The steel steed soared over the empty wastes. The land below was an endless stretch of black that spread to the faraway horizon and curved around the world's surface. Unlit by sunlight, it was totally invisible to human eyes, except where it blocked the distant stars.

Blaze relied on the HUD to guide him. A grayscale terrain map generated by the scanners laid atop the blackness where the land should be. In the corner, a feed from the camera mounted on the ship's nose showed nothing but darkness. At this height, neither the exhaust from the engines nor the ship's running lights were bright enough to reveal the surface.

"Blaze, take us down," Rsh said from the console.

A sharp, annoying voice sliced through the moody, hushed silence.

"Ahem!"

Blaze and Rsh sighed in perfect sync with each other.

"Philomena," Rsh said. "We should descend."

The shrill harpy said, "Corvo—! Wait, are we going down or are we descent-ing?"

Blaze and Rsh sighed in perfect sync with each other.

"Your choice," Rsh said.

"Corvo, take us down!"

Easing the control yoke forward, he angled the nose at the ground. The steel steed dipped into the unknown territory below. Its engines resounded through the hull like lightning-fast hooves. The ship left the stardusty trails behind and wound its way toward the big rocky landscape, so that he could gallop across the dusty land like his earthbound ancestors. Too bad the terrain map didn't reveal any massive rock monuments like in those old westerns. The land under the ship was mostly smoothed-out hills. A hundred feet above them, he evened their flight out. The VM-84 skimmed over the surface, its running lights and engine exhaust brightening up the planet for the first time since it had left the Egadoro system.

Rsh activated the landing lights via the console. The bright beams, aimed at the ground, snapped on. Instantly, the drab gray terrain was flooded with light, though it didn't look all that different from the drab gray simulated terrain map. Blaze stared at the camera feed in the corner of the HUD. As their floodlights crossed over the hills, the shadows stretched far and swung wide. They circled the speeding starship like creatures scurrying to stay out of sight. Fixing his eyes on those shifting shadows, Blaze watched closely for any ominous shapes ducking away from the landing lights on purpose.

Is there something alive down there? Unhappy we're trespassing on its world? Leering at us from the shadows?

Nah, it's just a rock, that's all. A big giant rock in space.

But if something is down there … and it threatens the ship …

It's gonna be my job to keep the peace around here. That's what space cowboys do, isn't it?

He sat up and then settled himself in the bucket seat again, trying to get comfortable. But he was deeply unsettled by how paltry the splashes of light from the ship seemed, when compared to the eternal nightfall shrouding the rogue planet.

As a distraction, he thought about all the riches they'd find …

… and all the women who'd flock to his massive wealth, like moons captured by a massive planet. Hopefully, each one had two incredible moons of her own …

Hey there, little lady. Want to see my rogue planet? Just hop in and hang on tight.

It's got a diamond core.

What's that? Oh, sure. It's all yours, darling.

In his mind's eye, a video started to play. Like something you'd see on a loop in a store. A giant diamond six feet wide sat on a pedestal. A stunning woman draped herself over top of it. She was naked, but her smooth, flawless skin was warped by the reflections inside the massive gem. He caught tantalizing glimpses, small little squares that captured pieces of her erotic curves as they passed through the kaleidoscope-like interior, but her whole body was frustratingly — and alluringly — cut into jagged pieces. Her deft hands stroked the diamond's hard edges, moving with expert delicacy. Her touch was soft, but also strong. Her fingers grazed it lightly, yet there was a surprising amount of power in her skinny arms. Those dancing hands promised to do things to him, in return for the incredible glittering gift.

He grinned at the dance of light and dark on the HUD's camera feed.

"So?" he called. "What are we looking at?"

"No magnetic field," Rsh replied. "No tectonic activity. It may be coreless."

"Huh?" Philomena shouted. "You mean it's empty inside? There's no minerals?!"

"It has no metallic core. It is solid rock."

"But … they're valuable rocks, right?"

Rsh groan-growled. Like he was talking to a child, he said slowly, "The interior is iron oxide … which cannot form a molten core."

"How valuable is 'iron peroxide'?"

