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The drill's relentless whirring traveled up through Blaze's arms and shook them so much they felt like they were going to fall off. I don't want to hear none of that bellyachin', tenderfoot. Cowboys grin … and bear it! With a grunt, he swung the drill on its monopod and put his back into maneuvering the drill tip into the rock. It bit into the crater wall with a shudder. Bits of silicon dust sprayed past him. He licked his lips and accidentally tasted the sweat going down his face. Ignoring it, he chipped away at the stone planet. The drill bucked in his hands, so he put more of his weight into securing it and shoving it against the rock. Wearing the stone down and carving his way into the planet. Taming the starry frontier with grit and determination.

I'm a cowboy, with gumption. And even if you throw me 'tween a rock and a hard place, I ain't gonna grow yellow and back down—!

And then the drill died in his hands. It gave one violent shudder, and then its motor quickly cycled down into nothing. His arms were still vibrating, but they alone couldn't do a thing to the cliff face. He stared at the useless pick of junk, bought for cheap, and cursed it. He turned around, swiveling the drill on its monopod, to look at …

Where the hell is she?!

He turned to the hostile habitat, which had been erected near the idle starship. Underneath the crossed plastic beams supporting it, a white glow bled through the fabric walls from the interior lights. He saw a dark shape inside, sitting on her useless ass. He lifted the drill up off the ground. Although it was still really heavy, two weeks of work had toned his arms up a little. It didn't bother him as much as it used to.

The weight, that is.

Not the dumbass who never did any work.

What did you expect? Blaze thought. You know how she is.

Blaze turned to the hole he'd made in the crater. After two weeks, he'd barely made a dent in it. He'd made some ragged lines around the outside of what looked like the vein, but it was a crooked mess and he'd had very little luck getting through it.

Towing the heavy drill, Blaze waddled to the hostile habitat. It had two airlocks, one on either side of the large main chamber. The one closer to the dig site was sealed and pressurized, so he went around the back to the other one. He stepped inside and sealed the outer flap. The fabric flagged against its wicker frame. He kicked at on the small pump on the ground and waited for it to flood the interior with air. The fabric walls slowly inflated and firmed up from the pressure. Once it was done, he unsealed the inner flap and strode through the passageway. The thick white tunnel was supported by archways made of slightly thicker plastic than the woven wicker. It nonetheless looked on the verge of collapse. The whole thing seemed very rickety and unsafe. At first, they'd been absolutely terrified to be inside it. But, as they threw themselves into 'danger' repeatedly, they got used to it.

Ain't that the same thing I said when I told Rsh I was fixing to be a mercenary? he thought.

But they still kept their suits on and their helmets nearby, ready to suit up at the first sign the hostile habitat was losing integrity.

He followed the passageway into the main chamber. Philomena and Luci sat on chairs around the table, with their helmets sitting next to the cups of steaming hot tea they held loosely. Both of the women turned to watch him approach. He dropped the drill onto a crate sitting against the fabric wall, undid his helmet, and wiped the sweat off his face vigorously. Then he staggered to the table, his body burning with exhaustion, and collapsed into the third chair.

"Drill's busted," he said.

"I'll take a look at it," Luci replied. "But mining equipment isn't really my area …"

As Philomena sipped her tea, her eyes darted above the rim and shrewdly observed him and Luci. With a final slurp, Philomena lowered the cup from her glistening upper lip and set it down.

"Use the pickaxe," she said.

He rolled his eyes and slumped down in his seat. The rigid pieces of his suit clanked together. He tried to summon up some gunslinger swagger, but the sore throb in his body buried it so much he couldn't find it.

"The last thing I need is you yelling that I'm not 'pickaxing' hard enough."

As her brow came down, a twitch went through her eye. Her fingers tightened around the steaming cup in her hands.

"Corvo, I will not sit here and listen to you …" She glowered at Luci, her mouth sputtering.

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"Um, 'undermine'?" Luci suggested.

"—undermine me like some kind of unionizer!" Philomena shouted, turning her eyes back to Blaze. "I am the chief executive, and I—"

Sitting up and leaning forward, unleashing the full fury of his voice at the useless waste of space sitting next to him, he yelled, "There's no way I can 'undermine' you, because I'm the only one around here who does any actual mining in the first place! You can't do less than zero mining!"

Jerking her hand at Luci, Philomena said, "Look at those noodle arms! She's too weak to mine anything!"

Luci bowed her head, her face torn up with anguish.

"At least she helps roll the ore I mine into the pile. And fixes our stuff when it breaks down. She doesn't just sit on her ass and bark about how everybody else is slacking off, when she's the biggest slacker of all!"

