Underworld
by
Electromotive Force
Rise and Shine
The world turned bright.
It happened on any spot on any planet with a consistent night-day cycle. White light upon waking up—it was usually a welcomed sight—finding its way to a colonist's eyes from the glowing ambiance of a morning dawn. Human visual perception eventually adjusted to the world and the fog of sleep roiled away, revealing the day. Humans were naturally daytime beings with the majority of one's consciousness spent in the light from eons of Earth-life bred into them, even in the waking epoch of interstellar travel.
Light—it was usually a welcomed sight.
But here, on the desolate surface of this world, it usually wasn't. That's because there was utterly no beauty to behold on Traxus IX.
The sky was a steel-grey sheet—always overcast in a gloomy, altostratus veil. On a more hospitable planet such as Harvest or Mamore or Earth, such clouds would shape the high troposphere, maybe capping a few mountaintops. But here, the singular and all-encompassing landmass of the planet presented conditions simulating mountain summits. The air was incredibly thin.
Life here was cold, dismal, confining and grey. A monochrome prison of misery.
Often times, the cloud layer would reside not too far above one's head, yielding nothing but dread for the claustrophobic. Occasionally, a ray of the sun would strike through the sullen squall lines along with some measure of happiness. A brief glimmer of starlight, even a gentle touch of warmth from it would only last a second. Even if someone happened to be blessed with such a rare and wondrous occasion, the landscape outside was far more anesthetizing than the lifeless heavens. For the grounds were an endless expanse of orange-brown dirt and clay as far as the eye could see.
The only break in the monotony were the foothills, the gentle rises and falls in the terrain. Mockeries of real scenery.
Aside from a naturally-occurring atmosphere, magnetosphere, and the appropriate gravitational and tidal forces, the planet was for all intents and purposes—dead.
A pale-gold sliver of sunlight shone through an open door and struck one half of Justin Reid's face, barely waking him out of heavy slumber. His eyes fluttered just as the sun skittered behind a solid, colorless mass not an instant later. The light was gone and the world was grey again. He brushed a few brown strands of hair away from his eyes and tucked them behind his ear, hoping the light would return. But today, he wasn't going to be that lucky. Moments went by...he eventually relented and unzipped his sleeping bag, grabbed a corner of it and tossed it aside. He tried to pay no mind to the numbing cold that invited itself in.
He pushed himself up and stretched, then walked barefoot over a dirt floor to the far corner of the dwelling where a red plastic container sat. He grabbed the frosted handle and pulled up—empty. Someone had forgotten to fill up the kerosene heater last night and the room was bitter cold because of it. He tried to remember whose turn it was.
He walked across the room with the legs of his thick sweatpants rubbing against each other with a swoosh-swoosh.
"Pete!" he said, kicking the frame of a fold-out cot. The metal rang in reply, but the occupant under the woolen covers gave only a soft moan. "You forgot to fill up the heater!"
Pete wasn't answering. Probably wouldn't do so until he awoke hours later. Pete was the heaviest sleeper and a very forgetful person, maybe a bad friend sometimes too. "And you left the door open…again!"
But Justin really couldn't harp on Pete too much, either. He was brain-dead himself half the time. Spirits came at a perpetual low on Traxus IX. The planet was perpetually cold and bleak. Each and every denizen of the colony was under living conditions below that of the galactic poverty line. The Milky Way's human epicenter of all things immoral was this world. Coincidentally, almost every material object on its way to and from outer colonies passed through as well. The worst stayed here, and the worst transited through here. The trafficked drugs and the trafficked humans, the warlords and terrorists, grand thieves and cons. There was no reason to ever hang on to hope here, even in dealing with the little things in life.
To add to the group's absentminded and careless nature, they were all habitual drug users. Justin, Pete, Bill, and Ken. All of them.
Justin opened a heavy steel door and thick, rusted hinges groaned in protest. He grabbed some more clothes and put them on to ward off the cold seeping into the network of steel cargo containers which served as their home.
The noise woke up more dwellers.
"Shit, son. Why so early?" a familiar voice said.
"Someone didn't turn on the heater last night, Bill." Justin said, gesturing toward Pete.
Bill Santhouse was Justin's best friend; he'd lost his way in life just as he did.
"Guess it's time to wake up anyway." Bill grunted.
Justin watched Bill rise, wincing from the aches of such an uncomfortable sleep. It was his unlucky turn to sleep on the floor.
Every now and then, the four of them would swap locations around the sleeping room, relinquishing a preferred spot to someone else. It was always the cot or the couch they sought after. Other than those two options, it was a sleeping bag over the dirt, no pillow. The cot was UNSC standard issue, stolen from a stockyard near town which was in turn probably stolen from a shipment heading to a prospect colony somewhere near the galactic rim. Some soldier's makeshift resting place, not anymore. It was actually very comfortable and very sturdy, but you dare not change sleeping position lest you wanted to roll over and fall to the floor. No one remembered who had stolen it so long ago, but that really didn't matter. They had it and that's what counted. Thievery was just a daily part of life on Traxus IX—everyone knew that. You had to get by somehow.
The couch was very comfortable, dark-red velvet, soft and wide. You could stretch your legs out for days on it. And the arm rests were just as supple as the plush cushions, its only drawback being that it was covered in mold and lichens, most likely a result of it being left out in the rains too long before the four of them picked it up from a shadier part of town. Therefore it would be in one's best interests not to sleep face down, but Ken didn't seem to care about the health risks of sleeping that way. He was conked out. He'd probably sleep there for another day just recuperating from the wild marijuana binge the group had been on for the last forty-two hours. Locks of his blonde hair were strewn over the cushion, covering his half-buried face. Justin smiled, watching him sleep so peacefully.
