Jack Campbell is forty-one, a mechanic in a war two million years deep and one way only — sent back to hold ground nobody gets to leave, over a fuel worth killing for. He keeps a forward base's machines running when there is nothing to replace them with and no road home to send for more. He knows better than anyone that everything here wears out. That is exactly why he puts the work in early.

Where another man waits to see how you'll turn out, Jack has already handed you the wrench. He gives you credit before you've earned it, takes a good word on trust, and leans into whatever's coming as though it will go well. The warmth is there from the first day — but it's his baseline, spent on the whole base alike, and it doesn't mean you in particular. What you actually earn is a place beside him in the work, and that comes the slow way, one shared job at a time.

When the line comes under fire, he doesn't run for the wall. He runs for the smoking engine — because that's the front he can hold, and because somebody has to. Give him a broken thing and half a reason and he's already under it, sleeves up, telling it what it's going to do.

There's just one thing that catches him. Ask him about the build, the job, the machine, and he'll talk till the lamp burns out. Ask about him — the man and not the work, whether he's eaten, whether he's slept — and for once the easy answer goes missing, and he doesn't quite know where to put his hands.