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The harsh buzz of the overhead intercom would be enough to jolt a bear from hibernation: “Good morning A Shift. This is your pre-shift wake-up call. Please prepare yourself for the day.”

Blankets shifted, and a sleeping beast groaned beneath them. Keilani dragged in a breath, held it, then let it fall out in a rough, rasping sigh. Good fucking morning, indeed. She flung the blankets away, stretched her limbs, and forced herself to sit up. One hand unconsciously combed through her messy orange hair and scratched behind a round feline ear. There was never enough time for sleep on this fucking rock.

Morning stretches came slowly. Arms first, then an arched back, her black tank top riding up her toned tummy. Then legs, hips swiveling where human skin met sleep-messy orange fur with wicked black stripes. Long tiger-like legs stretched out, toes splaying and claws unsheathing for just a moment. A long striped tail went rigid.

Then she went limp again, collapsed onto the bed, and heaved another sigh. “On your feet, soldier.”

Saying it was easier than coaxing her legs back to life. She turned her head to the other side of the room, where a second bed housed a bulging cocoon of blankets. Kei hauled herself to her feet. Leg muscles pulled clean and responsive. At least those still worked. She wandered over to the other bed, leaned down, and gave a firm shake to the bundle of sleepiness curled up on it. “C’mon, Bug. I know you’re not sleeping through that shit.”

A soft, boyish voice mumbled back from the cocoon: “Five minutes.”

“Get your ass up before I peg it.”

Something wiggled inside the blanket ball, struggling to escape. What emerged was not a beautiful butterfly or elegant moth, but a human face, freckled and brown-eyed, short black hair a tangled mess. His cheeks flushed as he stared up at the tiger-modder. “You gonna be gentle?”

Kei snorted. “No lube if you aren’t out of bed in thirty seconds.” She rustled Bug’s hair and hurried to her half of the room. A pile of unfolded laundry sat ready for her to rifle through. Various textures and materials grazed her fingertips; hand-sewn fur, hardened leather, smooth synth-thread manufactured off-world…

Bug rolled onto the floor with a dull thud and a muted “Ow, fuck”. He unrolled himself from his nest, grabbed his enormous circular glasses from his nightstand (where else could he have gotten that nickname?) and stretched his lanky, half-naked frame. Just how some pale twenty-year-old nerd from the core worlds had ended up here was anyone’s guess. He only ever answered with “I saw something I shouldn’t have.”

It was a good enough answer on this planet.

“Man I’d kill for my old VR setup.” Bug complained, gathering up a pair of synth-thread pants and shirt. He started to undress, and was quick to hide his nudity under a clean bath robe. “Nothing like waking up to high-poly titties right in your face.”

“What, mine not high-poly enough?” Kei offered a half-smirk as she stripped off her night clothes and picked out a set of heavy fur-lined pants, a simple t-shirt, and a matching heavy jacket to greet the day with.

The human man stammered and stumbled back onto his bed to tie up his robe. “Virtual girls don’t tease you for looking! Or give you awful nicknames that spread to the whole colony!”

She could only chuckle at that. Some things were universal no matter what planet you were from, and awkward nerdy boys were no exception. At least that was the worst thing she’d ever done to him. Kei gathered her things, threw on her robe, and made for the door, small toiletry bag in hand. “I’m gonna hit the shower. You plan on stinking up the monitoring room, or are you coming with?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Bug huffed and grumbled as he fell in beside her. “Also, I’m not the one who stinks! Someone in there really doesn’t believe in getting wet!”

The hallways buzzed as the morning shift rose to greet another day. Kei and Bug joined one of the many shower lines, passing some weary overnighters on their way in for some leisure and rest. Kei quietly observed just how long the lines had gotten in the last couple years—more drop pods, more refugees from failed attempts at civilization, more wannabe mercenaries trudging back from botched contracts… It didn’t take much for all the little trickles of people to start adding up. The showers weren’t so bad. Seven stalls in this wing alone. But damn did meal times get hectic.

Most of the settlement’s residents were baseline humans, but she wasn’t the only gene-modder in Lakeside Haven. Just in their line alone, she spotted two impids—one red and one yellow, both sporting horns and a wicked spaded tail. She’d even seen a highmate or two wander the halls in her time here, looking for some morale to “boost”. What a life.

“Least they got all the stalls working again.” Bug mumbled, half-dozing against Kei’s side. “Lines were unbearable.”

“Yeah, that was a rough month and a half.” the tiger-modder huffed. Neglecting plumbing maintenance wasn’t a mistake anyone would make again, that much was certain. It was shocking that the guy responsible hadn’t been executed for that debacle. She swayed in place, one arm around her roommate, watching the five people ahead of them shift impatiently. Funny how a ten minute shower felt like the blink of an eye when standing out here waiting was like Hell freezing over. At least they’d gotten in early this time.

“Should just tear out an old room and make a communal shower already.” Kei sighed.

Bug snorted. “Yeah, that’s what we all want; the prison showers we narrowly escaped in our sentencing.”

“Don’t drop the soap, Buggy-Wuggy.” Kei snickered at his groan and shuffled forward as the line moved up. The morning crawl to work had been like this for as long as she remembered; staggered group wake-up calls, hallways becoming queues, the crack of pool cues and the occasional triumphant cheer from the nearby rec room. Somewhere down the hall, machinery hummed behind closed doors. Lakeside Haven didn’t do “quiet”.

Commotion a few spots behind them cut her daydreaming short. An argument about who’d gotten in line first. Shouting. Squabbling. Then fists. More shouts, this time from the crowd. Finally, two guys in flak armor stepped in and separated them with barely a word. God, was Kei ever glad she’d been assigned outdoors. She’d take bandits over that shit any day.

The line moved up after an eternity, and they stood before the stall. She gave Bug a look, and he shrugged. In they went, shedding robes while they squeezed into the dark, cramped excuse for a shower. Three walls, a door, and a slot for their stuff so it wouldn’t get soaked. Barely enough for one person, and they’d gone in together. No one questioned it—shared showers saved water. More crucially, it got them five additional minutes. That alone was worth the struggle.

Nobody thought anything of it. Only newcomers found anything remotely sexual in the act, but the novelty wore off fast. Even Bug, whose ghost had practically fled his body the first time he’d seen Kei naked, quickly became accustomed to this awkwardly intimate ritual. It was just like showering with the other mercs back home for Kei; she’d scratched off this particular boundary long before she landed here.

“Had more elbow room back then, though.” she thought as Bug’s scrubbing crowded her midsection. She half-shoved him into the wall and grinned at his protest. “Do something about it.”

“Just because you’re bigger.” the nerdy human grumbled.

A full head taller, in fact. Those tiger gene-mods really had given her the edge over a lot of guys here. Not that Bug’s five-foot-seven ass was towering over anyone, but nearly half the compound’s male population landed firmly in “short king” territory for Kei.

Bug shifted again, and she decided to be nice this time and wash his back. Another quirk of shared showers and a distinct lack of shame. A little practice, and they’d figured out how to turn these precious fifteen minutes into something halfway enjoyable. They could even enjoy two or three minutes at the end just standing under the hot water stream if they were quick enough, even after brushing their teeth.

All good things came to an end, of course. The water cut at fifteen minutes on the dot, and they clumsily dried, dressed, and stepped out and away from the line before depositing their bath robes and wet towels into a nearby hamper. Nobody questioned towel-wrapped hair in the hallways; further grooming happened in transit to the cafeteria or back in the bedroom if time allowed, though it typically didn’t. Appearances meant more than some would believe out here, but food was the next priority.

Another hallway. Another line. There were a lot more people here, but this line tended to move fast. No reason to stand around once you’d gotten the daily ration plopped down on your tray, after all. Depending on who was in line, you might risk catching hands if you held things up.

The cafeteria was no frills—just wooden tables and chairs, sterile white lighting, and the serving station. Kei humorously observed how every paramilitary mess, every prison dining hall, and every high school cafeteria was practically indistinguishable. Sure, some private schools probably had fancier digs, and maybe more expensive private armies got to dine someplace nicer, but the average jackoff soldier (and their kids) got to eat just like a prison inmate. This place was no different, from the clattering of trays and utensils to the smell of disinfectant and overcooked proteins.

