Lights In The Sky

By J.F.R. Coates

The
Asteroid Belt was a cold, dark place. But more than that, it was isolated. Each
small chunk of rock slowly orbited Sol on its own. Only very rarely was a rock
close enough to another that they were visible from each other. Usually there
was nothing but an endless black sky filled with thousands of stars. Even the
closest star, Sol, did little but burn the eyes of those who looked towards it
without their visors down.

2557RA3 was
no different to most asteroids. It was small, only a few kilometres across, and
shaped roughly like a peanut. The asteroid spun quickly as it orbited Sol,
about halfway between Mars and Jupiter, thousands of miles from anything else
of note in the belt. It also had a landing craft on its surface. A sleek,
bright ship was precariously perched on the tiny rock. Big red letters were
emblazoned on the side of the craft. ‘Masterson Minerals’.

A large
silo had been constructed on one of the few smooth regions of the asteroid. To
its side was a small hut that would be the shelter for the miners that would be
taking residence on their lonely rock. Both structures gleamed in the bright,
pure light from Sol.

Once the
structures were complete, the ship departed from the asteroid. It wasn’t long
before it was just a tiny pinprick of light amongst a field of thousands of
over small, white lights. The three starats left behind on the surface of the
asteroid knew it would be the last contact they’d have for a very long time.
They stared up into the dark sky until they had lost sight of the ship
entirely.

The starat
on the right of the trio turned to face his companions. Their thick, clumsy
spacesuits made it hard to tell each other apart, and Leandro couldn’t tell
which of the two was Christie and which was Ellen.

“Well, we
are here for three months. Shall we see what toys they have given us,” Leandro
said. He had to hold his hand to the side of his helmet to talk. There was a
button which activated the speakers to communicate with the other two headsets,
or else any sound they made would be lost to the vacuum that surrounded them.

“Bet you
one meal that it’s rusted crap that barely works,” the starat in the middle
said. Leandro recognised Christie’s voice.

No one took
up Christie’s bet, though Leandro doubted they would have been given anything
of particular quality. The humans wouldn’t give starats the best materials.
Leandro muttered a few choice words in the silence of his helmet as he
carefully made his way across the surface of the asteroid. The three walked
hand in hand; a promise they had made to each other to do until they had
hammered in the tether lines that would keep them more secure to the small
rock.

The silo
had looked huge when it had been installed, but as the three starats approached
it they truly got a sense of its sheer scale. It was gigantic, taller than some
skyscrapers on Terra.

“We’re
going to have to hollow out this rock if we want to fill that,” Ellen said. She
slapped her hand against the side of the gigantic structure. Leandro could feel
the vibrations through their interlinked arms, but it was eerie that he couldn’t
actually hear the impact.

“We have
three months for it,” Leandro replied. They lingered for a few moments longer,
their necks craned as they looked up towards the distant top of the silo,
before they slowly moved around to their accommodation. It looked tiny in
comparison. The small hut was tall enough a human could have stood up in it, so
for a starat it was certainly comfortable. Solar panels coated the roof,
providing them with the power they’d need to run the few systems they had
available to them. Leandro pulled open the door, only to find a second,
sturdier door within.

“Holy shit,
they actually gave us an airlock,” Ellen crowed in delight. She slapped
Leandro’s shoulder, and the starat felt his feet lift off the ground in
response. He quickly braced his hands against the door, gripping onto it with
as much force as he could muster through the space suit. Ellen gently tugged
him back down. “Sorry.”

Leandro
slowly let out the breath he had been holding. He could feel the hammering of
his heart. One misstep before they got the tethers down could be fatal. His
hand shook as he fumbled for the button on the side of his helmet. “We should
get inside.”

They could
only go through the airlock one at a time, as it wouldn’t fit any more than
that. The doors were slow, but when Leandro stepped inside the small room his
helmet pinged a notification that he was in a safe breathing environment. He
fumbled around the back of his neck to find the clasps that kept his helmet in
place, before gratefully removing it.

