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Not My Problem

Mel Todd


Lance stared at the fuel gauges. Burke’s Mining Station had been a bust. He’d been unable to offload anything he’d salvaged, and that meant it cost him to even go there. But the evening with Gwenite had made it almost worth it. She’d been a lot of fun, free with her money, and the extra five thousand in creds he’d nipped out of her bag would never be noticed. But now he needed to decide where to go. And he needed to clean his air recyclers soonish. The old advertising campaign from one of the air filter companies hummed in the back of his mind as he plotted.

“Green is clean, brown is sad, black’s too toxic, pink is mad. Dirty mildew, moldy death, keep breathing with VaxarX.” The song was catchy, and he never could get the tune out of his head, even if he didn’t remember the entire ad anymore.

He hummed along as he considered various plots and muttered about the lack of success at Burke’s.

“I never have anything good happen to me,” he spoke to no one in the cabin of his little ship as he looked at the possible locations. “I just need a break. If I head to Bulgars, they have a decent salvage scene. Or I could go to Parrish Isle. They’ve got need of a few shuttle jockeys. Decisions, decisions.”

Movement on the screen caught his eyes as two ships peeled off from behind one of the orbiting massive asteroids.

“Who are they?” He kept an eye on the two beacons; generally ships headed toward you were the authorities or pirates. Both were bad news.

The orange light on his comms flashed, and he toggled to accept. Until he heard the communication, he wouldn’t know how to react, but he already calculated escape vectors. Pirates would be a pain, and it might be safer to let them take what cargo he didn’t have, but then they might kill him. That would be worse than reentry burn.

A hiss of flat nonsound, then a voice with the distinctive clipped vowels of the Harley system snapped in. The two-second delay was just noticeable.

“Kill your momentum. You’re wanted by the Burke’s Station Authority.”

Lance groaned. Couldn’t he ever catch a break? There was only one thing he could have done, but still, who cared about a lousy five thousand creds.

“For what?” Never admit to anything. But he’d already started figuring out how to get past the heliopath. Local authorities tended to be overzealous but cheap. Better to run than give yourself over to their justice most of the time.

“You know exactly what you did, Julius Cornlance.” Lance flinched. How did they find that name? He’d never gone by it in this sector. His stomach tightened in a core of churning acid. They would have to be serious and willing to spend cred to figure out that name from his past.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he protested even as he cut more systems to dump fuel to the engines. They were seriously overreacting for a small theft.

“You’re wanted for the murder of Gwenite Burke. You won’t escape. We will bring you to justice even if we have to hire bounty hunters.” The rasping hate that coated every word stunned him until the words registered.

“What did you say?” Lance stopped focusing on anything else but the flashing orange light on his console, the communication coming in.

“You heard me, you son of a black hole. You killed her. Left her body lying there like some plundering asteroid rustler. Bad enough that you defile our boss’s kin with your touch, but that was her call. But to kill her? We’ll find you, skin you alive piece by piece, and then we’ll cut you into parts for our smelting forges. You’d be amazed at how good our doctors are at keeping people alive.”

Lance poked at the board letting their babble fill the cabin, though panic chattered in circles. Could he get a bit more speed out of his ship? And then what? Die in the emptiness? He started switching gauges and shutting down even more than what he already had. With gritted teeth, he slipped into his skim suit and sealed it. Then he flipped off the life support and dumped everything into the engines. A fierce grin crossed his face for a minute as his speed jumped by fifteen percent. It faded just as fast as he saw the rapidly dwindling fuel stash. He had one more cube of fissionable, then he’d need to resupply. He hadn’t planned on burning fuel at this rate. Escaping didn’t do any good if he died out here.

“Pull over. She needs justice. No one should die like she did, you backstabbing asteroid jumper.”

Lance could all but feel the spittle landing on his face as the man raved. His heart rate tripled.

