No sooner had the chamber pressurized than the door to the port cracked open, just slightly enough to allow the hiss of rushing air to echo through the space. Yuri glanced at the door and watched as it opened slowly. He felt a gentle pull as the low pressure tunnel equalized with the inside of the port.

The figure of a man pushed the door wider, and casually glided inside, weightlessly, like a grim reaper. His eyes were narrow and fierce, like a hunter’s, his hair was long and black, tied loosely behind his head. His black stubble was patchy, matching the tattered poncho of rags and stained fabrics he wore over his broad shoulders.

“Where’s the girl?” Yuri fully recognized him by his voice, it was Sergeant Nakamura. This was the first time the cadet had seen his face.

“She’s still in the pod. She said she didn’t have PLS.” Yuri replied.

“Okay, take this and cover me.” Kenshi handed a small handgun to Yuri, then drifted past him up the tunnel, taking long, bounding steps.

The handgun was a standard FTA sidearm with gunpowder ballistics. The cadet recognized the pistol. He had used one briefly in the academy. It was a standard 2 mm Konen pistol. In two millennia, the best formula for killing soft targets one at a time was still a slightly under-powered semi-automatic handgun.

That said, these pistols were much more refined than their 20th century ancestors. A holographic optical sight would flip up and down automatically on draw, and the 2mm rounds held slightly more compressed gunpowder than a 9mm of the past. This mixture required skinnier, square cartridges, that didn’t need an outer metal casing, for maximum propulsion. It was a caseless ammunition, but perfected. A pistol of this size could hold a massive 42 rounds, but couldn’t be reloaded by hand.

The bullet projectiles were more like thumbtacks, and would expand into a six pointed star when they connected with anything harder than skin or cloth. It was like a hollow point crossed with a broadhead arrow tip that bloomed when it struct bone.

There were tiny gas escape chambers all around the gun that would expel exhaust gasses to stabilize it during firing, to the point where it produced almost no recoil. These features would have been a nightmare to maintain in previous eras, but a specialized machine in the armory on the Niobrara took care of all cleaning, oiling, reloading and calibrating.

The thing Yuri noticed first was how heavy and familiar the pistol felt in his hands.

“Remember, everyone here is a potential threat. Keep your guard up. But don’t shoot anybody who doesn’t deserve it.” Kenshi told him, before drifting closer to the glass front window of the yellow pod.

Yuri followed close behind. The Pod’s only door was straight through the front window of the craft, which was totally encased inside the expanded docking tunnel. Through the glass, both men saw Janet struggling with the controls.

When she noticed them, she started a noiseless barrage of insults and hand waving visible through the thick glass. Kenshi drew his stun baton, but didn’t expand it. Perhaps he didn’t want to antagonize her, or maybe he was worried a full baton would be too clumsy in the tight tunnel.

Kenshi kicked the emergency release and unlocked the pod door. Janet greeted them by springing out violently, using the headrest of her chair to push off with her feet. As the door opened, she launched herself right at Yuri and socked him in the jaw, sending him pinwheeling backwards. The punch stalled most of her forward momentum, and Kenshi quickly tased her in her back as she tried to escape.

She screamed and went limp, drifting forward in mid-air, semi-conscious. Kenshi tased her again and pushed her down to the tunnel floor. Yuri picked himself up, cheek still smarting from the punch, and finally got a look at his captive.

She was slim, scrawny even. Bright curly red hair. She wore an oversized hoodie, stained with grease, and work boots a size too large, with shorts that exposed most of her legs. Her style was somewhere between charity and pure garbage. She looked like she would be right at home in the sweeps of New Miami.

Kenshi propped her up against the mesh wall and zip-tied her hands together in front of her. Yuri noticed the green ring pierced through the top of her right ear, and the gash where the previous piercing had been ripped out. The cadet guessed she was probably his age, based on her face.

“Watch out, don’t let her try anything. I’m going to search the pod.” Kenshi said.

