“What the fuck happened?” I yelled into my com.

Silence.

I pulled up the tactical view of the turrets. Apart from enemies they also showed green dots for our group. I only saw one green dot near the containers. Without pause I started to jump-run over there. When I got closer, I saw that it was Ygglog. Parts of his vac suit had holes in them. One of his four legs was sheared of. He looked like he was on his last leg. Well, last three legs but you get me.

I commed him directly.

“Ygglog. You okay?”

“Pain! Was weak. Unworthy. Kill…”

“Dude, get your shit together. What happened?”

“Kill…”

I interrupt him again. He wants strength? “Ygglog, report!” I demand.

Don’t get me wrong, I might seem like I am running around sorting out a mess and having things under control.

Not. The. Case.

Yeah, I have always been good under pressure and in crisis. But even then it isn’t like I am all cool and stuff. There is simply a part of my brain that seems to turn off. Empathy, compassion, worrying about stuff, having long-term thoughts? These things all went away. And maybe some more. It is how I deal with life-threatening situations. I don’t know if this is good or bad. But I know that during my time as a cop it has saved my life and the lives of people that were in danger.

You don’t walk up to a car wreck and start crying at the sight of blood. That is what they drill you for in the armed forces and nowadays that’s what cops are. You fall into a problem solving routine. You check for additional dangers like oncoming traffic, explosion risk, etc. Then you go in and check on the people involved. Then you figure out if you need to get them out. Which is a simple cost/benefit analysis. Very low chance that the car catches fire and the person dies. Very high chance that oncoming traffic will get involved in the accident and kill the involved person. Medium chance that the injuries get aggravated when I move them. Done. We move. More than one person involved? Who is the most likely to survive with the least amount of long term damage. Cold? Maybe. Effective? For sure.

“Meteor impact.” Ygglog groaned. “Cold, no radiation.”

He slumped to the ground again as Ralgau ran up to us.

“Ralgau, meteor impact. Are we in danger from more impacts?”

I had read and heard about meteor showers. And in science fiction it was like one of these doomsday scenarios. They always made it sound like one meteor didn’t come alone.

“Don’t think so captain.” Ralgau responded with something that made me think of military discipline.

“Meteors should not impact here in the first place. Bigger showers are usually micro meteors. Very fast but rather small. They can shred equipment because of multiple impacts. This was not a micro meteor.” he continued and pointed at the crater.

Okay, so no imminent danger to life right now. I turned back to Ygglog to check on him.

“Ralgau, get the first aid supplies.” I commanded.

“No… kill… clone... “ Ygglog managed to get out. His voice breaking and hoarse, just over a whisper. I didn’t know fuck all about Drak physiology but he did not sound like he would make it.

“Malcolm.” Ralgau said, holding a high caliber propellant pistol out to me.

“Fuck.” I took the pistol and passed it to the ant dude.

He tried raising it but couldn’t. Too weak already. I wanted to help but instead Ralgau bent over and took the pistol, aimed at the Drak’s head and pulled the trigger. A flash and puff of expanding gases. My faceplate dimmed slightly at the flash. When it became see through again, Ralgau was lowering the weapon. Ygglog had a hole the size of my finger through his pace plate and blob of yellowish fluid just floated out of it.

I turned away and took some steadying breaths. ‘Don’t puke in your vac suit’ and ‘Keep it in’ were my mantras for the next thirty or so seconds. When I was sure I would not mess up the inside of my helmet I turned to my Sorren companion.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Dude, what the fuck?” I demanded.

“What?” he asked. Was there surprise in his voice?

“How could you just shoot him like that? I mean he wasn’t the nicest guy but seriously, just like that?”

“Hm…” Ralgau grumbled. “I guess you have never used the CLON service before?”

“No, what does that have to do with it?”

“When you use the service, they will ‘download’ your consciousness into a newly grown body. They use a saved imprint of your body but unless you are out of range of a receiver, the last point your consciousness is saved is the moment your brain stops working. That means you remember everything that happens until then. Believe me, you don’t want to remember the pain of losing a limb or the feeling of drowning as your lungs fill up with your own blood.”