“Hold your fusions. I didn’t kill anyone,” he protested. “Yes, I had a fun evening with Gwenite. We had way too many drinks, and lots of fun under and on top of the sheets. I even admit to slipping a few credits from her. But I didn’t kill no one, and sure as suns go nova, I didn’t kill her.” He managed to bite off the last part of his comment. Mentioning that he wouldn’t deprive the world of someone that good with her tongue probably wasn’t the best option right now.

If you’re innocent”—the word came out like a slur—“then pull over and face the courts.”

Lance burst out in a jaded laugh, though he didn’t transmit that. Most privately held space stations were run under the laws of whomever owned it. The odds of finding a pure platinum asteroid were better than getting a fair shake at any place like that. And if their owner’s kin were dead, he might as well space himself now. He never caught a break.

“Good luck,” Lance said instead. “I hope you find who killed her. Gwenite was a nice gal.” He closed the line before they could reply and stared at the screen. Minutes passed by as they both flew through solar system. Would they give up or keep after him? They could always call for more fuel.

He sagged in relief as the ships began to slow down. They weren’t following him. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t change their mind. He kept the speed up until five minutes past the heliopath before he finally cut it.

“Dead? Who the hell would kill Gwenite?”

The question ate at him as he zoomed away from the system and into the outer reaches of the asteroid belts. He’d slipped out while she was getting refreshed. The door hadn’t quite latched behind, but who cared? Doors didn’t latch all the time. The vague impression of a man in a dirty skim suit slouching past him as the tube lift sealed flashed into his mind. He hadn’t liked the look of the man. That wasn’t his fault. Gwenite was a big girl. It was just a coincidence. The vague guilt washed away in the reassurance that he hadn’t killed her. Just bad luck. It happened all the time.

He nodded to himself. This wasn’t his problem. Then the low fissionable-material warning flashed on his board.

“Space dust,” Lance muttered and pulled up the nav files. When it had been petty larceny, he wasn’t too worried about stopping somewhere and grabbing some fuel. That had been part of the reason he’d taken the money. Just his luck, the last girl he was with had to go and get herself killed. Some people had no sense of timing.

The world was always against him, never any justice for him. And now, with a murder charge linked to his name, there would be bounties out for him everywhere, and most bounties paid dead or alive. That meant some place where no one cared, didn’t get the updates, or he could intimidate.

His reflection in the view screen caught his eye, and he snorted. The same physique that made him a damn good ship pilot meant he had a hard time intimidating kids. At five-three, he was wiry, with deft hands, and a lean body that let him wiggle into the rear parts of his ship.

Which meant scaring people away from collecting on him was out. That didn’t leave him too many options. He took a deep breath of the air and wrinkled his nose. He’d need new filters soon, and probably some fresh algae. Mold in your algae mix could be deadly in multiple ways.

“Free Fuel Pit it is,” he muttered and laid in a course. Given his lack of material, it had to be a direct course, except he’d be dodging asteroids the entire way. Good thing sleep was something he could do without—for a while.

Twenty-six hours later, he landed at Free Fuel Pit or Pit as most people labeled it. A weird little space base on the far side of the asteroid belt, it should have been popular or at least populated, but a series of things had made it a last stop to brighter places. It had fissionable material for free, and you’d have thought that would bring the crowds rolling in. But the woman who ran the place, Bertha Pit—no one knew if the Pit was named after her or her after the Pit—didn’t advertise and ran the place with a tight fist. You paid for everything, except the fuel which you mined yourself. So the air you breathed cost you by the minute, and the food, the mining supplies, and then the smelting cost you half of what you brought in.ƒ

It wasn’t like you could mine material ready for your engines, it needed to be processed, and Bertha ran the smelter, which meant if you brought in twenty kilos of ore, and had five kilos of refined ore, she kept half. Given to get anywhere from here required a minimum of fifty kilos, either you’d better be nova-star lucky and hit a good vein or have enough tools or air to make sure you didn’t need too much from Pit. Or you’d never leave.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Lance headed to storage, pulling out an extra oxygen tank and mining tools from the kit. Asteroids always had something useful. But all the pure ones that were easily reachable had been staked out. He made do mining a bit of gold or other stuff here and there. Never could tell when you needed something extra.