Yuri pointed the pistol at the unconscious red-haired girl and watched her. She was breathing lightly, with faint, uneven gasps. He wondered what he’d do if she woke up. Shoot her? Pin her to the floor? This was a level of brutality the cadet was unprepared for.

Besides, she was too pretty to be a domestic terrorist.

Five years ago, in 3921, when Yuri was almost out of secondary school and was filling out his application to enroll at Carinna Academy, There was a moment before he signed his name where he paused, and tried to imagine how beautiful it would be to fly in space.

That memory felt impossibly distant now. Floating there in the docking tunnel, gun trained on a motionless girl facedown on the floor, this felt like brutality, not freedom. Perhaps this is the same emotion all new soldiers feel, the first time the state authorizes them to use force in the line of duty. Maybe this uneasiness would pass in time.

Kenshi came back from her scav pod, carrying a huge, beige camera. It had a very large primary lens, oversized even, as well as a secondary lens used to cross-fade details from the subject into the image.

It was the kind of camera that looked both old and expensive. With such a device, even an amatuer could capture radiant heat or radiation and lace the digital image with those values. Experts could use the second and third lenses to extrude a 3d model based on the three sequential images.

It was a highly technical tool Yuri didn’t expect to see on a mining colony at all. Maybe a photojournalist, artist, or corporate spy might have one, but not a poor scavver.

“You carry this. I’ll carry her.” Kenshi said, handing him the heavy camera. Yuri looped his arm through the scratchy, stringy nylon shoulder strap and followed his superior back down the tunnel.

Kenshi lifted the young woman onto his shoulder and carried her towards the airlock door. The cadet followed close behind. They passed through the airlock chamber and stepped into the spaceport beyond.

The port’s interior was dimly lit and very empty. It was 200 meters tall and just as wide, but it ran on and on forever.

“This must be how an ant feels inside a gutter.” Yuri said under his breath.

He couldn’t actually see the other end, where it presumably connected to the colony. The long, dark enclosure was punctuated by dim light poles every 20 meters. The lights exposed matte-grey sheet metal walls which were darkened with a layer of soot-like dust.

In the center of the room were four separate rail lines running in parallel from the end of the port directly to the colony. They were slightly set into the floor. Yuri guessed that each door along the wall was connected to the docked ships he’d seen earlier. This must have been how they transported shipments into and out of the colony.

Kenshi hit a button on a nearby kiosk to call the conveyor tram. Soon enough, one came zooming down the rail line. The trams were heavy-duty, squat metal squares that made freight unloading and loading easier for the larger bay doors. The floor of the tram was level with the floor where they stood.

The tram that arrived was clean, but its silver gray surface had years of dings, knicks and scratches layered over its surface. It stopped right next to them and they floated over it.

Kenshi clicked his heels together twice, and the electromagnets in his boots pulled him right down to the cart’s flat steel surface. Yuri did the same, not really knowing what he was doing, and was pulled down just as quickly.

“Wow, that’s a neat trick.” He said, arms outstretched to stay balanced.

Looking back, these would have made his earlier free-flight journey much more manageable! It would have been nice to know his PLS had grav boots! He wondered what other basic knowledge he was missing out on.

After a few moments, a light around the edge of the square cart platform turned orange, then blue. A stronger, secondary magnet underneath them flipped on, and suddenly Yuri couldn’t move his feet at all. The tram had locked them in place just like it locked cargo. His boots were practically glued to the tram.

Without warning, an audible tone rang out and the tram accelerated fast toward the colony. They watched as overhead lights swept past faster and faster. There was a slight whooshing as they rode through the thin air.

After only a few minutes riding the tram, Yuri could see the end of the line approaching. It was dark, but he could make out a large trapezoidal blast door, possibly the bottom half of a hexagonal opening directly into the colony. This massive blast door would have been useful for moving in excessively large mining and refining equipment into the colony.

The tram came to a sudden halt just before the door, and the same tone played again. As soon as they were fully stopped, the blue light turned orange and then off completely, allowing them to lift their feet again. Kenshi walked off the platform and towards a smaller double-door and second airlock. Yuri followed him.

