(Photo by Luis Quintero)

Mice were a terrible blight on any colony, but especially on those whose host world lacked a breathable atmosphere. Like all rodents, the front incisors never stopped growing so mice have to chew to wear down the teeth, otherwise they become too long and can begin growing into their own skull. Most colonies had strict bans against keeping mice or rats as pets, and research facilities were carefully monitored and guarded against rodent escapes. However, in the rare instances when rodents did begin to crop up in places they weren’t supposed to be in, action was usually taken to swiftly eradicate them.

It came as a surprise, then, when Chester learned that there weren’t any current efforts in place to deal with the mice on the moon.

“They’ve been here too long,” the manager, whose name Chester still had yet to learn, said when asked about them. “At first we tried to wipe them out, but,” he shrugged as if to say it had been futile and left it at that.

The reason this topic had come up was because they kept coming across nests the mice were making in the wreckage of the port.

“You aren’t worried they’ll ruin the atmospheric controls or something?” Chester asked.

“Oh, they’ve broken it multiple times,” his manager said as they began sifting through a new pile of ash stained detritus, tossing anything organic into the hauler and setting aside the other materials for the recyclers. He didn’t sound that concerned with what would be a serious problem on just about any other colony in the solar system. “They’ve also shorted out the water purifiers, breached the hull of the observation lounge, and gotten into the food stores.”

“And you’re all okay with this?”

“Of course we aren’t!” the manager spat with sudden anger that dissipated quickly. “Look,” he said as he calmed back down, “we got mice. The first time we noticed them, we asked for some help to get rid of them. You know what we got sent?”

“Cats?” Chester asked though he was fairly certain that wasn’t going to be correct.

“Ha, if only,” the manager laughed ruefully. “No. They sent us a whole bunch of nothing. Said we needed to figure it out on our own. We tried organizing teams to hunt them down, tried poisoning them, nothing worked. So, instead of getting rid of them while their numbers were small, they’ve just kept on breeding until now they’re in pretty much everything and everywhere. We just have to keep an eye on our systems and do more routine checkups. We also have a stockpile of replacement parts, wire, and backup systems for everything that’s critical.”

“Would it be alright if I caught a few?” Chester asked.

“Don’t waste your time trying to chase them down,” the manager shook his head. “Besides, they taste awful.”

“I’m not going to eat them,” Chester said, though he had plenty of experience with that from his childhood.

“Well, do it on your own time,” the manager said. “We got more important things to do here than try and catch mice.”

The rest of the shift went by without any further incidents but Chester kept thinking. He had one mouse already, back in the hab, but he would need more of them for the experiments he needed to run. When he got back to the hab later that morning, he set out to collect the pieces he needed to construct a mouse trap. He and his mom had needed to live off of whatever things they could find and rodents were always plentiful sources of protein no matter how much devastation the wars had caused.

Most traps killed the mice right away but that would lead to rotten meat if they didn’t get it right away, so instead Chester and his mom built traps that could capture multiple mice at once and keep them alive. It wasn’t a complicated device, either. Just a bucket or something with steep walls the mice couldn’t climb or jump out of, a ramp leading up to the mouth of the bucket, and a simple pivot. The mice would go up the ramp, step onto the pivot to get to whatever bait they’d placed on it, and then the pivot would dip and drop them into the bucket. The sounds of the mice in the bucket would often attract even more mice. Then all Chester and his mom would have to do was go around and check on their buckets each day and collect the mice.

He showed up to his next shift with three such traps.

“What are those?” barked the manager.

“Mouse traps,” Chester said.

The manager eyed them with a doubtful expression but didn’t say anything else about them. Instead he waved for everyone on the crew to listen up.

“We’ve been staying out of the holding rooms so far since we haven’t been able to tell whether or not the kill boxes are still active or not. Since their controls were destroyed in the fire we can’t just push a few buttons and make sure we’re in the clear. I’m told that power is still being drawn by the port, but they’re not sure which systems are using it. Could be the kill boxes, could be something else. But Bio wants those bodies out before they begin to rot too much more. I know we’ve been wearing our respirators in there so we haven’t noticed many smells but the guys down in atmospherics tell me that they’re having to scrub out a whole lot of bacteria and organics that only come from decomposing bodies. The air filters are fine for now but they can’t keep it up for too much longer so we’re going to need to get those rooms cleaned out as fast as possible.”

