A Product of Unnatural Decay

By Joseph R Schmidt

© Joseph R Schmidt

Lieutenant Brandon Rollins drew in a deep, sharp breath, held it, and plunged back into the brackish pool.  He was a hard man and he knew it.  Cold and tired, he struggled down ten meters to the bottom; he never lost his way, down to where the seam of raw metal breached the bedrock that surrounded this unexpected fissure, this stagnant pool.  Whenever he broke the surface for more air, the salty water trickled into his mouth.  The battery powered lens warmers kept his goggles from fogging, but he had forgotten his breather on the destroyer, too risky to fetch it.

The heavy metal contained significant fractions of an isotope.  It worried him.  The metal made the water saline.  He had traced this seam to where he found it exposed to this pool and his little pick-ax.   There had been others long and narrow fissures along the surface but each impossibly deep and hot, pots of tea in a sea of dust, thermal byproducts of spontaneous decay.  Only this rounded spout stood shallow enough, cool enough.   

The Destroyer Torrent expected the shuttle back in a few hours, and he needed just a few more chunks.  His overhead luminator shone brightly above, and he followed his shadow on the rocky floor as he swam to the little outcropping.  Placing his bare foot on the jagged rock, Brandon gripped part of the shelf above the vertical seam and plunged the little pick-ax at it.   It was tough work.  But the fractured mineral, the valuable heavy metal, split away, allowing him to grab the pieces as they slowly fell.  He deposited them into the cylindrical sample jar.   He hooked the line around his neck, fastened the lid, let the jar fall to the rocky floor, and headed for the surface, pushing off the bottom.  

His ears screamed from the rapid pressure change, but he told himself it was the sound of money.  If these samples contained enough of the isotope, he could land a deal with a big time prospector.  He would guide them back and take his cut when they ravaged the whole seam.  Then crawling machines would rip open the barren surface and take the only valuable thing from the Godforsaken planet.  

It had a fast half-life--the isotope that is, not microseconds but certainly unstable.  Across most of the star cluster, it was banned from reactors because of its dirty fission, but less scrupulous colonies processed it for power anyway.  It brought a steep price on the black market.   Nevertheless, that was the payoff for smuggling.  If the captain of the Torrent found out he brought it aboard with the barrowed shuttle, Brandon knew there would be little hope of surviving the court-martial.

He exhaled hard as he drew nearer the surface.  Then with a burst, he lunged to the overhanging ledge a meter above the water.  He hung for a moment as the sulfuric air burned his lungs.  His thick arms did the rest, years of manual labor and rigorous fitness.  To think the sample jar was heavy in the water was not to understand the wonders of buoyancy.  It was precisely why the line was both thick and long.  He heaved himself up, found his footing, and breathed deeply for a few moments.  Then while holding the line, he pulled himself up onto a little ledge.  The scanners had indicated a sustainable amount of oxygen but not enough to stay long.  The scanner had listed other, less favorable things that his breather would have filtered.  Too late for that.

He had attached the luminator to the nearby wall so that he stood above where it shone into the pool.  Daylight bounced around the jagged surface down the almost shaft-like fissure only to be overwhelmed by the brightness of the luminator.  Little waves, which bounced chaotically around the pool, lapped against the jagged outer surfaces and echoed.  Eventually they lost their energy and decayed into calmness--counter-rhythmical noise.  

Brandon wondered if the waves had a half-life.   Surely they did, the pool had such a small surface area, so small that such chaos would be attenuated naturally by the surface tension in the water and their brother waves.  But he wondered at the diminishing effect of the universe around him, a degeneration described by a mathematical expression.   Theoretically a half-life never ended, but someone told him once that, whatever it is, if it was not measurable, it might as well not exist.  How long was his half-life?  When would he diminish into a level lower than the ambiance--into counter-rhythmical noise?  He stood on the little ledge, only two meters wide, but it was just enough to let him work, temporary safe haven for the past several hours.  Work now--wonder later.  He rubbed his shoulder.

He was tired.  This last bit would be enough; he was sure.  Hooking the wet line over a boulder, he wedged it so that he could let go for the moment.  He just needed a breather, so he sat down next to the small pile of gray metal.  He rubbed his bare shoulder--on his right, running his hand over the little scar where a short, thin-bladed knife had penetrated once; it plagued him when he worked it too hard, which happened often.

