Molly pressed her tongue into the stud’s ear, rooting around. A moment before, they were kissing, and a moment before that, her eyes swam around the luxury loft. The floor was transparent, offering a dizzying view of the asteroid belt. She kept moving from sofa to chair for fear of free falling, while he slow motion chased her.
Station Trapeze swung in and out of the Belt, skirting the mineral wealth, and Molybdenum never had the cred to look outside. What she saw she didn’t like. Not any more than the glam man she targeted. The silver, cybernetic smart dragon burrowed out of the tip of her tongue.
Self-guiding, it worked its way up the canal, her tickling covering its movement. The hair rose on his neck as she whispered, “You like, yes?”
He nodded, unable to speak, panting. Molly, dressed to kill, had him begging for it. The worm pushed through his eardrum, into his inner ear, making the room spin. He misinterpreted the sensation as love. It lasted only a moment as the worm bored through his temporal bone into his brain.
When it hit a temporal lobe seizure trigger, the stud did the horizontal mambo. Molly realized her part of the deal was done. She leaned back on the cushions and tapped a comm button. “Insertion complete, ready for extraction.”
Molybdenum ran her fingers down the fine fabric of her tight skirt. One she could ill afford. She inhaled the pheromone laced fragrance the lineman made her wear for this op. “Arousing…” she whispered. “Need to powder my nose, lover. Be right back.”
He nodded, this time in post-convulsive fatigue. The dragon moved into his frontal lobe. The operator on the inner ring of the orbital began the data extraction. Molly would have to get out of the loft fast.
In the bathroom, she removed special wet wipes and toweled herself off to remove the intoxicant. Added a little blush and lipstick and pulled her dress down over her hips. Now all she had to do was get past his bodyguards outside and she’d be home free.
She walked up the wall to the portal. The stud stretched out on the couch looked satisfied. The operator kept hitting his pleasure center intermittently. She hit unlock and walked out.
The implant-enhanced guards looked her over, and scanned for secretions and toxins. One guard irised open the portal and looked in on their boss. The stud wore a grin, humming. The other guard nodded at Molybdenum, releasing her back to where she came from. “Deck dross,” he muttered.
“Dross, I wouldn’t mind a taste of,” said the other.
The lift tube sucked her downward, and Molly exhaled.
“Good job, Ms. Ice. Can we count on your services again?” The lineman tapped wrists with Molly, transferring cred. He looked over at the operator.
The man nodded and smiled back. “Got it. Got it good.”
She checked her balance on her HUD and smiled. “Anytime, handsome.”
“Maybe have another job for you. Piping you the deets. Take your time. This one won’t be as pleasant as the last.” The lineman clicked the inside of his upper incisors and the data uploaded on her HUD.
“I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, I’ll be spending some of my ill-gotten gain.”
“The dress, if you please.” She blushed, caught, and shed the foofaraw. “You can dine with us to celebrate—”
“Maybe after the next score, yes?”
“If you survive it,” muttered the lineman.
“Ciao for now.”
“Happy orbits, Ms. Ice.”
They watched her go, her shapely legs reflecting her pleasure bot origins.
Molybdenum Ice was a Guild reject. Too much game in her programming. She’d splattered several clients before they found her “glitch,” as they called it. Tossed her out, dumping her in the inner ring to fend for herself.
Molybdenum’s mods, added later, made her an asset to shady operators. Protecting her from the scrap pile. Down another lift tube, she exited into the Bazaar. Her more familiar digs.
They still packed the zone this late station-time night. Humans mingled with uplifted species, talking bears and dancing dogs entertained strangers and spacers. Wandering through the clumps of tourists, Molly flashed gold retinas at several of her kind. They shunned her because of her reject stamp.
“Hey gorgeous, want to swap spit?”
Molly felt the sweaty fist on her biceps pulling her around. Making her turquoise bob whip counterclockwise. “Not on duty, gorgeous. Pity.” Being demure worked better than a jab in the thyroid with punters. Fights brought the police drones, attention she didn’t need. But he wouldn’t let go.
“Not on… wait, you’re a Guild android? Never been with one of them.”
“Gynoid is the proper term. And I’m not with the Guild.”
“All the better, no taxes. Let me take a pinch… skin like butt-ter,” he purred. Lacking a manicure and manners, he ripped a piece of skin from her forehead, exposing titanium alloy.
