“I know,” he said, already working the crash couch’s harness. “Log it under ‘stupid decisions, age fifty.’”
He pried the emergency hatch using a manual spreader. The interior was dark and cold. A single emergency lumen stick glowed weakly in the corner, illuminating a figure strapped into a crash couch. rafian at the edge 50
“That is a significant security risk, Rafian.” “I know,” he said, already working the crash
At fifty years old, Rafian was an antique. Not by the standards of Earth, perhaps, but out here, on the ragged edge of human-extended space, survival was measured in six-month increments. He had outlasted three partners, two settlements, and one very persistent bounty hunter who now decorated a cryo-vent near the Kraken Mare. A single emergency lumen stick glowed weakly in
Rafian’s first instinct was to ignore it. Survivors meant complications. Questions. Often, they meant bullets. But the Edge 50 was starving. His water recycler was leaking, his food printer had been making the same gray protein paste for six months, and the last salvage run had yielded nothing but scrap wire and a dead man’s boot.
“Military issue,” Rafian whispered. “Silicon-carbide hull. No transponder. No distress call.”