His every move echoed, even over the sound of water sporadically lapping into little holes in the rough walls.  They rose straight away, dark and jagged, the walls surrounded him in a ragged cylinder.  He looked over his head to where a single line plummeted, followed it up with his eyes ten or more meters above him.  The sun would set before too long, and he knew the planet would cool more than his bare skin would tolerate.  Resting his eyes, Brandon allowed the lapping water to sooth his weariness.  But then he heard something different.  His eyes opened and his head jerked to the sky above.   It was gone.

With a sigh, for he knew just how tired he had become, he rose to his feet and stretched his back by arching it.  He reached down and grabbed the rope, pulled hand-over-hand at the line until the buoyancy gave way to none at all, and then he felt the burn in his thighs as that last meter of line reached the lip of the little ledge.   Breathing hard.  Burning lungs.  He worked the line until it swung back and forth.  Then up it went on the swing away to suspend in the air for an instant.  He stood up straight, pulled, and stepped backwards.  The sample jar landed with a smack, and thankfully, did not break.  Fourteen loads it had endured.  He had been sure it would not.  The sharp rock of the fissure’s walls poked and scraped him as he reclined for another rest; his skin would heal, and he needed the rest.

Brandon inventoried his collection, depositing the gray metal into clear but shielded sample jars, and then placed the sample jars into their prescribed slots within his sample chest, which included a holder for his pick-ax and a compartment for his goggles.  With a gruff exhale, he slammed closed the lid where his little breather had been the day before.  He remembered now that he had taken it out to inspect it, and then the captain barged into his quarters.  In his haste to conceal the chest, he tossed the breather under his bunk and deflected the captain’s interest with several pertinent questions.  “Asshole!” he shouted, slammed the lid on the chest, and then locked it.

He hooked the line from above into the eyelet and stepped onto the chest.  He held on with one hand and fumbled through his pocket for the remote command module.   Found it.

“Shuttle C J 5 3,” he said.

Given a choice, he had chosen a sultry feminine voice, and she said, “Good evening, Captain Rollins.  Please render your security code.”

Brandon chuckled.  He ranked Lieutenant.  He liked the sound of Captain Rollins, but when he sold the coordinates of this seam of raw fuel, he would have no need for such petty titles.  “Good evening Leslie:  Wounded Sparrow.”

“Thank-you Brandon.  What is it you desire?”

“Oh Leslie, you saucy winch, retract your line.”

“I’m sorry Brandon, I did not understand you.   Please rephrase your question.”

“Leslie, I think you’re just temperamental....   Winch one...  Retract line.”

“Yes Brandon.”  He felt a tug and the line tightened.  “Retracting.”

“Thank-you Leslie, I guess I knew that.”

The shuttle sat only ten meters from the fissure where he had toiled so hard, and the winch would have reached the bottom of the pool in that fissure, but he felt more comfortable controlling the line underwater himself, especially when he had forgotten his breather.  The thought of being trapped under that brackish pool while the shuttle cogitated some perceived and impossible command, did not appeal to him.  Brandon worked for another half hour to get the crate into the shuttle.  

Two moons appeared on the horizon, each as orange as the soft sand under his feet.  The landscape consisted of open planes of orange sand with scattered outcrops of jagged black--little, black scars in a sea of orange, ugly and uninviting; he longed to be rid of it.  Time was growing short, the green night sky eminent.  Maybe one day the planet would support life, at least as he knew it, but not in his lifetime, and he really didn’t care to think too hard about it.

Brandon worked to get the crate over the lip of the fissure.  This took him longer than he would have liked, but success came at the price of sweat and a few improvised mechanical tricks.  Finally, the damn crate sat in the cargo hold.  The floor of the shuttle’s cargo bay rose in height to his waist.  Perfect! he decided.  Brandon retrieved a bottle out of his gear and poured two fingers into a little metal cup.

“Leslie.”

“Yes, Brandon.”

“To your health,” he said.

“I’m sorry Brandon, I don’t understand your question.   All systems are functioning normally, although I am detecting--”

“Oh do shut-up.  When I’m filthy rich--and that won’t be long now, I’m going to name a luxury ship after you.  I’ll call it ‘The Winch that Would’.”

“I’m sorry Brandon would you like me to retract my aft winch?”

“No Leslie.  You’re not my type.”