Molly winced as her sensors sent a limited alarm to her processor. She had enough of this and slapped him hard, knocking him across the fairway and into a stall. A couple of bears linked arms with him to keep the punter from collapsing. The side of his face was bright red and swelling.
“Explain that to your wife, lizard lips!”
This altercation took the fun out of her windfall. She marched off to a small applause from the surrounding women. Molly pulled out some spray skin from her clutch and squirted a cover over the defect. She’d smooth it down later.
Making her way out of the Bazaar, she headed toward her charging station a half a click sunward. After plugging in, she’d use the downtime to analyze the lineman’s deets, and perhaps come up with a strategy for the job. She hoped to save enough to start over on Mars. The station was the only place she’d ever known.
Hours later, Molybdenum stepped off her charging platform and into Vanadium Curl’s arms. She was just walking by.
“Oh dear, Molly. Your face is a mess.”
“Mind if I take a dip in your skin shower?”
“Be my guest. You know where, right?”
“You sure the other girls won’t mind?”
“Oh, they will. But tell them they don’t want to get tangled in my curlers.”
Molybdenum laughed. “You know, Van, I could use you on a job. Interested?”
“How delicious. Crossing the Guild with some under the table work, spill…” the true platinum blond winked.
They were salt and pepper. Molly’s dark, sultry looks complimented Vanadium’s ravishing, pale skin. For men, they were unstoppable. For women, a challenge, and unbeatable.
“I’ll fill you in after I bathe. Meet me at the LowDown. No company, yeah?”
“I can’t help it if I’m popular,” Curl winked, then disappeared doing her Alice in Wonderland trot.
Molly shook her head. Vanadium was simply irresistible.
The next station day, the burly captain stood before the ramp leading into the guts of the Empress Warp. She spotted the two geologists pushing through the crowd in the spaceport. Checked her floating data cube and compared it to the two figures approaching. No wonder the doctors advanced quickly in their field, she thought. Simply too beautiful to refuse.
Molly and Van carried rucksacks full of clanking tools over their shoulders. They made them look heavy, even though their strength enabled them to carry much more. They had to pose as humans for the crew.
“I see you gals are ready to work. All them tools, you’ll need them! The Empress Warp is a prospecting vessel, not a research ship. We keep the samples, you keep the creds… Welcome aboard.”
“You the Captain?” Van asked, trying not to flirt. She had to resist her base function.
“That would be me. Captain Lambert, but you can call me…”
“We’ll stick with Captain, this is Doctor Pearl, and I am Doctor Rice,” Molly answered, after seeing Van’s pupils dilate. Seduction protocols were a hard habit for a Guild member to break.
“We are about to shove off. Sure hope you’re not prone to space sickness. It’s going to be a rough ride. Rather than using fuel, we are going to spear and cable until we lose enough delta v to settle on Amphitrite on the asteroid belt’s inner ring.”
“I enjoy bucking broncos,” Van grinned.
Molly gave her a nasty look. If she kept going on like this, she might have to ditch her. “Anything particular we’re mining, Captain?”
“Whatever’s valuable… That’s what you’re here to tell us. First mate will show you to your quarters. Saorise!”
“Aye Captain,” The heavyset woman bounded down the ramp. She looked like a loading mech, scarred up face, bleached butch cut.
“These are our geologists. Find them some bunks.”
“Aye. Come along, ladies. All women crew on the Empress. Gets lonely out in the black. How do you swing?”
Van looked like she was about to burst. Molly gave her a warning look. “I’m Rice, she’s Pearl. Hopefully, we’re not out long enough for you to find out.”
“Fine looking pair you are. I’d keep an eye out. Our smelters are quite randy.”
“You process ore on site?” Van asked, business-like.
“Easier and cheaper. Leave the tailings where they started. No excess mass.”
“Aye, smart,” Molly said.
On the way forward, led by Saorise, they peeked into the smelting factory. Three women lingered, talking and elbowing each other. One looked up and spotted the two gynoids.
“And what do we have here?” one of them spouted.
“Fresh meat for the pots?”
“Could use a bit of affection, us lonely smelters.”
“Stow it,” Saorise ordered, leaning back toward the hatch. “These are our guests. Geologists to help us prospect. You will treat them like any other officer on board.”
“That we shall,” the tall one said, chewing on a piece of welding rod.
“By rank, from left to right, is Maud, Rusty, and Tug,” Saorise introduced. “Most likely, you’ll work with Maud.”
“Hey, spread the wealth with your loyal crew, Maud,” Rusty said, making eyes at Van.
