AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even if he was a self-important brown noser, Peter wastechnicallymy boss, and this was a battle I wouldn’t win. At least not without a new report in my file that said I was “difficult to work with” and “disrespectful to my superiors”.
But man, I didn’t want to take on this new project. Innovation models had loads of added features and parts and then some; they weren’t just the same model with a new color or single feature like a yearly upgrade, they were something entirely new. With all that change, they required much more troubleshooting and testing, as well as a little creative flair from us tradies to make sure they functioned. I would be here until the suns came up... maybe even long enough for them to rise twice.
I think it would be like an all nighter back home, but I stopped trying to do that math ages ago.
Time moved differently on A4-23. Days were shorter than Earth's, but it would still take me at least two energy supplements and a caffeine concentrate to make it through that kind of shift. Then I'd have to visit Doc for a sleep aid, and he'd probably drill me on my work hours. "Gonna have a heart attack before ya thirty." I could already hear his wheezy disapproval.
“Aubrey?” Peter interrupted my thoughts, tapping his foot impatiently on the metal plates of the floor.
"Fine," I grumbled, "but only when I'm done with this one.Andyou're payin’ me time and a half."
"But this is a special case?—"
“And this one is for a paying client, not some stiff in a suit.”
I turned and tapped the union pin on my heavy apron with a big, cheery smile, knowing that would grate on his nerves. That same unique look of disapproval from earlier knotted his features, but he nodded. Just like I knew he would.
"Alright, alright. Time and a half." He pointed at me. "But you better not draw it out just to get extra credits."
I scoffed, but just waved him off. Thank the universe for the union. “Yeah, yeah. Now get out.”
The door panels slid together behind him, flashing the union sticker I had halved and stuck on either side so that they met when it was closed.
After rampant, unchecked greed had completely wrecked the Earth’s economy, the billionaires had fled from Earth to space with rose-tinted rocket ships only to realize they couldn't exactly function without peons to, well... piss on, but it wasn’t as easy for them as it had been back on Earth.
You didn’t just shit on the entire working class, then run to space and expect to do the same again on a different rock in the sky. They set up companies and boards to start recruiting workers, but no one was willing to go to space without better working conditions and pay.
When they changed their tune, many tradies like myself took up the call, but we had learned our lesson. We were unionized before our feet even left the ship, much to the upper levelers’ chagrin.
They couldn’t even shove us out an airlock and petition for new workers from Earth, either. Very, very few people were willing to go to space to be a scab, not for companies trying to cheat their workers out of the pay and quality of life they had promised.
We might have fucked things up on the blue planet, but we wouldn’t on the pink one.
Fuckin' pink.
A4-23 was like a chewing gum bubble in the sky. The soil, tree leaves, almost everything came in a shade of magenta or pastel, but always pink. The occasional purple or green peppered the landscape, but it was few and far between.
Even the precious metal I was hammering on now.
Sarmentium was a gray blob until you heated it, but when molten?
Yep. Pink.
Still, I couldn’t be mad about it. The rosy hunk of material was the whole reason I was on this planet in the first place. Sarmentium was a robotics expert's wet dream—but it wasfussy. You had to handle her with a gentle but firm touch, and be ready to make changes on the fly. It couldn't be manipulated easily by machines for that reason. Sarmentium was a high dollar ho, demanding hands-on melding or it wouldn't work.
That meant blacksmiths like me were inextrahigh demand. Which meantextracredits.
Especially blacksmiths who had left the family trade to learn engineering, of which I was completely unique, the only one with the dual skill set on the planet. The hiring manager had all but drooled over the chance to recruit a seventh generation blacksmith trained in everything from historical forges to modern mechanical engineering.
Even a mouthy one covered in ink with a no-bullshit union at their back.
I smacked my visor up atop my curls and wiped the sweat from my brow—no doubt leaving streaks of ash across my cheeks. It wasn't like anyone was here to see them, or like I cared if they were. Besides, I was focused on the travesty at the end of my tongs.
Fuck me with a hot set of pliers. Peter had completely ruined the last hour of my work when he interrupted me. The sarmentium had cooled too fast, and I had been too distracted to work her properly. I only had six of the nine inches of this dick shaped when he came in. The remaining three were just a lumpy, unformed tube.
“Damnit, damnit, damnit.” I said it aloud to no one, but my workshop and I were old buddies—it was a good listener and never talked back as I grumbled. It was going to hear a lot more cursing soon, too, as I'd have to redo the whole shaft.
As if summoned back by my annoyance, the doors parted again. Peter poked his head around the corner, face lighting up when he saw the failed project.Dick.