His ship, Better Luck, had once been a military transport shuttle. At some point it had been remodeled, creating a cargo bay, two cabins, a dual pilot area, and one head. The back of it opened to allow cargo to load. He pulled all the air from the cargo bay into the tanks, checked his suit, then he opened his ship to the asteroid. The ramp slapped down against the hard surface and Lance walked into the cargo bay. After digging around for a minute, he found two old air tank nettings that were tight enough the rocklike ore wouldn’t fall through. They would work, otherwise he had to pay for a mining bag and that was just one more expense.

Dragging the nets with him, he stopped at the bottom of the ramp. He took a minute to see if anyone else was about, finding it oddly empty. Lance shrugged and headed to the quarry.

The quarry was a huge open hole about two kilometers from the outpost. It looked like some huge being had shoved its thumb into the asteroid and left a gaping expanse at one end. Over the years a cable guide-wire system had been installed to lever yourself down into that dark shaft. For a minute he thought about jumping down, but there wasn’t enough gravity to pull him down very fast and wasting fuel right now would be the height of stupidity. He could make oxygen easier than fuel. Lance grabbed the guideline and started pulling himself into the hole. He had ore to pry out.

Five hours later, Lance was about to drop from exhaustion. He’d been up for over thirty-two hours at this point. Using grav-lances to dig out ore sounded easy, until you’d been doing it for hours and moving everything you thought had fissionable material into your netting. Gravity here was about a quarter of most planets. Enough to keep you from floating away if you walked carefully, but not much more. It still required sweat to get the ore wrestled into the nets.

He looked at the amount of ore he’d pulled out. He’d found a good ribbon of it, and he had hopes it was relatively pure. If so, even a quarter of it would give him enough fuel to get to somewhere more civilized yet still off the beaten startrail. Murder accusations tended to follow after you as long as asteroid claim jumping did. His water sack dry, he’d kill for some real food, and he needed to get what he had dug up refined before he would know if he needed to mine anymore. With a sigh of relief and apprehension, Lance tucked away the mining grav-lance, his hand tractor, and started the slog to the dome, the net full of ore dragging behind him.

The space base had a reverse gravity field around it, which is why most people gathered there, just for a taste of weight on your bones. Right now, Lance wanted that pull of weight. The base glistened like a beacon of hope ahead of him, not the last refuge of the unwanted. It sat like a bubble that still clung to cohesion but could pop at any point. It was one of the smaller bases Lance had been to, but right now, even the knowledge that every breath would cost him creds didn’t matter.

By the time he reached the edge of the dome, he was more than ready to be out of the damn suit and have a drink. The credits he had left—resentment flashed through him again—should be more than enough for a shower, food, and a drink. The broken sign at the dome airlock flicked “Fuel Pit” but the letters had broken displaying “Fu Pi” instead. It matched how he felt. He cycled through the lock, waiting for the door behind him to seal. The credit machine flashed to life. “Entry 25 cred. 10 creds a day for oxygen.” He sighed and paid. Most places only charged you half a cred a day for air, this was black-hole outrageous. Once his creds were accepted, and he was scanned for weapons, the door to the dome cycled open.

It had always amused him that the grav-lance wasn’t considered a weapon, but then neither was a knife, and they both had about the same range. But since he didn’t have anything else on him, they had no reason to deny him. He checked his wrist gauge, verified the air was good, then cracked his helmet. Rank air washed over his face and he wrinkled his nose. Ten creds a day for this stale air? But anything was better than breathing his own funk any longer. He looked around, but the shack that sat next to the airlock was empty.

Odd.

He tugged the ore after him, but crossing into the dome brought gravity. It thumped to the ground, a nigh unmovable object. Lance sighed, spent another ten creds on a cart, conveniently available next to the entrance, and heaved the bag onto it. The cart was old and simple, using big wheels and almost no tech. Oh well, it meant it didn’t break easily. Lance pulled the cart a few paces into the main drag and stopped, confused.

