The Spaceport Proposal
Jonno Virek had faced a lot of odd jobs — toast rebellions, alien raccoons, bureaucratic jellyfish — but this was something entirely new: asking someone to be his partner.
Table of Contents
Part One
He’d met Mara Sefton at a half-functioning refuelling station orbiting Ganymede, of all places. Mara was a former orbital salvage pilot with a past as tangled as Jonno’s own, sharp-witted, calm under pressure, and with the kind of laugh that made you think she’d seen every mistake the universe could throw at her and decided to grin at it anyway.Part Two
They’d worked together a couple of times, usually to unstick dodgy salvage hauls or rescue pilots who’d pushed their engines one light-second too far. Each time, Jonno had admired how Mara kept her head, how she understood ships like they were living, breathing friends, and how she always managed to brew a proper cup of tea, even if the gravity was sideways.It had been a long run of solo contracts since then, and Jonno was starting to realise that, while a battered hauler might keep him alive, it couldn’t keep him company. That quiet sense of possibility — of a better way to fly, and someone to share it with — had been nagging at him for weeks.
So there he stood now, leaning on the hatch of the Peregrine Queen, a mug of strong boost juice in hand for courage. Mara had just finished patching up a micro-meteor hole in her shuttle, hair tied back, face streaked with station dust, looking every bit the competent pilot Jonno remembered.
“Mara,” he began, voice scratchy, “I was wondering — you ever think about teaming up for more than just the odd job?”
She paused, raising an eyebrow. “Teaming up?”
Jonno swallowed. “I mean a proper partnership. Business, salvage, the occasional half-baked rescue mission… maybe even a little peace and quiet if the galaxy lets us.”
Mara laughed, warm and bright, and Jonno felt the tension slip from his shoulders.
“You’re asking me to be your partner,” she teased.
He nodded, a bit sheepish. “Yeah. Partner. Maybe more, if you’d have me.”
She studied him, eyes kind and steady. “Jonno Virek, you’ve got more dents than a rental hauler and enough trouble orbiting you to fill a pirate fleet — but you make a fair cup of tea, and I’ve seen you do right by strangers. That counts.”
Jonno managed a grin. “So that’s a yes?”
Part Three
Mara reached out, tapping his mug with hers. “That’s a yes. Let’s see
what else the Belt can throw at us.”
For the first time in years,
Jonno felt like the universe had given him a green light — and he planned to
take it.
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