"Day 1 on Prosperity"

I remembered the briefing as I trudged up the snowy hillside, trying to ignore the fine grains of ice carried into my exposed skin by the driving wind. Prosperity was a stronghold planet of the Collective, and the week-long crash course had focused on the planet’s culture, and on explaining how to blend in with the local population. Even still, the temperature range on the surface was never mentioned. I silently wished death on the data analysts on the dropship with every step. This environment wasn’t an enemy I was rated to fight.

Of course, I did have equipment working to ensure that the cold was not going to kill me before I got to the building on the hilltop. My survival coat was pumping as many joules of heat into my chest and arms as it could, and this combined with the steep climb working my muscles made freezing to death a remote problem. I ignored the discomfort as best I could, wishing for a cup of hot coffee, even the toxic black sludge that a dropship mess has to offer.

Three-quarters of the way up, I stopped for a moment, prudence and training forcing me to check out my destination despite my desire to get inside and warm. Visually, it was nothing impressive - a sprawling nest of prefab structure modules, with a heavily sloped wooden roof thrown over most of it as an afterthought. Grey smoke smudged the cloudless sky above a metal-tube chimney. My thermal imager showed nothing out of the ordinary, only a pair of battered groundcars cooling off in an adjacent shed. The main structure was heated, and showed up on thermal as an impenetrable brick of bright color. No sentries, which was good, and no military hardware I could detect. Safe enough place to thaw off and plan my next move, I decided, blinking away the thermal imager and resuming my climb. I mentally switched from combat-readiness to the luckless-traveler local persona I’d decided on using, and the voice modulator switched on to give me a local accent.

As I got closer, I marveled at the overwhelming appearance of decay. The prefab segments were worn, pitted, and dented, and cobbled together irregularly and hastily, looking for all the world like they’d been dropped here by an aircraft and then welded together in place. Most of the modules were corroded, and several had patched-over holes. Only one of the modules looked to be maintained in any decent condition - the central one, a thirty-foot long, one-story box that stood at the front, bearing both main door and a glowing neon sign. My optics loosely translated the meaning of the seven characters there displayed as “establishment open”. I ducked inside the door quickly.

It was dim, compared to the blindingly white hilltop, so I stood blinking for a moment. While my vision adjusted, I relied on my optics, surveying the layout with my built-in instruments. It was clearly a bar, based on the long counter, rough wooden tables and chairs, and large supply of liquid-filled containers. A rough cement hearth, obviously burning real wood, crackled in one corner, and the few patrons inside were clustered close to it. There was no other heat source, but still the room was gloriously warm compared to outside. The other corner across from the door was cluttered with what was probably junk - most of the stuff was unrecognizably smoke-stained and dust-blanketed, but I recognized a defunct pendulum clock resting on its side atop the clutter, it’s still hands turned down, frowning at the pervading decay. I also noted the location of a battered old satnet terminal along one wall, resolving to make use of it later.

I switched the optics back off and let my eyes adjust, moving over to the bar. The man behind it, swarthy and bearded, watched me come in without saying a word, guarded look on his face. I dropped heavily onto one of the rickety stools, and spoke, hoping the modulator would get the accent right.  ”Something hot to drink, if you would.”

The man bent down, gathered ingredients, and in perhaps thirty seconds he slid a chipped ceramic mug of brownish liquid across to me. It smelled like sugary wood smoke, but it did emit a pleasant steam, indicating that it was, as desired, hot. ”It is a pleasure to, freely of charge, give you this drink, not expecting pay from a fellow comrade.” His tone indicated, of course, the opposite, and his finger tapped on the bar six times.

I was familiar with this custom - in the Collective, one did not pay or trade for anything, he was given it free of charge, and freely and in an ‘unrelated’ matter gave a gift of money or goods at the same time. On Collective worlds, commerce itself was a black market, hiding behind barely-plausible reciprocated charity. ”Of course. I, also, out of the goodness of my heart and desire to see this fine place continue to operate, would like to present a gift.” I put a hand into my coat pocket and pulled out two coins, one marked with five stars, one with only one. I’d stolen the coins, and a few others, from a vacant homestead I’d passed on my way here. In theory, the Collective had no currency, but in practice, Violation Marks were its equivalent. Their only true value was in that they could be used to nullify small violations of Collective laws and regulations. As the local laws were myriad, illogical, and often changed without notice, this had proven a strong source of value.

The drink was hot, as promised, and it wasn’t just heat that burned my throat as I swallowed. The drink had me feeling much less frozen in moments, though the taste was unpleasant. Despite my protesting taste-buds, I nodded my appreciation as I warmed my fingers on the mug’s exterior.