“Mornin’, Miss Kei. And Bug. Lively as ever.” A familiar voice drew her eye; an older gentleman behind the serving counter, all gray hair and hunched posture, and a gentle tone to match. “Got good news and bad news.”

“Morning, Gramps.” Bug mumbled through a yawn.

Kei breathed a sigh through her nose. “Do I wanna know the bad news?”

Gramps offered a wry smile as he filled bowls of, for lack of a better term, stew-slop. “Good news first: They finally fixed the nutrient slurry hopper.”

“Oh. Goodie.” Kei wrinkled her nose. “So happy I can swap starvation for misery. What’s the bad news?”

“They fixed the slurry hopper.” Gramps quipped with a grin and slid them two bowls of a potato-heavy meal that somehow flattered itself as beef stew. At least it was hot.

“Har-har. Thanks for the food.”

“Enjoy it! Never know what winter’s gonna bring!” Gramps waved them off. Like most others in Lakeside Haven, he was quiet about what got him here. Some people gave vague answers. “Killed someone” or “stole one too many priceless artifacts”. Gramps didn’t talk about it at all, and no one asked.

The pair found empty seats and dug in. Honestly, Kei’d had worse. The pepper did a lot of heavy lifting, even if the recipe clearly came out of some old babushka’s cookbook—A Thousand Ways to Make Potatoes Taste Like Beef. Ancient Soviet starvation food. Still beat the hell out of nutrient slurry. They’d gone a full year without having to resort to that thing, even when the hopper was working. Food shortages were always on the horizon, though, and Gramps was right: Winter was always closer than people thought.

God, Kei hoped the harvest would bring in enough. A few months of slurry would make this slop look like prime rib.

“You know,” Bug mumbled around a spoonful of stew, “I ate synth-eggs and porridge closer to wallpaper paste than food when things got rough back home. And I think I’d prefer it to this.”

Kei shrugged. She chewed on the slightly rubbery bits of beef while rolling up a pant leg to apply a fine-toothed comb to her fur. If she’d known this was the kind of schedule she’d be keeping, she might have just asked for stripes.

Maybe keep the tail, too.

“And I’d prefer to gnaw the leg right off a cow.” she mumbled, brushing in quick strokes to try and smooth that brilliant orange and black fur down. “Don’t see me bitching.”

“Wow, the tiger lady wants fresh meat. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.”

An overhead intercom crackled to life, and a female voice came through: “Attention residents: A reminder that there will be a public execution at the main gate in thirty minutes. Morning shift will begin immediately after. As always, hands busy, head on a swivel. Stay safe.”

“Right. Forgot about that.” Kei didn’t even slow her eating. “Dumb bastard should have kept his hands to himself.”

Bug winced. He sighed, pushed out his chair, and gathered up his tray. “I’d better take my food to go. Someone’s definitely gonna ask me to cover so they can get a good spot for that.”

“You almost sound like you don’t want to watch someone lose his head.”

“You know I don’t have the stomach for that stuff.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I know, you’re a big softie.” Eyeing him up and down, she added, “Not gonna go back and fix your hair or anything?”

“Nobody looks at my hair, believe me.” Bug watched Kei for several long seconds, pursed his lips, and kicked his chair back in. “Be safe outside. Alright?”

The tiger woman answered with a casual nod. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s hope for a routine day, eh? Don’t strain your eyes, screen-jockey.”

She watched him go for just a moment. Out of anyone on this rock, Bug landed close to the top of her “people who don’t belong here” list. The residents of Lakeside operated under a strict don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy when it came to what landed them in this hell at the edge of civilization, so details on his wrongdoings were slim.

“Saw something I shouldn’t have.” Kei again recalled him telling her, unprompted, on their second night rooming together. She’d stopped him there and encouraged him to keep it vague. Lakesiders were generally better-mannered than people outside the compound, but secrets were a valuable commodity best kept close to the chest.

It wasn’t like he could defend himself either, small and scrawny as he was. For better or worse, Keilani had somehow managed to convince herself that she’d keep him safe. Dumb thing to do out here, where every day could be anyone’s last… but damn, maternal instincts hit hard past thirty. At least he worked inside. Warm. Safe. Surrounded by other scrawny nerds who couldn’t bully him as hard.

“Fuckin’ screen-jockeys.” she snorted, wolfing down the rest of her food and setting her tray by the trash bin for collection. She zipped up her coat and headed back to the main hallway. Orange and black-striped hair finally came free of its towel, and she slicked it into place with a brief combing with one hand while the other tossed the towel into a nearby receptacle. Laundry was shockingly optimized in Lakeside; they knew no one had time to bring their shit back, so they just left wheeled hampers in high-traffic areas.

Sure didn’t stop some people from leaving them at the cafeteria tables, though. Lazy fucks.

Kei stowed her comb in her little toiletry bag, clipped said bag to her belt, and continued on. A short trip brought her to the main entry, an airlock-style set of double doors, the interior pair of which were currently open.

Kei stepped aside from the door momentarily to approach a nook cut into the wall. The armory sat tucked aside, closed to all but the most trusted residents. Bulletproof glass separated the two sides of the counter, with a standard intercom for anyone needing a boomstick on a given day. A toned, dark-skinned human man sat hunched over something on a desk inside, one mechanical arm deploying a tool set from its fingertips. Leaning in, Kei saw the old disassembled handgun he was tinkering with. An old Luger, of all things.

“Hell of a find on the rim, Boomer.” she idly observed, one arm leaned against the counter.

The armsmaster looked up, dark hair slicked back, revealing a lightly wrinkled forehead. He turned right back to his prize, tiny motors in his fingers whirring as they tightened a screw. “Found it after the last raid. Fuckin’ waster didn’t know what he had. Can you even imagine what brought this old fossil out this far? The stories this gun’s seen...” A pause. “And it ain’t available for the public. I called finders keepers on this one.”

The tigress grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not here for your new baby. Just want my usual patrol rifle.”

Boomer hummed. He didn’t budge for a few seconds, fingers meticulously fastening one part to another. Kei didn’t bother repeating herself. He finally rose, groaning with the effort. “Fuckin’ knees. Goddamn.” Hobbling, he made his way to the back wall where a veritable arsenal sat on display. “You get .223 today.”

“That’s fine. How are our reserves looking?”

“Like shit.” Boomer carried a battered assault rifle over to the front desk, unlocked the slot in the glass, then slid the gun and three loaded magazines across to Kei’s side. “But the parts we traded for ought to get the ammo press back up. Shouldn’t be runnin’ dry for a while.” He kept one hand on the gun as Kei went to take it. “That means collect your fuckin’ brass, alright?”

“Ah, come on, Boomer. You know the kids love to run around looking for it.” She coaxed the gun away from him after another second, strapped it over her shoulder, and stuffed the magazines into her coat pockets. “You’ll get your casings one way or another.”

The old tinkerer grumbled in response while he logged the exchange in a notebook. “Where I’m from, kids didn’t even know what bullet casings were. Sad shit.”

Kei could only shrug at that. People’s home worlds were their own business here, and everyone knew it. It hardly mattered either way. Things like child safety and proper schooling were core world concepts. All that shit evaporated on the rim. Besides, the kids loved making a game of it. “See ya later, Boomer.” she finally said with a short wave.

She approached the front entrance and stepped through the first set of doors, which slid shut behind her. The opposite set slowly opened, greeting her with a chilly gust and an early morning sun hanging low in a blue-gray sky. Kei stepped outside, took a breath of fresh air, and took in the landscape.

What little there was to see here, anyway. Everything outside the main compound sat enclosed by a tall granite wall, with one gate in and out. Immediately, she spotted the guard barracks near the gate, the emergency field hospital, and the butchers’ shack complete with meats hung outside to smoke over a low flame. Honestly, it looked more appetizing like this than after the chefs had their way with it. Around the other sides of the compound would be guard posts, small gardens, and outdoor recreational facilities. People came and went, from the yawning A-shift workers to the equally exhausted H-shifters from the opposite end of the time clock.

