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It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 15 by prisonsuit-rabbitman, literature
Literature
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 15
(POLYONYMOUS)
“That was awful,” said Pelach. “What a horrible thing to do. We’re the scum of the universe,”
“No, we’re not,” said Atesthas. “Our need is greater. And they’ll be fine. Like we said, what does it mean for those people? A week or so on the beach waiting for the flight their parents chartered to pick them up. That’s all. And when they get home mum and dad can buy them another ship if they still feel like going on adventures,”
“They’re the scum,” Gilmour. “Remember what they paid us for. They hired us to take them into the desert to shoot people, Dan. I think they’re bad guys, Dan. I think they’re kind of dicks.”
----------
All of their clients fit a profile. They had a client. Before they started their little tour company Kolade had identified the kind of person who was going to hire them for military-training-themed desert trips on Callisto. They collected five of that guy every time they went to ‘kidnap’ their latest tour group from whichever of Norov-Ava’s finer
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 14 by prisonsuit-rabbitman, literature
Literature
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 14
(A Good Man Gone)
Until recently Orson had never been in real danger before, in his entire life. He’d been very afraid before but he knew now that he’d never really been in real danger. He knew this now because his life had changed somewhat in the past few weeks. His conditions were certainly materially different these days.
Orson knew now that real danger was when you were tied up and dragged to the edge of the roof of an eleven-storey building. You knew it was real danger because everything slowed down until you could see the individual frames and you peed your pants a little.
Orson was thinking about how a thing that he’d heard somewhere, maybe in school, was that it took a fall of 15-20 storeys minimum to guaranteed perma-deorbit a person, depending on the local gravity. That meant that he might not die when he hit the horrible rubbish-strewn Konkin street below. That thought was what made him completely lose his mind with fear.
Hitting the ground and splattering thoroughly
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 13 by prisonsuit-rabbitman, literature
Literature
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 13
(HasteMakesWaste)
The factotum was eager to get out and start poking about. McPhail was glad; their enthusiasm made him feel less guilty about sending them out into this wretched place where he wouldn’t go himself.
At first he sat in the cockpit and gazed out of the windows, occasionally answering queries from the factors. After a while he moved away from the windows and went further into the ship because he kept seeing things outside.
Some of the time he knew it was one of the factors zipping past as they flew about looking for valuables. Most of the time he knew it was just his imagination. He was gazing out at a mostly-flat grey plain, near featureless. McPhail didn’t look in the direction of the accommodation blocks. He also didn’t look towards the pit head. He had been keeping his gaze carefully on just the dark grey silt, staring out at it and seeing things moving towards the ship.
He knew he was just doing the same thing humans had always done, traversing landscapes of
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 12 by prisonsuit-rabbitman, literature
Literature
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 12
(HasteMakesWaste)
Over the next day UZB-76 went from being a dot on some of the scans to something McPhail could see out of the window, getting bigger and bigger until they were there. The atmosphere generation system had failed at some point and the layers of gas had thinned out and torn apart until they were like a net inside the original naturally-occuring layers. The remaining scraps hanging in there probably weren’t doing very much any more. No matter. Was McPhail planning to stay for long? No! Was he planning to even step out of the HasteMakesWaste? No! He flew the HMW in through one of the big rips in the atmosphere and guided the great chunk of metal towards the moon’s surface.
McPhail told the ship to find somewhere suitable to set itself down and went to suit up. He was of opinion that machines were best left to do complex things by themselves without human ‘supervision’ whenever possible. While the HasteMakesWaste busied itself with landing, out of an abundance of caution
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 11 by prisonsuit-rabbitman, literature
Literature
It Was Like This When I Found It - Chapter 11
(POLYONYMOUS)
“I don’t mean to pick holes in your plan,” said Silas. “Overall I like the idea. But just ‘cause I’ve got a new ID now doesn’t mean I can just run around in public. Especially not trying to sell myself as an ex-military guy, when I’ve just been all over the news for being an extremely ex military guy. You know? Maybe in a couple of years, if I make myself look different…”
“No need,” said Kolade. “Dress desert-style, wrap your head and face. The clients will expect you to look that way anyway. The more quiet and mysterious you are the more impressed they’ll be with you.”
“I guess,” said Silas.
“He’s right,” said Gilmour, perched on Kolade’s shoulder. “This isn’t the kind of job where the people hiring you will expect to see a full CV. They’ll be more convinced of your secret special forces operator credentials if you seem like you don’t want to talk about what you did in the military.”
Silas nodded slowly. He wasn’t entirely convinced by Gilmour’s supposed military