Overtired, Brandon couldn’t help but chuckle.  He slammed his two-finger-slug of elixir from his metal cup, exhaling violently.  He felt his right shoulder relax.  He inspected the little scar there.  Where had he received those marks? he wondered but could not remember.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

Brandon didn’t move.  Where in the hell had that come from? he wondered.  He just kept his hands on the cargo bay floor.  He didn’t even turn around; he didn’t need to.  He recognized the shaky voice, the wheezing.   “Sheldon.  How long have you been there?” he asked casually.  “Long enough to help me load this shuttle, no doubt.”

“Don’t do anything you’d regret Rollins...sir.”

Brandon knew Midshipman Sheldon Watkins as an insecure, overweight, wheezing systems hack, one of the Tech crew on the destroyer.   He never liked him.  He couldn’t understand this new group of recruits, all out of shape as they were.  “Why don’t you put that sidearm down, and then we can talk.”

Brandon had noticed that Sheldon wheezed before he spoke, and he did before he said, “No thank-you, Lieutenant Rollins, sir.  Let me see your hands.  Don’t make me use this thing!  I’m all upset and I might blow a hole in you.”

“All the more reason to just put that thing down on one of those rocks at your feet.”

“You’re not supposed to be out here.  Captain sent me on surveillance when this shuttle didn’t show up on the scans.”  

Sheldon wasn’t going to budge:  Brandon slowly spread his hands to his sides--not too far from his own sidearm, a thirty-cartridge handgun with exploding and heat-seeking tips--Sheldon waved the six-cartridge version of the same handgun.   “See Sheldon, I’ve done what you asked.   Now what?”

“Turn around...slowly,” Sheldon stammered and wheezed.  “Keep your hands where I can see them!  I mean it.   I’ll blow a hole in you.”

Brandon turned slowly.  He wouldn’t be foiled by this sniveling midshipman.  When he got his first site of Sheldon Watkins, he felt a bit of relief:  The adolescent trembled visibly.  He stood more than eight meters away.  Brandon knew it was unlikely that Sheldon could even hit him from that distance with those shaky hands.  Except, if Sheldon didn’t hit him, he would undoubtedly hit the shuttle.  Then all hell would break loose, because any hit on the shuttle would register at the Destroyer.

“Now what?” Brandon asked.  Sheldon looked as though he was having trouble breathing in the thin and nasty air, just enough for Brandon to notice.

The youth rubbed the sweat from his pudgy face with his free hand.  “Ah...stay where you are.  I see that gun in your belt.  Let it fall to the sand...sir.”

“What is this all about?  You are interfering with ship’s business.”

“I don’t think so Mr. Rollins, sir.  I checked the missions, and then I spoke to the captain.”   Then he instructed, “Just one hand--use your fingertips.”

Brandon slowly started to reach for the pistol, but then he stopped.  Something didn’t make sense.  “Why don’t you do it yourself?”  He just couldn’t lose to this boy.  Besides, Sheldon didn’t seem to know what to do.

Sheldon rubbed one of his eyes.  “Mr. Rollins, I don’t think you understand my meaning.  I don’t intend on being nice.”

“I don’t intend on disarming myself.”

There he stood silently for a moment or more.   Then he wheezed and finally, he said, “Keep your hands up and move away from the shuttle.”

Brandon couldn’t understand why moving away from the shuttle was a suitable compromise between him disarming himself and Sheldon disarming him.  Possibly the shaky midshipman stalled in his confusion.  Either way, Brandon figured it bought him more time with his pistol.   He shuffled to his left towards the cabin of the shuttle, which had its side hatch open just a few steps away.

“I see where you’re going Mr. Rollins, sir.  I don’t like it.”  The boy gained confidence, Brandon decided.  

“Where exactly would you like me to go?  It makes little difference.  You can’t win.”

His eyes narrowed.  Brandon had never paid the pudgy boy any head, but then he realized how green the kid’s shifty eyes were.  “You can’t hit me from there, and you can’t come any closer without tripping on those rocks all around you.  You look down and I’ll blow your head clean off.  You can’t win.  There’ll be nothing to send your poor weeping mother?”

“My mother?  My mother’s dead you bastard.”

Brandon thought the kid had already pulled the trigger the way he waved the gun up and down in his anger.  

“Some bastard like you killed her on the colony where I lived--a no-good, cheating Navy officer out to make a buck.  She was going to turn him in for the reward, but he found out and broke her neck.”

“OK.  Take it easy Sheldon.  It was a poor choice of words.”  He found the kid’s story disturbing and all too familiar.  People did the worst things for that kind of wealth.  His one shoulder--the one with the scar--ached as he kept his arms raised.

