The Graveyard, Outskirts of Mercuria

Planet Irkalla, Survivor’s Refuge

4452.2.24 Interstellar

Janus was so tired when he saw Lira pulled over by the side of the road, he didn’t ask questions or argue, he just pulled over beside her. They’d been traveling for close to ten hours straight, running on the adrenaline from almost getting eaten.

“I want to stop,” Lira said.

“Yeah,” Janus said, flipping his drinking tube out and taking a long sip.

Mick and Trace pulled up next to them. “Something wrong?” Mick asked on the suit-to-suit.

“We’re exhausted,” Janus said, and for once Lira was right there with him.

“Can’t stop here,” Trace said. “We’re in the graveyard.”

“The…” Janus looked at the two Hunters in confusion. For a moment he thought they were talking about the memorial they’d come across in the canyon, and that reminded him that the two people on the two-seater buggy had used them as bait. “You!” he snapped.

Trace passed Mick a pair of tubes over her shoulder. “Juice them. We need to go.”

Mick holstered his rifle and swung his leg off the buggy.

“What?” Janus said, eyes widening as the Hunter came at him with a tube brandished like a knife. “No! Get away from me!” Janus tried to climb out of his seat and caught his ankle, falling backward into the dust.

“Easy! Easy, now!” Mick said, showing his palms with the tubes gripped between the fingers of his right hand. “By the ancient stars, it’s just a stimulant. We’re about an hour from Mercuria. We can’t stop here.”

“Why?” Janus said, not trusting anything after those nightmare creatures almost cut him in half.

“Because,” Lira said with more tiredness than Janus had ever heard from her, “we’re less than an hour from Mercuria. Hit me.” She raised a hand.

Mick tossed her one of the tubes and she caught it, popping her helmet feeding port cover and pressing the tube against it.

“Really?” Janus asked. “You’re just going to take that on faith?”

Lira tossed the spent tube and pulled a protein tube chaser from her saddle bag.

“Come on, mate,” Mick said, helping Janus up and pushing the remaining tube into his hand. “If you’re not thankful within the next half hour, you can take my share of the trilith bounty.”

“Should be giving us that much anyway,” Janus said. “Used us as bait, remember?”

Mick winked at him through his visor. “Half an hour, buddy.” He punched Janus in the shoulder and walked back to Trace and their buggy.

***

As the three buggies crested the next dune, the last of Janus’s anger and suspicion evaporated.

Wrecked and stripped buggies, cycles, and even the odd crawler that had been broken down to the frame stretched out as far as they could see, illuminated by the thrown sparks of welding torches. They’d passed the first isolated hulks shortly after they took the stimulants. Now, there were dozens of the hulks near them, and the density of the junk field increased farther out, ending at a glowing rift in the ground some eight or nine kilometers away.

But what shocked Janus was the waste. There were partial engines left in the dust. Some of the abandoned vehicles had barely been touched. “I don’t understand,” he said, feeling like the dumb kid in class.

“Gangs patrol the roads into Mercuria,” Mick said. “If they come across—”

“No, I get that,” Janus said, cutting him off. “Do they not have recycling facilities here? There are hundreds of credits worth of materials just… sitting here on the ground.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Right,” Mick said. “And while you were scrapping a bit of copper and steel out of the pile, someone would come along and steal your perfectly functional buggy, or kill you for what you’d already scavenged.”

“Ah,” Janus said, the junkyard reshaping itself under the light of his new understanding. The glowing rift in the distance had to be Mercuria. His best guess was that, within walking distance of the town, armed groups of thugs were intercepting solo travelers and the least defended, robbing them and walking back with the loot. A bribe and a bad attitude might see them through, if they could make it through the maze.

Farther out, small camps of scrappers were working over the bigger piles, but never out of line of sight of the settlement.

No one appeared to be lingering out where they were.

It dawned on him that was probably because the vehicles and their owners who were caught this far out were swallowed whole.

Mick looked at him and cleared his throat.

“Thanks,” Janus said.

Mick patted his shoulder. “You’re welcome, cobber.”

***

They got some hard looks as they drove into Mercuria, but the presence of the two Hunters seemed to deter anything beyond that. Janus and Lira followed Mick and Trace to a cluster of slate-black armored crawlers that the Hunters had parked side by side and connected, forming a pressurized rectangular enclosure.