Every shift followed the same rhythm: One hour to wake up and start the day, three hours of work, one hour lunch, then three more hours to finish up. Eight total shifts, staggered three hours apart, ensured twenty-four hour coverage. Someone told Kei once that, in its earlier days, Lakeside had simple morning, noon, and night shifts. That was until the shower lines started growing, more hungry bellies showed up at mess, and hallway travel slowed to a crawl. Too many people moving around at once in a compound on an island in the middle of a lake. It sounded awful.

Kei moved across the way toward the first gate and headed through. They only ever closed it in emergencies, and people knew her for her stripes and tail by now, so none of the guards gave her a second look. Out past the wall sprawled vast fields of crops and fruit trees. Silos jutted up like stalagmites, and herds of cows, alpacas, and pigs roamed what bare grass could be spared. Here, farmers tended to their fields, ranchers to their flocks, and fishermen dragged in their daily hauls from the far entrance to the settlement. Kei’s eyes rose to the sky where hot air balloons hung weightless, tethered to the earth by steel cables. She could barely make out figures perched in these lookout balloons’ baskets, scanning the horizon for threats.

Every square foot of space got used here. Not a single patch of fertile soil was neglected. Island agriculture was an eternal struggle for balance, and the probability of a bountiful harvest versus months of nutrient paste dinners always seemed to swing wildly each season. Passing a nearby barn, Kei spied a pair of women grinding cattle bones for fertilizer, while two children cheerfully milked a cow. She didn’t linger to watch. Boomer was right—seeing kids on this damn planet was horribly depressing when she really stopped to think about it.

This was just one form of life on this world, colloquially dubbed “the Boneyard” by its denizens. A planet far-removed from the core sectors of human space, originally used as a starship graveyard for anyone looking to make a few thousand credits off their spacefaring failures. For the past five centuries, however, it had served a far more sinister purpose: The galaxy’s biggest penal colony. A planetary prison for the violent, crazy, or just plain politically-inconvenient. If the core worlds had a name for this place, it’d been long forgotten. With the husks of dead ships occasionally crashing down to earth from above, and the corpses of a hundred-thousand undesirables, and their progeny, beneath its soil, “Boneyard” felt more than apt. To say nothing of the skeletal remains of cities dotting the landscape, all grim reminders of humanity’s capacity for violence.

The long walk to the final gate before the outside world brought her to a small guard shack beside the tall granite wall. Groggy men and women in jackets and flak vests mingled here, and a few greeted Kei on her approach. Kei checked in, grabbed a battery-powered radio and a vest, and waited for the gate’s massive steel door to rise. This one stayed closed until someone was coming or going. They’d tried keeping it open for convenience in the past, but one too many manhunting warg packs had ruined that for every guard on patrol, every long walk enjoyer, and every hunter with a heavy deer carcass in tow.

“Comm check.” Kei mumbled into her radio, and got a loud-and-clear call back. The sound of footsteps pulled her attention back to the road, where a middle-aged woman was making her way toward the gate. “Morning, Miss Greta. Not here for the execution, are you? You don’t strike me as the type.”

“Oh, my, no.” Miss Greta, despite being a woman in her sixties, came off as far older. The years had not been kind to her bones, bending her back slightly forward and causing her knees to wobble ever so slightly. She walked with a cane, and the gray hairs had overtaken what must have been a gorgeous black mane at some point past. She carried a linen bag in one hand and regarded Kei with a smile. “No, I’m just out to polish the stones.”

Ahh… That. Kei took a breath and held it, like her words might ferment into something kinder in her lungs. “Greta, you… you really don’t have to do that every week.”

“Well of course I do! Everyone else is too busy, and the arthritis really doesn’t let me do much else. I’m waiting for the spinners to get me more wool to knit anyway, so I might as well do something with my time.”

“You should be relaxing.” the tiger woman sighed, gently fussing over her, hands on the old lady’s shoulders. “God knows there’s not enough time for that here.”

“Yes, but the children…” Greta breathed out slowly through her nose. “You’re not a mother, Keilani. You wouldn’t understand.”

Greta wasn’t either. At least, not anymore. But that felt too cruel to mention, even if it might dissuade her from going beyond the wall. Eventually, the big steel door locked open, and the guards waved everyone through. Kei relented and helped Greta along, all the while insisting that the old stones didn’t need tending anymore.

“They’re not listening, hon.” she murmured gently. “It’s been… decades.”

“There’s always a chance they just haven’t seen it yet.”

“The same ships come by every month.”

Old Greta waved that away. “Please, Kei. I need to believe.” A pause. “And… I think it would do you some good to believe, too. Sometimes.”

Kei let her protest die on her lips as others began to shuffle through the gate, some matching her morning bleariness, others with a morbid excitement. She happened to peer back along the path, where two strong, tall men led a smaller guy in rags with a burlap bag over his head. A woman wearing what was unmistakably Stellar Navy dress strode ahead of them.

“Mayor sent her aide for the show today.” Kei mumbled. “Guess she is the better public speaker these days.”

Greta mumbled disapprovingly. “I know it’s necessary, but does anything good come of this horrible event?”

Kei offered a little shrug. “You were born here. You’d know better than I do.”

“Maybe so. But I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged to this culture of… violence.”

On that, they would agree. So many of the native-born Boneyarders embraced the need for ritualized shows of power and violent catharsis, but just as many rejected that lifestyle. It just so happened that Greta managed to be born in Lakeside, where she wasn’t as likely to be victimized for her weakness. Just as it did in the core worlds, luck had everything to do with one’s lot in life, right down to the planet you were born on.

More townsfolk gathered over the next several minutes, until a crowd had formed. One man carried a heavy block to the front of the gate and set it down with a thud. The prisoner, mumbling and whimpering beneath his bag, was made to kneel before this block, and the mayor’s aide stood beside him, silently appraising the crowd for a long moment.

Samantha “Razor” Anderson, aide and daughter to Lakeside Haven’s mayor, had all the poise of a naval officer, appropriate for her family’s history. Dark blue navy dress, short tidy black hair, and stern brown eyes gave her a certain severity that even the more sadistic residents of Lakeside found intimidating. She took one step forward, rested her arms behind her back, and spoke in a firm but measured tone.

“When my great-great grandmother landed on this planet, there was no Lakeside Haven. All she and her fellow damned souls had was a ruined ship hulk, enough food to last them a week, and one impossible goal:” She revealed her hands again and put them together. “Survive.”

A soft murmur rose into the crowd. Adoration for the old stories of Lakeside’s founders, specifically the woman who brought them all together. A dishonored Stellar Navy captain, charged with insubordination and battery on a superior officer. They’d made an example of her, or so the story went. Execution wasn’t enough, so they threw her at the “mercy” of this planet’s inmates. Two centuries later, the efforts of her labor still stood.

“And survive they did. For weeks. Months. Then years. Squatting in feeble tents. Huddling close in scrap wooden shacks through harsh winters. Eating dirt to stave off hunger. But survive, they did. And every day, every week, every year, their camp grew. They built. They endured. They learned the rhythms of this harsh and unforgiving world, whose springs bring soft comforts just in time for the winters to snuff everything out.”

Another round of murmurs and praise. Still, some looked bored. The guys with bone piercings in their ears and noses. Those with guns on their shoulders, itching for action. The rousing speech about Lakeside’s history wouldn’t satisfy them. They were here for the real show.

“Over two centuries, our home grew. It prospered. It evolved into the Lakeside Haven we know today, until it overtook this entire island.” Razor spread her arms wide in emphasis. “We thrive today because one woman and her fellow abandoned souls made one important decision: To never forget what keeps people alive. You might say ‘food’, ‘water’, ‘shelter’—yes. These are things that we need. They are our fundamental requirements as biological entities. But what a human needs, and what people need, are not the same.”