“The colony has artificial gravity, but not in the port.” Kenshi said, while pressing a button on the panel beside the smaller door.

“Hang on, I almost forgot," The older man said and pulled something out from under his cloak. He turned to hand it to Yuri.

“Here, put this on.” It was a shredded rag of a poncho, and Yuri’s eyes watered at the terrible smell.

It was a stale combination of sweat and citrus, maybe even acid, like someone had tried to clean it with harsh chemicals. Kenshi noticed the boy’s grimace and turned back towards the door wordlessly.

Yuri pulled off his helmet and clipped it onto his hip, like Kenshi’s was. Then he pulled the garbage poncho on over his PLS suit and pushed his arms through the holes. The disguise was passable, but only from a distance. Up close, one would notice the space suit peeking out from under the rags at the neck, feet and wrists.

The two of them passed through the smaller airlock doors and were greeted by a large mezzanine space, covered in soot and trash. There were a pair of broken kiosks up ahead, and freestanding pillar with a dead neon sign atop it reading simply: Rocco-2 Est: 3447 AD

Below the broken sign was a plastic direction board that was so defaced by graffiti and dust that it was impossible to use. Kenshi walked straight past it and kept on towards an alley to their left, between a pair of buildings that ringed in the mezzanine.

Above their heads was open darkness; it was night time in the colony. The hexagonal geodesic domes were immense and their interiors had very tall, rounded ceilings. But the only traces of those ceiling now were the distant red service lights dotting the sky.

Between the surface and the ceiling, a haze hung in the air, illuminated by light poles on a 14 hour timer. They probably followed Earth time, but Yuri wasn’t sure. His own circadian rhythm had been disrupted since he first met Officer Hawthorne.

On the other side of the alley, the slab walkway ended abruptly with a major drop, and only a red handrail stood in the way of a terrible fall. Beyond that railing, a cavernous hole stretched deep into the asteroid’s core, and was lined on all sides with a thin plastic membrane to hold in the colony’s atmosphere.

Yuri paused for a moment while Kenshi continued down the slab stairs to their left. The boy gazed into the hole and noticed air-lock doors in various places in the membrane. Those doors presumably opened mining tunnels where resources had been extracted decades ago.

Having seen enough, and perhaps feeling a bit queasy from the danger, Yuri glanced up from the hole and was greeted by an almost picturesque view of the small colony city.

From atop this vista, the boy could see the town was made up of mostly short, flat buildings in the front, and taller apartment buildings farther out. The small buildings were simple metal husks with foam-core interiors. Some had plastic, single pane windows, and some had open air or broken windows. The corrugated steel exteriors were coated in a dark, hardened grime, and at street level, were seldom taller than three stories.

There wasn’t a hint of grass or wildlife anywhere, just an industrial asphalt plane with slab paved ways and alleys, and storage rooms and streets. Mining colonies like Rocco-2 were backwaters; stepping stones from humanity’s past, early attempts at life off-planet.

Realizing he was being left behind, Yuri hurried after the sergeant down the long, thin slab staircase. Kenshi had already reached the bottom, and not waiting for the cadet, began to cross a thin catwalk stretching over the hole to a sublevel door on the other side.

The city rested on top of a hollowed-out industrial sublevel, presumably where all wiring and plumbing lines ran. This sublevel was where Kenshi was leading him. By the time Yuri had made it to the bottom of the stairs, Kenshi had almost made it to the door.

Yuri tried not to look down as he jogged over the massive crater. He kept his hands on the railings and tried to keep his balance. The last thing he needed was to trip and fall over this monstrous cavern.

He caught up to Kenshi just before the older man jerked the thin, stuck door wide open. He turned back at Yuri and spoke before entering the dark space.

“Stay close, and don’t draw attention to yourself.” It was a withering statement.

Yuri’s ears were burning as they stepped into sublevel, but he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut. Words from his father echoed in his head:

“Actions are more important than excuses. If you make a mistake, make it right.”