Yeah, I could see that. It made sense… at least logically speaking. Maybe my training wasn’t good enough. It certainly never covered killing somebody in an emergency situation to save them unnecessary pain and bad memories.

“Besides, I know many people that had their lives saved by a CLON contract but that could not function well afterwards. There is something in our brains that doesn’t work well with the memories of dying.” He shrugged. “So the common, decent thing to do when someone has a contract is to end it really quick when they would die otherwise.”

Shit. Fuck… fair enough. I could see where he was coming from but that didn’t help the feeling I had. I guess the worst part is that I didn’t even really know how I felt. Later.

I got up and turned towards the crater. When I got halfway to the impact site, I saw the body of Brelic lying on the ground. He had a hand size piece of metal stuck in his shoulder and a fist size hole through his chest.

“Ah, shit.” I muttered.

At least I knew why I hadn’t gotten any answers on com when I tried finding out what had happened.

“You think he had a contract?” I asked.

“Not sure. But it wouldn't surprise me. Asteroid mining is dangerous. People don’t usually do it without some precaution.”

“Okay, let’s burn that bridge when we get to it. What now? Any suggestions?”

“Since the turrets didn’t track anything, I would love to check the black box of your ship. I have a weird feeling about this.”

“Yeah, me too. You think…”

“Maybe. Probably. But that would be a serious crime.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Yeah, just need the right modules on the ship for it.”

“What do you mean by it being a huge crime?”

“I guess you think that this was a targeted strike, no? Yes, you can tow a small rock with relatively small ships. Get it going on a specific course, release it and do whatever while the KKV is en route. Weapons normally don’t scan for this kind of thing because anything below heavy equipment won’t make much of a difference and it is outlawed. This is actually a universal galactic law. Imagine what it would take for all governments of all three federations to agree to that.

“Considering that this was an inhabited claim, that law has been broken if we can prove that is what happened. Sys government will pull out all the stops. IF we can confirm and prove it.”

I looked at Brelics corpse. “What happens to the corpses?”

“Either shove them in the sun when you are close enough or bring them back to station to be recycled.”

Fuck my life. What kind of recycling would you like for your friend? Liquefaction or direct atomization? I could just see the funeral person asking this question with all the gravitas that his position required. And why the fuck do these thoughts keep popping into my head.

“Daaaamn, look at that.” I said sadly and astonished when we arrived at the crater’s edge.

The blast must not have hit the Rustbucket completely. The front of it was flattened into the surface of the asteroid. Everything else, just behind the cockpit was ripped off by the power of the impact and while there were metal chunks embedded into the rock, there was not enough to account for the whole ship. The impact energy must have blown it off the rock entirely.

Goodbye Rustbucket. May you rest in peace. And in pieces.

And then it hit me. We were sitting on a fucking rock and my ship was gone. Sure, it was a shitty ship. But it was my first and only so far. And it has served me well. But no longer. We would need to get a transport back to the station. No matter what I wanted to do, I needed to have a replacement. And with the little money I had, there wasn’t much I could afford.

The other option would be to rush getting the relic ship but that seemed even more unlikely. The crew of the claim was dead. We needed to get them back here and find specialists to work on the ship.

“If we are lucky the black box should be in the rubble. I think these ships have them in the cockpit.”

I gave Ralgau the look.

“How do you know that kind of stuff?”

He gave me another shrug. “Pirate work. Need to disable them. You learn quickly where to find them. They are normally tied into the registration system.”

“Well, nothing better to do, let's have a look.”

We float-jumped into the crater and started digging through what little wreckage was left. I hoped that we could find it. But after nearly half an hour of searching around and looking at scrap, two things became clear. Rustbucked definitely got squashed by a meteor impact and there was no black box.

We were about to give up when the turret sensor alarm went off. I groaned. Could today get any worse?

“Ralgau, to the containers!” I com’ed and then scrambled there myself as fast as I could. I had an idea. A crazy one but you know… it had a chance of one in a million or so. No reason not to go for it.