“Shut-up!  You have no idea.  To your right!  Move to your right.  To the aft of the shuttle.”

Brandon did move this time; Sheldon’s instability warned caution, and the kid’s confidence still grew.  Brandon felt a rock next to his foot as he shuffled, so he stopped, not wanting to look away from the agitated midshipman.  “Look kid you don’t even know what I have here.  I’ll cut you in.”

“I traced you by the gammas.”

“OK.  So you know what I have.  But you don’t have the contacts that I do.  How are you going to sell this site to a prospector and not get taken...or even killed.  You’re out of your league Sheldon.  Listen to me.”

“You stopped.  Keep moving.”

What Brandon had initially been concerned about--Sheldon shooting the shuttle and alerting the Destroyer--had now become his best defense.   There was more to this kid than he first thought.  “I ain’t movin’,” he said, flatly.

Sheldon’s face twitched, a spasm no doubt but too violent to be a simple tick.  Brandon felt a half-life tick away.  He jumped forward and to his right and rolled over the sand, scraping his back and tearing his shirt on the head-sized, jagged rocks.  He heard the explosion, and where he had stood, he saw a hole in the sand.  Molten sand--glass actually--splattered.  Pulling his weapon, he dove again.  Sheldon discharged his handgun again with much the same result except closer.   Brandon felt the molten sand burn through his pants as he rolled away and then to his knee where he took aim, but the pudgy midshipman had already vacated, somehow.

He raced to the place where Sheldon had stood and ducked behind a larger boulder.  He took a chance to look and saw Sheldon’s head bobbing up and down between the fractured outcroppings, no chance for a clean shot.

“Leslie, please close all hatches and wait for my next command.  Terminate all warnings to the Torrent.”

“Yes, Brandon.  It would be my pleasure.”

“Thank-you, Leslie.”  He put the remote command module in his pocket.  He rubbed that scar on his shoulder, not understanding why it ached more than usual but then reminded himself that he had pushed himself hard in the brackish pool.

The handgun could be set to so that the explosive tips would detonate at a certain distance.  He selected fifty-meters.  If he killed the kid, he would have to cover-up the disappearance of a Navy Midshipman.  That could be tricky.  Besides he had no desire to kill the kid anyway, but what was he going to do with him?   Brandon aimed about three meters over the outcropping rocks and fired.  The explosion echoed through the orange and black landscape.  

Brandon fired two more cartridges while he wondered what he should do with the kid.  If Sheldon were going to turn him in, he would have done it already.  But the wheezing midshipman had fired at him when he had the chance.  Brandon had figured the kid as a poor shot, but then he managed not to hit the shuttle, so now he was unsure.

At the least, he had to chase the kid down.  He fired again, same as the last three and broke for the next out crop twenty meters away.  He heard a shell sear over his head and then followed by an explosion behind him about ten meters.  He ducked his head down as molten sand sprayed with the concussion.  

“Sheldon!” he called.

No answer.

“Sheldon, you’re making a big mistake here.”

Still no answer.  Brandon waited for a better hint of where Sheldon hid.  None came.  He fired in that general direction and bolted for the cover of the next haven of jagged outcropping, still not knowing quite what to do.  He couldn’t bring himself to shoot the kid outright.  Maybe he would be useful after all.  True, before he had told him he’d make a deal with him, but at that time, he had already decided to double-cross him when the chance came.   He hadn’t actually planned how, but certainly the opportunity would come up.  Now he thought Sheldon might make a good assistant.  He had to admit that the pudgy midshipman gave him a good hassle.

“Sheldon, lets make a deal.  Listen, we can work together.”

Sheldon replied with a bit more confidence yet.   “Sorry Lieutenant Rollins, I can’t do that, because I don’t trust you.”

“You’ll have to kill me, Sheldon.  Then what will you do?”

“When your dead, you stupid bastard, it won’t matter to you.”

Where was that wheezing?  “Now is that any way to talk to your superior?”

Brandon heard the discharge but he had already broken away from where he hid.  He felt the explosion on his back but didn’t look.  Rather, he dove for cover, scraping his thighs on one of the several black boulders lying about.  The little prick meant business.  Where the hell did that little bastard leave his shuttle?  Brandon figured the pudgy midshipman headed for it.  He also knew the kid was down to two cartridges and couldn’t let him get to his shuttle for more.  

“Sheldon.”

“Yeah?”