”I did not hear an engine, comrade, did you walk here in this weather?” The man behind the counter shook his head at the thought. Apparently, even Prosperity natives couldn’t tolerate this cold - that could mean it was irregular. I liked this theory, as it meant I might not be cold for the entirety of the next six months.

”Not all the way, no.” I took another swallow of the drink. ”My car gave out on me a few hours ago, and someone pointed me here.” Lies, of course. My drop-pod had deposited me in a snowbank about four hours before, right before it turned itself into metallic dust.

”Need a mechanic, then?” He put on an expression of hard thought. ”I might know a guy willing to make the trip out here...”

”Nah, that wreck’s dead for good this time.” I shrugged to dissuade him of this idea. ”I’ll figure something out, but thank you, comrade.” I took another swallow of the drink. ”I was hoping to make it to Victor Yards before it died, though.” Victor Yards was my objective. Sabotage there would hamper the Collective’s war effort, and if the Yards stopped producing, it would make this otherwise-unremarkable planet a non-factor in the war, safely skipped over.

”Looking for work, then.” He nodded. ”I understand. Times are hard.” From what I had learned in the briefing, he was grossly understating things.

”Yeah. Weather’s been hurting my home town pretty badly.” If the pattern of other Collective worlds played out here, of course, the smaller settlements were abandoned by the authorities entirely, or worse, carefully and brutally mismanaged. Of course, one did not speak ill of the authorities on a Collective world.

”I do have some vacant rooms, of course. It would only be charitable for me to offer you one, free of charge.” Again, he meant the opposite. ”Follow me.” He stepped out from behind the bar, leading me toward a hallway whose opening was cut into the back of the big module. It branched twice, and I set my optics to overlay a building map to ensure I would remember the way back. The hall was poorly insulated and cold, but not as bad as outside.

Eventually, he stopped in front of a door. The single letter scratched into it was not translated by my optics, so it was probably a room designation. ”Room twelve.” I understood his meaning, and paid him twelve Marks, all the while professing it as a donation to this fine establishment, not a payment for the room. The proprietor then unlocked the door, and left me to my own devices. I went inside to see just what I’d paid for.

The room was dingy gray, prefab like the rest of the building, with a metal-frame bed, lumpy stuffed mattress, and a wooden, homemade-looking chest of drawers. The whole room was maybe six feet by ten, with a single narrow window, a set of metal-slat blinds covering it incompletely (as two of the slats were missing). It was cold, but there was a small electric heater in the corner, which I immediately turned on. A holo-poster on the wall displayed Collective propaganda. As I entered, the image jumpily changed from a watercolor cartoon of factory workers to a stylized galaxy map, on which the territory of the Confederacy was drawn as a wildfire sweeping through the stars toward Collective worlds. The caption read, “Destruction Advances.” I thought with a little chuckle that advertising the enemy as bringing warmth to Prosperity was a bad move. There was no satnet terminal in the room, to my dismay - I would have preferred to access the Collective’s nets in privacy. Even so, I could lie low here for a few days, planning my next move.

My sensors let me know that the room was free of surveillance, so I took out a small black tube, which I knew held dozens of tiny machines. Unscrewing the cap, I rested the tube against my hand until one of the tiny, insectile robots had crawled out. With the tiny machine clinging to my hand, I headed back out to the bar area, leaving left nothing there. I fully expected the room to be searched.

On my return, I noted the stares of the other four customers, heads turned away from the flickering fire. None approached me, though, so perhaps it was merely curiosity on their part. I ordered dinner, “donating” the hinted cost, and stood at the satnet terminal while it was prepared, pretending to spend the time looking up local sporting statistics. The harmless searches were a cover, of course, letting me deposit the little robot in my hand onto the terminal and giving it time to find a way inside the battered housing. The software it carried, I hoped, would work its way into the satnet system, and insert my biometric data into the Collective’s security nets. That would get me into Victor Yards.

When my food was brought out, I sat near a wall, tactfully distant from the group at the fire but not so far that the warmth did not reach me. The food was some sort of unrecognizably processed vegetable paste, as well as cuts of an unrecognizable meat. I ate uninterestedly, trying to look as average as possible.

As I was eating, though, I heard electrical humming and the crunching of snow under treads. A few moments later, the door opened briefly, letting in a harsh gust of subzero air and a pair of men. I kept outwardly cool, though the matching silver protrusions on their right temples made their nature obvious. These were Collective soldiers, and the implants protruding from their skulls housed dozens of small sensors and processing units. I’d been told my own equipment was undetectable to all but the most careful detection, but still, I experienced a brief moment of uncertain panic. Each man had a long, rifle-like weapon slung across his back, and as they stepped to the bar, my optics determined that to fire one of those without losing an arm would require bone reinforcement. These were not just backwater patrolmen. As they started talking to the barman, I turned up my audio pickup to hear their low voices.

