”Why are we here?” Alther repeated indignantly for the fifth time that week.
Heaving the lever to lower the next batch of empty canisters into the Astrum pool, Drace let out a weary sigh in response. “You know why, Al. FTL fuel! We gotta drain this sucker dry before the other corps show up.”
Fidgeting in her ill-fitting Motherlode Mining spacesuit, Alther groaned back, “Yeah, but why are we here?” It was a good question. Drace knew she had been excited to travel the frontier, but who would choose a gig like this?
“You’re not happy exploring the gleaming edge of known Space?” Drace countered. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” He gestured at the vast expanse of the cosmos above them, the local star barely a pinprick in the heavens.
There was a long pause.
“She wants to kiss an alien,” the intern, Umi, chimed in.
“S***, that’s it!” Drace, playfully. “Alther wants to smooch a bug guy! An Eldori!”
“F*** you, Umi!” Alther snapped. After a long exhalation she continued, earnestly, “I just thought it’d be all bright and beautiful, wild vistas untouched by civilisation. This is just… rock. I’m already bored of this beat.”
Drace took a breath to answer, but felt tremors under his feet, pebbles tumbling into the lake below. Overhead, the floodlights of the Motherlode compound illuminated bulky star freighters on approach, obnoxiously emblazoned with orange and yellow ViCorp livery. The competition.
Drace swore loudly. “Best double-time it, team. The Vies are here.”
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