The last time he’d been here—his luck had been bad then too—there had been others around and usually the guard would try to upsell him on something. Now the place felt vacant, absent of life, which made no sense. Lance turned one way and then other, but the streets where empty with the buildings sitting silent. Though windows weren’t really a thing for most bases. Probably everyone was in the building because the air wasn’t worth the ten creds he’d paid. He brushed off the shiver that rippled down his back. The bar always had people.

The forge wasn’t far away, a squat metal building with a vent outside the dome. Lance could see the ships in the landing pad behind the dome. Not too many, but enough that the dome should have been busy. Built with prefab structures, it was like most beginning outposts, enough to get by with room to grow. Pit just hadn’t grown in over three decades, mainly because the owner didn’t want it to. A bar with rooms and pods to rent. Sonic showers, a style bot, and fabricator were available for cost or extra goods. Rumor was the fabricator had patterns not seen in most places, but you needed to provide the raw material to make the most of it, and who carried around raw wool or silk anymore? Tucked away in corners were a refitter, machine shop, legal office/civil union barrister, and a waste recycler connected to the air and water generators. Enough to get what you needed to get to the next place.

Still, it didn’t explain why he didn’t see anyone as he headed to the forge. Maybe it was night. He couldn’t remember what cycle it was and didn’t care. As long as he could get what he needed, he’d be fine. Lance pushed into the building, the doors creaking as they slid open. The counter was empty, but he heaved his bag onto the scale next to the chute to the smelter. A weight of 175 kilos popped up, a decent amount. If there were 100 kilos of fuel, he’d get 50. Not as much as he wanted. Maybe he would head back out. After some food and that sonic shower. Let it vibrate the funk off him. He didn’t dare waste the money on a water shower.

But first he needed to get his fuel processing. “Hello? Anyone here?” Lance peered around. The hum of the smelter was clear through the open door. But he couldn’t see or hear anyone. With a sigh, he stepped around the counter and stuck his head in the back. “Customer here, got some ore.” Still nothing. Lance moved around the small forge, but other than the smelter, a forge, office, and scales, there wasn’t much to the place. And there was no one there.

“Space dust.” He heaved the bag back onto the cart. No way was he leaving free money lying there. It had cost too much in sweat and oxygen to get it. Dragging the cart behind him, he headed to the bar. Every outpost or station he’d ever been to had people in it, regardless of the hour. The vastness of space sparkled above the dome. He glanced up, more to make sure he didn’t see any incoming traffic, but it only held the stars placed there before humans existed.

With a shrug, Lance stepped through doors of the bar and stopped, frozen. The cart bumped into him from behind. The bar was empty. A chair lay knocked over here and there, golden pouches of beer and other neon drinks were strewn about, credit chips lay next to circuit cards, but there was no one around. The lights still flashed over the bar, but the place was empty. It was as if he walked into a scene from a virtual vid, before all the actors loaded.

“What is going on?” He backed up through the door to peer down main street and check on his cart. The cart was still there, and the place was still vacant.

He wandered in and yelled out, “Hey, anyone around? I need to refine some ore?” His voice sounded flat in the empty bar, and he sighed. His eyes drifted to the credit chips lying there, unattended.

His hand drifted out toward the table with their bounty. “Be good. You’re already in trouble. Don’t need to get kicked out before you get your ore sorted out.” He headed back out, planning on going to the station owner’s office, a few spare credit chips having found their way into his suit pockets.

With no one on the street, he took the risk of leaving his cart unattended, but listened as he walked. Now that he thought about it, the place was too damn quiet. Normally, there would be other people talking, cussing, arguing about bills or gambling. All he could hear now was the hum of the oxygen generators and the buzz of machines that recycled waste and air.

Outside the station office, there was an empty cart, a spilled booze pouch, and no one around.

He hit the button and heard a low loud buzz from inside the office. It was loud enough you’d have to be dead to ignore it. Again and again he hit it, wincing at the raucous noise in the too quiet base. But nothing.