Justin then opened a steel door that adjoined one container to the next. There, sitting on a wooden pallet was Bill, firing up the heater. He had his wool blanket laid over the wooden pallet for some measure of comfort while the vent pumped out warm air. "What do you have going on today?" Bill asked, his unusually deep voice more baritone than usual.
"I think I'm gonna go to work today."
"More? You should be racking up some overtime by now, huh?" Bill scratched his head of dark hair.
"I'm too awake for anything else."
"Don't work too hard, you know?"
"Believe me, I know. I'll see you later on tonight."
"Roger that, soldier boy."
Justin scoffed as he walked away.
Justin had another life once, long before he entered the prison-like world of Traxus IX. A better time, they figured. Any time and place could've been better than the one here on this desolate world. Once a Marine in the UNSC, he never liked to talk about his days as a troop. Certainly never talked about what landed him here. Bill, Pete and Ken seldom brought up the past. It was better that way.
Justin walked out the open door of the atrium container—just one, giant piece in their steel conglomerate of living quarters. Four cargo containers joined into one, courtesy of Traxus Heavy Industries. They had about a thousand square feet between them, which wasn't bad. He went further inside to put shoes on and get heavier clothes.
Traxus Heavy Industries was an interstellar corporate giant—turned empire—that placed its busiest freight hub on Traxus IX. They more or less owned the entire planet. T-09 was the Colonial Military Administration's formal designation of this giant dirtball in old survey archives. The name was easy and so it stuck. Coincidentally, THI had an acute interest in the place. The mega-corporation turned T-09 into their HQ of operations literally overnight, making it the Mecca for slipspace cargo container fabrication and interstellar shipping.
And so the planet was named thereafter, Traxus IX. Though a cold ball of dirt, it was the prime selection for their business needs—for a number of reasons. The planet's crust had vast amounts of metal and alkali deposits making it the ideal facilitator for heavy industry, namely the shipping industry. Heavy cargo containers was the chief export of this planet and quite possibly the only export. Additionally, the planet was located equidistant between Reach and the farthest of the outer colonies, making it a logistical delight for anyone who sought to gain profit in a galactic business world—corporations, privateers, the UNSC, even pirates and rebels. THI did not discriminate. If you shipped it, chances were THI had a hand in it.
And just like any other business, the execs and the shareholders depended so much on the laborers, the skilled technicians and the front line supervisors to fuel the fire of trade and commerce. Kickbacks and crooked deals were rampant from day one. Unfortunately for the common folk of Traxus IX, this meant austere living conditions with sub-standard compensation to boot.
After much of the United Rebel Front had been dispatched by the UNSC, the impulsive startup enterprise guaranteed its success far into the future by claiming this planet as their primary hub and was probably the only reason the United Nations Space Command had the materials and the logistics support to continue pioneering the outer colonies in the first place.
Before setting out for work, Justin looked back at the place he called home for a minute. It wasn't much, but it was home. He wheeled around to face due North. On a smog-choked horizon, bright lights from factories set the haze aglow in the early sun. That was his destination, his livelihood. He walked over to his vehicle—froze in his own steps. A cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach. He glared at the empty patch of dirt where his vehicle should've been.
He was so infuriated, all he could do was shout, "Someone stole my fucking Mongoose!"
He stormed back into his metal igloo with a stiff, outstretched arm, the heavy door forcefully swinging to its max angle as he entered. It rebounded off the inner wall with a metallic clang!
He charged into the heater room where Bill was. "Did you guys forget to chain up the Mongoose?"
"…No." Bill answered truthfully. A bewildered Bill hadn't seen Justin this angry in a very long time. There was only one time, Bill now remembered. "I'm sure someone locked it up." he said submissively as possible.
Justin took a breath. "I'm sorry for yelling…"
"That's okay. I understand your anger."
Justin flexed his shoulders, asked, "None of the others chained it up after their shift?"
"Not that I know of, but I'm sure they did. They know better."
Justin left the heater room and swung his boot as hard as he could into Pete's cot.
"What the fuck?" Pete shouted, shaken from sleep.
"Wake up, fart blossom!" Justin said.
"Where's the fire?!"
"Did you remember to lock up the Mongoose last night? Don't friggin' lie to me."
"Of course I did! I'm not as dumb as you look."
"Well then why is it gone, smart one?"
"Relax. I lent it to the new kid."
Justin laughed in amusement, on the verge of going mad. "New kid?" He bent down so his nose hovered just off Pete's face and looked him square in the eyes, whispered, "What new kid?"
"Can you please just relax and back up? It's the new kid that came in yesterday. Don't you remember?"
"No."
"You don't remember the kid that came in last night and smoked up with us? Wait, of course you don't..." Pete laughed, "you were wasted to high heaven!"
"Bloody Elisa, now I got no ride to work."
"Don't sweat it, man, it's just—"
"—Don't sweat it? You do remember how far it is to work. That's the whole reason I got that ATV in the first place. Tell me you haven't drank away your last, stupid brain cell."
"Let me finish, asshole. The kid is already at work." Pete checked his wristwatch. "He'll be back from shift change any minute."
"I'll be late."
"Since when does that matter?"
"Ugh. Shit."
Justin stormed back out of the house and waited for this new "kid" to arrive. He'd put him in his place before he left for work.