Breaker Transgalactic Secondary Dig Site, NH-Alpha IV, Saggital Bridge Sector, Late evening.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Danil switched off the Excavator, its massive Breaker 42Quad engine cutting out instantly and plunging the clearing into silence.

“Come to New Horizon they said, look for opportunities they said…” Danil muttered under his breath. Looking around at his work, he shook his head.

The rest of the team were putting up the security fences that would ensure the bugs wouldn’t get near the Heat Sink or Drill Core sites. Danil’s Excavator sat in the middle of the soon to be “Ant Hill” as it was being dubbed by the prep crew. After several days and hundreds of tons of earth moved, the new subterranean ecology was nearly complete and a temporary Gateway was in place for the FU crews to drop off their cargo.

Danil toggled on his radio. “D23 to Alpha IV Air pick up, Sandro are you hearing me?”.

A brief static burst then a nasally high pitched voice: “Hey D, ready to get your truck outta there? Over”.

“Roger that, I’ve sent the signed off schematics, need an airlift for the truck”.

“It’s on its way D, I’ll save a space at the bar for you”.

Danil climbed down the ladders from the cab, a thirty foot descent past the now inert claw arms and toothed tracks. Looking from the newly dug up earth to the edge of the woods, he spoke into the radio - “Just the truck Sandro, I’m walking back, need the credits, gonna bug sweep for a bit”.

“Roger that Danil”.

Walking under the canopy of trees was a relief, the sun filtered through green, no longer directly on his shoulders. It should have been pleasant. it would have been pleasant if not for…

A thrashing noise ahead, in the bushes, accompanied by a high pitched keening and clicking.

Danil had grown up on Cerberii, a planet avoided by most as it was mostly water with no real land masses and aquatic communities strung out on hundreds of miles of agro-pontoons. There was nothing there for outsiders. But growing up there had been wonderful. Especially the fishing. Landing a forty pound Thakfish with his mother and father, winching it onto the boat as it flopped around, gasping for air until his fathers boltshot had severed its spine. Then gutting and preparing and the food. Eating with his whole family. The music, the food, the laughter.

Danil pushed through the undergrowth. This planet had ruined those memories – balmy and serene on the face of it, but with pockets of quiet horror. Birds that spat acid when you came too close, trees that would light up and emit waves of confused emotions, toxic ores that left workers laid up for days if they breathed so much as a whiff. Plus of course, the twitching remnants of a slaughtered species. He stepped into a clearing, broken twigs underfoot. There it was.

One of the bugs. Thrashing around like a landed Thakfish, uncontrollably flailing on the floor while it’s mandibles clicked together. Mindless.

Disconnected from the hive they were just lumps of chitin and meat, neurons firing wildly in response to nothing that was there anymore.

Setting his multi-tool to Punch Bolt, Danil wasted no time performing the role his father had taken all those years ago and quickly put it out of its misery, the tool pressed against the back of its neck.

Quickly and efficiently, he removed the foreclaws of the bug. The CO were offering 2 credits per - their way of clearing up the planet, relying on the greed of people like him to complete the most disgusting of tasks. “Bug sweeping” they called it. He wasn’t above an easy profit though.

Danil spent another hour in the woods, slowly sweeping his way back to forward camp. In that time he found another six of the brainless monstrosities, one of them even had a looted AA Blaster on it. It was all more credits. Perhaps another half hour and he could… his radio flared into life.

“Central to D23. Central to D23”.

Danil threw his bag down. It might be better in the trees but it was still damned hot. He pulled out his radio. What could Central want?

“Go ahead Central, this is D23”.

“D23, we’re told you’ve completed the Alpharian Queen Reserve? Confirm?”.

Weird. Couldn’t this wait?

“That’s a confirm Central”

“Any sightings of Free Union Teleport?”

“Um, no Central, not when I left”.

“Thank you D23”. A click, disconnect.

Why would they be confirming that? Were the Free Union pushing for dropping off the Queen? They’d been in orbit for weeks. Seems a little impatient. Especially as it was them that had slowed the project down, returning with constantly updating specs for the underground chambers. Danil had been happy to comply, digging holes was rather his thing.

Unless they’d changed their minds? Danil sat, leaning against a tree as he took out his canteen. If the Free Union had gone against the agreement and took the Queen… the Tulaki seemed to think they might and well… politics. Not that it would effect him out here, he’d be digging and drilling until this place was up and running. And then? More digging and drilling elsewhere he should imagine. Working for Breaker wasn’t that bad – Breaker himself was a bit more relaxed after replacing his entire Board. The tree felt warm behind his back.

Come to think of it, he was pretty lucky to be doing what he was doing. You could almost ignore the rest of it. Those Elysians seemed to take to the place pretty quickly – he had even spotted some taking their children hunting for the nests of those lethal bird creatures, not a care in the galaxy. Maybe it was all in the attitude. Taking time to appreciate the place.

The ground was almost spongy beneath him, cushioning his body perfectly as he reclined. The tree’s roots glimmered softly in the fading light.

And there was no-one better with an Excavator than he was. It was almost an extension of himself.

Funny, he’d never seen plants that colour before? Shot with veins of… turquoise? Beautiful. 

The bag of severed bug parts lay next to him. They weren’t that bad. Completely natural. Just organic matter. All was well.

All was well.

“Yo D, Sandro here, you there?”

Danil lazily picked up the radio.

“Hey Sandro, yeah, not far away”.

“I’m off shift, Truck has been lifted, I have some serious gossip for you. The Free Union have left the system. And guess what they’ve taken with them?”

Danil stood, brushing himself off, picking up his bag. 

“Cool Sandro, bar in 15?”

“See you there D”.

He clipped the radio to his belt and took a moment to breath in the air. Plucking a turquoise blossom from one of the new vines on the floor and tucking it behind his ear he set off towards forward camp, a spring in his step.

This planet wasn’t so bad.