Frustrated, he spun around looking for someone. Where was everyone? He headed back to the cart, but the stale air had him wander toward the air recycler. The door there was locked too, but he frowned at the pink and black growth creeping down the side of the intake vent. Not good. That machine needed to stay pristine. A thought whispered through him about what different mildew and spores could mean. Was it mildew or mold?

“Not my problem,” he muttered. All he needed to do was get his ore smelted, and he’d be gone. If they wanted to play with mold, that was their problem, not his.

He found himself back in the bar. The silence and lack of people was getting on his nerves. On his own ship that was fine. He knew all the sounds, what belonged, what didn’t. Out here there should have been people to annoy him, fighting to get his fuel, trying to get him to spend credits, and maybe a game or two to pass the time.

“Space it.” He walked behind the bar, digging for a pouch. He grabbed one, connected it to the spigot, and pulled. The dark gold liquid filled it up and he let it go. Silly to have such old-fashioned things in here, but they did make the place feel less sterile. He sniffed at the milk in the fridge and wrinkled his nose. Though he preferred sterility to rot.

Movement in the corner of his eye had him whirling with a smile on his face, only to fade when there was nothing there. The door was closed, and nothing had moved. “Huh,” he muttered, taking a long pull on the drink. He slouched in the chair, idly collecting credit chips on the table.

The beer was gone by the time he moved. If there wasn’t anyone here, then he wasn’t stealing, it was scavenging, and he could do what he wanted. He flew a ship; he’d figure out how to run a smelter. Pouring himself another beer, he headed back to his cart.

Twenty minutes later, sweaty and exhausted, he’d wrestled the ore into the smelter. With a relieved sigh, he pressed what he assumed was the start button and dove under the desk as something exploded. The bang was so loud, he waited, his breath held, to see if the dome had cracked. When there was no rush of decompression, he crawled out from under the desk and checked. The black smoke trickling from out of the inner working of the smelter confirmed that it had broken and he sure as comets didn’t have any idea how to fix it or what button he should have pressed.

The desire to start throwing things clawed at his hind brain. Instead, he headed for the hotel, a three-story building that scraped the top of the dome. He swiped a room key and checked into the room, marking paid in full on the register. They’d taped the password to the desk, as normally there was staff there day and night. Who was he to ignore their stupidity?

The hot shower with actual water and not worrying about the charges was heaven, as was the ten hours of sleep on a comfortable bed. The headache when he woke up made no sense, but he slapped on an analgesic patch and pulled his suit out of the cleaner. Slipping into it and attaching his hood was second nature, but he didn’t put the hood up, just let it hang on the back as he headed down to the bar. He’d never eaten there, but knew it had food. The card key under the register let him into the back, and soon enough, he had a meal fit for a king.

There was a flicker of movement behind him that he caught on the shiny doors. Whirling, he peered around, but there was nothing there. Leaning to the side, he closed his eyes to listen, but the sounds stayed the same. Growling, he took his food, jumping at every shadow, even when he knew it was his own.

Another flicker at the corner of his eye had him spinning, reaching for a chair. Maybe he should have brought his weapon. There might be some at the guard station. Yes, a weapon.

Lance got up and headed out, walking with care and listening. He still didn’t hear anything, but the air tasted a bit funny now that he thought of it, and he swore he kept seeing creatures out of the corner of his eye. Spacers had talked for decades about aliens, but so far it was just humans out here alone. But you never knew. Maybe aliens had found them.

The still unmoving air unnerved him, there should be a soft breeze with the air recycler. Right? Maybe he should check that out, but first a weapon. If there were aliens here, he couldn’t afford to be without something.

The door to the unmanned guard shack sat ajar. Something he should have noticed before. Either way he pushed it open and went In. He had expected a few blasters, a mole-knife, maybe a grav-lance. Instead the shack looked like it had been ransacked. The only thing lying in there was a discarded wrench.

“Figures. The knives at the bar are more dangerous.” Lance turned around and saw security cameras and dove for them, only to growl in frustration as they all came up blank. He tried to see if there were recordings, but the cables led back to the station manager office, which was locked. What worried him more was the smear of what looked like blood on the access pad, and the odd smell that he thought might be drifting from that office.