"How—?! How have you still done no research?!"

Rsh's roar bounced off the canopy and filled the flight deck. The dumb moron in charge of the company gasped like the words had stabbed her in the gut, while another pair of shoes — Ramirex — edged away from the shouting. The noise came over the console and rained down on Blaze's head, distracting him from the vast, dark landscape beyond the reach of the ship's landing lights.

"I am an executive! I don't keep track of the little stuff. I make the important business decisions!"

"Mining … is your business."

"I deal with the important stuff! Like gold, and jewels! I don't care about 'iron peroxide.' Nobody does! What am I gonna do, walk into a meeting and ask all the hunks, 'Do you want shiny pretty jewels? Or a bunch of "iron peroxide"?'"

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The bucket seat groaned as loudly as Rsh did. His robes slid along its padding; his heavy body slid down and slumped on the cushion. It might've just been Blaze's imagination, but his ears seemed to ring from his idiot boss's shrill whining. It echoed in the air, in the silent flight deck, itching inside his ear canal and poking his brain.

"Iron oxide is rust," Rsh said quietly. "It is not valuable."

Philomena huffed at the air over Blaze's head. "You better pay off, planet!"

Suddenly, the deck shuddered. Like the planet had given the ship's keel a sharp kick in response. As the instrument panels rattled with the blow, he gripped the yoke tightly to steady the ship's wobble. A warning flashed up on the HUD.

"Corvo!" Philomena snapped.

"I didn't do anything!" His eyes scanned the message. "Power spike in the starboard engine. I'll set it down. How far to the—?"

Without warning, the land dropped away. His steel steed galloped over darkness again. The giant empty pit below ate up the ship's bright floodlights, resulting in a pitch-black camera feed. The terrain map had fallen off the bottom of the display, clipped by its lower border. They sailed over the unknown. A vast sea of shadows that might be concealing the most hideous and awful creatures mankind had ever encountered.

"—crater?" He gulped. "Um, Rsh? How deep is this thing?"

At any instant, some terrible lurking monster could lunge up from the deep. Rush at them … ram them … rip their life apart in the blink of an eye. Assuming their engines didn't give out first and send them plummeting to the bottom, where the things lurking down in the abyss could pick their carcasses clean amidst the broken wreckage of their ship. And unless somebody found a better way to detect rogue planets, the odds anybody would find this one were very slim. His corpse and the wreckage of his ship might lie down at the bottom of the crater, undiscovered and untouched right up to the end of the universe.

That won't happen, he thought. I'm a badass, I'll … I'll fight my way out of it. I can fight my way out of anything, so long as my fighting spirit doesn't die out.

Rsh shifted in his seat, probably inspecting the monitor more closely. The longer he stayed quiet, the more the ship wobbled from Blaze's shaking hands.

Stay cool, cowboy, he thought, breathing out with his mouth puckered like he was whistling.

"Rsh …? You gonna answer me …?"

Finally, a gruff voice overhead called down to him.

"Twenty miles."

Philomena wailed. Her voice came closer, and a thump sounded from behind him. He looked over his shoulder. She'd thrown herself over top of the console and wrapped her arms around its edges to brace herself. Like it was her only anchor during an explosive decompression. She squeezed her eyes shut and mumbled soothingly to herself.

"Hunks, hunks, hunks, so many hot hunks."

Blaze asked, "Should I turn around?"

"No," Rsh said. "Our course is stable. We should not stress the engines with a turn."

"Right. Uh, just what I was thinking. Good call … that I also had."

"I am sure," Rsh said sarcastically. "Luci?"

From near the aft bulkhead, Luci's voice came over the console. "You know, sh-she might need a gentle hug to help her calm down, so maybe I-I should stay here—"

"Luci."

Brightly, Luci called, "Hey, why don't I go check the engine, huh?"

"Thank you," Rsh said.

As the door on the aft bulkhead opened and closed, Blaze stared at the HUD and the darkness beyond it.

"How far to the other side?" he asked.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. 'Other side' sounded pretty morbid …

No, a space cowboy would embrace it!