“If you keep lashing on, Rusty, I will confine you to quarters, understood?”
“Sorry, Ma’am.”
The three moved forward.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?” Molly asked.
“The miners and bridge crew are in stasis. Save on air and supplies. We’ll bring them out once we set down on Amphitrite. The AI will get us there.”
“What does the bridge crew do?” Van asked.
“Operate the heavy equipment remotely, comms, navigation… the usual. I thought you were both pretty salty. That’s why the Captain hired you.”
“We usually work the bigger ships,” Molly dissembled. “We took this job to try something different. Stretch our legs.”
“Have a little more freedom, eh?” Saorise added. “It’s all the same to us, Dr. Rice.”
“And here you are.” Saorise opened a hatch to a small stateroom with two bunks, one on top of the other, with not much room to move. “Smaller ships don’t have all the amenities of the big ones, but it’s cozy.”
“Looks good,” Van said, not pleased.
“I’ll leave you to it. We break port in ten. Might want to settle into those acceleration couches. We are slim on inertial dampeners.”
“Aye, aye, First Mate. And thanks for the tour.”
“Think nothing of it. You can call me Saorise.”
When they were alone, and belted in, Curl sighed and said, “And you needed me, why?”
“Distraction, while I do the necessary.”
“That I can do. But how are you going to fake being a geologist?”
“Uploads from the mineralogist database.”
Rough wasn’t the word for it. As the Empress Warp entered the asteroid belt near Amphitrite, it speared asteroids two at a time to brake. It was like being in an auto collision over and over. Everyone strapped in, and even the Captain heaved up her guts as the crew dealt with gravitational whiplash.
The Empress Warp’s AI would spear two rocks, one after the other, flinging the ship’s contents around. The drag forced it to spin, buck and decelerate, reaching its structural limits again and again. When the drag dissipated, it would release the tow and spear two more, paying out and retracting cables. It was far more energy efficient than expending fuel to brake, but brutal on the crew.
Damage accumulated with each maneuver, both in personnel and equipment. Profit being the motive, the savings would be worth it so long as the ship survived. The AI calculations heated the mainframe worryingly, but Saorise was too busy trying to survive the vector shifts to pay attention.
The gynoids set timers and shut down for the duration of the maneuver. As the deceleration progressed, rocks trailed the ship. The Empress accounted for the tail, arranging for the dragged asteroids to pass harmlessly away when it turned and burned to land on Amphitrite.
Molybdenum came back online to find her left hand and right ankle dislocated, and their quarters in shambles. She activated servos and winched her extremities back into place. Then she looked over at Vanadium. If Curl were human, she would be dead.
Scans showed an internal decapitation. Bubbling white lubricant came from her lips. Molly ran a damage assessment. Van’s hip dislocated, and she was blind in one eye from flying debris. Ice left her strapped in. She opened a can of Guild nanobots and poured them into Van’s nose. It would take at least a day to effect repairs.
Molybdenum left her quarters to check on the others. One stasis pod opened and spilled its contents against the bulkhead. The miner was dead. The others were intact and operational. She moved on to the smelting factory.
Fortunately, all the caps on the smelting furnaces were intact. Maud was in a bad way. She had a broken femur. Molly placed a splint and moved on. Rusty lay on her acceleration couch laughing. She had taken something before the maneuver and was still enjoying herself. A quick check showed her to be intact, especially when she began groping Ice.
Tug looked okay, but an internal scan showed multiple abdominal hemorrhages. Molly couldn’t reveal what she knew without giving herself away. She tucked an extra pillow under Tug’s head, knowing she’d die.
“I’ll get the medic up and in here to help you, Maud.”
“You know how to work those stasis pods?”
“How hard could it be? Help is coming. Hang in there.”
Ice dreaded going to the bridge. A dead captain would end her contract with the lineman. She hoped for the best. Only to pass Saorise in the passageway heading aft. Molly gave a brief report on the crew status, before the first mate pushed past her and raced toward the stasis pods to wake the medic, then the miners.
Fortunately, Lambert wasn’t dead. Still strapped into her couch, she was unconscious. Molly looked around the empty bridge. Seeing no one, she performed a deep scan. Her condition was worse than death. Diffuse Axonal Injury disrupted the long connecting neurons from her brain-stem to her higher cortex.
Ice calculated quickly and poured a measure of her own nanobots into the Captain’s eye. It would take a week in ship time to repair the damage if they could sustain her body until then. The medic arrived and collected the Captain for transfer to sick bay.