The
grey-furred starat shook his head to loosen up his fur. He was a weasel-like
creature, covered in a thick layer of fur that was almost pinched and compressed
inside suits designed for short humans. His lone remaining ear had been
constantly crushed down against the top of his skull inside the ill-fitting
helmet, and he was not looking forward to dealing with that for so long.

Leandro
brushed a gloved hand over the grey and black fur of his muzzle as he looked
around the small room. Three beds lined one wall. Stacks of dehydrated meals
lined the opposite wall. Other supplies were bundled together at the far end of
the room. Beneath his feet was the bare rock of the asteroid. An airtight seal
was maintained at the base of the structure by a thick layer of a flexible
rubbery material that Leandro didn’t dare touch, just in case it compromised
its integrity.

Ellen was
next to come in. Seeing Leandro with his helmet off, she immediately removed
hers. Like Leandro, she rubbed her ears as she held her helmet under her arm.
“Ow, they did not make these suits for starats, did they?”

“My tail is
awfully cramped,” Leandro replied. He gently placed his helmet down on the
closest of the beds. As much as he hated the thing, he didn’t want to toss it
aside as it was the only thing that would keep him alive outside of the tiny
room. “I am not wearing it for three months solid, I can tell you that right
now.”

“Typical
male. Around two lovely ladies by yourself for three months, and you’re already
talking about getting naked,” Ellen said. She laughed and stuck her tongue out
at Leandro’s flustered attempts at responding. “Nah, I get you. These things
are awful. Keeps riding up into places I do not want it to go.”

Leandro
wrinkled up his muzzle and turned to search through some of the provided
supplies. He found the tethers and ropes, and he could only hope that there was
enough to create safe paths across the asteroid. There was nothing to actually
drill for the minerals, but he assumed that they would be kept within the silo.

The starat
held out a couple of packets of dehydrated food. Within the wrappers, the food
looked just like a bar of indistinct brown mush, but Leandro had survived off
similar before. He had often found it didn’t usually taste terrible. So long as
you forced yourself to forget what food tasted like. “I shall ration these out
properly later, but why not have a celebratory meal now? We are here,
conditions are... decent. And then we can get to work later.”

“Sounds
delightful,” Christie replied. The other starat had removed her helmet as well,
holding it securely beneath her arm. She twitched her muzzle and stuck her
tongue out, but she still caught the bar as it slowly floated through the air.

Together,
the three starats unwrapped their first meal and tentatively bit into the bar
at the same time. “Oh that’s brilliant,” Ellen said, her ears perking up. She
looked around her small group of companions with a grimace across her muzzle.
“I can really taste the cardboard.”

“It is all
we have, I fear. I think they might be all the same flavour too,” Leandro
replied with a laugh. He ran his gloved hand over the stacks of bars that were
piled up along one wall. Every single one looked identical.

“They have
a flavour?” Christie asked. She sniffed at the bar and shrugged her shoulders.
“Could be worse. They don’t taste bad, I suppose. But I sure as shit wouldn’t
say they have a flavour.”

“At least
they remembered to give us food. I heard there was one mining station set up,
and the crew starved after just a couple of days,” Ellen said. She shuddered as
she tried to throw herself down onto the bed. Instead, she just drifted down
slowly and bounced slightly off the mattress.

Leandro
placed his hands on his hips as he looked at the two other starats. His ears
flicked. “Well, we will not starve. There is food and water here. We have
oxygen for the full three months, and even a generous couple of days extra. It may
not be comfortable, but we have all we need right here.” A genuine smile broke
across his muzzle. “And best yet, we have no humans breathing over our necks.”

“Think
they’ll extend my contract here if I ask nicely?” Ellen asked. She swallowed
down another mouthful of her flavourless bar of indeterminate food. She held
the rest of the bar up above her face. “You know, I think this is really
starting to grow on me.”

***

Once they
had finished their meals, the three starats started to prepare their work area
for the next three months. The most important task was to lay down the tethers
that would keep them secured to the rock’s surface. The thick ropes were
secured to the silo and housing hut first, before they were hammered down into
the rocky surface of the asteroid.

It was
stressful work, as every time Leandro hammered the pegs down into the rock, he
could feel the momentum threatening to push him up off the surface. If it wasn’t
for Christie and Ellen holding him down, themselves tethered to the previous
section, then he probably would have drifted away.