The soldiers vaguely mentioned reports of objects landing nearby, then asked the barman about suspicious activity. I pretended to keep eating, but listened tensely to the response. I started charging the capacitors on my own weaponry. Apparently, the pod had been detected, despite being supposedly undetectable.

The barman leaned in to whisper to the soldiers carefully, and I knew from his expression before he spoke that he had seen through my alibi. ”Might want to check out the man in the corner, there.” He whispered hoarsely. ”Came in not two hours ago, walking in this weather in just that thin coat. Not even so much as a hat on him. Could be nothing.”

The two nodded, and turned to look at me. I nodded a solemn reply, then returned to my meal, but knew things wouldn’t end there. They probably suspected that I wasn’t just an out-of-luck traveller already. ”Sir, could we have a word outside?” The first soldier asked impatiently as his partner stared expressionlessly. I shrugged, nonchalantly put my left hand in its own pocket, and followed them out. I’d seen enough of their hardware to know I’d have to take them by surprise, get their guards down.

I was unsurprised when the moment they had me outside I found a sidearm pressed against my head, held by the expressionless second soldier. This was practically standard behavior, I knew. Playing my part, though, I shook, feigning fear as the first man threatened me with rote, intentionally vague consequences if I didn’t tell them exactly the truth, exactly what I was about. I nodded and gulped when he was done, and the pistol vanished. For now, I’d play along with their little fishing expedition, and not let them know what they’d hooked until it was too late.

I gauged their movements, trying to guess what kinds of implants they had in addition to the visible headpieces. Both definitely had overly steady, precise movements - that probably meant aim assist. 
The impatient one itched his left palm when not gesturing or talking, and I suspected he had some sort of hardware there too. Without active sensors, though, I couldn’t be certain. Pretending to be frozen in fear, I still had my hands in the pockets of my coat.

”I... I was on my way t-to Victor Y-yards to f-find work, sirs.” I probably laid it on a little too heavily, but they ate it up. ”I only w-want to do my part in the war.”

The two turned, to converse with each other in low tones. The calm one kept an eye on me at first, but then turned slightly for just a moment, and I knew that I was out of view. I jerked my hands out of my pockets, pointing one each at the soldiers, and every system flashed green in my optics.

The soldiers started to turn at my sudden motion. The calm one reached for his pistol and the hotheaded one started to bring up his left hand. I’d been right - the center of his palm had dilated to reveal some sort of weapon. It was too late for either of them to do anything, though. My instruments had just enough time to tell me the nature of the hand weapon before the coilguns built into my own arms spit twin blasts of hot red plasma. Missing was impossible at this range, even with aim assist turned off.

The charred corpses of the soldiers fell to the ground. If it weren’t for their subcutaneous armor (which I hadn’t noticed), there would have been little left of them but cinder. Even with its protection both had been killed instantly. Superheated matter at point-blank range tends to make short work of living tissue, after all. After three seconds, the sound of the shots echoed back from the surrounding hills.

I let the coilguns retract into my hands, and stepped back inside. The barman started at my solitary reappearance, and began inching toward the bar’s hatch. Obviously, the shots had been heard, and I think he expected the soldiers to come in without me.

”Relax.” I said. ”I’m not here to kill civilians.”

He gulped and nodded. ”Who... Who...” The other four patrons simply stared, looking like animals caught in the hunter’s flashlight.

I smiled. He knew I couldn’t answer that to his satisfaction. I decided to humor him with a hint. ”I’m the man who’s going to make invading this pathetic snowball unnecessary.” It was true - if Victor Yards fell silent, the Confederacy could ignore Prosperity entirely. I looked around, while that sunk in.

One of the patrons stood in a flash and reached for a sidearm, but before his hand touched the weapon my own arm was already pointed at him, coils extended. No amount of lightning reflexes could out-draw military implants. Careful to keep his hands in sight, he sat back down. I did what I’d come back in for - I slagged the satnet terminal to keep them from calling down the Collective and to hide my earlier digital intrusion. Then I walked back out without saying another word.

I appropriated the soldiers’ crawler, though I’d have preferred something faster. I knew that I’d only delayed the news of my existence. It was a race against the clock now. I should have been afraid, but all I could feel as I drove toward Victor Yards was gleeful anticipation for the challenge to come.

This story written for Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com.