Sean-Michael Argo - Carrion Duty

Sokol heard a familiar grindcore behind him and turned to see Morgan and Night Witch coming around the far side of the complex, covered in a similarly vast quantity of carnage.

A good kill indeed.

Rhett kept his eyes closed as he stood under the shower head, ignoring the consumption warnings chiming through the control panel gently reminding him that he’d exceeded his water ration and was racking up premium charges.

Water was only marginally more precious than breathable air out here in the black and the municipal authorities on the massive space station maintained a strict administration when it came to such resources. If someone was docking with an expired set of licenses or ended up in the brig after a bar fight, those were negotiable offenses. Wasting water and skipping on the bill meant a no trial trip out of the airlock if Port Authority caught up with the offender.

The bounty scrapper knew that soon his fee for the water was going to exceed what he’d paid for the room, the girl, and the drinks. His throat had the dull ache of too much mescal, and the hot water was making him keenly aware of the multitude of tiny abrasions on his body due to the ill-fitting but affordable patchwork armor he often wore. It seemed that just as he was getting comfortable in one suit the Vulture would come across a hostile salvage and he would have to reconfigure it to adjust for battle damage and replacement parts.

Rhett kept his eyes closed and turned his face towards the shower head, letting the gentle spray cascade over his face as he did his best to ignore the chiming control panel and wash away the thoughts that continued to rob him of his peace.

All hands are lost.

The AG16 had been a hard bounty, even for such a seasoned crew as those aboard the Vulture Six . The payday had been significant, one of the largest they’d pulled in years, but it had cost them plenty. The fuel and repairs were part of the Vulture ’s established consumables budget, but the loss of Vader had been tough. The cutter had been on the crew since Rhett’s first day, and though he didn’t know much about the man it seemed like he was okay enough. People dying on salvage ops was common, whether they were hostile or not, and on a long enough timeline even the best bounty scrappers in the business often met their end on the job. It was the idea of dying on a ship like that, in a nightmare tomb tumbling through space, that bothered the team. Not that anyone aboard the Vulture was overly superstitious, but the idea of Vader being another ghost wandering that ship make Rhett sick to his stomach.

No escape.

Once the bridge was secured Quinn made good on her wage and got the engine spinning, which was no small feat considering that Doak and Sparks had to haul several cables across the outside of the hull and thread them back through the ship into the engine chamber. Andromeda Station was the Vulture ’s home berth, and in addition to being the only trading post in the sector, Andromeda sported an Aegis franchised chop yard.

They had swept the rest of the ship, going from room to room, ready to blast anything that moved, to discover, thankfully, that they’d already killed everything aboard. Quinn continued her analysis, Bella cross referenced what she could through the Aegis data network, and between them they painted a picture of what became the official report.

At some point during their travels the AG16’s agri cargo was contaminated by an ergot bloom. Given the radically unpredictable mixture of genetically modified organisms the only logical explanation was that somehow the ergot, or a mutated and especially devastating version of it, got into the atmosphere of the ship. In ancient times ergot poisoning, which caused hallucinations in addition to slowly rotting the body away in a gangrenous fashion, was considered to be the source of myths and legends about werewolves and cannibalistic human beings. It seemed that there was some truth in this primitive folk tale, and as the crew succumbed to the ergot they turned on each other with brutal enthusiasm. None aboard the Vulture Six wanted to think too much about the details of that savagery, to consider such madness was not part of the job description.

Nobody left to save.

Rhett breathed out and tapped the control panel to shut off the water. He keyed his personal deck code, one assigned to each visitor to Andromeda upon arrival and registration of their bank account, to cover the bill. He stepped out of the shower, feeling cleaner at least, if no less haunted.

The vulture toweled off and walked from the small lavatory into the room that he’d rented. It was sparsely furnished, which suited Rhett fine, with a single table, one vid screen, indirect track lighting, and a modest bed. The young woman, who called herself Andromeda, just like every other table girl who’d lived her entire life on the station, was still asleep. It was early in the morning according to the Vulture Six cycle, though for Andromeda Station and all the locals it was the dead of night cycle.

She’s off the clock so let her sleep, thought Rhett as he paused to observe her for a moment, she was a freelancer so it wasn’t like there was a pimp or madame somewhere waiting to put her back on deck. He’d been rough on her, it was always like that for him after gunfights and a long haul, but she’d been with him last time Vulture Six docked here and had done her work with no complaints.

We all have a job to do, thought Rhett as he put on his deck clothes, just a simple black t-shirt and cargo pants, a welcome change after weeks in either armor or a flight suit. Rhett walked quietly over to the small table, picked up a garishly colored glass bottle and poured himself a measure of mescal.

It was an expensive drink, made dirtside on only a handful of worlds in corporate space, the best of which came from the Solis Confederacy controlled agri-world of Dakat. Most low rent space jockeys across the universe spent their money drinking whatever the local grog happened to be, but Rhett found that he had a taste for the finer things.

“Live while we yet live,” whispered Rhett to himself before knocking back the drink and savoring the complex taste of it as the burning liquid slid over his tongue and down his throat.

“Good saying, Bossman,” said Andromeda from behind him as she lifted herself up on her elbows, rising from sleep and turning on the charm instantly as only a professional could.

“I can’t remember where I heard that, probably just the talk,” said Rhett as he poured himself and Andromeda each a fresh measure of mescal.

“The talk is good, if you scope the trash,” Andromeda said as she winked at Rhett and accepted his offered glass.

They were quiet for a moment, the Vulture and the table girl, as they fixated on the expensive libation. Rhett’s mind fell into old patterns, and he began to think about the AG16 again.

The crew that changed must have had some primitive instinct to band together eventually, perhaps they’d grouped into tiny packs of madmen and eventually the most violent of them won control of the ship. They were all in void suits, and considering all of the garbage floating around they’d been living on whatever they could scavenge. Most void suits, at least those for deep space operators, had nutrient valves that would allow the wearer to puncture a sealed food or liquid packet and consume it through a small tube in their helmet. After six months they were probably all on the verge of starvation and had certainly depleted their breathable. Rhett told himself that they’d all have died gasping within a few days anyway.

“Got that dark still on you, Bossman,” observed Andromeda as she emerged from beneath the sheets to grasp Rhett’s empty glass, taking the opportunity to draw close to him, pressing her naked form against the vulture. “Need a tumble before you go? I charge you half.”