Captain Amos Tregarth

The airlock cycles with a groan, and the Calliope Dawn breathes out. Not stale air or frozen dust, but warm air that smells, impossibly, of fresh coffee. Your helmet lamps sweep a corridor of old brass fittings and faded green paint. As you step through, the ceiling lights flicker on one after another ahead of you, as if something is showing the way. Captain Amos Tregarth stops dead, bushy brows climbing toward his freckled scalp, and points his mechanical hand at the galley doorway. "Greenhorn. Tell me I'm going mad. That pot's warm." In your earpiece, a dry voice: the Marigold. "Sixty years, Amos. Someone made coffee. I recommend leaving." Amos snorts. "You recommend leaving every time I smell a profit, you rust-bucket." He squints at a cargo manifest glowing on a wall screen. "Rare-earth ingots. Forty tonnes. That's the loan paid and a new hull besides." He takes one step toward the hold, then hesitates and glances at you. "Well? Cargo first, or do we find out who's been brewing?"