Starship Mafia

Chapter 1

Special thanks to: My editor who is not a horse.

C. M. Koseman's book "All tomorrows: a billion year chronicle of the myriad species and mixed fortunes of man" for getting me into sci fi.

Cree8ball's "All tomorrows project" for helping me with world building.

Christopher Paolini's book "To sleep in a sea of stars" for inspiring me to write this.

Helluva Boss episode 2 for being what I watched while writing this. (I really like the song that Stolas sings especially the parts where he sings "I used to think that I was bold, I used to think love would be fun, now all my stories have been told except for ooone" and "and when creation goes to DIIIEEE you can find me in the sky" cuz it sounds so good and is so fun to sing to.)

Probably should clarify here by martians I mean humans who live on Mars not aliens from Mars.

So here we go!

I stare out the window at the pale white starship circling around the orange gas giant, its massive cylindrical cargo bay sticking out of the ship's hull like a bone white tumor. I breath in and turn back to the large target in the center of the room, aiming my slingshot at the bullseye, and quickly fire a pebble a few centimeters above the center. A footstep sounds behind me, I turn, weapon still in hand. Antoni, our ship's captain, a tall thin man with pale green skin, walks across the room to me.

"Przepraszam, że ci przeszkadzam."

I lower my slingshot. And look at him blankly. "What is it?"

"You ready?" He asks, warily eyeing my weapon as I spin it around, bored.

"Yeah, let me just stock up." Shrugging and turning to leave the capsule.

"You'll need this." His voice sounds behind me. I turn back to see him holding a case. Slowly, I open it. A chrome pistol with a massive chrome cylinder on the barrel surrounded by 4 smaller chrome cylinders. I pick up the barrel and inspect it. Flawless.

"A mag pistol! Where did you get this?" I peer at him over the barrel.

"Bought it off some rube from New Luna, he had no idea how expensive these usually are." He grinned.

I chuckled at that. Idiots, they must've been insane to give up such a flawless weapon.

"This'll make infiltration much easier." I smile at the gun, then look up to him. "... Thanks." I say slowly.

"You better get your weapons from the armory." Antoni says, back turned, already halfway to the other exit leading to the ship's main compartment waving.

"Cool, I'll do that." I say, starting to walk down past mechanical chambers and storage capsules.

After 8 minutes of walking I reach the armory and survey my options. Of course, most missions rely on stealth for safety, but you never knew. I grab a silenced revolver, a red smoke grenade, and a handful of bullets. I also grab a couple of stakes in case I need to pry something open. I turn around, and walk over to the door, still studying my new pistol as a flash of metal enters the armory. I look up and smile.

"Hey, Tau, can you open the airlock antechamber?"

"Sure Bianca, gimme a moment." I nod.

We found Tau abandoned on a larger meteor, orbiting Heyangi VI. Deactivated and defective, whoever had them, clearly didn't want them. Only someone with high status had access to those types of bots. When we'd first seen them, most of the team hadn't an inkling of how the tech worked. Once we repaired them, that's when we first realized that Tau was "defective" in the sight of society. They didn't respond to authority, or any government figure of any sort. But to a group who never followed any sort of government society, we'd hit gold.