The Snows over Cynus Four (Patreon)

Can't sleep, must tell a story.

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It was snowing on Cygnus Four. The delicate flakes of frozen oxygen and methane floated down slowly in the thin gravity of the planetoid, coating the barren hills surrounding him. The communication towers of the spaceport reached for the stars, branching out to form barren, metal trees that turned white while the snow was drifting down. Six-wheeled rocket carts taking miners to work on the crater wall threw up plumes of white behind them, their drivers enjoying a bit of fun while fish-tailing back and forth to see who could toss up the biggest plume. The white flakes would take their time coming back down. It was always snowing on Cygnus Four, and Julius wondered again why he was here, looking out through the small window of his cell at the snow covered hills.

The hills were in reality the rim of a huge crater, formed when a small comet had collided with Cygnus Four millions of years ago. The rock had melted and vaporized and what was left pushed outward in a ring shaped tidal wave that built higher and higher and then froze in place as the wave cooled, leaving a perfectly formed crater that would someday become a spaceport. The spaceport was there, sitting in the center of the crater, to service the tugs that grappled the huge ore barges and pulled them skyward to be loaded onto tramp freighters. The ore would be processed somewhere else where energy and manpower were cheaper. Cygnus Four had only three things on it: The mines that delved into its rocky walls, seeking the valuable parts of the shattered comet, the spaceport, and the prison.

The prison was there to provide the manpower needed for the mines. The work was done in vac suites. Men and women struggling to swing picks or man the laser drills in clumsy, old-style vacuum suites that the rest of the universe had quit using a thousand years ago. Each held only eighteen hours of air. Just enough to get to the mines and back and work a double shift. The prison didn't need to guard the miners; without air, no one was escaping, and besides this one crater, Cygnus Four was a barren planetoid without air, heat, or a way to leave. Once a year the guards were changed. Other than that, only ore left the spaceport. The miners were never going home, their life sentences bought by Omnicorp. You mined, and you got to eat and rest. The social life was limited.

Julius was preparing for his first shift in the mines, doublechecking his air and making sure there were no pinhole leaks in the seams of his suit. You lost atmosphere that way, but also heat, and it was a debate as to which would kill you first. Dozens of frozen miners could be seen near the trails leading to the mines. There was no place to bury them, so their friends put their frozen bodies in groups or perched them on rocks where they had a good view. Some even looked like they were waving to friends. One small mistake and Julius knew he'd be there forever with them.

There is no sound in space, but there is vibration, and he felt it now through the solid rock of the prison's floor. A ship was landing. Not a tug, a full ship. He could tell from the unbalanced engines that it was in trouble. It was a tramp freighter with barely any shields and malfunctioning engines. He wondered if it could even take off again, or if the crew was doomed to join to him here. As soon as it landed, it was broadcasting over the general radio frequency.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is the Free Trader Solar Queen out of Luna7. We need emergency repairs to our engines, refueling, and air for our life support."

"Attention Solar Queen. You are trespassing on Omnicorp property. This isn't a damned repair station. Take your battered piece of junk and get the hell out of here."

"Omnicorp? Damn, thought this was Hogan's Hole. Can we cut a deal? We're overweight and I need to dump twenty tons of fissionables, and need ten hours for repairs. That's twenty tons of high grade uranium fuel rods in exchange for some grub, some O2, and some time. What do you say guys?"

Ten minutes of silence followed the offer and then a reply. "Attention Solar Queen. This is Jordan Bauer of Omnicorp. You have a deal, but one trick and we blow you to atoms. Unload the fuel rods and I'll send out a crew to get them, along with the air you need."

"That's great Mr. Jordan. Be careful with the stuff. It's not in shielded containers, so you'll want people in hard-suits to handle it for you."

Bauer turned to his warden. "Send out the twenty inmates we have here waiting to work the next shift. They can load the fuel rods. A few years off of their lives won't matter."

And that's how Julius found himself along with nineteen other unfortunate miners heading out to load radioactive fuel rods in an unshielded vac suit. The work was difficult, despite the low gravity that made moving the heavy crates easier to shift. Mass didn't change, and while you could get a crate moving with a hard push or two, stopping it was harder. A lot of new chums had died making that mistake. Four crates were loaded onto a cargo mover, and they started back to the prison, always watched over by two guards on the walls, manning the laser cannons. Halfway there, they spotted the second ship coming in.

Julius stared in wonder. The fat engine module looked four times bigger than it should be, and she was burning a lot of hydrogen. Some idiot was shooting past overhead in a custom built racer with a quad-fusion system. Someone in Omnicorp was yelling on the radio and the laser cannons were swiveling to target it as it made it's pass.

"Attention! Unknown Ship, divert to space or be shot down!

The sound of high pitched laughter poured from the ship's radio. "Suck vacuum, you damned corporate vampire!" The ship rolled displaying its logo: Three slashed claw marks in red across the white skull and bones of the Jolly Roger. The top of two crates were kicked off as two men in tactical space armor stood up holding plasma cannons. Julius dove for cover and wrapped his arms over his faceplate just as they unleashed energy bursts that targeted and destroyed the two laser cannons. They fired three more times until the guns overheated and had to be thrown away.

The Solar Queen was keeping up a steady stream of laser fire that pinned down the guards in the barracks and command center, even if they had been brave enough to venture out. The Claw Master (Julius knew only one ship used that logo on their ship) roared across the crater close enough that the exhaust from their engines destroyed the communication towers as it flew past. And now a third ship was coming in and landing near the warehouse that held the ore barges.

"Start moving people! Anyone that's tired of mining and wants a vacation needs to get their ass down here and help load this ore." Julius stood up and started to hobble in that direction. His old legs still had trouble moving in the suit. It turned out he didn't need to worry about running. The two gunners each grabbed an arm and pulled him along, their exoskeleton suits giving them twenty times his strength and speed.

"Going somewhere, Doc?"
"Did you think we'd leave you here to rot."

The bearded faces in the helmets were definitely squats with the race's wide noses and ruddy skin tones. But he knew the voices of Ron and Don Moreski from decades of working together. "What the hell are you doing here? And who else is here."

They laughed. "We're rescuing you, recruiting sixty people for the rebellion and stealing enough high-grade ore to keep us in beer and bullets for a year."

"And as to who's here...All of us, Doc. We all came. This idiot volunteered along with me to take out the guns. Dan is pilot of the Solar Queen and Fritz is the lad on the guns keeping their heads down. Abe is over loading the ore. When word got out they had you in prison, we all signed up for a raid to get you out. The rebellion is alive and well, but it needs a leader, and we voted you in."

"Just like old times, Doc."

Within minutes the ore was loaded and the two ships took off while the pi-rats about the Claw Master used their massive energy resources to reduce the prison to rubble and keep anyone from shooting back. Julius watched the planetoid recede. Cygnus Four was beautiful, covered in swirling white clouds, but he hoped he'd never see it again."

"Alright, if I'm in charge, you have to tell me where we're headed."

The brothers popped their helmets and shook out their beards. "Well, Doc, we debated on that. But we need more firepower and more ships and the best place to find that, along with some passable beer, and a place to sell the ore is in out in the rim. We're headed to the Scavenger outpost of Barnacle Bay. You'll like it, never a dull moment with those girls."

Julius had heard about it, and smiled anyway. "Sounds fine. It's good to be back."