It was boring sitting there with no where to go and nothing to do. Mike wasn’t sure how much oxygen he had left, but he tried to remain calm and still as could be. For a few minutes, anyway… He started to sing some made up lyrics in a country twang.

“Here I am on the bottom of the asteroid, stuck in a cave with no way out. If I had a dog it’d be dead and my girlfriend would be gone! Oooh! Lord why me… why me oh Lordy, lord…”

“Please shut the fuck up.”

Mike stopped singing to see Milo standing up beside him. He laughed at his response and clapped at his return.

“You’re awake! Awesome, help me come up with some more lines for this Diddy…”

“What happened?” Milo said, totally ignoring Mike’s request. “Where’s Pete? Is he ok…”

Turning about, his lights hit the damaged pod and saw the young man dead in the cockpit. Milo stepped over to it and placed his hand on the window. He closed his eyes and quoted a Navaho prayer. He then motioned his hands continued to bless the corpse. Mike didn’t understand a word of Milo’s language, he wasn’t sure which tribe he belonged to, but seemed impressed by the overly theatrics that went with it.

“Do I get one too?” He chuckled.

“No,” Milo grunted at him. “When you’re dead, I’m gonna dance on your grave… and then shit in it.”

“You’d do that for lil’ ol’ me?” He grinned. “I’m touched, buddy. And here I thought you didn’t like me.”

Once he finished the prayer, Milo sat beside Mike and kicked the top of his spacesuit helmet with his boot.

“I don’t, that’s the point, numb nuts. Now stop your gums from flapping at me and conserve your air.”

“Ah, I got enough…” He passively dismissed. “They’re on their way to save our hides. Shouldn’t be more than half an hour I figure.”

Milo nodded at that estimate. He was just getting comfortable in his spot, we he suddenly had an uneasy feeling. Something wasn’t quite right about being in this cavern. He cocked his head about and flashed the lights around slowly. Mike noticed his deeply concerned expression and patted the man’s leg.

“What’s a matter big boy, scared of the dark?”

“No, it’s not that…” Milo spoke in an almost whisper. “I feel like there’s something watch us.”

“All right…” Mike said with a shrug. “Thanks for making me feel safe…”

“I’m not joking here.” Milo warned him. “There’s a presence of some kind. It’s down that way a bit more.”

“You can sense things now?”

“I’ve always sensed things.” Milo stated. His head continued to remain poised to the depth of blackness ahead. “My people, in my tribe, I mean, have had this gift of sensing danger or evil spirits. I never really believed it, thought my grandmother was just telling me spooky stories to shut me up at night.”

“I like her.”

“She’d hate you.” Milo scoffed. “Bad enough your white, but a racist bastard to boot. She’d probably ejected you into space just from one look of you.”

“Okay,” He blinked. “Continue with your story…”

Milo grinned and continued to speak, “When I was a kid, I would hear things out in the night, beyond our camp in the Arizona wilderness. I thought maybe it was coyotes, or my brother being a dick, but they spoke to me at times and whispered something in the wind.”

“I hate when that happens.” Mike sarcastically muttered. He gave roll of his eyes and motioned at Milo, “What did these, uh, voices say to you? Hi, we’re ghosts, don’t mind us we’re just passing through and… oh, by the way… you’re all out of toilet paper?”

Milo chuckled at that comment. Mike was being his usual charming self. Even now with his leg broken and them locked away in a spooky dark cavern, he managed to be… well, Mike-like. Looking back into the dark cavern, Milo continued to seem mesmerized by it.

“No, nothing like that. More like: ‘I can see into your soul’…” He looked back at Mike briefly, who in turn looked at him with concern. Milo drew out a breath and turned back around. “I know my Granny would kid about it most of the time, but… I swear, there were days when I would notice her getting that feeling too. Maybe hearing the same voice as I did.”

There was a long silence between them in that moment. Mike continued to watch the man facing away, giving a short glance at the cavern beyond as well. The man was truly spooked by that darkness out there. And it was starting to make him uncomfortable too.

“That’s some creepy shit, Milo.”

“Yep,” He replied, a short glib of an answer. “Damn straight it is.”

* * *

Chaz tapped in the last few commands on the small tablet device and entered the activation code to the robot drone, otherwise known as Roberto. The large drone-bot stood up in the open meteor drilling bay and unfolded its massive arms from within the torso compartments. The droid was at least eight feet tall (when fully transformed), the hands were like two massive mitts with three fingers.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

The head was conformed to the rounded body; it looked like one of those old-style twentieth century robot toys Chaz tended to collect. A hobby that transitioned into modification of some of the drone-bots they had on board. If the company ever saw what he did to their expensive machines, he’d be in deep shit for sure.

“Wake up, big man!” Chaz chuckled. “We’ve got a job for ya.”

Albedo and his sister watched off to the side and waited patiently as the robot drone’s eyes flashed to life. It was bad enough he made it look like one of those retro-robots, but the sinister red eyes was a bit much for either of them.

“Mission?” The robot said, the synthesized voice giving it an equally sinister feel.

“We’re going to war…” Chaz said, grinning close to its face. Albedo unfolded his arms and glared at Chaz. Chaz laughed and passively waved him off. “Naw-naw bro… I’m just messing with ya. Got that from the movie Judge Dredd… ya know, Armand Assante? Bah, before your time, and mine too, I guess.”

Chaz used the tablet again and instructed the machine properly this time. The robot hadn’t moved and continued to stare at Chaz.

“Ok, Roberto, for real this time. Open file zero-zero-four, rescue and recover.”

It stood erect and froze momentarily. Odd beeps and clicks could be heard internally in its head, and then it nodded after rapidly studying the information.

