them all. She’d developed something of a schoolgirl’s crush on the man and started taking classes that would ultimately let her join the ranks of his peers. When she graduated and failed to land a position as a defence technician, her recruiting officer had given her a list of stations that needed a maintenance worker. By pure luck—or fate, if she believed in such things—Maren recognised one of the stations as her childhood hero’s post. She’d signed the transfer papers without hesitation.