MergePunk: An Ooorah & WattpadPunkFiction Anthology

After the Landing - @VictorSerranoWriting - CyberPunk + Colonisation SF

After the Landing

A CyberPunk + Colonisation SF story by VictorSerranoWriting

Samantha leaned back in her hand-crafted wooden rocking chair, puffing away, staring into the dull reddish glow of another Serrantine sunset. Marcus paused from pruning the garden beside the porch, straightening his back and looking at the sunset in silence. He glanced over at Samantha. 

"Still seems strange, doesn't it?" Marcus asked, as beside him G0-M3Z continued tearing up the roots of a Jasperite fungal growth. Serrantine was loaded with them, but the battle-scarred robot was unrelenting as it tore the root out of their plot of land.

Turning our combat bots into farm equipment. An Ancient had said something about that once, Samantha remembered. She'd read that in the Library, back in the Tranquility.

Samantha flicked ash off the end of her pipe. "What's strange? The sunset? It's just the atmosphere here."

Marcus shrugged, wiping sweat off his brow. "Sunset, atmosphere, everything. You know how it was. Damn near three decades in the Tranq's underdecks and now we're out here strolling around on the... the top, you know?"

"The surface?" Samantha shrugged. "It's already been a few weeks since we landed."

"Surface," Marcus repeated, as if the very word was unfamiliar. Samantha studied his broad face, marred by a few scars. His life in the Agricultural Section had been a rough one. Samantha had spent more than her fair share of years down there, fighting for Bridge Security and then for herself, but at least she hadn't been kept ignorant like the passengers. Marcus tilted his head. "You gonna pitch in or what?"

Samantha stood, careful as she rose, her right hand grounded firmly against the wooden railing. "Fine, just let me get my arm."

The house was a Forge-built model, printed to a sturdy configuration, but Marcus and Samantha had spent plenty of time customizing it to fit their purposes. With her one hand, Samantha opened the custom-built storage cabinet. Two pistols lay in their cases inside, Marcus's sheathed longsword leaning against the wall beside Samantha's sniper rifle, but in the center sat her bionic left arm.

Samantha reached over, hauling it up with well-practiced motions, attaching it where her left arm came to an end. She paused midway through, noticing a blinking indicator light on the attached wrist computer. A new message.

She ignored it for a few moments, attaching her arm firmly into place, opening and closing her bionic hand three times. Then she read the message.

To Deputy Circea:

The Mayor of Ruíz wants you and Marcus for an immediate job. There's been an incident.

---

Shuttle Rest was a halfway station between the colony ships Tranquility and Pacific, a graveyard of decommissioned shuttles stripped of parts and laid to rest. It was a gathering place for nomads and lowlifes, as well as a stopping point along the Tranquility-Pacific trade route. Life was cheap here and the rule of law was all but nonexistent.

Samantha and Marcus knew it well.

"I thought this shit was behind us," Marcus muttered as they filtered their way into the dirty streets, passing past merchants and customers.

"Ever the optimist," Samantha replied. "We've set up a new colony but that doesn't mean everything's suddenly gotten peaceful."

If I had my old Bridge Security armor I could scan for threats here pretty easily. But we left that life behind after the Landing. Still...