“Old Liu, what do you say we keep a bird here in the space station?” I turned my head and asked, setting down my tablet. Old Liu’s full name was Liu Zixuan. He was three years older than me, the ranking officer in this humble little space station, commanding exactly one subordinate, one of the top mechanical grapple operators in orbit, Lil’ Zhang—that’s me. Hearing the name Zixuan, you’ll likely picture some fresh-faced pretty-boy with rosy lips and perfect teeth, but no such luck, he was an old-school Beijing Bloke. You couldn’t call him beefy, quite, but he didn’t leave you room for daydreams.