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2145 A.D. – One Year Later – Vesta Mining Craft, The Asteroid Belt
Liam Kidd sat in the mess hall devouring his lunch, which consisted of miscellaneous meatballs and a kind of pasta made from soy. The fare was always strange on the Belt, but he’d learned to eat it quickly to get by the questionable taste. He spun his fork around, picking up a bundle of pasta, and took a big bite, swallowing more than he would have liked while avoiding chewing.
The mess hall was fairly tight given the number of miners present. It was just a half dozen tables and a wall of screens capable of projecting hundreds of scenes from Earth. Today was a green forest rife with moss and morning dew. Liam preferred the cityscapes.
The mining craft was nearly a two kilometers long and had attached itself to one of the larger asteroids in the belt, its gravity field acting on the ship and providing at least a partial sensation of Earth-like gravity. The ship was able to produce its own field, but the technology wasn’t nearly as effective as the real thing. The combination of the two forces left Liam feeling a little lighter than on Earth, but not too far off. He’d stopped noticing after a few weeks on the mine.
Across the table sat a pretty Latina woman named Saturn Vera, poking at her meatballs with a disgusted look on her face. She was dressed in a tight grey jumpsuit, similar to his own, the zipper pulled halfway down her chest revealing a low-cut white tank top underneath. Her honey caramel skin was flawless and she wore little makeup as it was hard to come by on the Belt. She was in her late twenties but retained the figure she had when she was in her late teens. They’d known each other for a few years doing various freelance jobs for Vesta Corporation. Meeting her on the mining craft was a stroke of luck to say the least.
Saturn regarded him with warm brown eyes and gave him a small smirk. Her high cheekbones became even more pronounced when she smiled, her voluminous lips curving seductively whether she wanted them to or not. Saturn kept her dark brown hair pulled back tight while on the mine, but Liam remembered a time when she spent put a lot more care into it. Personal appearances tended to go out the window when working long shifts at the mine.
Saturn held up a forkful of unclassified pinkish meat and asked, “What do you think this is?”
“I’m sure it’s some kind of nutritional goldmine. Just eat it.”
Saturn frowned and took a mouthful, swallowing it only after making a face. Her dark brown hair had been about shoulder length when she arrived six months before, but it had grown fast. She generally kept it back during duty hours. The last thing she wanted was to get it caught in the machinery.
“In Argentina we would never eat something so bland.”
“How would you know?” Liam replied. “Weren’t you born on Mars?”
Saturn huffed and returned to her meal, spinning her fork around to avoid putting another bite in her mouth. The fork stopped and she regarded Liam. “You know, the Vera women have resided on the Martian Colonies for generations, but we’re still proud Latinas. I am Argentinian first.”
“And I’m a Viking,” Liam said with a smirk.
Saturn clenched her jaw and stabbed a meatball violently.
Liam remembered the lunar run they made a few years back. If it was possible, she was even more beautiful now. He tried to remember what went wrong between them before. She could be an abrasive person, but he liked that about her. Saturn was a mercenary who had a bit of a reputation at all of the seedier locations on Earth. She took any job if the money was right and didn’t take sides. Saturn was looked at as more of a force of nature than anything. She had a way of staying off people’s hit list that Liam envied. Looking at her now, he had a feeling why.
“You know,” Liam began, “You never did tell me how you got stuck here.”
“Some things are better left unsaid.”
Liam took a sip of water from his silver mug, setting down the cup and shooting her a goading look. “It’s been six months, Saturn. We’ve worked twelve hour days in the same section of the factory, ate all of our meals at the same table, and we even sleep in nearby bunks. Whatever darkness you’ve got in your past you can tell me. In fact, I’m sure I can top it. You remember some of the runs we’ve been on together.”
“Leave it, Liam.”
Saturn stabbed another meatball with her fork and shoved it in her mouth, chomping angrily. Seeing her mad wasn’t much of a shock. She’d been on edge since she arrived. She was completely different than their time together freelancing. Over the course of a few jobs they’d spent months cooped up in a small spacecraft. Back then she was cheerful, telling jokes and flirting back and forth. Now she was a shell, going through the motions as though for posterity’s sake.