Over a few
hours, paths were laid out between the silo, housing, and the first area that
had been designated for drilling. The entire asteroid had been surveyed months
earlier, and all the likely regions for the rich minerals had all been
highlighted on the maps provided. It wasn’t until they drilled into the rock
before they’d know if those surveys had been correct or not.

Once the
tethers were laid out, the three starats could walk across the surface without
constantly feeling like they were one trip away from floating into empty space.
Instead they just needed to be careful the hooks were securely fastened to
their suits and to the guiding ropes.

As Leandro
had expected, the mining equipment was all in the silo. It was all designed to
be carried by hand, with a large wagon that could be pushed to and from the
mining sites around the asteroid. Everything looked rudimentary, and Leandro
knew there was better technology available, but he had always known that
wouldn’t be spared for a simple starat crew.

After several
hours of preparation, Leandro was finally confident that everything was ready
for use. The pathways were tethered, the equipment was installed. All that was
left to do was to begin, but before they did so, Leandro had them all sit down
in the massive silo that would soon, hopefully, be filled with rich ores and
other precious materials.

“I want no
one working out there by themselves,” he said. He remained standing as he
slowly paced around the cavernous space. No matter how far away he walked from
them, or in what direction he was facing, he knew they would hear him clearly
through their helmet speakers. “But nor do I want all of us out there at the
same time. We’ve been set some pretty optimistic targets in how much minerals
we’re to extract, so we’ll need to be working pretty much constantly. We shall
have five hour shifts, as our suits can hold six hours of oxygen at a time. Two
shifts on, one shift off. We can rotate so there’s always one starat at base,
and two mining. Does that sound fair?”

Ellen
shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t think of anything better. Who gets first
rest?”

“You can
have first rest,” Leandro replied. “Then you can, Christie. I rested on the
ship, so I will be fine to work for a while.”

“Sounds
fair to me,” Christie said. She carefully rose to her feet. Even tethered
inside the silo, none of the starats particularly wanted to feel themselves
float off the surface too much. It was uncomfortable at the best of times.
“Shall we get going then?”

Leandro was
the closest to the doors, so he pushed them open. The dim light that had been
illuminating the silo switched off behind them. The darkness was never quite
total on the asteroid, as the gleam of the starlight constantly shone down
around them. Even when Sol was hidden, there was always a small glow around the
close horizons. The glow was particularly strong to one side. Leandro put out
his arms to stop the other two starats from walking past him. They stopped
behind him, and he pressed in the speaker on his helmet.

“Visors on
full tint.”

“It’s still
dark,” Ellen said.

“Full tint.
Trust me, you’ll want to see this,” Leandro replied. He pointed towards the
brightest point on the horizon as he darkened his visor. Everything went almost
pitch black, but for the pinprick of light as Sol slowly started to emerge from
beyond the horizon. Rays of light pierced through the craters and blemishes on
the surface of the crater. Even through the fully tinted visor, the light was
bright and powerful, forcing Leandro to avert his eyes as they started to
water.

For a brief
moment, the entire asteroid appeared to glow as the sunlight reflected off the
fine layer of dust coating the rock. All was still and silent.

“It’s
beautiful,” Christie whispered.

Leandro
smiled. He spoke into his helmet, his voice heard only by his own cramped ear.
“It really is. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. We can be like the
explorers of old, seeing wonders that are innocent and pure.” He looked up to
the distant stars. “Oh, to have that life.”

***

Life
quickly turned into one of routine and structure for the three starats. The
sunrises never once lost their wonder though, despite happening every three
hours. Ten hours of work was followed by five hours of rest, and that was all
the starats could ever have. Rest in the small hut was spent trying to sleep
while not floating off the bed, and work was spent drilling into the rocky
surface and gathering all the minerals that they could dig out.

Every five
hours the two starats mining would return back to the silo to deposit their
cargo. One starat would remain behind, while the other would replenish their
oxygen and head back out with the third starat. And so the cycle would continue
and repeat. Over and over, for countless repetitions. But through it all, the
starats laughed and talked amongst each other. It was all they had to stop
themselves from going insane from the forced repetition of their work.