The sublevel was so dark they could barely see, but the long dark, dusty hallway eventually led to a dimly lit staircase, and from there, they climbed back up to street level. From there, navigating the urban maze of Rocco-2 began.

Yuri and Kenshi walked quickly. They crossed roads and followed streets into alley after alley. The people they saw, roughnecks mostly, were usually far off in the distance and uninterested, keeping to themselves.

The two FTA agents passed between buildings, over puddles and between waste boxes overflowing with scraps of paper and decades-old litter. The FTA had harsh laws against randomly dumping garbage into space, and the locals here were following them to a fault. The trash-hoarding gave the place an incredible stench.

They came to a small bridge and went under it, towards a shut metal door. Yuri waited while Kenshi levered it up and open, revealing a sewer utility room and subsequent maintenance hallway. They followed it for a good jaunt, walking under hanging orange bulbs and pitch darkness, before they emerged beside a deserted, boxy, angular building.

“Colony Police?” Yuri murmured to himself, reading through the graffiti on the vandalized sign by the building’s front entrance.

“Not anymore. Now there’s just union security forces, and there aren’t many of them left either.” Kenshi replied.

“What happened?” Yuri asked as they kept walking.

“Same thing that happens everywhere. Decay and ambivalence.” The older man replied.

From there, they climbed a ramp into a less congested, open-air courtyard lined with the backsides of buildings.

In the center was a giant garbage pile, filled with gray plastic food canisters, large and small electronics, paper waste, torn cloth, shattered glass, and plenty of sludge, ooze and grime. Upon closer inspection, there appeared to be a transport cart underneath the large overflowing pile, as if someone had driven the initial load of garbage out this far, stalled the machine, and decided to just add to the dumping pile. Some of the surrounding buildings had been built around it.

The pair crossed the courtyard, and on the other side of the dump was the rear entrance of a slightly taller, multi-story common house. There was plenty of unreadable, black-marker graffiti on the rear exterior wall, but above the doorless entryway, a small glowing neon sign hung, dusty and blinking.

The neon sign formed a green and white mountain, and words below read: Peaky’s Bar and Grill. Kenshi stopped a few meters from the door, still carrying Janet on his broad shoulder, and turned to Yuri.

“I need you to go into this place and find Boone. Tell him we’re in the basement.” Kenshi said.

“Okay,” Yuri replied. “Where are we exactly?”

“It’s a dive bar for locals. We’re using the basement as a safehouse. Try to keep a low profile.” The older man said.

Kenshi shifted the girl’s weight on his shoulder, then went off towards a cellar door on the far end of the building, leaving Yuri all alone.

The boy glanced at the neon sign again, and heard muffled noises from within: music, laughter, yelling.

Through the darkened doorway, Yuri walked into a long narrow hall. Dust on the floor was thick, and packed into the corners. On the other end of the hall was a gray curtain hanging across a doorway. As he drew closer, the sounds of merry patrons became louder and clearer.

Yuri pulled the curtain back slowly to reveal the main dining room.

Inside, there were only seven tables, but all were full of scavvers, miners and dead-beats. The room was so jammed up that some folks sat on the floor around the edge, their backs leaned against the walls.

Those closest to the door noticed Yuri first. They looked him up and down, then went back to their conversations, for the most part. Some people in the back stared at the cadet longer, watching his every move, with mean hard stares.

Yuri slowly walked into the noisey, smokey bar. Up close, the locals were mostly old, poc-marked humans, wearing layers and layers of filthy, dust-blackened coats, blankets, jackets and hoodies. Some wore ponchos like Yuri’s.

There was a signature facial grime that everyone had, it seemed to seep into their very pores. It ringed their eyes and lips, sank into their wrinkles. They all had it, except for the young man.

He continued into the room, trying to be casual, and at the same time carefully avoiding getting too close to anyone. He scanned the room quickly, looking for his superior. No sign of him anywhere, so he checked again. He kept his eyes moving, trying not to make eye contact with any of these bruisers for long.