There were a number of groans as they all shifted uncomfortably at the idea of not only working in the kill boxes but also of handling the decomposing bodies. It had been a week now since the fire and so any decomposition was going to be fairly advanced.

“I know, I know,” the manager grumbled as well, “and since it’s going to be such a fun time, we all get full body suits to help keep us clean.”

That, at least, was a relief. Working with nothing but gloves and a respirator was hardly protection against the filth they had to deal with, especially when they found new bodies. Up until that day, they’d only worked in the main port area, cleaning it up, marking things for repair, and generally trying to get it serviceable so they could reopen the port. A resupply barge was currently orbiting the moon but couldn’t come in to unload until the port was repaired, and there were dozens more ships waiting to dock as well with their own shipments of goods and people on their way to other parts of the solar system.

For better or worse, it was the moon that was the main port for the Solar King’s capitol, not the planet down below, if only for the simple fact that it cost far less fuel to land and take off from the moon than it did on the much larger planet below. Only the threat of the lunar colonies air purifiers being overwhelmed was enough justification to have them turn their attention away from the port and finish cleaning up the bodies.

“Will these suits protect us from the kill boxes?” someone asked while they got suited up.

Chester stifled a smirk though he couldn’t blame them for asking. If the Solar King’s own suit couldn’t fully block a bio-electric dampening field, what hope was there that these suits would either.

“Not a bit,” the manager replied.

“Then how’re we suppose to clean out the rooms if we don’t know whether or not the kill boxes are still running?”

It was a simple enough question with an equally simple answer.

“Just hold your hands out in front of you and walk forward slowly,” Chester said at once, remembering how he and his mother would navigate trapped causeways. “If you lose feeling in your hands then you know the field’s still active. Otherwise, it’s off.”

Everyone turned to look at him and Chester grumbled to himself. He didn’t like drawing attention to himself and should have just let the manager handle that question.

“Just seems like a logical solution, right?” Chester said without meeting any of their eyes.

“Right,” the manager said and then held up a long probe. “Or, we can just stick this in the room and if the light on the end goes out you’ll know not to go in there. If that’s the case then we’ll have to use these.”

He held up a coil of rope that had what looked like a meat hook on one end.

“I know, I know,” he said before anyone could voice a complaint. “This job’s terrible and we’re all overdue for a raise. But there’s nothing you or I can do about that right now so just keep any whining to yourself and let’s get this over with.”

Inside the port, Chester set out his mouse traps and then promptly wished he could go back to his hab and work on his research there instead.

“Come on, Treshec,” the manager called over to him. “I told you to do that on your own time.”

“I just needed to set them down,” Chester replied, turning around and moving back towards the rest of the crew. “I’ll pick them back up when we’re leaving.”

“What do you want them for, anyway?”

“They’re a pest, aren’t they?” Chester asked.

“The worst, so what?” the manager shrugged.

“Well these have always worked well for me, so I figured I’d give them a try here.”

“Three traps won’t be enough to solve that problem.”

“I know.”

Their conversation died off as they reached the first of the rooms. Dozens of people were inside, mostly still in the seats they’d been sitting on when the kill box was switched on. The manager held the probe into the room and the light remained on.

“Right,” he said, “let’s go.”

The manager began to step forward when Chester caught him and pulled him back.

“Wait!” Chester exclaimed, his heart suddenly pounding in his ears. “You’ve only checked the entrance.”

The manager gave him a blank stare as he tried to push Chester away.

“The light stayed on,” he said as though that were enough.

“It stayed on there in the entrance, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the kill box is off.”

Again, there were uncomprehending looks from the manager and the rest of the crew. Thankfully, though, that didn’t mean that any of them were foolish enough to just walk into the room now that Chester was voicing his concerns.

“The fire could have damaged the panels of the kill box nearest the door, but not the other parts. Here, let me see that.” Chester took the probe and held it out in front of him while he carefully and slowly moved into the room. Every instinct was screaming at him that this was a trap, that the kill box was actually fully functional and they were just waiting for him to goinside before turning it back on. And yet, they’d had a full week now to kill him and it seemed overly complicated to do it this way if that was their goal.

