Crew of the GSN Marlin: Two Generations, One Shot Left

The GSN Marlin limped through the void, its single engine thrumming a low, uneven pulse that shivered through the deck plates under Darius Belmont’s boots. The air inside the salvage ship hung heavy with the bite of oil and recycled damp, a smell so woven into the steel it might as well have been alive—something Darius had stopped noticing years ago. He stood at the helm on the bridge, a tight box of flickering screens and worn controls, his hands steady on the throttle grips. Through the viewport, Uranus glowed a faint, sickly green, its rings like thin scars across the black. Henderson Station drew nearer, a jagged asteroid bristling with lights that flickered like a heartbeat on the edge of failure. Another haul in the bay. Another load of scrap to unload. Another day staving off the debt that gnawed at his ribs.

“Forty minutes out,” he murmured, voice rough from years of barking orders over engine noise and breathing filtered air. The cracked mug on the console—his wife’s old keepsake, chipped from too many falls—sloshed with cold synth-coffee. The sharp edge curled his tongue as he sipped.

He didn’t turn when the hatch hissed open behind him. Didn’t need to. The quick, deliberate tap of boots on the mesh floor said it was Lexy before she spoke.

“Cutting it close, Cap.” First Mate Alexandra Belmont’s tone was clipped but measured. She stepped up beside him, green eyes catching the nav screen’s dim glow. At twenty-one, she was all angles and restless energy, her jumpsuit patched at the knees from crawling through too many wrecks. As she scanned the readouts, she absently worked at the tangled mess of her black ponytail.

“GSN’s berth window’s tight. Late docking’s a fine we can’t eat,” she noted, frustration threaded through her words—controlled, but there. Darius kept his gaze on the station’s silhouette, his graying hair glinting under the lights, the five o’clock shadow he hadn’t shaved prickling with the strain.

“We’ll make it. We always do.” His jaw tightened around the words—his mantra. His wife’s, once. We always do.

The Marlin was no sleek runner—sixty meters of scarred steel and patched tech, hauling two hundred tons of twisted hull fragments and exhausted mining probes from the outer system. Routine, sure, but the margins were a knife’s edge, and Lexy knew it better than anyone.

She nodded once, sharp and silent, hands clasped behind her back. No pushback—not yet. Not with the crew within earshot. She’d learned that much growing up on this ship, raised in its oil-scented belly since her mom’s shuttle blew out in a docking mishap fourteen years back. Darius felt her presence like a shadow of his wife—same stubborn glint in her almond shaped eyes, same quiet fire—but Lexy held it in check. First Mate first, daughter second. For now.

The hatch hissed, and Allen O’Brien ducked through, broad shoulders nearly scraping the frame. He smelled of engine grease and scorched metal, coveralls streaked with both. The Marlin had been his first ship, Darius his first captain—back when the old man’s wife still filled the galley with humming and the ship wasn’t running on debts and fumes. A wrench clanked against his thigh as he leaned into the bulkhead, exhaling like a man too damn tired to be delivering bad news.

“Thruster’s holding,” he said, voice low and rough. He swiped a hand across his brow, smearing grease deeper into the creases. “Barely. Bearings are shot though, this rattle’s not just noise. We’re burning extra fuel to keep her steady.”

Darius exhaled through his nose, a slow leak of frustration. “Can you patch it?”

“Always do.” He shrugged, crossing his arms. “But parts cost, Cap. Fuel’s not free either. You know that… Neither’s my overtime.” He shot Lexy a sidelong glance, the corner of his mouth twitching—a rare flicker of humor from the man who’d patched this ship through worse than a busted thruster.

“Put it on the tab, Al.” Darius said, dry as dust.

The tab was a running joke—credits he didn’t have, promises he couldn’t keep. Al grunted, accepting it like he always did, and settled in, arms folded, glaring at Henderson Station through the viewport like sheer willpower could dock them clean.

Lexy shifted, boots scuffing the deck, but stayed quiet. Darius felt her eyes on him, a weight he knew too well—waiting for the crew to clear out, waiting to unload what simmered beneath her calm. He adjusted the throttle, the Marlin shuddering as it slowed, the station’s upper decks glinting with GSN’s neon arrays.

The comms panel crackled, Katherine Price’s voice cutting through—calm, steady, the comms officer who’d been his wife’s best friend and Lexy’s unofficial aunt.

“GSN Control’s hailing, Cap,” she said, tone clipped but warm. “Want me to tell ‘em we’re golden, or should I stall ‘til we’re docked?”

“Stall,” Darius and Lexy said at the same time.

They exchanged a glance—brief, almost amused—before he added, “Buy us ten minutes. We’re cutting it close.”

“We always do,” Katherine replied, a faint chuckle in her words before the line clicked off.

Darius felt the ghost of a smile tug at his lips, gone as quick as it came. The Marlin eased toward the docks, cranes creaking under the haul’s weight, hull scarred and rust-streaked but holding. For now.

