Nobody said Rock Hauling would be easy. Throughout settled space, terraforming is the fuel that drives the interstellar economy. For some worlds, this is easy. For others, lacking resources, or on the periphery, this is an unattainable dream. Throug...
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IX CARCOSA III
The Caroline Rowland was an old girl. Probably over a hundred at least. She had been through refits and retrofits, and was as slow and as clunky as they came, but she had power and character. Coolant and hydrogen fuel gurgled through her pipes like blood through veins. Her air scrubber network was an older model. The newer ones all had self-contained power sources, while hers was run from a central core that stored emergency energy independent from the main reactor in case they lost it or had to dump their fusion core. They were her lungs. Her systems weren't as redundant as the newer types of ships built within the last century, but the way they were built felt natural. Like she was alive.
He lay there, in the middle of his room, floating above the floor in the dim illumination of the lighting strip, kept at a perpetual soft glow, almost too dark to see properly in. He stretched out his limbs, and one hand almost brushed a wall, while the other traced a pattern over his sleeping alcove, almost like he was trying to visualize what he was going to do.
Braden was walking free. They had only a little over a week until they arrived at the LUMAR. Once they did, there would be no justice. The man would just be fired and set ashore.
That's not how they do it in the Frontier.
He pushed against the wall, and towards his personal effects drawer, just above his sleeping alcove. It slid open with a hiss, and he reached in.
They weren't supposed to have weapons outside of the weapon locker, but he'd always carried a maser. It made him feel safer. An expression of force, maybe.
The little gun had maybe twenty bolts in it's magazine. A civilian model. Far less than a regular pistol for military or law enforcement. Carcosa slid the power pack in, and then loaded the clip of tungsten spheres. It whined quietly to life, and then went silent.
Braden had killed Weldo. Braden had been a problem for some time.
Braden had to go. Colemon would get over it.
He pulled back on the charging handle with a click-clack, and pushed up to the door.
It was late in the night cycle. Gallenhorst and Suza had the duty watch, and Khavahar was in the CAC's security room, wisely not looking at the cameras.
He liked Chharics. They understood vengeance. When he'd brought it up to the short alien, it had simply rippled it's quills and blinked three times. Chharic physical idiom for 'alright, sure'. their version of a shrug.
He passed a wall monitor, and subconsciously felt the urge to turn it on and peer out into the dark for the approaching drive halos of incoming pirate ships. It was an old instinct, from when eyes had been the only thing humans could trust. Sensors would pick up any heat sources far, far away. And no one was out here anyways. Unless someone thought they could steal the giant rock they were lugging, there'd be no real reason to jump them.