The boy moved counter-clockwise around the room, hugging the walls. He passed a large bar with an older, haggered black woman behind it. She was smoking something from a short, hand-rolled cigarette. It smelled like freshly poured asphalt. Her eyes were glazed over and didn’t even register Yuri passing in front of her.

The right side of the room had two doorways. The first led to a hallway with doors for restrooms at the end of it. A yellow mop bucket held one of the doors open. Yuri considered scoping them out, but decided to leave them for later.

The second doorway had another ratty grayish purple curtain hung in front of it. As Yuri walked past, he caught a glimpse of the inside, and a flicker of light caught his interest. It was a screen of some kind.

The boy took a step back and peered in again. This time he could see everything. A large group of ten miners sat on either side of a long table stretching down the middle. The light he had noticed was one of their wrist transmitters. Every person in the room was staring at the electronic cards on their wrist, and that’s when Yuri figured it out: they were gamblers.

Each player had a black rubber cord stretching from their transmitter to a dealer bot in the middle of the table. As soon as money was lost, it was added to the winner’s Gate account. The local Gate node was probably drowning in thousands of these transactions.

This type of setup was a legal “gray-area.” Normal casinos had taxes and fines, but informal groups like this used special software to hide the gaming wins and losses through financial obfuscation.

The dealer bot in the center did more than just deal electronic cards, it also transformed each credit transfer into an untaxed, unregulated, untraceable series of dummy transactions that could still be listed publicly on the Gate node’s chain. Dozens of these dummy transactions for various amounts were created for each hand, with descriptions and payment categories like “Petty Cash Recovery” and “Artisan Craft Sale.”

Nobody was selling artisan crafts on Rocco-2, but untangling these logs was just hard enough to skate by AI monitoring and FTA audits. And as far as Gate Bank itself was concerned, these guys were having a bake sale.

Yuri knew all this because his father had worked at Gate Bank for the last fifteen years, back on Earth. It had been just the two of them for so long, the boy smirked as he wondered how his by-the-book parent would’ve reacted to such an illicit scene. It would have been an excellent prank to take the man here.

One player sitting farthest from the door was having a terrible hand. His chin and nose were flat on the table and his hands were pulling the hair out of the back of his head. He may have been a little drunk too. But Yuri noticed the familiar sandy blonde hair and the gaunt of his athletic body. It was Boone.

Yuri noticed him, but didn’t approach. The men and woman at the table suddenly roared with laughter as the hand ended, and started pointing at the sergeant in the corner. Yuri was unfamiliar with the game, and evidently, so was Boone.

“Are you with that Boone fella?” Her voice caught Yuri by surprise. He spun around to find the black bartender standing behind him, carrying a platter of drinks for the room.

Yuri held his tongue and studied her face. She seemed like she was trying to get through, and he was blocking her way.

“How did you know that?”

“You’re the only two strangers here. Are you here to haul him off before he loses any more money?”

“What? How much has he lost?” Yuri balked.

“He’s in deep I’m afraid, last time I checked. Course you could stay awhile too. Try to help him win back some of those credits. His luck is bound to change soon.” She spoke with the same relaxed tone as the girl from the scav pod. It seemed to be the local accent.

“No thank-you. That’s his problem. I don’t gamble.” Yuri said, waving his hands and stepping back to make room for her to pass him.

“Alright well you let me know if you want anything to drink.” She said, passing through the purple curtain.

Yuri decided to wait around for her to leave before entering the room. Best to let them get their drinks before interrupting, he assumed. It also gave him a moment to gather his gumption.

Soon enough, the bartender came out with an empty pan and Yuri walked in. Immediately, all eyes turned towards him.

“Shit, you’re supposed to be drinking.” The boy cursed under his breath. At that point, he realized most of the alcohol was sitting near his sergeant’s end of the table.

Slowly, Boone raised his head off the sticky, matte black plastic laminate and recognized Yuri. The second he did, he waved him over, grinning.

The room was long and narrow and the center table took up most of the space. The gamblers were wide and smelled like spoiled milk and pickled eggs. Somehow, they had packed themselves into the room like sardines.

