Craig had been supremely lucky in his life, or at least he'd like to think so — for he was a captain.

  How did he get to be captain? Did he slay the previous captain, perhaps take over in a daring mutiny, or maybe he was simply gifted the ship as an inheritance from a famous space pirate? Did he steal it from an evil space navy after learning some dark secret?

  Those would all have been great ways for a raider to start their career.

  The actual answer was technically even luckier, considering it had nothing to do with who he knew.

  Employment is a thing that does not come to all people in the bigger universe. Being set on a path of potential glory without being related to somebody important, getting a good reference, rising through the ranks, or even "knowing a guy" is surprisingly difficult.

  Raiding is a rare position in that it requires conscious interaction. Most positions that did not were usually filled by droids, artificial intelligences, slaves, machines, beasts, or in some rare cases all of the above. What could be automated also varied heavily by society, corporation, clan, religious order, and so on — and the answer to "what's left for us?" varied heavily too.

  This answer falls on a spectrum between being literally eaten, to a post-scarcity utopia where every need is handled and individuals are free to pursue their passions.

  Between the two, it's usually the former.

  In the case of Craig's combination tribe and penal colony, many simply farmed, hunted, or in some cases starved rather than find gainful employment in the universe at large.

  All except the lucky ones.

  Craig was in this category, because Craig had won a sweepstakes.

  Some mega-corporations leverage advanced staffing techniques to ensure that certain positions are fulfilled by "allowing" "lucky" "candidates" to sign what is essentially permanent debt for a tiny chance at a decent living.

  Included in this deal was a standard overview of the position, a Passenger with a basic encyclopedia of knowledge covering a wide variety of topics, a Replicant Executive, a "free" drop pod, and of course, the ship itself.

  The fact that the deal did NOT include tiny things like a crew, weapons, or knowledge to do anything more than the most basic ship maintenance did not get Craig down. He knew he was lucky, and that they would find whatever they needed.

  Sure, the first few cycles had been what the most charitable would call "bumpy" — but they were now on a lucky streak, and it started on Earth.

  Craig was terrified when he rescued his new potential best friend from that psychopath. While he'd only seen this new friend in action once, he could immediately tell they were meant to be — which is why the first thing he did right after rescuing their new infiltrator was to liberate his new friend as fast as he could, and slap it around his own wrist.

  It was a perfect fit, so long as you ignored the tightness and chafing.

  Now there was a chance that fate might split them apart if they couldn't make enough money to pay some dumb bills. Craig had feelings he didn't even know how to express. If the planet survived, he would be happy — but would they really want to live knowing that their lives kept Craig from his cool acid gun? They didn't seem all that happy to be alive when he was there.

  But he didn't want to hurt them for his own benefit. He was just hoping that if it came down to it, the entire population would make the right call.

  Craig decided it was a good idea to distract himself from these complex thoughts with conversation and team building.

  He and Jonathan — which loosely translated to one of the more common grunt noises in Pirosi — were getting along well in the last couple of days since he woke up. Maybe it was time to trust him with some of his own backstory, since Jonathan had been so forthcoming about his. It was important, after all. Comrades needed to know each other to trust each other.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Oh, so you really won it in a sweepstakes?"

  "Yes."

  "Huh. Of course that's a thing."

  Jonathan recalled reading something like that in Craig's description. He returned to trying to imagine his nutrient bar was… well, anything else.

  Even though he knew the full story would be extremely stupid, he really wanted to know more about how Craig got started in this business than the answer he got, which was "I won it in a sweepstakes." In the last ten or so similar conversations with Craig, Jonathan always found that attempting to pry out more information than was immediately given was futile.

  Still, this was the most Craig had offered up in a while — so he decided to reward the effort.

  "You must be very lucky."

  Craig smiled, knowingly.

  "Hey all, we're on approach now. Feel free to come up to the front." Rex announced remotely.

  It was finally time to see the station.

  It had been explained to him already that the station was called "Hub 40," and that there would be people from two or three nearby galaxies inside. These stations were the space equivalent of gas stations — but one of those really nice ones that also had froyo and a car wash. The only differences were that it was A., in space, and B., filled with apparently hundreds of merchants trying to peddle their various goods and services.

  Jonathan entered the mysterious cockpit.

  In his mind's eye he pictured one of two things — either a single touch screen pad and a gigantic view screen, or a wall with enough dials, buttons, and levers to populate a dozen busy boards.

  What he did NOT expect was what he didn't see.

  There was a console with a reasonable amount of controls. What those controls were and what they did were a complete mystery — not because they were complicated, but simply because they were literally blurred out. Everything but the view screen, which was roughly the size of a 50-inch TV —

  "52.5 inches!"

  — was visible.

  "Don't say anything out loud, but I'm going to turn off the censorship for this stuff." Buddy gave Jonathan a moment to register what was happening before doing just that.

  "Remember — your 'Pal' is not your friend. He's there to make sure you can do the job, but nothing else. It probably isn't helpful for you to see this stuff yet, but who knows what'll happen later."

  Jonathan quickly noted the controls without drawing too much attention. He found, as he got used to his new friends, that he was able to process information much faster than before — it barely even took a glance. The controls seemed straightforward, which was good. A console with a few buttons and sliders, and a small globe built into it that acted sort of like a screen — he suspected it worked like a trackball.

  And there it was.

  It was shaped like eight asterisks stacked on top of each other — big enough that each point could comfortably fit a ship at each… pointy bit. Tine?

  "Ohhhh, I get it. They're spokes. It's a hub."

  Jonathan said it out loud to nobody in particular.

  The center of the asterisks was a large cylinder that looked like it could fit three —

  "3.4!"

  — Humble Beginningses nose to tail inside.

  Despite it being almost exactly as he imagined and hoped for, Jonathan took the time to do a rare naturally occurring Spielberg face. The various types of ships, small satellites, and repair drones zooming about. Even the obnoxiously bright space billboards were just… perfect.

  He couldn't wait to rush straight in to see what freaky instruments their musical acts played, and find out what absurd game they played instead of roulette.

  "I wonder if they play daerts." Jonathan accidentally said aloud.

  "You should feel bad for that reference."

  They pulled into the spoke on the third ring from what was apparently the top. All parked vessels seemed to be oriented the same way. Jonathan figured that was to keep gravity in one consistent direction.

  The ship came to an extremely smooth stop — like going down a floor in an elevator, only horizontally.

  Rex was already plugged into whatever feed of data raiders received to search for new assignments, as there might be a need to book a job as soon as possible depending on the results of the trip.

  He reiterated to his crew that they had a few errands to run — possibly more depending on how each turned out. First, they would take their cargo manifest to the nearest raider hub. This is where they would finally learn the fate of Earth and, inversely, their pay. There was also a party that needed Kurkuril's body returned, so that needed to be dropped off at a storage facility. After that, they could focus on damage control if the first errand didn't work out.

  "I need to be clear — things are a bit tight with money right now, so if the haul is indeed invalidated, don't just go off and sell everything to the closest storefront. Make sure you shop around. Also, it should go without saying, but I'm placing a ban on charity."

  Rex seemed to be pointing this comment mostly at Craig.

  "Jonathan, please stay near Craig while you're in the station for now. Since you're still new to all of this, I don't want you taken advantage of — or just plain taken."

  "Yes, Mommy," Jonathan wished he had the courage to say.