Patch climbed the ladder to the upper turret housing just after sunrise, boots still damp with condensation and his breath fogging in the morning chill. The storm had passed, but its scent lingered: scorched ozone, diesel fumes, and sand so fine it got in your teeth.

  Ash sat cross-legged inside the turret cradle, jacket off, arms wrapped around her knees. Her machine gun in front of her, scope fogged.

  "Knocked?" Patch rapped twice on the hatch frame.

  She didn't look at him. "If you're here to ask if I'm fine, don't."

  "Wasn't gonna," he lied, stepping in. He handed her a cup of hot herb brew from the mess hall below. "Just figured the turret could use a calibration check."

  She took the cup without meeting his eyes. "It jammed and the sight went fuzzy. Couldn't tell sky from ruin."

  Patch crouched beside the console, flipping up a service panel. "You got the last kill before the storm wall swallowed us. You're not blind."

  Ash sipped. Her voice was quieter now. "Something was out there."

  Patch didn't say anything, but he felt his heart skip a beat.

  By dusk, the hum of tools gave way to the clatter of bowls and the low murmur of voices in the mess. Repairs were done. For now. The crew gathered in the mess. It was a dark but oddly calming space deep in the belly of the Leviathan. One bulb had given up since yesterday, so the light stuttered between gold and gray. It made everyone look tired. Maybe they were.

  Sawyer ladled stew behind the mess counter, sleeves rolled to the elbows, apron stained from years of kitchen duty and whatever passed for spice in this dying world. He never looked rushed, never looked hurried. He just moved with the quiet confidence of someone who knew how long things took and wasn't about to be rushed. Nobody asked where he learned to cook like that. They just showed up, bowls in hand.

  Behind Sawyer, in a place you wouldn't call a kitchen unless someone told you, crouched Piston, half-man, half-burn scar, looking like a raisin someone forgot in the sun. He was elbow-deep in the belly of the busted heat-vent they called a stove, cursing under his breath and grinning like the flames were flirting with him. Tools clanged as he rewired an igniter coil with fingers that had seen too many close calls and didn't mind another. Smoke hissed. Sparks snapped. "She'll roast stew or skin, dealer's choice," he muttered, jamming the panel closed with a slap. Fire roared to life with a satisfying whoomph. Piston laughed, wild and full-throated, like he'd just punched a thunderstorm in the face and liked it.

  In the mess hall Ruck scraped his bowl clean and leaned back with a satisfied grunt while kicking one boot up, the other sore from twelve hours of grind. "First break all day. Torch's got the night run."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Cinch looked up from his third helping. "Again? Poor bastard runs on boiler fumes."

  Patch slouched into the bench next to Cinch. He shrugged. "Torch likes the dark. Says it talks quieter than the day."

  "Creepier, more like," Cinch muttered.

  Across the table, Shade sipped tea without comment, long limbs folded in on himself like a collapsed scaffold. His eyes were always a little too still. A little too deep. You didn't talk much with Shade. You just nodded, and hoped he nodded back.

  Next to him sat Mercy. She gave Patch a small careful smile. She gently cleaned her dusty prayer beads with the edge of her sleeve. It was not out of habit, but ritual. Mercy believed in signs. In spirits. In debts owed to gods older than roads. She prayed for the rig. For the crew. For the things they couldn't see and the ones they hoped wouldn't see them.

  "Storm carried the breath of old bones," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. "Something watched us."

  Ash arrived. She dropped beside Patch. She scoffed. "It was sand and pressure. Nothing out there but dust and ghosts."

  Mercy met her eyes. "Dust is ghosts."

  That earned a half-snort from Grim, who was cutting her ration bread with surgical precision. "If we're doing metaphors tonight, someone warn me first so I can dull my ears."

  Patch chuckled. "Mercy's not wrong. Ghosts ride the wind same as we do."

  "Just with worse manners," Ruck added, tipping his cup toward Sawyer in thanks.

  Gauge finally looked up from his stew, blinking as if he'd been calculating something only he understood. "Storm pressure hit twenty-two over nominal. We should reinforce struts three and six before the next push."

  "Gauge," Ash said, voice flat. "Eat your dinner."

  "I am."

  "You're measuring your dinner," responded Ash.

  Gauge looked down at the bite on his spoon. "I am."

  Grim leaned back, her one good eye scanning the room like she couldn't quite stop reading angles and threats. "Everyone gets ten hours of rack. We're back working at dawn. The west gorge looks clean."

  Patch stirred his stew absently. "Not too clean?"

  "Saw no tracks, no lights, no heat signatures." said Flick while looking over some maps.

  "Could be shelter," Mercy offered quietly.

  "Could be bait," offered Shade.

  The mess went quiet for a moment.

  Then Piston, cheerful as ever, said, "Well, either way, I hope it's got something worth trading. Or a new coffee filter. I'm starting to taste last week's beans."

  Sawyer finally spoke, dry and low: "That is last week's beans."

  Laughter rippled around the table, tired, scratchy, but real. Even Grim cracked a smile.

  Patch let the warmth sink in. Not just from the soup or the heat vent humming behind Ruck's shoulder. From this. These people. These misfit bolts and broken gears, clunking along inside the Leviathan's ribs.

  He looked around the table again:

  Ash, staring down the world from behind a gun barrel, but too soft for it when nobody was looking

  Grim, spine like steel, voice like gravel, leading because no one else knew how. Deep down she cared for them.

  Cinch, who joked too much and ate too fast, always three thoughts deep into disaster

  Shade, who walked like a shadow and saw more than he'd admit.

  Gauge, who masked fear in numbers, and who spoke to the engine more than people.

  Mercy, bones full of old stories and faith stitched from ruin.

  Ruck, their anchor. Half fuel, half heart.

  Sawyer, who fed them like they were worth feeding

  Piston, burn-scarred and grinning, danced with fire like it was a game only he understood, there was chaos in his veins, and sparks in his smile.

  And him. Patch. The kid who crawled in as a thief and never left.

  Tonight, he almost felt like he belonged.

  Almost — if not for the thing still watching in the wind.