About halfway into the room, Chester’s hand went numb and he dropped the probe. It’s light had never gone off and yet there very clearly was a spot right in front of him where the bio-electric dampening field was still active. There were audible gasps from the crew behind him, crowding around the entrance to see him. Chester backed up until he could feel his hands again, then moved from side to side, edging around until he found exactly where the border of the field was. It didn’t cover the back of the room, but instead just a pocket near the middle. The corpses weren’t in the field at all. He marked out the place where the bio-electric dampening field was still active by moving a few chairs into the space so no one could accidentally walk into it.

“As long as we avoid this spot we should be fine,” Chester said, gesturing with the probe. He wondered where it had come from and whether or not it had been purpose built or if someone just thought it would work without actually testing it out first. Either way, the probe was useless for this application.

“You know,” someone said, “I think I’ll just give up my salary for the day and let Treshec handle this one.”

“Shut it,” the manager said, though he too seemed more subdued than usual.

Chester stepped back out of the room, not sure what to make of their reactions. Were they just shocked by the fact that the field wasn’t completely off? That the probe hadn’t worked? He had probably just saved at least the managers life. Not sure what else to say or do, he pointed over towards the other rooms.

“I’ll go check the other room and mark any spots to avoid.”

The manager nodded and Chester left them as they began clearing the first room.

None of the panels in the next room were working so Chester cleared out all of the unused chairs from the middle of the room and stacked them in the far corner, away from the bodies so the crew would have an easier time removing them. He couldn’t enter the third room, though, since at least the one panel by the door was still active. Chester went back to the second room and grabbed a pair of chairs and placed them in front of the third room’s door, blocking the entrance.

It was slow and careful work for Chester but he was glad he had this job rather than the alternative. Every once in a while he saw the others, with their arms and chests stained as they loaded up the hauler. For their part, the rest of the crew looked like they thought that they’d gotten the better end of the deal.

“At least everyone’s happy,” Chester muttered to himself while he massaged his hands and arms. The tingling that lingered after being repeatedly subjected to a bio-electric dampening field was not painful but neither was it pleasant. At least it was temporary.

Chester finished checking the rest of the rooms about halfway through the shift and rejoined the crew who were about halfway through clearing the rooms Chester had marked as safe.

“Everything’s marked,” Chester told the manager. “I’m going to need a bit of time to get all the feeling back in my hands, but then I should be good to start helping out here.”

He motioned with his arms and his shaking hands which he still couldn’t quite make work just yet.

“Are your hands going to be alright?” the manager asked and for once there was genuine concern in his voice.

Chester waved the comment away as though it was nothing but his floppy hand did little to calm the manager.

“I’ll be fine, really,” Chester assured him. “I’ve seen this more times than I can count. Gimme half an hour, an hour at most, and I’ll be good to go.”

“You’ve seen this before?” the manager asked and Chester could have slapped himself for yet another slip up.

This one, however, was too big just to leave without some sort of explanation. Fortunately it didn’t seem as though anyone else had heard him.

“There are worse places to work than this colony,” Chester told him with a knowing look, hoping that would be enough.

The manager nodded uncomfortably, silent for only a moment before asking the question Chester could see all over his face.

“What did you do before coming here?”

“Have you told family or friends much about the work we’ve been doing in here? Cleaning up these bodies, I mean?” Chester asked.

The manager shook his head, disgust evident on his face.

“Well, I’d rather talk about this job than my last one.”

The manager nodded and turned away, leaving Chester alone to rest while he waited for the feeling in his hands to come back. In truth, he already had enough strength back that he could have joined right in but he wanted to take a moment any way, if only to not appear too much more extraordinary to the others. He needed to not draw more attention and scrutiny to himself. He didn’t doubt that the manager would be trying to find out more about him, if he hadn’t already requested a few investigations into Chester’s background.

It didn’t matter, though. They’d find even less about Treshec than they would about Chester. All he needed was a little more time, a few more lucky breaks, and he wouldn’t need to worry any more. He’d take control of Quartermaster Cosa and from there he could identify anyone else that would be beneficial for him to govern. With that done, he could easily get a place on any departing ship, once the port was repaired, and go wherever he pleased.