“Will she be all right?” Molly asked. “I stayed by her side and waited for help. But I didn’t move for fear—”
“You did the right thing. I’ll take it from here. Thank you, Dr. Rice.”
The bridge was suddenly quiet. Molly looked around, uncertain what to do. The operator already assessed the situation online. He offered nothing. Great.
Throughout the Empress, Saorise’s voice rang, “Attention all hands. I’m in command. The Captain is in sick bay. But she would expect us to carry on. You all know your duties. Welcome to Amphitrite. Deploy drones and scan for potential veins. Primary prospectors will join Doctors Rice and Pearl on the surface to assess the possibles. None of us get paid until we have a full belly of the precious. Miners, prepare the excavators. Get to it. That is all.”
Thus began a cacophony of shipboard commotion. Banging, burning, and cursing throughout. Molybdenum returned to their quarters to check on Vanadium. Curl was whistling in her bunk when Molly arrived. A quick follow-up scan revealed the internal decapitation repaired, and the hip back in place. Van still had some deficits. Her eye was under repair, but she was healing faster than expected. Guild upgrades, no doubt.
“You ready to get to work, girl?”
“Do I have to put on an unnecessary spacesuit?”
“Only if you want to maintain your disguise and keep that luscious skin of yours.”
At first, Curl pouted, but vanity got the best of her. She punctuated it by getting up and standing before the mirror, primping. “I’m a mess. No one’s going to want to be with me with this egg white eye.”
“Get yourself an eye patch. Women love pirates! Besides, haven’t you had enough work at the smelters on the way out here?”
“Insatiable. It’s in my programming.”
On the surface, with the prospectors trailing, Molybdenum looked like an expert, tapping away with a rock pick, then sweeping away the regolith with a brush. Vanadium followed her with a hand trowel, expertly examining the samples. Satisfied, Molly would dramatically gesture downward, giving the order to a group of primary prospectors, who would peel off and work the site as the rest moved onward to the next site the drones identified.
The truly rewarding veins, fleshed out by the prospectors, resulted in a call to the miners. They would deploy from the ship with excavators and loaders, creating a bucket brigade that ended at the smelter factory. Tug’s replacement would direct the ore into the pots based on scans of the load. Maud and Rusty ran the pots, extruding base metals, which were pressed into bars.
The bars went into the cargo bay in labeled bins. Iron, Nickel, Gold, Platinum, Ruthenium, Titanium and others. Ship days passed, working round the clock in three shifts. The Empress Warp and its crew became a machine. Van’s eye cleared and her sight returned, while the Captain slowly recovered to the surprise of the medic.
The Captain’s first slurred words were, “Are we meeting qu…qu…quota?”
Saorise, comm’d in with the answer, supervising ship repairs, “On time and on target, Captain. The geologists are worth their weight.”
“Ship…p…p’s status?”
“We got beat up pretty bad, but we’ll make it back to the Trapeze in one piece.”
Lambert didn’t answer as she fell back into a coma. The medic told Saorise the Captain was out, and the first mate clicked off.
Curl fell back into her bunk and plugged in to her charger. “I haven’t worked this hard since the NFL team stopped by the Station! When does the fun begin?”
Molly exhaled, and plugged herself in, equally fatigued, “On the way back.”
The Empress Warp lifted off Amphitrite, heavy with cargo. The lineman perked up. He gazed at the radarscope and watched its progress out of the Belt. He smiled, and the operator called Molybdenum.
The lineman swirled his finger in the air, circling the wagons. The Captain of the Raptor gunship set course for the rendezvous point, signaling his swarm of fighters. If the two gynoids did their job and disabled the Empress Warp, the Raptor wouldn’t have to fire a shot. In fifteen hours, they’d be rich.
Then one booster flamed out. Only thing telling the Raptor bridge crew it happened was a band of red lights on their consoles. The Captain cursed as he watched the fighters surge ahead. The operator looked at the lineman, his expression telling him: this happens when you hire the lowest bidder.
“Can you fix this bucket of bolts?!” the lineman barked.
“Bucket of… I’ll have you know—” the Captain began.
The lineman cut him off, “Tsst. The Empress Warp has teeth. If we can’t defeat her, nobody gets paid. Am I clear?”
The Captain looked sheepish, giving the ship’s engineer a chance to intervene. “Captain, it’s a power rod failure. Easily fixed. Give me ten minutes and I’ll switch it out. Aren’t you glad I demanded we have spares?”
