The rusty outpost of Pepper's Gulch had its doom spelled out on fliers stuck to nearly every door in town. Frontier homes ranged from wood scraps to space-rated carbon fiber, and regular glue couldn't overcome the grit swirling in the air. Forming a seal in Pepper's Gulch was no small chemical feat. The people at Novaris Interstellar invented an adhesive that swelled when a quick run of the thumb was applied. The puffed tops of the papers caused an eerie embossing to the title, "Evacuate Immediately."
Anyone who could afford to escape was already gone. The notices succeeded only in distressing the few dozen remnants. Attempting to tear the papers down or shooting dead the sinister bastard putting them up wouldn't save a soul. Sure, the fluttering part could be ripped off, but that'd still leave the permanently sealed "Evacuate Immediately." Murder wouldn't be any more productive.
Nevertheless, Old Man Fletcher shouldered a door out into the dusty, alien wind to shoot dead a protected employee of Novaris Interstellar. For someone with an intent to kill, Old Man Fletcher's motives were surprisingly pure. Those papers were robbing his neighbors of their dignity. The fliers were the claw marks of someone drowning in a well. He'd put a stop to it.
Mrs. Ortega spotted the cantankerous sonofabitch when he took to the dusty street, his grip on his rifle tighter than on reality. She abandoned her late supper and rushed over to the kitchen window to confirm her suspicions. Wiping the glass with her damp hand only smeared thick dust—she couldn't see a thing. She cursed. Mrs. Ortega didn't really need to look again, anyway. The hunch in that man's shoulders as he fought the wind spelled out his intent. The town's best shooter was marching to the metal watchtower. If he found his target, his kill would call down a fiery retribution from space. Someone had to stop him, and that someone needed better knees than hers and the capacity to breathe out in that wind.
Pepper's Gulch needed a hero.
The task was about to fall on Marcus Kingsbury, the galaxy's least profitable liar and one of just two teenagers on the planet. He was cleaning tables after dinner. Without an airlock on the cafeteria, every swing of the double doors drew in fine, electrostatically charged dust that clung to surfaces with the devil's own fury.
The polished floor that gleamed an hour ago now hid beneath a dull yellow grit. It coated everything, but the tables were the worst. Dust would stick to his neighbors' clothes, skin, and food. Without routine diligence, every sip and every bite of Mr. and Mrs. Ortega's cooking left a lingering taste of old pennies.
Wiping the dust, the sulfuric regolith, with a damp towel would only smear it. Marcus first shook out baking soda from a can, covering the table like powdered sugar on Sunday waffles. Then, he laid the towel down at the corner. With an even, two-handed push, he drew a stretch of clean surface. Once saturated, the towel quickly stopped cleaning. Marcus spotted the yellow trail in the cloth's wake, stopped, and returned it to the bucket to rinse.
Six times a day, he cleaned these tables, listening to the splash of water as he wrung out his towel. He battled the dust on every bench, though fewer than half were needed in this ghost town.
The first table would shine brighter than the others as it simultaneously benefited from fresh water and towels. Ever since Mr. and Mrs. Ortega took in Marcus and gave him this job, he has washed the same table first—the table where the only other teenager, Lena Bridger, sat. It could be a challenge to read the nuances in her father's predatory glare, but Marcus guessed correctly that the old soldier noticed the extra shine on his table.
A quarter of the tables cleaned was all it took for the miracles conjured by Mr. Ortega's stovetop to retake the room—even after a meal. Six times a day, Marcus pushed back the planet's odor, defending one of the few joyful places left in the world. As Mrs. Otega bustled over and ordered him out to save the town, preventing a catastrophe seemed like a mere extension of his current work.
"Now scoot up that ladder and tell the fool man that killing Inspector Sutter is gonna do no good. There's leftover bacon in it for both of you if he listens," she concluded.
Marcus knew better than to waste words on Old Man Fletcher, lost in one of his moods. Arguing with Mrs. Ortega didn't strike him as a useful tactic either, especially with extra bacon on the line. So, as a habitual liar, Marcus simply agreed to head straight for Old Man Fletcher's watchtower with no such plan.
Scrambling over the cafeteria bench, Marcus fell. The bucket sloshed but managed not to tip. He recovered with an effort at reassuring suaveness that made Mrs. Ortega shake her head. She glanced across the dusty cafeteria tables at her husband, cleaning his cooktop for the night. The man never could hide a smile.
Marcus slapped on his beat-up leather hat and slipped through the double doors of the Ortegas' cafeteria. The moaning wind stirred yellowing soil, making every inhalation burn the throat. The dust stung his eyes. Marcus tugged at the brim of his hat and tried to spot Inspector Sutter.
It shouldn't be too hard to find one roving company man carrying a stack full of fliers among the scattered shacks they called their town.