“Not my problem,” he muttered and headed back to the bar. If nothing else, he was going to get drunk while he figured out what to do.

The next twelve hours Lance spent drinking, collecting all the cred chips, and trying to figure out how to get to the next base. It was at least a three-day run, and he only had maybe another five hours left in his ship. There had to be fuel here somewhere. But the emptiness of the base was giving him a jittery feeling, like he’d been drinking too much caff. There were weird things broken, like a chair or a wall display, but yet the booze wasn’t touched, and the computer systems still worked. It didn’t make no sense.

Lance headed back to get that wrench and methodically broke into every building in the outpost. Coughing on the stale air as he did so. He stopped at the air-recycling plant, his body wired from too much booze and paranoia and a headache he couldn’t kick.

“That mold don’t look right.” The sound of his own voice set off shivers, and he looked around, hoping to see someone else. But even though he knew there was no one watching him, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up told him someone else occupied this space.

His memory of the maintenance for air generators was from a lifetime ago and another name. But something about the colors of the mold pinged at him. He sighed. This wasn’t his problem. He needed to find fuel and get off this dump. None of the buildings had ore, and he still couldn’t get into the station master’s office. That only left the hotel rooms.

Stopping to get some more booze, he raided the freezers for more food. With no one there, he ate the stuff he’d never been able to afford. If you looked at this whole situation from the right angle, he was richer than he’d ever been. Plenty of booze, food, and a room, all for free. Maybe his luck was looking up.

That thought faded fast as he knew something was watching him. The desire to scream in frustration bubbled at his throat. He just needed one break, one little bit of good luck. Was that so much to ask? His last hope was someone might have left a ship key in their rooms. Though he doubted it, most spacers kept that in their suit pocket, just like he did. But if he found one, that ship might have enough fuel that he could get off this rock and some place with people. Or maybe a better ship.

He whirled as something grazed across the back of his neck, and a pouch fell off a table with a soft plop. Lance froze, sweat budding up on his face as he stared around the room. There was someone, something, in here with him. A slight tremor ran through the asteroid and he jumped as a door snicked shut.

Hefting the wrench, he waved it around him, trying to see if he hit anything. Maybe these aliens could avoid visible light. Lance swung back and forth, but his weapon hit nothing. Out of breath and sweat dripping down his back, he crept up the stairs to the first floor, looking for a different room. He slipped in and shut the door, looking around the room, inspecting every inch. It was still pristine with the seals all in place. Micrometer by micrometer, he relaxed.

“I need to get out of here. But how? I don’t have enough material to get anywhere.” Lance flopped down on the bed and tried to control his breathing. The quietness was getting to him. And worse, he heard noises just at the edge of his hearing. But when he tried to find them, nothing.

“Rooms, scavenge rooms, remember?” Why was his brain so fuzzy? The aliens. They had to be messing with this mind. “There must be a few people who left their keys in their rooms, maybe in an extra skim suit.” He forced himself up and went down to the front desk and grabbed all the keys. One by one, jumping at each sound, he went through the rooms.

The first two had held nothing of value. The third one he knew was going to be bad the second he cracked the door as an oddly familiar odor wafted out. Gagging, he forced it open. On the bed lay a body. It had rotted and smelled worse than an abandoned algae farm. He wanted so badly to close the door and run, but here was his best chance to get a key. He crept in, needing to cover his mouth, but he couldn’t let go of the wrench that was his only weapon.

The person on the bed, he couldn’t even tell if it had been a man or a woman, burbled. Lance fought not to throw up. He desperately didn’t look at the knife in the chest. He searched the desk, the storage cube, even around the bed, but nothing. Gagging, he moved over and slipped his hand into the suit side pocket. Where most people kept their key. The flesh moved like water as he wiggled his hand in. His fingers wrapped around the ship key, and he yanked back, desperate to get out of there.