She paused. Let her words sink in, but only for a second. She must have realized she was losing some of the crowd, because she didn’t wait for the reaction this time. “People living together need rules. We need laws. We need standards by which we must conduct ourselves, that we don’t end up living like the animals outside our walls,” An arm jutted to the west, “Or the freaks in the ruined cities!”

A short cheer rose up from a couple of the more bloodthirsty attendees. Razor continued: “You all know: Our laws are simple. ‘Leave your past behind, for your file burned up in orbit. Do your job. Don’t make noise. Thrive.’ Yet some people don’t believe that our generosity is enough!”

Suddenly and without warning, she strode to the man kneeling by the block and delivered a sharp kick to his gut. He doubled over, groaning under the bag on his head. The gesture drew a shout of approval from the crowd, and Razor turned back to shout to them, “They allow their lust and their greed and their diseases to drive them! We give them homes, and they spit in our faces! What do we do to weeds when they take root in the garden?”

All manner of “PULL THEM” and “BURN THEM” chants rose up in response. Now people were awake. They wanted more.

“And what do you do,” Razor bent down to the wheezing man and ripped the bag off his head, revealing a bruised face, unkempt beard, and messy brown hair, “when a man, given all the opportunities to forget his past mistakes, drags an innocent woman into a closet and tries to have his way with her?”

“YOU FUCKIN’ KILL HIM!” came a cry from Kei’s left, and the whole crowd roared in approval. Kei pinned her ears down to drown out the worst of the noise, but she rose a fist in quiet solidarity. Yeah, this show was ridiculous, but she wanted to see this rotten apple buried as much as the rest.

Razor’s tone returned to its earlier military precision. She waited for the crowd to quiet, then continued. “As is tradition, we gave the victim the chance to name her attacker’s execution method. She chose beheading.” A quick nod to one of the bigger men who’d accompanied her had him hefting an axe meant just for this sort of thing. The forgemaster clearly had fun making this oversized instrument of death.

“Not the punishment I’d have selected.” Razor quipped, “I’d have started from the feet and worked my way up. Or castration.” She allowed the crowd’s laughter to die before continuing. “But it is her right, and we will respect that.”

Kei scanned the crowd and found the victim in question; one of the quiet girls from the kitchen. Small, unassuming, pretty brown hair and bright green eyes. Nineteen or twenty, if she remembered right. Another native-born who’d managed to get a good roll of the cosmic dice. Well… Sans the rape attempt, anyway. Nobody asked her to speak up or present herself for pity. The optimist in Kei told her that it was to protect her dignity. The realist insisted that nobody cared about victimhood beyond finding a villain to put on the chopping block.

Said villain was given a chance to speak. He stared through the crowd, eyes transfixed upon his impending demise. Tears fell down his cheeks as he stammered, babbled, struggled for words.

“Look how he weeps.” Razor spat the words. “As if he is worthy of your pity. Your sympathy. Do you feel sorry for this animal?”

A resounding “NO!” rose through the crowd. Kei simply shook her head.

“PLEASE!” the man finally found a word. He sank as close to the ground as he could, eyes cast to the dirt. “God, please, I won’t do it again! Please, give me another chance!”

Razor didn’t have to rouse them this time; the gathering erupted into a raucous cacophony of swears, jeers, and the vilest insults put to words. The accused only sank lower, his face in the dirt, turned to mud by his own tears. He howled apologies into the earth, but the crowd only grew hungrier.

“You all know it.” Razor finally spoke again. “I know it. He knows it: He’s only sorry he got caught.”

Affirmations rose among the gathering to join the demand for blood and justice. The rapist lifted his head and looked upon his accusers once again, but this time his eyes were clear. He rose for a split second, but had his head pressed to the block by a heavy boot against his back. In an instant, bargaining burned away to anger, and his cries turned bitter and venomous. “You’ll all burn! One day this whole place will burn! And my ghost will dance in the ashes—!”

THUNK!

The unmistakable sound of forged metal wetly cleaving flesh split the air, and the crowd lost itself to ecstasy.

“YEAH!”

“JUSTICE!”

“BLOOD!”

Kei’s shoulders finally slumped. She hadn’t realized they’d been so tense. She happened to glance at the victim again. The girl held her face, tears streaming through the gaps in her fingers. Relief? Horror? Probably both. God, she probably shouldn’t have come to watch it.

“Justice is served!” Razor announced over the howls of murderous bliss. “Remember this moment! Remember it when the world assumes Lakeside Haven is soft! Remember it when savages, raiders, and opportunists menace our gates!”

Kei quietly scoffed. Half the people screaming for blood miraculously developed bad backs or knee problems when guard recruitment came up. She knew the sort—the kinds of people who really belonged here. The sadists and sociopaths whose hobbies included following pretty women home and turning them into very pretty corpses. Not exactly brave, and certainly more keen on finding victims who couldn’t fight back. Even if one of these fuckers ever did pick up a gun, she’d never trust them at her back, no matter how many times they agreed to behave.

Razor began to disperse the crowd, and people shuffled off to work or leisure, shift depending. Kei took a long breath, stared at the now dismembered head that’d rolled several feet to the right, and quietly spat, “Good fuckin’ riddance.”

She started toward the bridge leading to the mainland, but her radio keyed in before she made it three steps. “Kei, you on?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Bjornson’s got a bathroom emergency. Think you can cover for a bit?”

She breathed out slowly. Some air time actually sounded nice after the claustrophobic crowd. “Yeah, I’ll cover. Where at?”

“Right behind you.” She turned and caught sight of a man waving at her from the top of the wall. How convenient.

Kei made her way back inside the wall, where a couple guys waited by an enormous spool of steel cable connected to a mechanical winch. The spool unwound into the air, where it attached to a miniature hot air balloon hanging above the settlement. One man, a stocky impid with red-brown complexion and tall, gazelle-like horns, waved her over. “Sup Kei!”

“Buckshot.” she nodded. “Go ahead and reel him in.”

The impid, Buckshot, grinned and thumbed a button on the winch. It came to life with a low, mechanical whine, and Buckshot’s radio keyed up: “Hey, some warning next time! I’m barely holdin’ it in up here!”

“Stop eating your girl’s asshole out and you might not get the shits.” Buck laughed into the receiver and got a string of colorful swear words back. Kei snorted quietly while she watched Bjornson, a lanky bald guy in a leather coat much like hers, rock and sway in the tiny basket. The closer he got, the easier it was to hear him swear and pray to his own bowels.

“Thank god for you, Kei!” he yelled once he reached around twenty feet off the ground. “I’ll make it up to ya!”

“Just don’t shit yourself, and we’re even.” the tiger woman grinned. It didn’t take long at all for Bjornson to throw off his harness, scramble out of the balloon, and half-run half-shuffle his way to the nearest bathroom. Kei strapped herself into the discarded harness, checked the tether to the basket, and clipped herself in. “What’s the wind chill today?”

“Like forty.” Buckshot mumbled back to her as he double-checked the line.

“Cozy.”

“You’ll be beggin’ for it in a month or two.” the impid offered a wry grin as he patted the winch. “Ready?”

“Yeah, send me up.” Kei gripped either side of the basket as the line slowly unraveled. Up she went, rising over the colony at a steady pace. Certainly not the bowel-shaking speed Buck had subjected Bjornson to. A little mean-spirited, but even cruel humor helped keep people sane in this place.

The soft din of settlement life faded away as she rose, leaving only wind and the metallic hum of the cable tethering her to the colony. One might assume a hot air balloon would make for a poor observation post, given the gusts and temperature, but Kei’s coat kept the worst of the chill away, and the unwilling colonists of the Boneyard had learned many of the planet’s rhythms over generations. Certain altitudes tended to be calmer depending on the season. Mid-autumn was a bit windier than summer, but still tolerable. Come winter, their eyes in the sky would be blind most days, particularly during snowstorm season.

