CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The first thing the next morning, Mike met with Snek in the storage room.

“How was your night?” Mike asked.

“I wasn’t on a billion-ton prison ship. It’s a step in the right direction.”

Mike got to the point. “Any luck yesterday finding junk or derelict stuff for weapons?”

“Just getting started, like everything else.”

“Sorry to push,” Mike said. “I guess I’m hoping for a miracle.”

“We could do with a few of those,” Snek said, “I know, we’ve got our safety and the lives of millions of gay people to consider, but like I said before, we’ll be lucky to find anything usable.”

Mike asked, “Why wouldn’t previous expeditions just take all their junk with them?”

“It would be outmoded and transport would be cost-prohibitive. Starting up a colony is not easy, but abandoning one is a real pain in the ass. It’s easier just to leave the stuff. And if they’re giving up on a colony, it usually means they’ve gone broke and can’t afford salvage. Probably could barely afford to get themselves home.” Snek swept his hand around to encompass the mounds of materials around them. “This storage room isn’t the only place with equipment. This has all the new or recently delivered stuff. Previous colonies dug into these mountains pretty extensively. A lot of what they built has decayed, but one of the things my group is doing is retrieval. Like a scrap metal drive on a planetary scale. You know if we put some kind of weapons together, we’re more likely to use them on ourselves.”

“It’s a delicate balance.”