There were four bodies between him and Boone, and it was hard to move. Yuri could only take a few steps at a time, then wait for the next sneering gambler to reflexively cover their transmitter and scoot in slightly. The young man couldn’t help bumping into a few of them on his way to Boone in the back.

“Everyone! This is my protoge, Yuri! I’ve taken him under my wing, and I will teach him everything I know about gambling, women, and cutting loose!”

“Sounds good! Another sucker!” A dark-bearded fellow with a crescent-shaped scar under his eye bellowed out from across the table.

A few giggles and jeers spread around the room. People noticed Yuri coming and made room faster. He finally reached Boone and could smell the whiskey on his breath.

“What are you doing?” The boy asked, but his quandary was ignored by the intoxicated American.

“He’s a quick learner! He’ll be running my whole unit someday, if we can ever find that Zard fella. Remember to keep an eye out for him! And don’t spend my money until I get back!” Said Boone, standing and disconnecting his Gate cord, which whipped towards him and wound back into his transmitter.

The not-so-serious sergeant slung his arm around Yuri’s shoulder and leaned into him, as if he needed stability.

“Help me get to the head, will ya?” Boone slurred.

The row of gamblers parted once again, and together they waded out of room and towards the bathroom with the bucket in front of it. While waiting for Boone to come out, Yuri scanned the main dining room. It seemed unchanged, but the bartender he’d spoken to earlier was gone.

Boone moseyed up from behind and rested his forearm on the lad’s shoulder, leaning on him again, like a cowboy in a saloon.

“Isn’t this place great?” He said. Yuri didn’t notice such a strong scent of alcohol anymore, he must have rinsed his mouth out.

“What was all that?” Yuri blurted out. Boone just smiled with closed eyes.

“It’s good to know people. They can keep you company, vouch for you, bail you out of trouble; they can even tell you things you want to know.” Boone replied, speaking slightly more clearly than before.

“But did you need to get sloshed?” Yuri asked.

“Heh, drinking puts people at ease. Besides, I can handle myself.” The sergeant replied.

“Did you tell everyone here that we’re looking for a Zard?” Yuri asked, watching as a pair of Duroks stood in the back and waddled towards the front door.

“Well, that’s not really the most important thing, is it? The most important thing, is that they know I have a lot of money, and don’t mind parting with it. In a mining colony, that goes a long way.” Boone replied, then spoke again.

“Besides, we’ve either got him trapped on this rock, or he’s already gone. I’m betting he’s still here. Sooner or later, someone will give him up. The more people who know we’re looking, the faster we can get that tip.”

Yuri shook his head. He didn’t know what to say to the man, but he sure wasn’t buying this spiel.

“Kenshi told me to come get you. He said to meet in the basement.” The cadet eventually said.

“Let’s not keep him waiting!” Boone replied.

…

They left the way Yuri had come in and rounded the corner of the building to find the cellar doors Kenshi had used earlier. Boone opened them and stepped down the steep, rounded slab stairs that lead down to a small, dimly lit room with a single, yellow bulb hanging in the middle.

Under the bulb, sat Janet, in a broken chair matching the ones from the dining room above. This basement was long and wide, but mostly packed with crates and crates of alcohol, arranged into aisles of boxes.

As Boone and Yuri descended, Kenshi stepped out of the shadows beside one of the rows of crates, and Janet lifted her head up off her knees, revealing her mouth had been taped over. She glared at the men as they descended into the basement.

“So this is the lone scavver who found you out there in the asteroids?”

“That’s her. Her name is Janet Wilder.” Yuri answered.

“Let me talk to her.” Boone said softly.

Kenshi heard him, stepped forward and ripped the tape off with one quick tug. Janet cried out in pain and tried to stand, but the nylon ties on her wrists and ankles kept her in place.

“I’m getting a drink. I’ll be back in ten.” Kenshi said, climbing out of the cellar and slamming the doors behind him.

“Yuri, take a seat and listen.” Boone said before turning his attention toward the young woman.