“Data assimilated.” It said. “Beginning assigned task.”

With great strides, the noisy hydraulic legs walked across to the open bottom section and entered into the threshold of space. Small boosters on the drone corrected its flight and it whisked over to the asteroid slowly.

Chaz watched the visual coming from the robot’s camera and helped to guide the robot to its destination. Albedo walked over and watched it as well.

“Its ok, Captain,” Chaz winked at him. “Roberto and I got this.”

“Yeah, ok… I’ll leave it with you then. But, my baby sis here will make sure you don’t fuck it up.”

“Seriously?” She scowled at her bother. Albedo motioned at her to keep watch as he headed back to the bridge. She scoffed at his authority and gave him the finger. “Stop calling me that, okay…”

Albedo laughed and exited the room. “Ah, its fun because I’m your Captain and your big brother… win-win for me!”

Chaz started to giggle, but then Anna gave him a hard elbow to his ribs. He winced from the pain, giving a disapproving glare, and she smirked at him with delight.

“You brat!” Chaz grunted.

“Hey, next time, it will be my knee… and you definitely don’t want to know where it will be going.”

“Sheesh…” Chaz rolled his eyes. “You’ve got issues lady.”

On the tablet, the robot continued to ease its way over. The estimated time scrolling on the screen stated four minutes and seventy-seconds; Chaz corrected the flight again and tried to keep it from drifting off course.

“So...” He said, glancing over to her. “You and Greg, huh?”

Anna looked up with surprise. “What?”

“Yeah, I heard, I heard…” He grinned with a wink. “My quarters are by yours, ya know. The walls aren’t made from the thickest material…”

“Shit…” She replied, rubbing her hair in frustration.

“Greg is a good guy, Anna. You could do worst.”

“Don’t you even dare tell Albedo about this…”

Chaz thumbed the controls on the pad for a minute, keep the robot’s flight path stable, and glanced back at her.

“I won’t, you’re my cousin, I respect your decision. But, you might want to tell Albedo before anything else should… uh… accidentally happen.” He motioned his hand over his stomach as to infer a pregnant belly. She slapped his shoulder and scowled. Chaz chuckled and tried to keep focused on the robot’s controls. “Hey! Come on now, just telling you the honest truth here…”

Anna wanted to give him another smack, but hesitated for a second. He was right. Eventually, the truth would spread on this ship, one way or another. She doubted the whole “getting pregnant” scenario, seeing how both she and Greg were careful with not allowing that to happen. But, nothing is every one hundred percent, and they were very drunk the last time in her quarters. Anna had to concede that, maybe, just maybe mind you, that she should let her brother know so that he won’t freak out on her… or Greg for that matter.

“Yeah, okay…” She said, turning away from Chaz. “I’ll let him know. Just… not right now.”

As if his ears were ringing, Greg came walking in to the room and saw them both standing there. Anna jerked her head up and was surprised by his presence. Chaz shrugged and kept focus on the tablet.

“What’s going on?” He curiously gazed at them.

“Nothing…” She said to him. “Just watching Chaz send out Roberto.”

“I gathered that…” Greg cocked a brow. “I meant what’s going on with your brother? Have you told him?”

“Jesus!” She threw up her arms. “What is with everyone’s concern about…” She paused for a minute and looked at both men. “Chaz! You shit! You already talked to Greg about all this, didn’t you? You didn’t hear us through the wall…”

“Is that what you said?” Greg glared at him.

“Hey, man, look…” Chaz lowered the tablet and held out a hand defensively. “I was trying to discreet, but, I didn’t want her to know you spilled the beans over a few bottles of booze.”

Chaz instantly covered his mouth as he realized he wasn’t suppose to admit that. Greg was instantly shocked as he looked over at Anna. She was pissed. She marched over to Greg and glared at him with fury.

“You told him?” Anna growled. “And bribed him with booze as well?”

“He was on the same channel as us… he heard you.” Greg said, trying to calm her by rubbing her shoulders. “Baby, I was trying to keep him from talking to your bother for you…”

“He’s my fucking cousin, ya dickwad!” Anna shouted. “He wouldn’t have said shit-all to him!”

“I might have…” Chaz smirked.

Anna smacked Greg’s hands off her and spun around with an accusing finger to Chaz.

“You don’t get to say anything, Chaz. You tried to blackmail my boyfriend for some low grade alcohol.”

“Low grade?” Chaz winced. “That’s prime stuff…”

“It’s shit!” She stomped her foot on the floor in anger. “It’s knock-off stuff we got from the Saturn orbiter!”

Chaz looked over at Greg. He nodded to affirm that revelation, and gave a simply shrug. Chaz grimaced and flipped up his pad again.

“Okay, I’m sorry, Anna. My bad.”

“My bad?” She snarled and pointed vinously at him. “All you’ve got to say is ‘my bad’? You fucking pussy!”

She looked at them both, threw up her hands again and screamed in anger. She stormed out of the room and kicked the corridor wall before vanishing from sight. Both men let out a sigh of relief and glared at one another.

“So, low grade hooch is it?”

“Sorry Chaz,” Greg chuckled. “You can still have some if you want.”

“Don’t sweat it, my man. I think you might want it once she’s done busting your balls. Any kind of alcohol will be needed once she’s done with ya.”

Greg nodded to that truth. He’s seen every side of her and then some, mentally and physically. He wasn’t looking forward to continuing the screaming match later in their quarters. He rubbed his chin in thought and glanced back at Chaz.

“Did she just admit that I’m her boyfriend?”

Chaz smirked again, patted Greg on the shoulder and sighed.

“Yep… that she did. Welcome to the family, dude.”