The Dig

[Barrier]

Marko al-Assam was not a happy man. Ever since returning from the warzone around the Freeport, he seemed to be a shadow of his former self. Food did not have the same taste – even the red kibble from the Eagle seemed just so much dusty cardboard.

It didn’t help that half the population of Pygar seemed to assume that he fought for the losing side. His friends, the ones that survived anyway, boasted of the number of corsairs they splashed, the totals growing along with their inebriation. Marko, on the other hand, couldn’t make the same boast, seeing as he fought WITH the corsairs… He knew he never fired upon a fellow zoner, but his own conscience and that of the desert planet were two different things. He continued pushing the cleaning unit to the next car of the tram.

With no outfit willing to trust him to watch their back, his ship has been relegated to long-term storage, caves which were falling apart by the day but were cheap enough. With the same problem plaguing his applications to internal security services, Marko was forced to find another way to make a living. He knew that he could always leave, and join the fight against the Libertonians, or escort transports from Gran Canaria. But Pygar was his home, and here he would stay.

He activated the bulkhead with his low-level override, something he was at least still trusted to do. Without any people in the car, he didn’t even bother checking the cabin pressure status before moving forward into the airlock. He’d already almost killed some poor sod who had fallen into a drunken stupor after being left by his mates. But this late into “night-time”, most people kept to their underground apartments, which is just the way he liked it.

He was still turning the idea of taking out a loan and flying to Gran Canaria when the airlock finished cycling, and he was met with five hard men with guns, all pointed straight at him. Almost inadvertently, he noticed containers of gear deeper in the car. A hysterical thought burst into his brain:
‘Those would be a hell of a lot of work to move to let the unit clean the surfaces.’, immediately followed by ‘That’s not gonna be my problem for much longer.’
But instead of shooting, one man barked a command, and his team lowered their weapons, still keeping them ready. He holstered his own, and advanced towards Marko, who now noticed a small pin on his uniform.
“Keep you hands in the air, and we will not need to escalate further.” Marko complied. “State your name and purpose here.”
“My name is Marko al-Assam. I’m with Dusty-less Solutions… I just clean the trams!”
“Boss, it doesn’t matter. He’s already seen too much. We don’t have time to lug a prisoner around.”
Garcia raised his arm and waved off his subordinate.
“And what brought you to this tram in particular?”
Marko noticed the man watching him intently, and said the first thing that came to mind.
“Nothing! I just like doing the rounds afterhours!” He had a sudden moment of clarity. “This is about that dig site, isn’t it? Look I promise, I don’t know anything about that stuff!”
But he did – he couldn’t help connecting the dots. This route went into what the locals named the “Doldrums”. There were always landgrab bonuses for the taking from Admin, but even new settlers on Pygar knew better than to take advantage of them. Nothing ever happened in the Doldrums – until now, apparently. The man others called boss clearly saw that Marko made some kind of connection.
“You look like a local. You know who we are, you know what this is about. So what can you do for us to avoid getting discovered in the wastes during the next overflight?” The man casually leaned on the wall of the tram, but Marko realized that this would also open up the field of fire from his team.
“I.. I can help you with that gear. This thing has a grav pallet built in, that’s how I move it around!” The man nodded, still not quite impressed. “And, and.. I can delay the tram!”
One of the others rolled their eyes.
“You know that won’t do anything. This thing will wait for a few minutes and then the autopilot will speed up on its way back to stay on schedule.”
“No! I mean I can really delay it. I have an override! It’d be my ass, but hey, better that than the desert, right?” Marko let out an anxious chuckle, still looking at the boss.
He looked back, assessing, and finally gave a nod.
“Mission proceeds as planned. We’ll have Marko here give us some technical assistance.”

-

Marko trudged back along the track, still unable to believe he was alive. Even the grit striking his suit felt like a long-awaited shower, reminding him that his body was still able to feel. He needed badly to piss, and his throat was parched, but he focused on getting back to the hub, and what he would do when he got there. He couldn’t see anything past his own hands, but his internal map laid out a clear path back, alongside the empty track.

His interface pinged with a string of updates, and he knew he was in range of short-term comms. He didn’t even bother enabling the hud to read what it said – everything could wait until he did what he had to do. He doffed he suit in the airlock and left it there before it even finished cycling. He wiped his face clean of the decon foam, and still dripping, pushed past a small crowd of commuters who waited forlornly near the blinking red lights of the tram terminal.
“Hey, aren’t you with maintenance? How long do we gotta wait for this thing to arrive?!”
Marko ignored them all, trudging steadily towards the local neural net node office. He found a cubicle, and collapsed into the off-white blocky chair connected to the terminal. He swiped his card, and mashed through the confirmation screens, barely even looking at the credit amount. Only after hitting “send” after typing his message did he allow himself to take a long, shaky breath, and let the lights of the cubicle wash over his pallid face.