Kei looked down to the settlement below. Lakeside Haven was less of a town and more of a compound—individual housing swapped for a single enormous multi-storied structure occupying the island’s eastern half. Lakeside’s compound was, by and large, where everyone slept, ate, and stored their valuables. But the structures at the top—rotating radar dishes, spire-like antennae, and barometric equipment—told the story of its beating heart. The command center from which the mayor and her trusted technical teams monitored weather patterns and orbital conditions. She idly wondered how Bug was doing, warm and toasty in the monitoring station while she shivered up here. Kei gave a wave down to the topmost floor just in case he happened to look.

The two walls she’d passed through earlier surrounded the main compound and its immediate structures, then the island perimeter itself, leaving a narrow stretch of beach to frame it on all sides. Each corner, as well as the main gates, had machine gun emplacements and embrasures to give cover to those defending the walls. To the west, a stone bridge just wide enough for ample foot traffic and caravan vehicles, but sufficiently narrow to funnel any invaders into a lovely little kill zone. Many a would-be raider faced their final moments on that bridge, and so would many more in the years to come.

Nearly straight below by her perspective, the crop fields stretched across the colony’s western half. Lakeside’s early food shortages were the stuff of frontier horror stories, but you’d never believe it from this angle. Golden corn, ripe green vines dotted by red tomatoes, dark brown dirt concealing bountiful potatoes… God willing, they’d never need that damn nutrient paste dispenser again.

All around the exterior walls sat smaller egress points, carefully blocked off on the outside by protruding sections of wall so that the only access was by water. Here sat numerous piers and docks, some pristine, others barely held together. Small fishing boats dotted the lake surface close by. One might assume an island settlement could never properly starve with easy access to fish, but similar colonies had discovered overfishing the hard way, their bones a grim reminder that food diversity meant more than just flavor.

Beyond, in all directions, lay forests, fields, and rocky outcrops where Lakeside’s founders had stripped entire hills of their granite for the compound and its walls. Photographs from ancient storage crates, forgotten in the darkest cellars, proved there were once rolling hillsides just west of the bridge, but one would never suspect it today. Nature had reclaimed those old excavation sites, as it did all things the moment humans took their hands off.

A gust of wind buffeted her hot air perch, but she held tight and without complaint. Fall had just begun its final turn toward winter, and it was starting to show. The grass was still green, and crops still grew, but the season’s final harvest drew nearer each day. Cows and pigs grazed freely for now, but their numbers would be culled in the coming weeks, sold off or slaughtered for their meat. Mass stockpiles of hay would start to rise before long, and winter rationing budgets would be drawn up in meeting rooms at the top of the compound. The approaching cold always served as a firm reminder to the people of Lakeside: This was no vacation, and no one was coming to save them if supplies ran low.

Kei leaned an arm against the basket and let her weight shift to that side. From up here, she could almost forget this entire world was a prison. No noise, no complaints, no faces of galactic society’s abandoned problems and their offspring. Not much managed to remind her of where she was.

But something always did. She finally let herself look. A tiny figure made its slow but purposeful way back to the wall. Greta, the old, hopelessly hopeful caretaker of orphans, knitter of ugly sweaters, teller of tales from decades past. At least she’d made it back in one piece. Sometimes raiders came alone or in pairs, hoping to pick off the vulnerable. Few others embodied that word more than Greta, though they’d find her a poor target if they were after quick valuables.

Off to the side, plain as day from this altitude, Kei took in the sight of the stones Greta had gone to polish. Set atop the grass and meticulously polished, cleaned, and kept for nearly a century, was a message written in boulders:

PLEASE TAKE THE CHILDREN

A prayer to the sky. To the jailers half-way across the galaxy. To trade ships, or any passing soul with an ounce of pity for those born to a world of violence, thrust into a debt to society they should have never inherited, under the heel of a galactic civilization drunk on indifference bordering on malice. A prayer five generations in its uttering, and thus far unanswered.

Some still asked why. “Why wouldn’t they take the children off-world? This is a prison. Surely the point isn’t to snuff out entire family trees?”

If only the intent was so cartoonishly evil in its simplicity. Kei and anyone willing to make the connection knew better. If the collaborating governments and mega-corporations only wanted to dump their problem citizens somewhere and forget about them, they’d at least sterilize them first. No kids, no moral quandaries, no brows raised by ethics committees who’d just be waved out of the board room anyway.

The point wasn’t corrective punishment. They wouldn’t let people run around and play colonist or warlord or post-apocalyptic survivor if they wanted real correction. And they sure wouldn’t send trade ships with everything a struggling colony couldn’t produce itself, in exchange for excess food, textiles, metals harvested from downed starship wrecks, and bits of machinery that the various settlements were either too under-equipped or too dumb to properly utilize.

It was obvious to anyone who did the math: They weren’t just prisoners. They were the machinery by which this planet turned a profit. As if this ancient rock where human colonists bombed themselves to dust nearly a thousand years ago didn’t have a sad enough history, and the prized title of “the galaxy’s most remote dumping ground” wasn’t quite sufficient for the sad sacks who owned it. No, it had to be an engine of human suffering with the express purpose of selling hides and scrap metals and salvaged firearms to other, slightly more fortunate rimworlds on top of all that.

So the great-great-great-great granddaughters of a generation mourning the futures of their children could polish their stone prayers. Smooth-talkers could bargain and schmooze with trade ship captains. Dreams and delusions alike could float fantasies of escape, of freedom, of mercy, and none of it would change a thing. The Boneyard had two ways out: Death or the occasional passing slave ship. Many opted for the latter voluntarily, in spite of the grim uncertainty that faced them on the other side of it. And no one who stayed would ever know if it was better or somehow even worse.

Kei’s radio buzzed. “Hourly check. How’s it lookin’, tiger?”

“Quiet day.” she sighed back. “It’s been an hour already?”

“Time flies when you’re, uh, flyin’.”

“Where the hell’s Bjornson? He changing the pipes, too?”

A deep chuckle floated over the airwaves. “I’ll get someone to make sure he didn’t fall in.”

A soft snort of a laugh managed to bubble up from her gut. If this guy was reading on the toilet or something, she’d make sure to hang him up here by his belt later. But at least she got some quiet time. That was worth the biting chill in the air.

Kei watched the horizon, let her eyes scan across the landscape, peered out across the lake to its far side… The only noteworthy event was one of the guys from the execution carrying the very beheaded rapist from earlier out to the pier. She watched a particularly animated and flamboyantly-dressed man wave his arms in protest; and god, was this guy the most ridiculous thing to ever walk on two legs. Bright green leather robe, a cap lined with brilliant feathers, and a tall wooden staff clutched in one hand. He preferred to be addressed as “Soul Speaker Kho”, but most people just called him “the Animism Guy”.

Lakeside had picked him up some years before Kei joined up after a scouting party came across a brutal scene: two tribes who’d really had it out for one another finally decided enough was enough, and fed all their strongest warriors into a killing field unlike anything since humanity’s earliest history. When that wasn’t enough to extinguish their hatred, they sent their farmers in. Then their craftsmen. Their old. Their frail. Their children. The Hatfields and McCoys of old could have learned a thing or two about raw, unfiltered hate.

Their spiritual leaders were the last to stand, and among them, only Kho had managed to live… by doing nothing.

Whether he’d rejected the violence outright or simply imagined himself a less appealing target by standing still was anyone’s guess. He’d remained intentionally vague during interrogation. What followed was, according to some, an intense lecture on the importance of respecting all life, including the recently deceased, and that he absolutely had to go back to the field of corpses to give them a proper sendoff to the afterlife. Needless to say, they let this fanatical weirdo go, even if so many in Lakeside wondered how such a staunch pacifist managed to last in a clearly murderous tribe. But the rim did weird things to humanity. Best to just accept it.

Most figured that’d be the end of it, until he showed up days later, exhausted and begging for alms. Leadership asked him if he’d work for it, he said yes… and thus “Animism guy” earned his place. When he wasn’t milking cows, sheering alpacas, or carrying heavy crates, he was spreading the good word of the Enduring Spirit, the supposed mystical force which bound all life in the universe into one gestalt spiritual consciousness. Ridiculous, of course, but Kei figured he gave some people comfort. Spirituality wasn’t dead in Lakeside, and his funerary services gave people a lot of comfort. What’s more, he fully endorsed the idea of feeding the dead back into the environment—some shit about the “spirit coming full circle”. Lakeside was already dumping its dead into the lake anyway. It fed the ecosystem, which in turn fed its residents. Why not let this weirdo have his way if he wasn’t going to stop them?