At the
start of every shift, Leandro checked their reserves of food, water, and oxygen
to make sure they weren’t using too much. Their human owners had been
considerate, and had provided enough to be reasonably comfortable. It was more
than some starats could have hoped for.

For two
months that was their routine. Slowly their supplies dwindled, but they
diminished at a rate that meant they would have enough for two days leeway
should they be picked up a little late.

Leandro had
just finished his double shift mining. His shoulders hurt, and he had struggled
out of his suit to drape it over the bed. They had no other clothes to wear,
but none of the starats minded each other’s nudity, and there were few
occasions when they were present together inside their small hut. While most
starats were shades of brown, Leandro’s distinct grey and black fur made him
stand out. He had always been proud of his fur, and enjoyed showing it off. In
the few occasions they had been present together, his two companions had been
happy to admire it as well.

With a
smile on his muzzle, Leandro started to run his usual checks over their
supplies. He didn’t get far though, before there was a loud thump against the
hut. It shook the entire building, and immediately Leandro was on his feet. His
fur had puffed up and his tail stuck straight out behind him. A cold shiver ran
down his spine. He knew enough to realise that loud noises in space were rarely
good things.

The starat
hurried over to his helmet and put it on, fingers scrabbling for the
communicator button. “Check in please.”

A response
came back a few moments later. It was crackly and indistinct, but Leandro knew
that they were mining on the far side of the asteroid, so the signal was poor.
“We’re here, Leandro. Is everything alright there?” Ellen replied.

“I do not yet
know,” Leandro said. He flicked his tail nervously. “I heard something hit the
shelter. I will suit up again and investigate.”

A brief
pause followed. “Be careful out there. Do you want us to come back?”

“No, not
yet at least. I will call you if I need you back.”

“Alright
then. Be safe. Hear from you soon.”

Leandro
took a deep breath as he removed the helmet again. He looked down at the suit
that he had draped across his bed. Despite the systems within it to help
minimise and deal with waste, including sweat, the suit was starting to smell.
Leandro didn’t want to waste any of their precious water to wash it, but he had
to wrinkle his nose every time he had to put it on. He had been hoping for five
hours without having to put up with wearing it, but it was not to be.

The suit
was awkward to put on without any help, but Leandro had two months of practice
with it now. Within ten minutes he’d got it on properly, and was clipping the
helmet securely in place. He crouched down to pick up his tether rope and
stepped out into the airlock. His tail still twitched in nervousness, even with
it awkwardly stuffed down with his right leg.

After he
linked himself to the tether tracks outside, Leandro carefully inched around
the side of their shelter. He couldn’t see any damage. The solar panels seemed
intact, and there wasn’t anything broken around the front of their small hut.
It wasn’t until he got around to the back, where all their water and air were
stored, that he noticed the damage. Leandro’s blood went cold.

Visible
against the empty vacuum was a small cloud leaking from one of the pipes that
ran between the hut and the storage containers. For a few seconds Leandro
couldn’t move at all as he watched their precious air leaking out into space.

“Oh no no
no no,” he groaned, galvanised into sudden action. He turned and raced back to
the silo, knowing there were some tools in there. It was difficult to run in
the minimal gravity environment, but he knew he had to hurry. One hand held
onto the tether ropes, and his other slapped against the communicator button on
his helmet. “We have an oxygen leak. Come back as quick as you can. I may need
help sealing it.”

Both
starats tried to respond at once, leaving just a garbled mess of static in his
ear. He was sure they were going to be coming back though. He needed all the
help they could get. If the leak wasn’t contained then they would die; it was
as simple as that.

The silo was
full of unprocessed minerals and ore. The three starats had been trying to keep
it all as organised as possible, but most of it was stacked depending on when
it was recovered from the asteroid. It was a towering pile of rock and metal,
but that wasn’t what Leandro was after. Instead he wrenched open a couple of
small doors at the base of the tower and pulled out the tool kits that had been
provided for them. They were rudimentary, but they were better than the
starat’s gloved hands.

