A coin toss can never be truly random. We assign it randomness because of the limits of our perception. The second a coin leaves your thumb, no matter the extent of your knowledge, you rescind your ability to think into the future. For a moment, you are an animal, blind to the hands that give the coin a side, seeing it as a free being, rather than a subject of the laws of physics. You rely on the coin for its sovereignty, while the forces of the universe have full control over the outcome. This shortcoming of sentience lies at the core of exploitation. As long as an individual believes themselves to have autonomy, they limit their understanding to the piddling details of their lives, maintaining a blind spot to the larger picture and obscuring the people in control. As long as a person has their choice in guns, their choice in drugs, and their choice in residence, the rest of their choices can be made for them.
My Pohshek-34 spun quickly around my finger, the metal still cold from my last spacewalk. The safety was on, but the chambers were loaded with energy cells. My name is Czerra. I’ve been a bounty hunter in the Sol-Gliese system since I was born in a village in the Tharsis mountains of Mars in 2461[1]. This whole cluster- every planet, every country, every town- is a mess in its own special way, and I’ve experienced it first hand. The truth is that safety is a privilege granted to nobody. Robot, mutant, or human, someone out there is trying to kill you. All you can do is pray it's not me.
Today is big- it’s pretty rare that someone as far out as Jupiter hires me for a job. Given the extra fees for long distance travel, the average Jovian miner couldn’t afford me in a thousand lifetimes. It means one of two things: either I’m getting scammed or my client is a gas baron. Considering our meeting spot is on the Zwölfsterne and not some dinghy helium catcher in the lower atmosphere, I'm guessing it's the latter.
Approaching Exosphere. Core Distance: .15 Light Seconds
The Superstes’ computer does most of the work during long flights. Interplanetary travel takes a kind of precision the human brain just doesn’t have. Turning half an angle too far during a jump could send you flying past Lucina. Once you get close, though- when you can feel the atmosphere cradling your ship, beckoning the freemetal with its gravity- the true art of piloting reveals itself.
Once the Zwölfsterne comes into view, I switch off the automated navigation and put my hands in the controls. The massive ship looms miles over the clouds of Jupiter, just far out enough to avoid the hurricanes. The docking station and crew quarters are only a few stories tall, but almost half the length of Europa. The layers of condos and luxury restaurants lie atop a massive bulbous container of helium mined and ready for sale, stockpiled by the wealthy to maintain control of the market. Thousands and thousands of trunk-like tendrils connect the bulb to the planet’s rich atmosphere, fading out of view beneath the violent storms of Jupiter.
I carefully steer the ship close to the pristine ceramic walls of the Zwölfsterne, searching for the station the client told me to dock in. The blinding whiteness of the hull reflects back at me, almost taunting my polycarbonate armor. By the time I reached dock 29D, I was practically asleep, but I still managed to anchor and enter the client’s quarters.
I walk into the office, and find myself completely surrounded by thousands of textiles bound by fabric spines. This guy must be some kind of sapien historian- all the artifacts look pre-nuclear. I take a random piece off the shelf and attempt to read it, but none of it’s in Spatio, being instead written in some ancient alphabet I’d never seen. Flipping through the pages, I see diagrams of complex technology, maps of long dead nations, and, most strangely, a model of a star system with a single star and eight planets, as opposed to our binary system with 14 planets. Behind me, I hear footsteps softly approaching. My hand hovers over my holster as I slowly turn around, only to find a mutant in a flowing cloak. His face is covered in cancerous tumors that obscure his features, and his left arm splits at the elbow into a second ingrown forearm. A manual companion bot follows behind him carrying a large stack of bound textiles. The mutant waved his hand, and the bot sat down. “Welcome. You must be Czerra.” he said as he approached me. He extended his hand to bump my fist, a pretentious greeting I would normally decline, but he’s the client.
“In the flesh.” I respond snarkily, bumping his fist back. Now that the man was close to me, I recognized him. He was Xeger Elmin, a ridiculously rich energy cell producer well known for his violent acquisition of thousands of helium plants from native born Jovian farms.
