Page 2 of Kryxis

Dani watched them, pushing down her anxiety. She took a deep breath, shifting her eyes over to the cockpit, beyond the faceless scibot pilots to the dark windowpane. She couldn’t seethe ground yet, but she knew what to expect. A dreary world. With the ruins of some city built by a company that had decommissioned and abandoned it some time ago.

Just like the many others she’d gone to, down to collect the remnants of these lost cities—machines, energy resources, expensive tech, sometimes even weapons. Things that were left behind but later wanted back, either for spare parts or to recycle or to sell. The cities were built to mine resources and make products until something made them stop, leaving everything behind.

Usually, it was funding. Sometimes it was because of an unknown disaster. The report for planet X110 didn’t make it fully clear, just that it had been abandoned some years ago.

Dani straightened in her seat as the ship began to slow down. It didn’t matter, really. A job needed to be done, and she’d get it done, so help her.

And when you do, you’ll be wearing the blue suit in no time,she said silently to herself.

She glanced down at her orange one, making her and the others look like they were wearing prison uniforms, only more durable with belts and several pockets. On her right wrist was her garometer. It reported life on this world, so she could collect more than the artifacts they were assigned to find. That excited her at least.

Yes, they’d get back in record time, she’d collect some samples along with the artifacts, and then…

She closed her eyes and took another slow breath.

Then she’d be moving up to the science sector. Nadine promised. The heads agreed.

“You’ve done good work, Dani,” Nadine had said several days ago, smirking at her from the opposite side of the conference room table where they sat. Around her had been five other company heads in their sleek black uniforms. Those whomanaged over the lower ranks. They had nodded in agreement. “You proved yourself on that last run, despite the unfortunate events.”

By unfortunate events, Nadine meant the death of their collection leader. He’d mistakenly opened a vault door inside a lab which had been pressurized from inside by lethal gas. As soon as he opened it, the blast took down half the building, taking their collection leader out with it. They said his body shattered into a thousand pieces like glass. His blood vaporized.

Thankfully, she and her crew hadn’t been inside. Because their collection leader thought he could make a quick run in despite the risk.

This wasn’t anything new for the collectors. Danger was part of the job. Out of all the sectors, it was the most lethal, with more deaths than any other in their company. Even with the drones and a security team, accidents happened. A lot.

Once their collection leader was gone, she knew someone had to step up for the remainder of the mission. Without hesitating, she started directing the others, grabbing what they could find and getting out of there before anyone could panic.

Showing that kind of leadership in a stressful situation was a straight ticket to meeting with the heads at the top. And getting a chance at promotion. When asked where, Dani had one answer.

“The science sector would welcome you,” Nadine said. “And you’d be given rank as junior officer to start. But we still need a little more from you. This was just one incident, after all. We are going to assign you and your team to a new mission and give you the reins.” With the tap of her finger, the table lit up, showing planet X110. “We were just contracted by Marityne Industries. They want us to go to one of their company cities near the Iron Belts. A little off the radar for a resource world like this, and it’s been abandoned for some time. There are several materials they want us to retrieve, including cryo-batteries, a datachip,and storage capsules among other things. Complete this run and we’ll give you a spot on the science team.”

Finally. Where she should have been placed. Just like her mother, a head scientist many years ago. The one place where she could really prove her skills. Prove her father and siblings wrong. Prove to the others what she was made of. Prove to the organization that she was as dedicated as anyone could be.

She opened her eyes and stared up at the slogan along the ship’s wall.

NEXACOR. REBUILDING WORLDS.

Nexacor went to these decommissioned worlds in hopes of repairing them. They’d collect data and materials companies wanted to recover before scraping the rest and working on cleaning it and making it new. Even re-terraforming. They could make farming worlds instead, or reserves. Turn these metal and stone graveyards into something tangible.

Most had potential to be rebuilt. Only some had to be left to rot. Usually, a demolition team came down to destroy the cities after collectors scraped what they could.

“It’s always for the best,” her mother had said once. “A clean, better world, without all the toxic, ugly things.”

“Be careful on this world, though, Dani,” Nadine said after the meeting. “We don’t want another incident like before.”

No, definitely not.

She glanced around at her crew and saw Morse’s drool starting to slide off his chin onto the floor. The poor drogin really should be with the mechanics on the main ship. Even with his canine-like face, she could see how pained he was, his nose scrunched, dark wolfish eyes staring angrily at the ground.

She heard a low chuckle to her right and turned her gaze toward the back of the ship where four soldiers sat, dressed in armored gear, guns on their laps.

The security team was to patrol and nothing more. One thing that came about with collecting, even in a dead city, was the risk of infestation—bugs mostly, and rodents, some growing as large as a child. But other things tended to find their way in the cities too, usually from tradeships.

It was always a fifty-fifty on how bad. Sometimes the infestations were sparse, and other times it was like a plague.

Shifting in her seat, she studied the soldiers talking softly to one another. They wore the Nexacor insignia on their breast plates, a sunrise with four stars above. One soldier, grinning ear to ear, pointed his hand like a gun and pretended to shoot something. He made a crazed face, his eyes rolling back, his body shaking, as if reenacting someone or something dying by electric shock. The others laughed.

Dani looked away, gaze returning to the sign on the wall.

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