Leandro
raced back to the small hut with his precious equipment hugged close to his
chest. He stumbled a few times and for a couple of heart stopping moments both
feet failed to hit the rocky surface. Then the tether ropes pulled slack and
dragged him back down again. He hit the ground with a jarring thud, wincing as
the impact shook his knees.

With a
fresh limp in his gait, Leandro kept pushing on. A little pain was nothing
compared to the dread of running out of air. As Leandro reached the hut, he
squawked in surprise as the tether rope pulled slack. He fell back and bounced
off the rock, dropping the tool kit at the same time. He watched helplessly as
a single screwdriver ricocheted off the rock and started to float off into
space, quickly out of reach.

“I hope I did
not need that,” he muttered as he rolled over onto his front. Only then did he
realise why he had been pulled back. The tether rope simply didn’t go far
enough to allow him to stand in front of the leak. The system had been designed
with the longer arms of a human in mind. The starats were paying for that now.

Though he
couldn’t get any closer, Leandro was just about able to stretch his arms out
and get his fingers around the valve that controlled the air flow. Slowly he
was able to turn it, and the flow of oxygen ceased. The leaking cloud of air
dried up and dispersed into the vacuum. No more air was escaping, but nor was
any air circulating in their hut, nor refilling their spare oxygen packs.

Leandro
grimaced to himself. He had to fix the leak quickly, or else they would have to
risk losing even more oxygen just to make sure they had enough to breathe short
term. The problem was, he couldn’t reach the broken pipe, no matter how much he
stretched himself out. There was only one choice he could make. His hands shook
as he unclipped his tether.

Taking a
couple of nervous steps, Leandro gripped hold of the pipes in both hands to
steady himself. He kept his legs wide to try and ground himself firmly. It
would have worked had there been gravity to hold him down, but mostly it was
just for ease of his own mind.

The pipe
had almost completely ruptured about half way between the tank and the hut. It
looked like it had been struck by something in a glancing blow. Leandro could
only be thankful it hadn’t directly hit the tank, or else they could have lost
their whole supply in one unfortunate strike. The starat glanced down to the
tools he had. There wasn’t much there, and certainly no replacements. He would
have to make do with what they had. He had no other choice.

Carefully
crouching down, Leandro searched through the open kit, making sure he didn’t
accidentally knock anything else out of the asteroid’s orbit. Almost everything
was utterly useless to the situation at hand, but then he found a couple of
small circular rubber sealing sleeves. Inside his helmet, his ear twitched a
little, folding back against the uncomfortable interior. Instinctively, Leandro
tried to scratch his ear back into place, only tapping his hand against the
side of his helmet.

Leandro
held up the rubber sleeve up to the pipes. They looked about the same size. He
twitched his muzzle and wondered what the best way to affix them was. He looked
to either end of the pipe, but it appeared to be pretty securely connected to
the tank and hut. He doubted he’d be able to remove it from either end. That
left just one option remaining.

The starat
held the pipe with his hands either side of the rupture. He pulled and twisted
on the pipe, feeling it bend slightly, but not by enough. He grimaced. He
didn’t want to use the power tools untethered, but he didn’t have much choice.

With one
hand always holding onto the pipe, Leandro prepared the cutting blades. They
would have the power to slice through the pipe fully, but he would have to be
careful the force they exerted didn’t push him back too much.

Sweat
dripped from Leandro’s fur. It trickled down his body before it was collected
by the suit’s waste receptors. It irritated him, especially as it dripped down
over his eyes, but there was nothing he could do to wipe it away. He blinked a
few times to try and clear his vision, before he slowly started to cut through
the pipe. A few sparks briefly flared, and he was thankful there was no more
oxygen flowing.

The pipe
slowly started to buckle and bend under the force of the spinning blade, before
it finally gave way with a sudden wrench. Leandro fell forward as the
resistance suddenly ceased. He bounced against the pipes, and the cutting blade
fell from his hands and switched off immediately. The starat flipped over the
pipe and floated up. But for his iron grip on the pipe, he would have already
soared high above the ground.

“Shit shit
shit,” he swore to himself inside his helmet. His arm strained as he kept his
grip on the pipe, his only lifeline now. His free hand scrabbled in empty space
as he tried to find something else to hold on to.

