Jax Riley, a lanky young man with a mop of brown hair that always seemed to have a mind of its own, squinted at the engine room display. His reflection stared back, smudged with grease–a badge of honor for a junior deckhand on the Ascendant, the Rimward Concordancy Fleet’s most prized warship. Explosions rumbled somewhere out there, beyond the thick hull. The deck vibrated, not enough to worry about, but enough to make the dust dance. And dust was Jax’s nemesis.

“Self-cleaning consoles,” Jax grumbled, wiping down a panel. “That’s what they need.” He stopped, suddenly chuckling. “Of course, that’d put me right outta work.”

Jax eyed the grime on the floor. Grease, mostly. Maybe some scorch marks from that last near miss. He hefted his mop and bucket. “Time for battle, dirt-face,” he muttered. He had a schedule to keep. Finish this deck by 1800 hours, or he’d miss the Gravball playoffs. The Cygnus Strikers were going up against the Titan Breakers–a match he couldn’t miss. He’d even managed to snag a bag of those limited-edition chili-lime nutrient bars from the galley. This was gonna be epic.
Jax paused, mop frozen mid-air. Something was off. The Quantum Reversal Regulator–whatever the hell that was–its large screen, usually a vibrant display of complex diagrams and readouts, was dark except for a single, ominous red light that rhythmically pulsed in the center. Jax frowned. That couldn’t be right. In all his weeks of cleaning the engine room, he’d never seen that screen off.

“That ain’t right,” Jax muttered, scratching his head as he approached the screen. He glanced around, hoping to find an engineer to consult, but there were none to be found. Probably all huddled around some fancy console in Main Engineering, their faces illuminated by the frantic flashing of warning lights. He was on his own, and had no idea what it was. But the damn thing was covered in smudges and fingerprints. And important things should be clean, right?

Jax grabbed his microfiber cloth and began diligently wiping down the screen, muttering to himself about the ship’s perpetually lazy engineers.

“Honestly, can’t anyone keep things tidy around here?” Jax grumbled.

When he’d nearly completed his wipe down, the blinking red light abruptly stopped. A single line of text appeared in its place. “Begin restart sequence?”

Jax frowned. He’d never once been trained on any of the equipment he cleaned. Had no idea what most of it even was. But he knew that particular console had never been dark before.

A green button just to the right of the screen began to flash. Was that it? Was it that simple? Jax was no engineer, but he surely knew that red meant stop and green meant go. He reached out and tentatively tapped the button. The screen flickered, and was soon filled with a familiar display of complex diagrams and readouts.

“Well, that seemed to do the trick,” Jax said with a satisfied grin. Shields? Engines? Quantum Regulators? Didn’t matter to him. Floors needed cleaning, and the Gravball game wasn’t going to watch itself.

The Ascendant violently shuddered, a deep groan echoing through its metal bones. Jax, startled, nearly dropped his mop, his heart leaping into his throat.

“Whoa,” Jax exclaimed, looking around for the source of the commotion. “What was that?”

The engineers probably knew, but that was their job. His job was cleaning, so Jax went back to his mopping, humming along to the tune stuck in his head.

Hours later, the Ascendant limped back to base. Jax finished his shift, the engine room sparkling. He stretched, back popping. “Another day, another dust bunny defeated,” he muttered. Time for those chili-lime bars and the Gravball game.

Jax swung by a group of engineers huddled near a console. They looked stressed. Always fiddling with wires and muttering about “tachyon flow” and “plasma conduits.” Jax didn’t get half of it, but someone had to keep their workspace clean, right?

“If those shields hadn’t kicked back in,” one engineer said, wiping sweat from his forehead, “we’d be floating debris right now.”

“Yeah,” another agreed. “But who the heck reset that regulator? We were locked out.”

They looked at each other, stumped. Jax, halfway down the corridor, just shook his head. “Engineers,” he mumbled. “Leave a light blinking, they panic. Leave the floor dirty, they don’t bat an eye.” He chuckled to himself. Some things never changed, even in space.