“Czerra, you’ve been to Jupiter, yes?” he says. I attempt to respond, but he seems not to care. “You’ve seen how inefficient the Jovian helium catchers are. They create disgusting webs of barbaric collection networks, finely tuned to PURPOSEFULLY collect less than what is possible. All this, they do in the name of ‘protecting the planet’.” Xeger shudders after uttering those words. They seem, truly, to disgust him. “Now, normally these towns are not a problem. They’re too stupid to survive the hurricanes. However, the colony in West Gravibus has recently been joined by some sort of activist who provides hurricane shelters to the disadvantaged. This is a big problem for me. If the lower class are protected from the storms, they will never naturally abandon the land, forcing me to kill the citizens. If this activist were to… die in an accident- somehow- all the Jovians would have to emigrate somewhere else. It’s simple, really. The shelters all have makeshift energy tanks that’ll burst with the slightest explosive impact. I need you to go down there and destroy them all- it’ll look like they just malfunctioned. After this is done, and you KNOW he has passed, I will pay you.”
“Where am I supposed to get explosives from? I can’t move them off planet- all I’ve got is my revolver.” I was lying. It would be easy for me to smuggle some plasma explosives off Mars, they’re just expensive as hell.
Xeger sighed. “Yes. In the back. You can take five- any more, and it’s coming out of your pay.”
I rolled my eyes. The man is a weapons manufacturer, and all he can afford is five plasma rounds? Talk about cheap. “Alright, alright. Send my ship the coordinates and I can get it done within the day.”
I got out of there as soon as I got the explosives. The place was charming, yeah, but smelled like starmold. I hop in the Superstes and enter the coordinates.
Flight Path Calculated. Destination: West Gravibus
Emerging from the Zwölfsterne, I look below me and see endless clouds. The ship coasts, before I push my hands down at a sharp angle, tilting the ship forward, directly into the storms below.
The tempered glass of the cockpit heats up as it enters the atmosphere. My eyes dart between the altimeter and the storms ahead of me. Traveling on gas giants takes pinpoint accuracy. The altimeter plummets. Back at the cockpit, the precipitation batters the windows. The altimeter falls even faster, and I can feel the gravity from Jupiter’s liquid core increasing. Back and forth, altimeter, storm, altimeter, storm, altimeter, storm.
.1 Light Seconds from Core. Pull Up. Pull Up.
With all the strength in my arms, I shift the control panel up, leveling the ship out at just the right altitude. At least I hope. You can never be sure until you see-
The West Gravibus colony emerges from the infinite clouds. I pass by hundreds of helium catchers along the way to the shelter. Each one of them houses an entire family of bots scrounging the clouds for gaseous gold. The catchers contain a cryogenic distiller that removes the pure helium from the dusty air of Jupiter, and collects it in a bulb at the back of the ship, which is connected by rope to a central platform- if I follow the ropes, I should be able to find the shelter.
As impressively vast as West Gravibus is, I can’t stand it. Jupiter on its own is a shithole filled with poor bots ruled by the richest humans you can find. If I had my way, I’d be back on Mars, but having Xeger as a client is too good to pass up. I landed on the main platform, hand over my holster, and entered the shelter.
Forecasts said there wouldn’t be any hurricanes for the next week, so the shelter should be empty besides the owner. None of the lights inside were on, and dirt covered the furniture. Bright blue wallpaper lined the left side of the room, leading to a long hallway with a glow at the end of it. It must be the energy reserves. Sneaking through the hallway, I eventually reached the energy room. It was completely empty and pitch black, aside from the dull blue glow coming from the reserves. I reached into my pockets, and placed a single plasma explosive on each of the four reserves. Just like that- I guess not every trip to Jupiter has to be a 4 day bender. I got up, and quickly made my way to the entrance of the shelter. Just before I reached the exit, I heard a door behind my whirr open. I reach for my gun and quickly point it at the noise. In front of me was a robot. A very young robot- his eyes glowed and his metallic body shined. He stares at me, as if he had never seen a gun before. Out of the tense silence, his voice echoes.
“Who are you?”