The action pulled the body, and it moved, rolling toward him, all liquidy and reeking. Lance gripped the key and ran. The sound of the body hitting the floor, and the sounds it made as it hit. Oh, the sounds. It was as if something was eating him. Why did the body move like that?

The image wouldn’t leave his mind as he hit the main floor, the key cutting into his palm. Still gagging, he stopped to swerve behind the bar and grab a bottle. Something clicked behind him and he spun, swinging the wrench around him with vigor, cracking into the dispenser handles. Beer spurted out in a foamy geyser, filling the bar with a yeasty scent and smelling like a gift from the stars. Choking on the yeasty, stale air, he grabbed a bottle and took three hefty swigs. Standing there letting the alcohol burn through him, he tried to purge the memory of the body from his mind. Reentry was a cleaner way to die.

Panting, but calming down, he stood there, ready to attack anything that tried to get to him. A shudder went through the building, shaking the bottles on the bar. Clinking filled the bar, but it didn’t mask the sound of an explosion or the rumble of machinery dying.

Startled, his heart revving like a quasar, he dropped the bottle. It rolled across the floor to the door, which slid open. Gray smoke belched into the air from the recycling center and he choked. The slime on the air cycler. It had been what color? Before he could grab on to the memory, there was a long, low sound of expelling gas from up the stairs and a reek he had never smelled drifted down to the bar.

He vomited, unable to stop, the liquor spilling out and mixing with the sticky beer, creating a smell that no matter how awful was better than what came come from the body. His head reeled, and he turned, desperate to get the taste out of his mouth, and grabbed another bottle. The sickly sweet taste of butterscotch washed across his taste buds, and he spit it out.

“What is going on here?” He screamed the words out to the empty bar, and the door snicked shut behind him.

That snapped whatever reserve he had left. There were creatures here, hunting him, laughing at him. He had to get away. The weight of their gaze seared through him as Lance raced out the door. He’d get to his ship, batten down there. When he had rested, he’d find what ship this key belonged to and scavenge fuel, supplies. He could get back to Gwenite’s system with just a little fuel. Maybe he’d be lucky and the previous owner had fueled it full and hadn’t left yet. The world owed him that much, right? He hadn’t done anything. It wasn’t his fault the place was coming down like that. Space dust, if it was a decent ship, he’d take that one. Scavenge law ruled in space.

He ran, feeling the aliens mocking him, whatever they were. The air seared his throat and colored mold slipped into his mind again. What had that color been? The glimpse of pink flashed through his head. Pink.

He stumbled, gagging, and all thought left his head as he tried to see what made him stumble. It was them. He knew it. They were going to get him, kill him like that poor spacer in the hotel. Lance’s skin crawled as he raced toward the edge of the dome, looking for the creatures. His breath labored as the stale air of the dome puffed in and out of his lungs. The air, was there something wrong with that air? If he could get out, he could get to his ship. He could get away. Even going back, facing a murder charge for Gwenite, would be better than staying here with these things. Movement flickered at the corner of his eyes and he whirled, but there was nothing there.

“This whole place can dump into the black hole for all I care,” he muttered and gave it one more look around. A creak behind him broke his resolve, and Lance sprinted to the exit. He jammed on buttons and darted inside as the door opened, then jammed on the close buttons. Freedom was so close, he just needed to get to his ship. Alarms went off, and he hit the override button, desperate to get through the door to the outside open before they got him. There wasn’t anyone else left alive.

The door to the outside opened glacially, and he squeezed through it, streaking across the surface of the asteroid. His hood bouncing on his back.

Adrenaline and fear covered him the first few steps, then he gasped hard and the air he tried to suck in wasn’t there. Panic gripped him as he fumbled with his helmet, a stumble pushing him off the weak gravity of the asteroid. He tumbled, and his mind slowed as his body started to crystalize. The old advertising ditty flashed through his thoughts.

“Black’s too toxic, pink is mad.”

Lance let the last air he had wisp away as he saw dozens of bodies reflecting the light of the distant stars. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done anything. He never had any luck.



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Framed