That said, Liam wasn’t in much of a position to talk. Being on the mine for a year had certainly changed him. He often woke up in cold sweats, the same recurring dream etched into his mind. Tiffany was standing before him, bleeding from the head where the energy pulse had hit her. She kept asking him why he’d let her die. Liam never had an answer for that.
“Do you think we’ll finish programming the Spider Bot today?” Liam asked, changing the subject.
Saturn briefly looked up from her meal and grunted. She wasn’t exactly the face of eloquence at the moment. After the noncommittal grunt she was back to her meal, picking at it more than anything else.
A beefy Asian man sat his tray down at their table and plopped down next to Liam. The top half of his grey jumpsuit hung down past his waist, his grease-stained white tank top stretched to its limit to accommodate his muscles. He turned his thick neck and acknowledged Liam before focusing his attention on Saturn, his eyes moving back and forth from her face to her ample breasts unabashedly.
“Hey, Saturn,” the beefcake said. “How about you meet me on the observation deck tonight? Midnight sound good?”
“Piss off, Ju-Long.”
“Is she always this shrill?” he asked Liam.
Ju-Long Ma was an engineer, though he didn’t look it. He worked on the mining craft’s engines and was supposed to be a genius. For the most part, Liam had only seen him hitting on women and fermenting alcohol under his bunk. He called it Starlight, which was a stupid name because it was just moonshine. Still, he must have had some success with it or he wouldn’t have kept making it.
“Now’s not the best time,” Liam replied making a shooing motion with his hand. “Run along.”
“Ah, that time, I get it,” Ju-Long said, reaching his hands flat across the table to get Saturn’s attention. “If you need anything, Ju-Long is here for you. My grandfather taught me an ancient Chinese remedy just for this type of occasion.”
Saturn raised her fork and stabbed his hand, simultaneously flipping her tray over on him and covering him with the goopy soy pasta. Ju-Long cried out, standing up and cradling his hand in horror.
“Bitch!” he yelled.
Saturn got up and moved around the table, approaching him as though apologetic. Liam could see right through her farce. She gripped the fork, which was still lodged in the back of his hand, and yanked, sending a spurt of blood onto the table. The droplets barely missed Liam’s jumpsuit.
“Sorry,” Saturn said shamelessly, flipping her ponytail as she turned around and returned to the table.
Liam couldn’t help but laugh. Saturn wasn’t a person he wanted to piss off, but he found himself far too pleased when it was someone else bearing the brunt of her wrath. The workers at the other tables mumbled amongst themselves. It was displays like this that kept the two of them sitting at their own table most of the time.
Liam jeered, “You see Saturn, this is why we don’t have any friends.”
They were interrupted by a crashing noise. The mess hall was quickly silenced as the whole room pricked their ears in anticipation. It was different than the dull sound of a minor asteroid collision. The mining craft had a deflector array that softened the blow. This was something else. It sounded like an explosion that rumbled and then was quickly silen
ced by the vacuum of space.
Liam stood up and crossed the room to the screens, pressing a button on the control pad when he reached it. The forest images faded, revealing a bay of windows. Outside the ship he could see the dark surface of the asteroid, illuminated only by the outer spotlights from the ship and the countless stars in the distance. He inched closer to the window and looked up.
Liam backed away from the window in awe.
“What is it?” Saturn asked, making her way to the windows and gazing up. “My God.”
It was a ship unlike any Liam had seen before. It appeared to be pieced together from fragments of scrap, propelled by an unknown force. How it stayed together and resisted the vacuum of space he couldn’t say. Behind the ship was a vortex, making the stars behind it swirl in a spiral. Whatever the ship was, Liam was sure it wasn’t from Earth. Even the Terran Military didn’t have anything that big.
The room lit up green, causing everyone near the window to cover their eyes. There was another explosion inside the ship, this time closer than before. Red lights popped out of the ceiling and spun around. An alarm came to life and filled the small room with an ear-piercing noise. Liam knew what the alarms meant. They meant the computer was going to shut the airlocks, sealing them in ever-tighter corners of the ship, trying to maintain life support in as many areas as possible. This wasn’t one of their countless drills. They were under attack.
The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key Page 4