Everything
seemed to move so slowly as he tried to pull himself back. His elbow and
shoulder screamed at him in pain as he strained them, trying to move so slowly
so he didn’t jolt himself out of orbit. His fingers started to slip.

Terror
coursed through his veins. Not only was he going to die, but he would kill
Ellen and Christie too. He had to pull himself back.

His fingers
slipped further. There wasn’t much left to hold on to. Leandro squeezed his
eyes closed.

A hand
gripped around his elbow. His eyes jerked open again to see Ellen in front of
him. Through her visor he could see her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear what
she was saying. He didn’t need to hear her. He whimpered softly inside his
helmet as he unhooked his fingers from the pipe. She had him.

Ellen
quickly hooked Leandro up to her tether ropes, and with Christie’s help they
pulled him back down to the surface. His whole body trembled as his feet
touched down on the ground once more, and he pulled them both into an awkward
hug. Their helmets bumped up against each other.

“Thank
you,” he said, before realising that they wouldn’t be able to hear him. He
pulled back out of the hug and pressed in the button on his helmet. “Thank you,
but we are not through it yet. Keep me tethered. I still have to fix this.”

“We’ll keep
a hold of you,” Ellen replied. She tested the link between them, making sure
Leandro was fully tethered. She stepped out to pull her tethering cable taut,
giving the other starat as much freedom of movement as she could provide.

Feeling the
confidence of being tethered, Leandro was able to move with a little more
certainty. He carefully bent the two halves of the pipe apart so he could slide
the rubber sleeve on. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but Leandro was confident he
could make it a better seal once the two halves were reconnected. It was slow
work, but Leandro was able to pull the two parts of the pipe together beneath
the rubber sleeve. He took a deep breath when it was done, before he rummaged
around in the tool kit for some silver tape. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all he
had.

The starat
wrapped the tape around the rubber seal, adding as many layers as he could get
away with before the entire black sleeve was completely coated in the
reflective silver tape. He handed the remainder of the roll back to Ellen,
before he tried to smooth down the crinkled edges as best he could. It looked
crude, but then Leandro knew that was because it was. But if it worked, then
that was all that mattered.

With his
heart thumping loudly in his chest, Leandro turned the valve back on. He stared
at the bodged repair job, the tip of his tail twitching down his right leg.
Nothing leaked. No cloud of precious oxygen escaped. His legs felt weak, and he
slowly fell back into Ellen behind him.

“How much
did we lose?” Christie asked. Her voice wavered across the speakers inside
Leandro’s helmet.

“I do not
know that yet. I need to check inside,” Leandro said. A flutter of anxiety rose
in his chest. He knew they didn’t have much spare air to last the remaining
month. If they lost too much, then they wouldn’t be able to safely make it.
Oxygen wasn’t something they could ration.

Leandro
didn’t even bother removing his suit after he got back inside. He simply
unclipped his helmet and made his way across to the sensors tucked away in one
corner. Water levels were still fine, but he had expected that. His throat went
dry when he saw the oxygen readings. His hands trembled as he turned around.

“We’re here
for twenty-seven more days. We have twenty-three days of air remaining.”

Ellen
dropped down onto the nearest bed. “Well shit.”

“Well what
do we do? We can’t just... not breathe,” Christie said. She threw her arms up
in the air.

“I’ll
trigger the distress beacon. They’ll have to come pick us up early,” Leandro
said. His voice was dull and flat. His held his head in his gloved hands.

“You know
they won’t do that,” Ellen retorted. She growled softly beneath her breath as
she started to wriggle free of her suit. Her coffee and cream fur was usually a
sight Leandro was happy to see, but this time he didn’t even look up. “They
don’t give a shit about us. They’ll just expect us to keep working and digging
until we choke to death.”

“They might
come. We have to try it,” Leandro pleaded. “There isn’t any other way.”

Christie
cleared her throat. “There is another way.”

Leandro’s
eyes snapped across to the other starat. He flicked his ear and frowned. “What
other way?”

Christie
slowly breathed out. Her eyes flicked towards the airlock. “One of us goes
outside and removes our helmet.”