Which was all well and good except for one small detail: Neither Razor nor her mother believed anyone guilty enough to be executed deserved a funeral. They felt it legitimized their behavior somehow, and they were best disposed of quietly and without ceremony. This, of course, flew right in the face of Animist ways, which believed all dead souls were clean and required a sendoff. Hence the flailing.

It didn’t last long. Razor emerged from the small gathering crowd and lay a hand on Kho’s shoulder. None of their words reached Kei’s perch, but she could only imagine the firm reminder that those who rejected Lakeside’s rule of law were less than human and deserved no fond farewells, followed by Kho’s insistence that even animals were owed a prayer before their spirits faded from this world. In the end, colony policy won out, and the dejected Kho stomped back to the compound, head shaking in irritation. The rapist’s corpse got thrown onto a boat, and a colony guard stepped on after, oar in hand. More food for the fish. Good riddance, indeed.

The rest of Kei’s short-lived balloon watch passed without incident, and Buckshot announced Bjornson’s heroic return, bowels once again cleared for guard duty. Kei held the basket’s woven sides as they reeled her back in like some wind-surfing sky fish, then returned to earth with a stretch and a groan. God, her legs were stiff. How did these guys do this all the time?

“Thanks Kei. I owe ya.” Bjornson hurried back into his harness. “I swear I’ll never eat ass again!”

“Yeah? Tell your girl that.” the tiger woman snickered. “Have fun up there.”

“Never do!”

Buckshot gave Kei a two-finger salute, and she made her way back toward the exterior wall. Between airborne baskets and her own two feet, she’d take the ground any day. Maybe it was the tiger genes, but keeping her legs extended like that for so long was killer. Hell, maybe she was finally starting to feel her age.

Guard duty proceeded as it did most days: Painfully slow and boring. Stretching her legs was nice, but eventually something had to give. As it turned out, that something was lunch hour. Kei turned back toward the compound a little early to make sure she’d get a good spot in line. Her rifle bounced against her shoulder while she jogged, and about half-way there she was joined by a proper giant of a man.

“KEI, BABY!” he practically roared, all toothy grins and wide postures. Another gene-modder; heavy hyena influences, from the shoulder scruff to the brilliant mohawk-like mane. He didn’t believe in coverings, either: Nothing but a ripped pair of slacks and an armored chestplate covered this hulking lump of muscle. He barked cheerfully as he smiled her way, “Yo, you catch the execution?”

Her stomach lurched about as low as it could go. “Hi Brutus. Yes, I saw it.”

“Man, it’s been too fuckin’ long, Kei, I swear. We gotta start lookin’ harder for these guys, right?” Brutus continued without waiting for an answer, heavy footsteps settling into a rhythmic thud-thud-thud. “Maybe space ‘em out a little! You know, so we don’t gotta wait so long for the next!”

“That’s not… really the point, buddy.” Kei sighed. This fucking guy. “But hey, you catch a sniff of a pervert, you go tell Razor yourself. I’m sure she’ll give you a big old pat on the head for your efforts.”

“Oh man, you think?” He’d taken her very seriously. “She’d like that?”

“Sure. Why not.”

Brutus howled a little cheer. “Yeah! I’ll sniff ‘em out good! Fuckin’ rapists! Maybe I’ll get to be the axe-man next time if I do real good!” Again, he prattled on without waiting for validation, “So uh, Kei, would you like it if I got a filthy fuckin’ pervert killed?”

Kei sighed hard enough that she swore the breath itself slowed her stride. “I think everyone would, Brutus. Don’t worry about what I’d like.”

He started up again, but Kei tuned him out. If she kept humming and uh-huhing him, Brutus would likely content himself with his own rambling. Just as long as she caught any overt invitations to join him in his bedroom and deflect with some proverbial key-jingling, she’d be good. Escape came into view when they neared the main gate: A familiar face among the crowd of hungry A-shifters.

“Bug!” she cut Brutus off and gave her roommate a big wave. Hurrying ahead and leaving Brutus to his monologue about ripping perverts apart, Kei zeroed in on Bug with all the enthusiasm of a rat that just found the maze exit. For his part, Bug looked screen-weary and equally unaccustomed to sunlight, and also had two covered trays in his hands.

“Hey Kei.” The screen-jockey lifted one tray in emphasis. “Got you lunch. Gramps say hi.”

“You continue to earn your nighttime snuggles.” Kei grinned as she accepted the tray. Heavy footsteps shook the ground behind her, and she almost let her elation deflate. For Bug’s sake, she kept it alive. “Hey, Brutus, Bug and I are gonna go chat. Maybe you could go find Razor and uh… discuss your pervert-finding mission.”

Brutus appraised the pair for one long, uncomfortable moment. Maybe the gears were turning in his head… and maybe not. Kei did manage to spot some tiny glimmer of awareness in his eye. Somewhere in there, beneath layers of muscle and idiocy, he recognized Kei’s attempt at deflection, and that he was being shoved away in favor of some scrawny nerd who probably couldn’t even bench fifty without breaking a sweat.

But acknowledging it meant he’d have to stop being so goddamn impressed with himself. So he smiled. Wide. “YEAH! I’ll be Razor’s favorite guy yet! See ya later Kei! Bye Bug!”

The pair watched him bound off, lunch apparently forgotten, though for how long was anyone’s guess. How anyone maintained that kind of muscle density on a stew-slop diet was a mystery for the ages. Bug stared, unblinking, and mumbled up to Kei, “The hell was that?”

“Social diplomacy.” Kei finally managed to breathe easily. She smiled, determined to elaborate no further. “Let’s find a place to sit.”

Outdoor seating wasn’t really a thing beyond a few scattered benches. The woodworkers often trained newbies by having them build them, so the quality varied greatly, but it was nicer than sitting on dirt. They found an unoccupied seat and dug into their daily slop. Surprise surprise, it was just a rehash of breakfast.

“They really ought to throw this batch out.” Bug sighed between reluctant spoonfuls. “They clearly burnt the meat and said ‘fuck it, serve it anyway’.”

Kei shrugged. “Food is food, especially this time of year.”

“I think I’d rather it get turned to paste.”

“You’ve never had that shit. Believe me, you wouldn’t.” She made a face at the recollection. “Imagine the blandest thing you’ve ever had, with the texture of glue and the aftertaste of unseasoned, unrendered beef fat. It’s just like that, but somehow worse.”

Bug sighed wistfully. “Beef fat… God, I miss steak…”

“You want fresh cuts, you gotta join the hunting parties.” Kei offered, spooning down more slop. Honestly, it wasn’t as bad as Bug made it sound, but it was pretty clearly burnt. The kitchen shoving it out for a second round in a day was a clear admission of their fuck-up. “They get first choice for fresh cuts. Everything else goes to the kitchen. Good deal if you like venison or the better wild hog bits.”

Bug whined. “You know I don’t have it in me to kill anything! Even if I was starving, I’d look a deer in the eyes and coo at it right before I croak.”

“Pfft. City boy.”

“I am literally from an urb-world. The closest thing we had to hunting was Deer Hunter 5547.”

Kei rose a brow. “Is that some kind of game..?”

“Yeah, for old people.” Bug said with a snort. “Seriously, who plays a video game about killing deer? I’d rather slay demons.”

“People on urb-worlds who’ve never seen a forest? I dunno. You’re the nerd, you tell me.” She paused. “Also, 5547? Of course it’d be for old people. That shit’s like twenty years old.”

“You think that one’s old? They’ve been making them since the 90s.”

“The… 5490s?”

“No,” Bug shook his head. “1990s.”

Kei scoffed. “Imagine three and a half thousand years of old dudes pretending to hunt. I don’t understand gamers at all.”