The kid hunkered down closer than he first thought.

“You’re out-gunned.  Can’t we at lest negotiate?”

“OK.  I’ll take it all and kill you while I’m at it.”

“That’s good Sheldon, at least it’s a start.  I’ll cut you in for twenty, and I figure you can let me live.”

“Lieutenant, sir, I like my deal better.  Sorry.”

Brandon needed a new tactic.  “Did they ever find out who killed your mother?”

“Oh, I know who it was.  I saw the whole thing.”

“How terrible.  Did they find him and court martial him?”

“Not exactly.  Sir, if you would be good enough to step out in the open, I can make it quick for you.  Thing is, since I got on board, I started to look up to you.”

“Well, that’s very flattering, but I can’t seem to get myself to commit to that.  Thirty percent and I still live and you still live:  it’s a good deal Sheldon, better than the prospector will give you.  I’m beginning to actually like you.”  Brandon spoke the truth, but this was business.   He set the gun for a twenty-meter detonation and fired twice in Sheldon’s direction.  Then he leaped up, closed the gap between them, and jumped the last boulder, expecting the pudgy midshipman to be in his sights.

“Damn it!”  No Sheldon--only a voice projector module.  

Brandon wondered how he could have been so foolish--no wheezing.  He wasted little time, choosing not to be a hard target by maintaining his running pace until he found a little ring of boulders where he hunkered down.  Where in the hell was Midshipman Sheldon Watkins?   He spotted Sheldon’s shuttle.  The same problem with Brandon’s shuttle became the problem with Sheldon’s shuttle; it likely couldn’t take a hit or the Destroyer Torrent would be notified.  There were certain features he could not override.

Brandon took out his remote command module.  “Shuttle X Q 1 9.”

A fatherly male voice replied.  “Seaman Rollins, how can I help you?”

Brandon noted the preprogrammed rank insult and ignored it.   “Locate Midshipman Sheldon Watkins.”

“I’m sorry.  You are a no-good, cheating Navy officer out to make a buck.  Access is denied.”

“Sheldon!”  

Brandon never hesitated.  He bolted for his own shuttle, Leslie.  He didn’t even bother with cover through the short distance.   He figured the best route would be from the aft where Sheldon couldn’t see him from the cabin, so he rounded his route and came in from that way.  He figured that Sheldon had hacked his way into the security, so he wasn’t surprised to see the hatch open.  In fact, that was a bit of a break.  He sprinted as hard as he could while trying not to step on the jagged black rocks all about.  He knew he had him:  The hatch remained open.  He passed the back end of the shuttle on his left.  

He heard a snap, felt the ground rise below him.   No, not the ground.  Pain shot through his body.  He felt a half-life ticked away as a web of electrified netting wrapped him into a ball.

He woke, hardly out long, he knew.  Feeling sick as he dangled in a crumpled ball from the rear of the shuttle, he knew why Sheldon had told him to go aft.  He remembered how Leslie had tried to tell him about the aft winch.  Groping for his handgun, finding it--fried; hearing wheezing, twisting to look--no use; and groping for the remote command module, finding it--“Leslie!”

“Yes Brandon?”

“Wounded Sparrow:  Release the net!”

“I’m sorry Brandon.  Access denied.”

“Leslie, this is an emergency.  I command you to release the net.”

“I’m Sorry Brandon; Admiral Watkins has secured that specified functionality.”

The net, which hung from the rear of the shuttle, continued to swing back and forth and rotate until Brandon finally got a glimpse of Sheldon.  The pudgy midshipman stood patting his sweaty forehead with an evapo-pad.   “Sheldon!  Sheldon!  OK.   OK.  You got me.  I’m all yours.  But think about it.  Who are you going to sell these coordinates to?  Any prospector will eat you alive.  There’s enough for the two of us.  Have you even thought about that?”

“Lieutenant Rollins, sir.  People do things for other reasons than money.”

“Name it.  Just name it.”

Brandon tried to watch Sheldon from his awkward and curled-up position, but the dangling net, which had stopped swinging back and forth, kept rotating.  His shoulder ached, and he couldn’t even reach it to rub it.  He tried to remember where he had scored it, but it didn’t come to him.  He couldn’t believe it; after so many years and so many deals, he couldn’t talk this misfit hacker into or out of anything.

Sheldon wheezed.  “Shuttle X Q 1 9.”

The fatherly voice emanated from Sheldon’s remote command module.  “Good evening, Sheldon.”