“No,
absolutely not,” Leandro barked. He rose to his feet too quickly and had to
push himself back to the floor off the ceiling. “No one is going to do that.”

“But then
there’s enough air for the remaining two,” Christie replied. “I’ll volunteer
myself, if I must. If it means you both survive.”

“That’s not
happening. No one is going to sacrifice themselves,” Leandro growled. He stood
in front of the airlock, prepared to push Christie back if needed to.
Thankfully, she remained by the bed.

“So what do
we do?” Ellen asked. She had draped her suit against the end of her bed. Her
naked body stretched out over the bed and she stared up at the ceiling. “We
just keep breathing until suddenly we can’t?”

“I activate
the distress beacon and we wait for rescue,” Leandro said. He tried to keep his
voice steady and confident. “They will come.”

***

They didn’t
come.

For three
weeks the three starats tried their best to ignore the depleting oxygen levels.
Leandro checked their reserves every day, but they were never able to recover
enough air to support them for those critical four days short. His repairs on
the pipes had held, but there was nothing that could be done for the oxygen
that had already been lost. They had worked smaller shifts with larger rest
times between, so they didn’t exert themselves too much. They would need less
oxygen that way, but it hadn’t been enough.

At the end
of every shift, Leandro spent ten minutes outside just looking up into the
darkness. He hoped for lights in the sky to herald their rescue, but nothing
ever came.

Despite
their dire situation, no one ever brought up the offer to sacrifice themselves
again, though Christie did occasionally share some dark looks with Ellen. The
window of opportunity for that dark outcome had come and gone anyway. There
wasn’t enough oxygen left for even two of them to survive until their planned
extraction. A sacrifice was worthless.

Leandro
didn’t speak to either of the starats. He kept his head bowed and didn’t meet
their eyes. His reluctance to accept a sacrifice had killed them. He stared
mournfully at the oxygen metre. If they didn’t exert themselves too much, then
they would have enough air to comfortably breathe for another ten hours.

A hand
rested on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

Leandro
turned to see Ellen standing behind him. She pulled him into a hug, and he
enjoyed the close contact of her fur against his. His cheeks were wait, and he
was surprised to find hers were too.

“It is my
fault,” Leandro replied mournfully. “I should have made the decision. I should
have been the one to go.”

Ellen’s
arms squeezed tighter around Leandro. “No, you shouldn’t have been. It wouldn’t
have been the right decision for one of us to go outside. None of us should
have gone through that.”

“Instead we
all will,” Leandro whispered.

“But at
least we’ll all be together,” Christie said, from her usual place on the bed.
With so little air remaining, the three had decided to down their tools for
good. There was no point in filling the silo any further, given they would
never see their owners come to collect them.

“Yeah,
we’ll be together,” Leandro said with a nod. He moved out of Ellen’s embrace
and wiped his eyes dry. “Until the end.”

Leandro
sunk down onto the nearest bed, and Christie shuffled up to sit by his side.
She rested her arm across his shoulders. Her fingers slowly swirled through his
fur. “You know what we should do?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“Go see the
sunrise again.”

Leandro
laughed and shook his head slightly. “That is not what I thought you were going
to say,” he said, and for a brief moment he was able to forget his worries.

Christie
blinked and flicked her ears in confusion, but then her eyes lit up in mirth.
She cackled and slapped Leandro lightly across the shoulder. “You dirty male.
Is that all you ever think about?”

“Well...”
Leandro said, spreading his hands wide. “There is no reason why we can’t after
we’ve seen the sunrise.”

Ellen
smirked. “I’d be down for that. What do you say, Christie? Going out with a
bang, as it were.”

“Sounds
like a deal,” Christie said. The wide smile across her muzzle only faltered for
a moment. “Though I think we’ve got a couple of hours still before sunrise.
Want a little taster of the big event?”

Leandro
found himself pinned down to the bed as the two female starats clambered on top
of him. He grinned from ear to ear. They would soon run out of air, but at
least they would enjoy themselves first. The time for worry had gone. Instead
it was time to focus on pleasure and happiness above all else. It was something
Leandro was easily able to do.