The wind blew in along one side of the main road, whipped around the cliff wall, then right back out along the downhill side of the road. Back to the moaning dust, Marcus squinted up at the watchtower, the only building from this angle framed by a purple sky and not weathered rock.
Old Man Fletcher spent most of his hours up there on dogged lookout. As it was the automated turrets that protected the town from the alien bugs, his purpose up there was psychological more than practical. Still, he kept watch. This evening, however, instead of sweeping the horizon, the glint of a gun barrel pointed downhill to where Marcus would find the Inspector.
Off the main road in town, down a curvy path by the cliff—that's where the barrel pointed. The gun twisted slowly against the purple sky, as if tracking someone's motion. Marcus ran.
Running meant breathing through the mouth. The dust stretched deep, coating and irritating protective mucus membranes. Gulping sulfuric air at a run, right after dinner, made Marcus's stomach gurgle. No amount of wincing and massaging would settle his gut, but he kept at it anyway as he ran on and made the problem worse.
When he saw a figure, he had to wipe his watering eyes to make sure it was the inspector.
"Good evening," Marcus called out.
Marcus rubbed the dust off his bottom lip with his arm, smearing a thin streak of mud on his face.
Old Man Fletcher might hurry now that Marcus had arrived. He glanced over his shoulder at the watchtower. Signaling the old man might have the opposite effect. Crap, the only way to stop him was to ruin his shot—to stand in the line of fire.
Marcus shook out a sigh and hurried uncomfortably close to the quickly affronted inspector. In their angry position, Sutter's bushy eyebrows looked like extensions of his bowler hat. Marcus held his arms out, as if frozen in an offer to hug the planet's cruelest man.
Papers in one hand, Inspector Sutter's other held an air filter that he pressed over his mouth to summon the air required to scold this sudden teenager. Marcus could examine his surprisingly clean nails. His words started before his mask had cleared his face, "—impeding the duties of the Frontier Settlements Authority. You can back down, or I can have you arrested."
Marcus took a deliberate step away from the Inspector. He once again looked back at the watchtower, hoping Old Man Fletcher was too busy cussing to maintain a murderous intent. Nonetheless, Marcus held his breath as he waited to see if Inspector Sutter's head would explode.
It didn't.
"Sir, eviction notices won't help the town improve," Marcus told the Inspector.
"Thank the stars that's not my concern."
"Doesn't a fine company man like you want to see Pepper's Gulch become a profitable outpost again? It's not too late for us."
"It is too late for you." He smacked the papers with his air filter. "These say it's too late for you. We're required to post a final warning. Get out of here or die."
"We've got nowhere else to go. It can't be too late," Marcus spoke like he was rattling prison bars.
Sutter's responding insult died in a coughing fit. Once more with the breathing apparatus, then to settle the matter, he said, "Your only refinery was destroyed. No way you can hold this world. You're done."
As the facility Sutter mentioned had also been Marcus's home, the reminder was unnecessary.
"Our turrets are holding. The bugs are piled up out there," Marcus gestured to the road out of town, the view unhelpfully obscured by dust.
Sutter took another hit of filtered air to escape the burning, wretched dust about him. His irritated eyes were failing him. Normally, Inspector Sutter excelled in capturing specific details in his looks of contempt. A teenager fumbling about in the economics of interstellar war could stir a specific hate he could print on his eyes as clearly as the notices he was hanging up. His power stymied, he grumbled, "infuriating," into his mask.
Marcus got part of the message, at least that this was about money.
"But what if we get our refinery back? Repairs are already underway," he lied. "We'll have it ready before," Marcus cocked his head to read the notices in Sutter's claw, "a week?!"
A date had been set.
Marcus licked his lips, wondering who already knew, and tasted the sulfur in the dust. Then, another idea hit him.
"Wait, Admiral Aldrich of the Celestial Fleet sent us a recording. He said General Pepper was his friend, that we share the same spirit." Marcus tapped his fist to his chest, perhaps to remind the inspector of his material presence in the world.
"Moron." Sutter coughed. "Pepper? General François-Étienne de Pépérine died on this rock because he assaulted a hive without support. The idiot didn't respect the numbers. Didn't do the paperwork. You can join your hero in a fitting tribute."
Marcus's next words would have landed him in trouble. Fortunately, at that moment, the twilight sky lit with the cherry light of a meteor.
Swirling about them, the dusty wind glowed orange as the fireball streaked across the sky.
For half a second, both thought the nuclear bombardment had started. Their jaws were left behind tracking the arc above them. The Inspector reassured himself that planetary annihilation required his final approval. He'd be in space when it happened.
Meanwhile, Marcus gripped onto the satisfying thought that, if this was indeed the end, at least the Inspector would be here to embrace the wall of fire along with their little town.
The missile wasn't a nuke. Some might argue the weapon inside was far more dangerous.