A number of smaller vehicles were parked outside, under armed guard. Trace and Mick took an empty spot, talking briefly with their fellow Hunters. Janus and Lira pulled up next to them.

“You’re welcome to park your buggies here,” Trace told them, dismounting from her buggy. “We’ll keep your equipment and cargo safe until you come back for it.”

Janus looked at the female Hunter. She was broad-shouldered and stood confidently, waiting for his response. Mick clearly deferred to her. Janus had little understanding of Hunter hierarchies, but the two of them had been trusted to clear the Scar on their own, and if that had any equivalence to how a mechanic’s shop ran, that meant they were considered competent and trustworthy. “Thanks,” he said. “Guess that makes us even.”

“What?” Lira said.

Trace nodded and headed for the crawler fort.

“Right,” Mick said, glancing at her before looking at the two aspirants. “Well, good luck, then.”

“Take care,” Janus said, extending his hand, and Mick shook it before following after their partner.

“We can’t trust them!” Lira said on their private channel.

Janus turned to take in the junkyard again, now that they were parked near the rift. Mercuria—or at least the entrance to it—was apparently located on the edge of a deep crevasse some four kilometers long and who knew how deep, similar to the Scar, only isolated. Light illuminated the far wall of the cut, and streams of people came and went through the three bunker-like vertical airlocks that gave access to the city below. “How had you planned to get us in there?” he asked Lira.

“Bribes,” Lira said. “That’s why it was so important we make the right trades in Crossroads.”

Janus rolled that idea around in his head. This didn’t feel like a place of trade and reason, it felt like a place that belonged to the void, and the void didn’t content itself with taking what was offered to it. “We should have asked the Hunters to take us in.”

Lira scoffed. “Hunters don’t do anything for free, and they’ll cost us more than a local guide.”

“It’s better to pay more if you can pay only once,” Janus said.

Lira crossed her arms, but she didn’t argue, a sure sign she was as tired and frayed as he was.

They still had about four hours of dark to work with, but stimulants or no stimulants, he didn’t trust himself to get their business done in Mercuria and still make it out far enough to escape the human dangers that surrounded the place.

Janus sighed. “I know you don’t like them, but—”

“Hey, guys!” Mick said, making them both jump. “Forgot to give you these.” The Hunter jogged up behind them and handed Janus a pair of black tubes. “Those are downers. They’ll take the edge right off those stims we gave ya and knock you out. Make sure you lock and block the door. You’ll be dead to the world for the first two hours.”

“I don’t suppose you know of a safe place we could stay?” Janus asked, tucking the tubes in his hip pouch and glancing at the cluster of black caravans behind them.

“Yeah, sorry, mate. I’d invite you in, but it’s Hunters only. You should be able to find a place. Just stay away from the King’s Bluff Resort.”

“Why?” Lira said challengingly. “They refuse to pay for protection?”

“Yeah, actually,” Mick said, not bothered in the least. “Owner was getting taxed by three different gangs, so she put her foot down and said, ‘No more.’ She’s a former duster, so she can protect herself, but she won’t stay in business forever if guests can’t make it to the hotel.”

Janus winced. It was the kind of indirect interference he’d seen happen to Prime Dome outsiders when they tried to set up shop in the better sectors, no matter who or how much they were willing to pay. He looked at Lira through her visor.

The Primer had a calculating look to her. “Could you help us find a place? We’d be willing to pay,” she asked Mick.

The Hunter guffawed, then said, “Ancient stars burn me… You’re serious?”

“We’d appreciate it,” Janus added.

Mick laughed. “Why not? Trace’ll pitch a fit when she hears high-and-mighty aspirants asked for my help. Let’s say a thousand credits to get you where you’re going.”

Lira’s face fell. “That’s—”

“Well worth the money,” Janus said, putting a hand on her shoulder. That was more money than he’d had in his bank account most days in Prime Dome, but he got the feeling that Mercuria wasn’t the kind of place where they should skimp on personal protection.

Lira sighed, but she transferred the credits from their expedition account to Mick’s wrist-comm with a flick of her hand.

“Fantastic!” Mick said with a big smile. “Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll head right in.”