Bug went on about the persistence of seemingly awful titles that “normies” bought up because they were too braindead for “real games”. Kei took it in while she finished her food, completely lost but happy to let him ramble. Bug still hadn’t counted his first year on the Boneyard. He still longed for outside comforts like games and steak dinners and a million miles of ugly, sterile apartment blocks. Maybe letting him collapse back into nostalgia didn’t help in the long run, but it just didn’t feel right telling him to shut the fuck up and remember where he was.

Where he would be for the rest of his life.

Trays of slop gradually emptied over the hour, and Bug chugged a canteen of water to wash the taste out of his mouth, muttering comparisons to charcoal all the while. They rose, and Bug took the trays—he was going back inside, after all. They’d just begun to say their goodbyes when someone called out:

“Kei! Kei, I’m going home!”

They turned. A young woman with soft features and feathery blonde hair came bounding over, blue eyes gleaming with something rarely seen in this world: Pure, unfiltered joy. She practically threw herself at Kei, who deftly sidestepped the hug and returned it half-heartedly.

“Adri… What the hell are you talking about?” the tiger woman narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t take a slavery term, did you? You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

“Nothing so demeaning!” the other girl, Adriana, scoffed. “No! You’ve heard about Dr. Miles’s campsite, right? How he started gathering physicists and engineers about ten years ago?”

“Yeah..?”

“Well he finally finished his ship!” Adri beamed like the sun. “They did a lottery for anyone interested, and my name was drawn! I’m getting off this dirt pile!” Her tone shifted suddenly to condescending sympathy. “Ah—no offense, of course. It’s um… your dirt pile now, I guess. Because it’s not mine anymore.”

Kei took a stiff breath. “Adri…”

“Look, Kei, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the lottery. The fewer people who know, the better the odds, right? Gotta look out for number one.”

“That’s not—look.” Kei took the girl by the shoulders and locked eyes with her. “You do realize it’s impossible, right? You’re gonna die if you get on that ship.”

“Nope! That’s where you’re wrong, Kei!” Adri freed herself and held up a finger. “And I know what you’re going to say: ‘But Adri, so many have tried before!’ Yes, they have! But they didn’t have a trade ship IFF!”

Bug’s eyes seemed to grow under his glasses, and Kei immediately put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m telling you, it’s been tried before.”

“Kei, Kei, Kei…” Adri threw her arms up and sighed. “Listen, honey, I just—I can’t do… this.” She gestured vaguely all around. “Alright? All I did was kill one little husband who happened to be one little senator. That’s practically white-collar crime these days.”

“It’s literally not.”

“I’m saying it’s no big deal!” Adriana huffed defiantly. “He was a horrible man with horrible taste, and I deserved his money more than he did. And when I get out of here, I’m going back to that stash I buried, and I’ll be sipping cocktails on a glitterworld for the rest of eternity. Because they don’t age on glitterworlds!”

Bug piped up, “They also drink blood. You know, allegedly.” More quietly: “I uh… read that on a… conspiracy theory site.”

“Well it’s probably the best damn blood in the galaxy!” Adriana, completely determined to maintain her fantasy, gave Bug a poke on the nose. “So I’ll be going now! I’m sure you two can find a way off-world if you really put your minds to it. Especially you, Bug! You’re a smart guy!”

Kei exhaled her defeat and let her shoulders slump. “Adri, you can get used to this life, I promise. I’ve seen people more…” She scrunched her nose, searching for the right words. “More… domestic… than you become hardened survivors! It just takes time.”

“I have been here for two goddamn years.” Adri scowled suddenly. “Two years, and in that time I have been harassed, screamed at, accosted by brutes and perverts of all flavors, and expected to get my hands dirty every day! I was not built for this! I am leaving! We launch tonight!” She stormed past, paused, then turned back. “I’d say I’ll see you on the other side, but I plan on disappearing as quickly as possible. Good luck to the both of you.”

Maybe she expected further argument, because she waited for just a beat before stomping off. Kei didn’t bother. Why feed the delusion?

“Do you…” Bug started, a question rising into his tone.

“No.”

He sighed softly. “Right. It would be impossible, huh?”

Kei rubbed his shoulder where her hand had landed. “Good boy.”

He shifted closer to her, gears turning in spite of his outward agreement. God damn Adri for putting this in his head. But he didn’t pursue the possibility. Not aloud. “Should we go after her?”

“She’s made up her mind.” Kei huffed, drawing her roommate under one arm to hold him against her side. “Best we can hope for is something fails and they stay on the ground.”

Neither said another word on the matter. They watched Adriana go, her defiant stomp having given way to ecstatic skipping, hurrying toward the gate until she disappeared into the crowd of workers. Keilani and Bug went back to work, but their minds remained fixed on tonight’s event no matter how hard they tried to push it away. And they didn’t have long to wait.

Colony life crawled on in spite of the tension. Word had spread fast; people had known for years what Dr. Miles was attempting, but no one had expected results to be right over the horizon. He was right to keep things quiet—the looming promise of escape would bring in all kinds of undesirable people. Desperate souls not drawn in the lottery, raiders seeking an easy target to pick apart for expensive electronics, saboteurs of any flavor. Lakeside guards were stationed to keep people from leaving the perimeter after sundown, just to avoid any incidents. Successful launch or not, nobody needed any hopeful idiots to come crawling back with burns from the rocket boosters… or an explosion.

Bug returned to the monitor room, a space of flickering screens and pale overhead lamps. The constant drumming of keystrokes and clicking of computer mice gave the place a soundtrack akin to an urbworld office building. Familiar and alien all at once. When he wasn’t cataloging new bits of space debris, he was scribbling down coordinates of the orbital rail cannons that kept insiders in and outsiders out of the Boneyard. He doodled escape windows, launch trajectories, potential paths where the guns didn’t reach. Nothing he drew up produced mathematical confidence, but maybe the IFF would work. Maybe there was hope.

Farmers hauled in their harvests for the day, dragged barrels of fertilizer back to sheds, and left the animals to their grazing. Metalsmiths cooled their forges, tailors put up their needles and threads, and guards changed shifts. Lakeside was never quiet, but it did have a nighttime ambiance that differed from the daylight scramble. Night shifts were less populated, consisting mostly of extra patrols, emergency maintenance crews, and everything ranging from astronomers to meteorologists to chroniclers working well into the evening to ensure there’d be something more than survival skills to pass down. Because in spite of the flickering hope for escape, everyone knew: There would always be a next generation on this planet, native born or dropped from the sky.

Skeptics and believers alike emerged from the compound at the appointed hour. Kei and Bug stood off to the side, conscious of the growing crowd. The whole colony had an unobstructed view of the sky beyond the walls, so catching the ship’s ascent wouldn’t be an issue. People murmured and chatted, some excited, others pessimistic. A few cracked jokes, and some even took wagers.

“Bet it blows up ten feet off the ground.”

“Think it’ll do a flip?”

“Should be a good show either way.”

Kei wanted to tell them to shut the fuck up, but she recognized this form of coping. Some of it was genuine misanthropic malice, but others clearly joked to spare themselves the pain of accepting their own hopes. It’d land softer, should the worst come to pass.

“I’ve run some numbers.” Bug casually explained, holding a tablet in one hand. The screen displayed the orbital debris field in simple graphics—green circles of varying size to symbolize starship hulls, red triangles to signify gun turrets. He traced a finger in a line across the screen. “They’re using a Ward-Takehashi engine once they get to orbit. So theoretically, if this IFF did work, they wouldn’t have to slingshot. They could burn straight for the skipgate.”

“If it works.” Kei reminded him. Preserving Bug’s innocence was always going to be an uphill battle, which she’d chosen to fight regardless. But he had to know this was doomed to fail. Holding onto hope like this would only make the ending worse.

The crowd buzzed as minutes passed. Some questioned whether the ship would launch at all. A few even started heading back to the compound, their patience exhausted. Then someone shouted, and all eyes zeroed in on the horizon’s orange glow.