“Good evening, Henry.  Please rendezvous inline with my current position less fifteen-meters, relative.”

“As you command Sheldon.”

“Sheldon?”

“Yes Lieutenant, sir.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“It would be best just to relax and wait, sir.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

Sheldon laughed.  Brandon felt a half-life tick away.

When the net spun so Brandon could see the boy, he studied him.  There was nothing to him.  His chubby face had little or no expression, yet the midshipman looked all sweaty.   His green eyes shifted about nervously--no not nervous, something else, something wild but familiar.  Wasn’t the kid interested in the isotope, the pure profit, the wealth--the power?

Then Sheldon went out of Brandon’s view.  The other shuttle landed, kicking up dust and sand.   Brandon’s scrapes on his legs and back burned.  Salt.   He knew it for certain.  It made sense from the brackish pool.  

Brandon heard Sheldon wheeze.  “Midshipman Watkins to Torrent.”

“Go ahead Sheldon.”  A nasally woman spoke through the remote command module.  “We’ve got your shuttle, but there’s still no signal from the other.  Give us your report.”

“I see the shuttle right now, but there’s no sign of Lieutenant Rollins.  I’m picking up huge doses of gamma.  What should I do?  Do you want me to go down there?”

“That’s a negative, Sheldon.  You’ve done your work.  We’ll send a team down to scout the area.  Come on back.”

“Sheldon!  Sheldon!   What are you doing?  Are you crazy?”  

Sheldon flipped a little switch on his belt.   Brandon felt the electrical pain again, but not as intense.

“Yes sir.  Returning immediately.  I’ve got some kind of intense interference.”

The nasally woman said, “Very good Sheldon, return immediately.  Out.”

The charge dissipated.

“I told you to relax, sir.  It’s best if you just relax.”

“Are you insane?  You’re throwing away a fortune here.  The federation will just mine it out for themselves.  You won’t get anything.  Just think.  You wouldn’t have to work ever again.”  Brandon felt the fear trickle through his veins.  He felt the fool for not sensing it at first.  This kid was a cold and unfeeling little bastard.  He couldn’t believe the little prick was going to turn him in.  Or was he?   What else could he do with him?   Half-life ticking.

“Well Lieutenant Rollins, this is it then.”

“What do you mean?”

Brandon watched the little bastard walk toward the other shuttle, X Q 1 9, Henry.

“Sheldon.  You can’t just leave me here like this.  They’ll find me here when they do their sweep.  How will you explain this then?  What are you doing?  I’ll tell them you snagged me up, you sick little freak!”

Sheldon wheezed.  Brandon hated that sound.  “Leslie,” Sheldon said to the shuttle, Brandon’s shuttle.  “Initiate self destruct sequence.  Security code:  a no-good, cheating Navy officer out to make a buck.”

“Sheldon!  Wait!   Sheldon!”  But it was too late.  Why did that snotty kid keep saying that?  Sheldon had made his way into the cabin of the other shuttle, so Brandon watched as he lifted off.  Tick went a half-life.

“Leslie.”

“Yes, Brandon.”

“Wounded Sparrow.”

“I’m sorry Brandon:  you are a no-good Navy officer, out to make a buck.”

Brandon’s shoulder ached.  “Yes, I know that.”

“Brandon, have you ever been to Craton?”

“I don’t know, maybe.  Where is it?”

“It is a mining colony in the Brio-Hemora sector.   My records indicate that you were stationed in that sector and visited that colony on extended leave.”

Had he diminished to an immeasurable, counter-rhythmical noise?  Did Sheldon’s ambiance now burry his own beyond recognition?  Too fade away as a footnote in the captain’s log, never to be mentioned again, that was not how he had hoped to leave his final mark, his crescendo.  Tick.

Brandon remembered the wild, green-eyed woman that gave him those scars on his shoulder.  He remembered now so clearly.  She had given him up to the local law, but he figured it out and confronted her.  Her short blade had been quick, but he had been quick enough.  Her neck had snapped as she tumbled over the tussled bed.  He could almost feel it in his hands.  He even remembered grabbing the cash off the bed side table, only to be frozen by the green eyes of a young boy in the doorway.   A small Sheldon, he guessed.  

A half-life ticked away.  

“Yes,” he affirmed, dejectedly as he dangled helplessly from the aft of the shuttle.

“Self destruct sequence complete.  Goodbye Brandon.”

Tick.  “Goodbye Leslie.”