Deliberately lifting her face away from his, Philomena stared at the wall. Her nostrils flared open rapidly every time she sucked in air. Then, through her clenched jaw and pressed lips, she spoke at him without actually speaking to him.

"I … use my incredible mind … to manage things. That's my job."

"Like when we went to Zantaura? Remember how well that turned out?" As he turned the knife, he found enough savage energy to slip back into his gunslinger accent. "Boy howdy, that was a right mess, wasn't it?"

The fury in Philomena's scowling face grew more intense. "That wasn't my fault, Corvo! Right, Ramirex?!"

Luci whipped her head up, her eyes wide. "Um … I thought it was a good idea … in theory."

After muttering curses under her breath at them, Philomena turned back to Blaze. "Well, at least I'm not like you. A pathetic loser who thinks he's tough and goes around trying to make people think he's some kind of cowboy."

Suddenly, his temples pounded hard enough to squeeze his brain, and the maddening pulse goaded him to action like a charging bull.

"I am a cowboy," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "I can be a cowboy if I want. All you need to be a cowboy … is a—"

"Stupid accent?"

Simmering on his seat, Blaze stared at the woman through the red haze fogging up his mind.

"And for all that mining I do, not even a word of thanks."

With a dismissive scoff, Philomena said, "I pay you so I don't need to say 'thank you'!"

"You don't 'pay us' nothing! We all work for a cut of the profit! At least, the three of us work. The only thing you do is sit there, and suck up oxygen while you boss us around. Maybe if you were any good at making money, it'd be a different tale, but you, Philomena, are as dumb as the rocks we dig out of the ground, and you're just as poor."

Burning brighter than a star, Philomena stared at the wall like blasts of fire would shoot from her eyes and sear straight through it. "I AM NOT POOR!" she yelled.

"M-Maybe we should all c-calm down … please?" Luci asked.

Blaze scoffed loudly. But when that woman scoffed loudly at the same time, it only made his rage burn hotter. He turned his head to the side, away from her, but out of the corner of his eye … Did she just turn her head to the side at the same time I did?! Stop copying me, you useless—! Oh, whatever.

He turned to Luci and pointedly pointed his voice at her. "Hate to admit it, but … I'm just one lone cowboy. And I reckon I ain't so much as making a dent in that there platinum. Any ideas?"

She sipped her tea, then set the cup on the table and drummed her fingers on the table. "Well, me and Rsh were talking the other day … The big mining companies use explosives and blast the rock to pieces."

"If only we had some," Blaze replied.

"Rsh looked over our finances—" Her eyes flicked to the fuming woman across the table, whose clenched jaw tightened. "Ahem … There's some wiggle room in the budget for essentials."

"You reckon we can pick some up from a mercenary outfitter?"

"I don't know anything about mercenaries, so … that's your area."

Philomena piped up with a dismissive chirp of laughter, but Blaze ignored her.

Smoothly, he said, "I'll see what I can rustle up."

Another chirp of laughter came from the obnoxious moron.

"What about getting the platinum out of the rock?" Blaze asked. "Any ideas on that front?"

"The big mining companies use something called a flotation tank, he said. It's not that different from how artificial gravity works. Instead of binding gravitons to oxygen molecules, they bind them to the ore. The platinum rises up and the rock sinks down. Then you just skim the metal off the top."

"Can you whip something up with the ship's tachyon generator?"

"No, sorry. I only know how to work on hyperion engines. Tachyon generators are a completely different field. They're manufactured separately from the rest of the ship and plugged into the hyperion engines, like a black box. I don't even know where to start. Well, I know not to start at all. Tinkering with the tachyon generator will probably leave us stranded in the middle of space."

"Hmm," Blaze said. "Getting stranded in the middle of space with her. Ain't that the most awful fate you ever heard?"

Lifting her lips, Philomena bared her teeth and growled with feral hatred. Judging by the shine in Luci's eyes, she didn't consider the idea all that bad. Well, give it three weeks, Blaze, who once found himself in a similar situation, thought to her.

He pushed himself to his feet and scooped his helmet off the table. "So it's a supply run to Croshaw, then?"

"Looks that way."

"Let's ride, then. We ain't making much of a dent in that there rock anyhow." He strode towards the airlock. "Say, Philomena. Why don't you stay here and supervise the dig site? It's where you'll do the most good."

"If anybody belongs down here, Corvo … it's you!"

Smiling to himself, Blaze put his helmet over his head and locked it in place.

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