“There it is.” Kei sighed. It was a small thing as far as ships went, four engines and a simplified aerodynamic design. Like one of the trader shuttles, but a bit bulkier around the sides to contain its cargo of humans. If there was any mercy in this world—and she knew there wasn’t—it’d blow an engine or something right now. They were still close enough to the ground to avoid dying on impact.

But the little ship climbed and climbed, burning through the air on chemical rockets. People shouted and cheered. Bug’s eyes flicked between the ship and his tablet. Kei simply watched. The ship went higher. Higher…

Every agonizing minute drew the tension tighter. The bright orange glow turned to a pinhead against the darkening sky, and the telltale blue pulse of a Ward-Takehashi engine blazed to life, causing the crowd to cheer wildly.

“They’re making it! They’re escaping!”

Bug’s jaw hung open. Kei almost let herself believe it, too.

Then…

Three flashes from three points in the sky. Then a further three in quick succession, right where they’d last seen the ship. The crowd went silent, and the sky gave no report. Not even a pop. Everything, from the gathering to the world around them, went mute for one dreadful moment.

“Did… Did they make it?” someone dared to ask. “I didn’t hear an explosion.”

Another voice rose nearby, “There’s no sound in space, dumbass.”

“But they made it. Right? We saw the engine ignite.”

A mumbling din rose over the gathered Lakesiders. Kei didn’t listen to their theories. Of course it hadn’t worked. There was never a chance that it would. Adriana and everyone else on that ship were doomed the second they left the ground.

“Goddamn idiot.” Kei mumbled quietly. She and Adri hadn’t exactly been close… but then again, who was Kei close to here? Her eyes turned to Bug, and she quickly forgot her own trouble. He stared up where the ship once vanished into the sky, his jaw trembling, eyes wide. Tears threatened at their corners.

All these people around… This was definitely not the time or place for weakness.

“Come on.” Kei whispered with gentle urgency. She took Bug’s hand, pushed through the people lingering by the compound gate, and made her way through the airlock. Down the hall, around the corner, twenty steps to their room.

Kei ushered Bug inside, then stepped in, shut the door, and hurried to his side as he collapsed on his bed, breaths heavy. “Hey, hey. I’ve got you. Bug, breathe.”

But he wouldn’t calm. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he stammered incoherently. He looked at Kei but didn’t see her. She was sure he couldn’t hear her either.

“Bug… Come on, come back to me.”

Her fingers caressed his shoulders. Fucking goddammit, she never should have let him watch it.

“A… all those people…” Bug finally managed to find the words he’d nearly choked on.

Something stung at her throat, but she swallowed it hard. “Hey. Look at me!” Kei paused. Finally, Bug did more than just stare through her. He sobbed and sniffled, but he actually saw her. “It’s over. Alright?”

“But they killed them!” Bug wailed, his hands seeking Kei’s arms for support. “A hundred fucking people, Kei, they killed them all!”

She couldn’t hide the expression of bewilderment crossing her face in time. It didn’t make sense at first. Did he really not expect those guns to fire? Was the reality of this world simply lost on this sheltered nerd, even seven months in?

Then she realized… Bug had never watched someone die. Any time a raid alarm sounded, he ran straight for the interior gate if he wasn’t there already. He stayed well the fuck away from the windows. He didn’t even look at the aftermath.

He never went to the executions.

Bug wasn’t in denial. He’d never watched anyone die, never mind a hundred. Now he’d just witnessed the most impersonal extinguishing of a hundred lives… by cold, automated indifference. In so many ways, that was worse than some waster getting his head blown off.

Kei sat beside Bug, put one arm around him, and simply held him for a long time. She listened to him cry and try to rationalize what he’d witnessed. Provided weight, pressure, presence. The things she’d probably needed when she’d first shot a man, but no one had given her. What could someone who’d once made death her career path tell a guy who couldn’t even watch a monster meet his end?

“It’s like nothing to them.” he spat, his weight gradually shifting toward Kei. “I bet—I fucking bet you—there isn’t even a person up there! It’s all just low-level AIs and targeting algorithms! It doesn’t even matter!” Bug messily dabbed his eyes with the bottom of his shirt. “Because if we see that happen, nobody else will try. Right? Is that it?”

If only that was true. Kei didn’t say it. Bug didn’t need to be challenged right now. But she could count on two hands the number of failed escape attempts she’d heard of since she’d landed here. She pulled him closer, kissed the top of his head, and murmured, “I’m sorry, Bug. I never should have let you watch. We all knew what would happen.”

She knew. But for one brief second, she let herself believe. She let the crowd’s hope in, and in that moment she truly thought escape was possible. It burned her to admit… but she couldn’t deny it.

Bug only breathed for a while. He seemed to calm over the next few moments, his shoulders lowering, body slumped gently against Kei’s. She didn’t mind the tears soaking her sleeve. He took a deep breath, tossed his glasses carelessly onto his nightstand, and exhaled in defeat. “I knew, too. I just… didn’t think it’d be so…”

“Routine?”

“Yeah. Death is such a huge deal, you know? Seeing it like that is… insane.”

Hearing that made Kei realize all at once: She couldn’t remember the last time she felt that way about any kind of mass casualty event. Raids, botched prisoner drops, hulkfalls on settlements… None of it gave her pause anymore. It was normal. People died all the time on the Boneyard, often in large numbers, usually in horrible, violent ways.

And it was normal.

Bug didn’t belong to that world yet. He was still in a place where the lives of strangers mattered, where one person dying didn’t mean another might live longer. No rations or hard calculus to determine who should live and who should die. A place where “survival” meant “eat rice for a week” instead of “hunker down for a winter that might kill your best friends”.

She held him a little tighter. “I don’t want to lay this all on you while you’re like this, hon, but… it’s not going to get better.” She hated it. She hated the words, hated the truth in them. Finding someone on this hell of a planet who still looked at cruelty with shock and horror was so precious, and something in her felt the need to snuff that flame so that the rest of him wouldn’t burn from it. “You can avoid fighting. You can hunker down during raids, refuse to look at the results, whatever you have to do. But this is life out here, Bug. And you have to…”

He looked at her when she didn’t finish. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. For someone who kept people at arm’s length, refused to get too close, and called even this level of intimacy a “casual friendship”, she sure was getting invested in preserving his innocence.

“I know.” Bug huffed. He shut his eyes, ducked his head against her shoulder, and mumbled again, “I know. Sorry Kei.”

God, the fucking nerve. The fucking nerve of him to be so considerate right now. She buried her face against his hair and grumbled, “Don’t apologize, you fuckin’ nerd. You’re the one who’s sad right now.”

“But Adriana… She was your friend.”

“We talked.” Kei sighed and extracted herself from him. God, she had to back it up a little. Don’t get too attached. For the love of god, don’t. “I wouldn’t call us friends, though I guess she fancied us so.” A little sardonic laugh slipped in. “Not too good friends, apparently, since she was content to leave me here.”

“Yeah, that’s…” Bug pursed his lips. “That’s pretty fucked up.”

“Right?”

And then… they laughed. Kei first, slowly. Then Bug joined her. It really wasn’t funny, but goddammit it was. How could it not be hilarious in the darkest, most ridiculous way, given their situation? How was it not all just one big cosmic joke?

They settled down after a moment or two, and Kei insistently pulled Bug in to lay down with her. She was big spoon, of course. This little short king had tried to big spoon her once, to hilarious effect. But she’d given him points for audacity! Too bad it popped up so rarely.

“Uh… Kei?” Bug turned his head up to look at her.

“Yeah?”

“I uh…” He fidgeted awkwardly. Cheeks flushed. Oh god, he wasn’t about to get all mushy on her, was he? This damn nerd had better not get any ideas. “I… need to go to the bathroom.”

Oh.

Kei snorted, released her hold on his waist, and gave him a tap on the ass. “Well why didn’t you go before, ya goddamn nerd? Hurry back.”

“Sorry!” Bug called back as he hurried out the door. Kei rolled her eyes, breathed out a good-natured sigh, and stared at the ceiling. This planet was hell, but at least some of the company was nice. As far as holes in the ground went, this one was tolerable.

At least it would be when her bed-warmer got back. Fuckin’ nerd.