"And I ain't talking about meeting the Grim Reaper! Ha haa!"

He shifted his weight in the bucket seat. Trying to get comfortable, despite the cold sweat and the shakes.

This isn't how we badasses die.

We die when we, uh …

We die, uh …

Well, we try not to die.

"Not long," Rsh replied.

The steel steed soared through the darkness … galloped across the void … raced above the unknown.

Sweating, he stared at the camera feed.

Just waiting for something to rush at them.

Waiting …

… and waiting …

… and waiting …

… and then, as abruptly as it disappeared, a rocky cliff face popped up under the ship again. It formed a sharp rim at the crater's edge, then sloped down and eased into smooth, hilly terrain.

Blaze let go of his pent-up breath.

"Setting us down," he said.

He grabbed the throttle and yanked it back to neutral. The ship's main engines cut out. The flight computer fired the retrothrusters to cancel their momentum and cranked up the hoverthrusters to keep their weight from plummeting to the planet. The sudden stop threw him forward, but the five-point harness around his chest pulled him back into the seat cushion. Behind him, he heard clattering as a tiny thing rolled across the console and fell to the deck right behind his headrest.

"Hunks, hunks, hunks," Philomena whispered to herself.

As Blaze trimmed the thruster output from the instrument panels, the ship descended. Deeper into the darkness, towards the bottom of the abyss. The floodlights brightened on the ground, and so did the flickering blue-indigo light from the engines. The blue hues rolled like lightning across hills which hadn't seen sunlight in millions of years, adding to the creepy aquatic eerieness. As they got closer to the landscape, the nearest hills blocked more of the light. Behind them, shadows flocked together, merged into one big shroud, and re-covered more of the planet. Taking it back from the light. Then, the hills hid the faraway lands. Leaving it to the shadows … and for whatever lived inside them to creep nearer and peer at them over the hilltops.

The closer the ship got to the ground, the more the comforting roar of the hoverthrusters died down. Blaze didn't want them to go. They were oddly reassuring. A familiar, human sound. Filling the silence, in the middle of this vast, empty world. If they disappeared … what would be left?

Space cowboys don't think about stuff like that, he told himself.

He pulled up a camera feed on the HUD. The camera looked straight down from the keel. Its wide fisheye lens warped the landscape at the edges. An outline of the ship, with markers for its landing legs, was superimposed over the ground. As the ship lost height, the splashes of blue and white light under them brightened everything except the void beyond the crater's edge. The shapeless nothing lurked at the bottom of the image, stretched thin and distorted by the curved lens. Shifting, as if alive. Waiting to rush out and grab them.

"Thirty feet," he called. "Landing gear."

From the console, Rsh lowered the landing gear. The deck vibrated as the landing leg under the ship's neck extended and locked rigidly into place.

"Twenty."

The landscape on the HUD stretched in every direction as the camera inched closer to its center. Beyond the HUD's glass pane, the hills lit up by the ship's lights slowly rose around them. He'd landed the ship plenty of times, but the eerie atmosphere of this mysterious lost world made the two conflicting views jag on his mind. Like he was having an out-of-body experience.

"Ten."

He trimmed the thrusters a little more. Pulling the reins of his steel steed, easing its slow trot into a stop. Slowly, the starship's weight inched toward the landscape. He braced himself for the shudder when the landing gear made contact. The moment the legs struck the ground, and Kestrel Mining surrendered themselves to the mysterious world. The moment they let its gravity well take over their lives, for the time being … or forever, if they were unlucky.

A little closer …

Just a bit more …

The planet thumped the ship from below. Blaze killed the thrusters immediately. The VM-84's hefty weight rested on its landing legs, teetered on the spot as it searched for the right balance between all three of them … and then it settled into place. The sound of the thrusters died away, and everything went still and quiet.

He relaxed into the bucket seat and wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, down low where the others couldn't see.

"Easy," he said.

"Hunks," Philomena murmured to herself. "Hunks."

We're here, Blaze thought. But … what else is here with us?

Ah, whatever it is, Blaze Corvo — space cowboy — can handle it!