Al lingered a moment, then pushed off the bulkhead. “Gonna check the engine room,” he muttered, disappearing through the hatch with a clang.

The bridge fell quiet—just the engine’s hum and the buzz of lights—until Lexy stepped closer, her shadow brushing his.

“Dad,” she said, low now, the First Mate gone, the daughter rising. “We can’t keep this up.”

Her voice hardened, stubborn as steel, a mirror of his own—and her mom’s.

“Thirty thousand overdue. Two hundred thousand total. How long has it been—six months? And we’re still bleeding credits we don’t have.”

He turned, meeting her gaze—green eyes burning with the same fierce love that had kept her at his side all these years.

The crash hadn’t been his fault—a docking accident at Henderson, some rookie pilot misjudging a berth, slamming into the Marlin’s aft while it sat idle. His wife’s legacy crumpled in seconds. The insurance vultures had swooped in, citing an obscure clause about unlogged maintenance cycles. Habit—everyone skipped the logs out here—but it had been enough to deny the claim.

Darius was left with a wrecked ship and a GSN loan that chained him to this life.

Lexy had been there—livid, snarling, cursing the station techs and Corpos while he signed another loan to patch the Marlin back together.

She’d never blamed him though. Not once.

But she wouldn’t let him sink, either.

“Lex—” he started, but she was already stepping closer, hands on her hips.

“No, listen.” Her voice was steady, but he caught the edge beneath it. “I get it—it wasn’t your fault. The insurance bullshit that screwed us. But GSN doesn’t care. Thirty days, Dad. Thirty days, and they take her, they take our ship.”

Her voice cracked, just a hair. He saw it then—the fear behind the fire, the love that kept her fighting. For the Marlin. For him.

“The Marlin’s falling apart,” she pressed on. “Al’s patching with spit and prayers, Preston’s overloading the bay, and we’re dodging comms like that’ll magic up the credits. This haul’s not enough, and you know it.”

Darius set the mug down, the clink sharp in the quiet. His fingers traced the chipped edge, his wife’s handwriting still faint against the ceramic: We Always Do! A joke from better days, one the crew had clung to after the crash.

“We offload this,” he said, slow and even, “we buy a week. Maybe two. Fuel, parts, a breather. Then we’re back out.”

“A week,” she echoed, jaw tight. “And then what? Another scrap run? Another two hundred tons of scrap metal and busted drones that barely cover the interest? We need a score, Dad. Something big. One derelict with real value—something GSN can’t snatch out from under us.”

The words hit like a dull thud, sinking into the cracks of his resolve. She wasn’t wrong—never was, not about the ship, not about the numbers. Raised on the Marlin since she was seven, grease under her nails and her mom’s ghost in her bones, Lexy saw things clearer than he did some days.

She loved him too much to let him drift. Too much to soften the truth.

Darius rubbed a hand over his face, the ache in his shoulders settling deep. Fourteen years without his wife. Six months under GSN’s boot. Forty-five years old, and he’d been hauling wrecks since he was a teenager.

“You sound like your mother,” he muttered, half to himself. “Stubborn as a damn mule.”

Lexy’s mouth quirked, just a flicker of a grin. “Takes one to know one. She’d say the same about you.”

She leaned a hip against the console, arms crossed. The fight in her wasn’t gone, but the fire had tempered, cooling into something sharper.

“I’m serious, Dad,” she said, tone firm but measured. “Next run, we push deeper—past the lanes. Something’s gotta be out there. I can feel it.”

He held her stare, feeling the weight of her faith in him—unshakable, like her mother’s had been.

“Next run,” he said finally, a concession pulled from somewhere raw. “We hunt. But if I say we stop, we stop. We scrape enough haul to get us through Henderson. To keep us flying.”

“Deal.” Her grin widened, just enough to show the girl she’d been before the ship became her whole world. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Wouldn’t expect less.”

He turned back to the helm. The station filled the viewport now, its mid-tier docks a tangle of cranes and vapor haze, the upper decks gleaming under docking lights. He nudged the throttle, the Marlin jolting as it slotted into berth, the hull groaning under the strain.

Lexy lingered a second, then pushed off the console and headed for the hatch, her boots ringing on the mesh.

“Tell Preston to prep the load,” he called after her. “And keep Ryder from skimping on the mag-locks. Don’t need scrap drifting loose… again.”

“On it,” she threw back, disappearing into the cargo bay’s cold echo.

Darius ran a hand through his short, graying hair. Beyond the viewport, the station sprawled—a kilometer-wide dome of steel and shadow, humming with desperation. The Marlin settled with a final shudder, cranes creaking, hull scarred but holding.

He drained the last of the coffee—bitter and cold—and set the mug down with care, his wife’s words staring back at him: We Always Do!

Another haul done. Another day bought.

Lexy’s push lingered, but for now, the Marlin—rusted, scarred, and sinking—held its course.