The Captain, getting it from both ends (his crew and his clients), went brusque. Clearing his throat, he said, “Get her done, Sparks. We don’t have a moment to spare.”
“I’m on it. Out.”
Seven minutes later, the ship rumbled. Zero-point energy collecting from the vacuum fed the hungry engines. The Captain yelled over the intercom, “Strap in, everyone! We need to make up some time. Helmsman, prepare for flank speed.”
“Aye Captain.”
The operator did, but the lineman didn’t. When the acceleration hit, the lineman flew from his seat and plastered on the bulkhead, bruised and humiliated. The Captain choked down a chortle.
Molly was crawling around the air vents of the Empress Ward near engineering, looking for the coordinates. She checked her HUD to verify location, then used a cutting laser to gain access to the control arteries. The spaghetti above her would have been indecipherable to a human, but to a synthetic, each cable appeared labeled virtually.
She set charges at key locations on the lines, then resealed the air vent. Crawling back toward their quarters, she spied Van entertaining a prospector through a vent screen. Curl definitely got the better deal on this job. Molly mouthed sarcastically Van’s refrain: Insatiable. It’s in my programming!
Two hours later, Saorise alerted the Captain. “Ah, Ma’am, we have pirates coming in on the long-range scanners.”
“They must have a mother ship. Find it,” Lambert ordered.
It didn’t take long. Saorise threw it up on the main viewer and said, “It’s a Vanquisher Class gunship, heading straight toward us.”
“Time to intercept?”
“Fifteen minutes at our combined closing rate.”
“All ahead flank. We have the speed to outrun her. Call Battle stations.”
“Battle Stations, Battle Stations!”
“Here we go,” Molly said from her bunk, plugged into her charging station. She sent a recall to Vanadium.
Moments later, Curl bounded in.
“How’s your charge?”
“Down thirty.”
“Speed load. You’re going to need it.”
“Finally… the fun begins.” Van rubbed her hands together, then plugged in.
“The charges go off in fifteen. Be ready.”
“Timing sleep mode now.” And Curl went dark.
When she woke, Van thought they were speed braking again. The ship was jinking, pitching, and yawing. But the maneuvers were smoother. The crew manned guns while the helmswoman evaded incoming fire from the fighters. It was hardly fair. For the marauders, that is.
Their function was to worry the Empress, disabling her weapons and defenses. While they seemed to lose, they were getting the job done. That’s when the cable charges exploded.
“Ma’am, I just lost helm control.”
“But we still have power,” Saorise added. “If we hit the boosters, we can still outrun them.”
“Make it so,” the Captain ordered. “Comms, send a Mayday, all frequencies.”
The fighters turned to pursue the fleeing Empress while the Raptor closed. A moment later, the engineer came on the holo. “Captain, we’re overheating. Temperature control is offline. If we keep running at flank speed, the reactors will blow. We power down or we vaporize.”
Saorise pointed at the main viewer. “Ma’am, the Raptor is closing. We’re outgunned, and shields are failing. If we fight, we die. If we run, we die. Recommend surrender.”
Lambert looked from panel to panel. She would not accept defeat. She was a retired naval officer and refused to give in. “Shut down the reactors. Our drift should keep us ahead of the fighters, but not the Raptor. She wants our cargo, so she won’t kill us. Let’s make them pay for it.”
Over the ship-wide intercom, she said, “This is the Captain. Prepare to repel boarders. Master of Arms, open the small arms locker and deploy weapons. Ladies, fight for your percentage. If we win, we win glory and reward. Rouse anyone in stasis. We need all hands. Make me proud!”
Molly looked over at Van, saying, “That’s our cue. Time to fight and win. The lineman is about to dock. Once the Empress surrenders, we get paid.”
Most of the defenders went to the airlocks in battle armor to repel boarders. The Raptor obliged by sending crawlers onto the skin of the Empress to begin the attack. But the gunship planned on sending their main battle force through a breach. One they intended to cut themselves into the Warp’s hull.
A miner forced two laser rifles into Molly and Van’s hands as they marched toward the location where the breach would occur. She gave them a questioning look when she noticed they were wearing their rucksacks. Van thanked the woman by firing a bolt into her abdomen.
As the assault began, the crew passing the couple died from the gynoids’ treachery. The Warp’s airlock defenders beat the crawlers, but with severe losses. Then they slammed the inner airlock shut when they finished the job. Afterwards, they redeployed to other vital parts of the ship, fighting as they went.
