This is my first FF so I’d like to get as much opinions and tips as you can. My English isn’t the best. This is because I’m self-thought. Please have some patience with it!

I’ll try to post 3 chapters a week and would like to get feedback from you.

This chapter is proofread by Askard_Skullen and tomolone.

I want to thank them both for their help.

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Another normal day engineering at a shipyard on planet Earth. I looked at the navigation panel which I was trying to fix the whole day. The entire day I tried to find out what was repairable and what wasn’t. I knew I’d have to replace the whole thing, it was completely fried. I really wonder what they did with it to destroy it like this. My boss won’t like this though. It’s going to cost him extra money to repair now.

With that out of the way, let’s call it a day. I stood up and stretched. I looked at clock and to my surprise, my shift ended two hours ago.

“Hey, what are you still doing here at this hour?” Came a surprised shout from behind. I whirled to look at who that was. I don't know when he came here but looking at his uniform and rank, he was probably the captain of the ship I’m repairing. He was taller than me. Considering the fact that I was already pretty tall myself, it made him quite the imposing person. With blue eyes, shoulder length black hair and a nice face, he looked handsome even in his later years.

But well, he might just look imposing to me. I’m tall but slim. Maybe a little too slim due to my lack of nutrients in my early years, but that’s not important right now. Short brown hair and a pretty average face. Except for my eyes. One could say my eyes are pretty special. They would shine when I laughed, but could also blaze with energy, if I was angry. I’ve been told more than once that they were the doors to my emotions.

Compared to me who was tall and slim, maybe too much because of the lack of nutrients in my early years. Short brown hair and a pretty average face, except for my eyes. One could say my eyes are pretty special. They would shine when I laughed, but could also blaze with energy, if I was angry. I’ve been told more than once that they were the doors to my emotions.

“I was just trying to repair your navigation panel. You’ll most likely have to replace it completely to get it working 100% again. I don’t know what you did up there but you managed to totally fry it. What baffles me though is how you managed it with a fuse in place.”

“Easy! There was no fuse. With what little money we get for our fleet, some repairs aren’t made by the book.” He said while measuring me with his eyes. “But why are you working overtime? Do you like your work that much?”

I laughed, “No, at least not entirely. I forgot to look at the clock. To specify, I like to repair things but not when I don’t get the parts I need and I am still expected to repair it.” Then I frowned at him. “How can there be no fuse? According to the papers in the office, each ship was sent away with everything fully repaired."

He chuckled. “I’m pretty sure they said that. They just tend to cut corners everywhere to spare expenses.” He continued while shaking his head.

“Then why don’t you employ your own engineers? They could probably make most of the repairs with a decent replicator and some raw materials.”

He evidently perked up at the thought. “And would you be willing to work for us? We do have some engineers already. Sadly, they aren't very good with these kind of repairs. The best ones, or even decent ones for that matter, don’t want to go to space. And if they do, they don’t want to go with us or they ask way too much money. Would you be willing to go with us?”

“Of course! Sadly, your military already rejected me because of my arm.” I showed him my mechanical arm. I heavily upgraded it from a normal prosthetic arm. I made some upgrades for protection and some others to help me with repairs. It’s difficult to control though. I was born without my right arm and, to this day, sometimes I have problem with controlling it. Doctors said something about not having one to begin with made it harder for me to control a new one.

“It looks like your arm would be an advantage, not a hindrance! I can’t believe they would reject you because of it.”

“They didn’t reject me because of this arm, they rejected me because of the one before this. I couldn’t make that one work well. It was more of a basic prosthetic arm rather than a functioning one.” I then stopped talking for a short time as it was painful memories for me. “I tried again, after I made this one, but they have me tagged in the files as already rejected, and wouldn’t let me even try.”

He reached up and wiped a tear from my face. It startled me, it has been a long time since I let someone near me so I just said “You're asking me if I want to embark on a battleship in space for minimal wage with a probability I would never return?” While looking him in the eyes I said “You bet I’d go. It is my dream for as long as I can remember!”

He stared at me. Then said, “Could you tell me your name? I can try to make some arrangements for you. I’d love to have you on my ship as soon as possible.”

“Thank you. My name is Leya, just Leya, no surname. You should be able to find my file in your database. And who would be the one speaking for me?” I asked.

“My name is John Merick. Unfortunately, we are scheduled to head back out on patrol in 2 hours. I was conducting a last inspection of the ship before departure, when I ran into you. So I don’t have the time to do anything right now, but I will talk with my superiors and see what I can do upon my return.” He said.

“But how can you go without a working navigational panel?”

“They told me it would be replaced with a new one at the next stop.”

“If you want, I can look at it and make sure it works.”

“No need, our engineers can install it. They can at least do that much. They specialize in swapping things.” He said sadly then smiled and continued “When I return, I’ll look you up and I’ll be glad to have you on my ship.”

“Thanks one more time, but if you have to prepare for lift off, I’d better go.” I replied.

“No, you can stay if you want. For the next hour, there probably will be no one I have to meet. I just wanted to look once more at my ship before going to space.”

I smiled at him and for the next hour we toured the ship and talked about space, him, me and my plans for the future. Before we knew it an hour went by and the first members of the crew came back from leave. That was my signal to go home. I should have filed a report, but it could wait a day.

• • •

That day I slept soundly knowing that better times will come. At least until the police broke my door and arrested me for being a terrorist. From then on, it went downhill really fast. In the interrogation cell they accused me of terrorism by sabotaging the ship I was working on. I told them that I never sabotaged any ship and always worked to the best of my abilities. Then they came to me with an offer to make a confession and that if I did, they would give me a lesser punishment. On this I told them, I didn’t do anything to the ship so I couldn't confess to anything.

Next came the trial where they told me about the ship I destroyed and they showed me the people who worked on it. The first picture was of the captain whom I talked to, not even a whole day before. I started to cry and told them that I didn’t do it. I told them that I knew him and that he was probably the only person who did anything good for me. The others I didn’t know, but I was just as sad for them. They could’ve been my colleagues!

The whole trial in court lasted for almost a year and in the end they let me go because they didn’t have any evidence against me, with the only condition being to never leave the planet. From the trial I learned that they died because of the navigational panel that, according to papers, I repaired. I told them everything about the new panel and that it should have been installed. I told them even about my conversation with the captain. In the end, they lost this report about me repairing it. This was the reason they had to let me go.

What I didn’t know, was that the media already turned people against me. When I exited the Court Hall after the verdict, there were masses of people who all wanted to see me locked up or dead. They shouted at me to die and to repent for my sins.

I retreated to my home in the scrapyard and soon after people tried to attack me in my house. It did not take long for me to install some defenses around my house for the occasional intruder.

They fired me from my job after I was accused. No one wanted to employ me after everything that happened. So I made my home in the scrapyard and made just enough money to buy food and some necessities. In my free time, I started to build a ship from scrap. Not a big one, just a small ship for me to escape from this prison made by others. As it was against my sentence, I had to do it secretly. I dug out the cellar under my house with the help of some machines from the scrapyard and started to make my ship there.

But even someone like me who don’t need much human contact and can make do with machines, needs some time with others. When most of the work on the ship, which could be done in the scrapyard was finished. I looked up some Virtual Reality Games where I could be someone different, even if only for a little while. To start anew and maybe even make some money from it.