***

The three
starats stood outside their small shelter for the last time. Hand in hand they
stared towards the horizon. Their mining efforts had changed the shape of the
asteroid, and the horizon was different to the first time they had looked upon
it. There was less of it, with large chunks of rock blasted away into the
vacuum of space.

Leandro
couldn’t stand still. He had hurried when putting his suit on. His tail was
pinched awkwardly, but it didn’t bother him enough to go and fix it. He
wouldn’t be wearing the suit for long. Just enough time to watch the sunrise,
then they would go back to their last few hours inside the little hut.

Twisting
his back to try and wriggle his tail into a more comfortable position, Leandro
caught sight of the opposite horizon. Something seemed strange about the stars
there. They moved. His breath caught in his throat, and his fingers numbly
fumbled for his communicator.

“There’s a
light! A light in the sky!”

“Yeah, I
see it,” Ellen replied, but her eyes were still on Sol.

“No,
there,” Leandro crowed, pulling Ellen around so she could see where he was
pointing.

“Holy
shit!” Christie exclaimed as she turned on her toes. She took a couple of steps
forward, waving her arms in the air as though the distant ship would be able to
see her. He knew it was a useless endeavour, but Leandro joined in. The three
starats all jumped up, waving their arms madly.

The lights
in the sky got brighter as the ship approached. Impossibly, it was coming to
rescue them. Instead of waving their arms into the air, the three starats
embraced each other, wrapping themselves up in their arms.

“I told you
they’d come,” Leandro said, tears falling freely from his eyes. It didn’t even
matter that the other two couldn’t hear him.

The ship
was not branded, so Leandro knew that it wasn’t from their owners. For a few
minutes, the ship just hovered above the asteroid, before it slowly came down
to land a hundred metres away from the silo. The three starats quickly ran
across to meet their rescuers, just as a ramp lowered down from the near side
of the ship. A single figure emerged from the airlock and walked down the ramp.
Judging from the height, Leandro could tell they were human.

The figure
silently stood in front of the starats. The mysterious stranger held their hand
to their helmet. Suddenly a voice reached Leandro’s ear.

“This
frequency?” a male voice asked.

“I hear
you,” Leandro replied quickly, nodding vigorously at the same time, just in
case the human couldn’t hear him.

“Who owns
you?” the human asked.

“Masterson
Minerals,” Leandro said. The tip of his tail twitched nervously.

“Masterson,
hey? Mining group? Got lots of minerals?” The human looked towards the silo.

“Three
months worth,” Leandro said. He took half a step back from the human, towards
the two starats behind him.

The human
turned back to his ship and waved his arms. Three more humans emerged from
within the ship, and they all approached the silo. None of them were tethered,
but they seemed confident in their steps. Leandro wondered how they did it, but
his attention was soon taken by the nearest human, who had turned back to face
them.

The human’s
tinted visor cleared. Inside the helmet was a young human with a silver lock of
hair visible over his forehead. He smiled down at Leandro. “I hereby free you
from your servitude with Masteron Minerals. Your cargo is now the property of
the Silver Fox, and you three are welcome to join his crew.”

“Oh that’s
great,” Ellen squealed. She stepped ahead of Leandro. “When do we get to meet
him?”

The human
blinked. “Meet him? He’s me. I’m the Silver Fox, famed pirate and scourge of
the empire.”

Ellen
didn’t broadcast anything she said, but Leandro could see her shoulders shaking
in laughter. Recognising that the situation perhaps needed to be recovered,
Leandro stepped forward and held his gloved hand out towards the human. “Mr
Silver Fox, it will be our pleasure to join your crew. Our oxygen is low, so
the sooner we get on board your ship the better.”

The Silver
Fox gestured to the ramp. “By all means. Welcome aboard the Emperor’s Revenge. Let me give you the
tour.”

Leandro followed
the human and other two starats up the ramp. Before he entered the airlock he
paused and turned around. Sol was emerging from behind the horizon now. Light
shone off the gleaming silo and refracted off the scattered shards of rock on
the once-pristine asteroid. The starat smiled as he left it all behind.

He was no
longer the property of Masterson Minerals.

He was no
longer a slave.

He was a
pirate now.