But the Raptor mercenaries were better armed and armored. Driven by greed rather than survival, their war cries echoed throughout the Empress, scything down the defenders in their path. If Molly and Van could smell, they would detect the reek of ozone and blood. But the cries of the dying and the wounded were awful enough.
On the bridge, Lambert fought gallantly and was keeping the mercs at bay. The operator poked his head through the hatch and fired at the first mate. He winged her. Seeing the odds against them, she lifted a deck plate and dropped into an air vent, crawling away, leaving a blood trail.
Saorise regretted leaving her captain and the others, but she had an alternative plan in mind. Grabbing a limpet mine along the way, she headed toward the Raptor’s hull breach into the Empress. If she could blow the seal, they might have a chance, letting the vacuum rather than the miners repel the mercenaries.
The first mate just placed the explosive when Molly and Van came into view. Molly fired, hitting Saorise. The look of betrayal was clear as the first mate activated the limpet. The explosion did its job.
Seal broken, the Raptor drifted away. Emergency hatches on both ships slammed down to seal the breaches. Gunship crew died preparing to board the Empress and drifted off into space. The gynoids’ synth skin froze off, caught on the other side of the hatches. Their titanium endoskeletons exposed to the vacuum, they quickly lost mobility.
Activating mag boots, they waited for rescue.
Molly watched as the Raptor maneuvered and resealed against the Empress. The battle went on, while they stood helpless, waiting for warm air to free them. Hours passed, then Van heard the cry of victory.
The gunship mercenaries walked past them, returning to the Raptor, clapping shoulders. The lineman jumped down onto the deck in a spacesuit and noticed his spies. Walking over to them, he spoke, “Well, you both look a little underdressed. I could leave you here, I suppose, on this drifting hulk, once we shift the cargo.”
The gynoids’ eyes dilated.
“But then, without you, I wouldn’t have succeeded.” Over his communicator, he said, “Operator, I found them. They are near the Empress’s hull breach, sans skin. Come collect them, warm them up, and for heaven’s sake, put something on them. They’re disgusting to look at.”
They watched the cargo move past them, uncertain if this was it for them. The gynoids waited some more. Watching the pirates abandoning the Warp. Nothing the gynoids could do. The Empress powered down, and they stood in the icy darkness.
As an afterthought, the operator appeared with two burly crewmen and pointed at Molybdenum and Vanadium’s mag boots, saying, “Release.”
They both stuttered, “Re… re… re… leasing…” They drifted upward.
The crewmen grabbed them and tossed them up into the Raptor’s moon pool. Two men there grabbed the gynoids and dragged them through an airlock and toward the “showers.” By the time they arrived in the maintenance closet, they warmed up enough to function.
The men slammed the closet shut, and one muttered, “Droids… can’t stand them,” as they walked away.
Showered and charged, primped and primed, Ice and Curl emerged from the closet and looked for the lineman. Time to get paid.
They found him lounging with the operator in their luxury quarters. After greetings, the lineman dismissed the operator and said, “Well Ms. Ice, you look fresh and ripe for new opportunities. So here are some options. The Raptor is heading into the inner planets to sell the cargo. If you like, we can drop you and Vanadium back at Station Trapeze on the way with the agreed upon sum.
“Or you can continue on with us to Mars. We will sell half the cargo there and you get a bigger piece of the pie. From there, you have the option of disembarking or carrying on to Earth. Where we will sell the rest of the cargo and you get a bit more cred. What’ll it be?”
Molybdenum’s dream come true. No decision needed. “I’ll settle on Mars. Make a new life there. What do you say, Van?”
Curl was hard-pressed to leave the Guild. Her life was pretty good on Trapeze, albeit redundant. She smacked her lips and answered, “Well, why not? This girl could use some more adventure. I’m with you, Molybdenum Ice, all the way.”
The lineman smiled, scheming.
Dr. Raymond is a Family and Emergency Physician. He practiced in eight countries in four languages. Currently living in Austria with his wife. When not volunteering his practice skills, he is writing, lecturing, or scuba diving. In 2008, he discovered the wreck of a Bulgarian freighter in the Black Sea. He has multiple medical citations, along with publications in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Grief Diaries, The Examined Life Journal, The Satirist, Chicago Literati, Blood Moon Rising, Saddlebag Dispatches, Utopia Science Fiction magazine, and in the Sci-Fi anthologies Sanctuary and Alien Dimensions among others. He is the fiction editor of Savage Planets magazine.