Prodigal Sun

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ever need that any government is

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space, out here in the black – a pl

ce is s

f loneliness – that a small ship from far away now found itself through a peculiar combination of u

ill chew you up and spit you out like leftover Martian Quail stew. Whether it's radiation poisoning or a micro-meteorite punching through

very beginning of their association, she'd had a bad feeling about Brandon Carver. Something about that guy just never seemed to fit. Sure, he

her first mistake. Her second was to take so him on as a member of her crew against her better judgment – just for the trip – one way. That was all he

dinner. Well, not over dinner itself – dinner was chicken ala king – it was at dinner, but the argument was about vampires. That's right – all this drama and inconvenience

Mak around in the ships tiny diner. The fist fight escalated into a full-blown melee' with guns and blasters – and s

val alone against the raging madman! One thing led to another as they say, and now the whole inside of the small starship was a blazin

alling into one of the gravity couches, she hurriedly strapped herself into it before punching the emergency release. She hoped the escape system still worked. It did. The explosive

r the state of her largest and only possession, which was rapidly receding in the rear view. Flames were starting to sear through the hull plating, fuelled by the escaping oxygen and fuel, and licking the voi

t nearby and, seeing as the small engine of the life-pod hadn't fired yet, so was she. A quick check of the system proved that it wasn't going to either.

y were online at least, so after re-entry she could make a controlled descen

re off all the regular trade routes – and she had no real weapons left to speak of, so she could only hope she didn't run into any trouble down there. The

was Tracy Ferris's First Rule of Holes in action – when y

ground – slowly at first. Before too long, it became really hot inside the pod, and Tracy Ferris was beginning to wish she'd remembered to pack her bikini – and maybe some sun-block w

e in case the worst happened and the best course of action was to leave your ship and take your chances out in the black. A life-pod basically gave survivors of a calamity in space slightly better chances of reaching the nearest ship – or the

ecking the atmospheric readout, Tracey Ferris popped open the hatch. The cool night air streamed inside, giving her sweaty body a sudden welcome

– whatever this planet was – a shallow crater about half as deep as the pod was high… and it was at the end of a half-mile long shallow trench scoured into the landscape of what looked like

t, hoping that they wouldn't invite her over for

ad also fried some of its circuits in the crash landing and would be of no further help to her – unless she wanted to hang around and listen to music. There was nothing else much of value left inside – just a canteen or two of water, s

n the GPS receiver in the hope that this was a colony world and not… nowhere. The small display

e hell i

e sort! That also meant there were people here – and right now, people were a

crambled back up the slope to the ploughed field above. Once at the top, she shifted the weight of her baggage before starting her long walk. The phrase 'every journey begins with a si

the usual way that a man would casually sit and smoke a cigarette – for relaxation, for instance

pod, pondering just how fucked he might have been at the present moment – and once again, probably not in a way he would've enj

h considerable discomfort as the pod shuddered and jostled around him, that his tender bits were chafing against the body harness that was keeping him in the seat. Tugging at the straps proved futile, as gr