In the not-so-distant future, humanity gazed at the glittering stars, their only hope. Earth, a war-scarred wasteland, was a pale, dusty shadow.

Humans had to abandon their home planet, so they ventured beyond. Rocket exhaust roared, a symphony of departure against the vast, inky black. They carved new homes among the heavens, the cold vacuum pressing against their ships. Following colonial expansion, 433 Eros, a colossal asteroid, beckoned—a dim, stony promise against the star-dusted canvas, a celestial haven.

Captain Nathan Rourke emerged from the dim alleyways, a pioneer on the colony of Eros. Formerly a charismatic, fearless captain in the Research and Exploratory Corps, he'd spent his adult life navigating the cold, endless space, a chill he still felt. Now in forced retirement, Eros became his last frontier, the air thick with the scent of failure.

Leaning against the counter at the back of the bar, I enjoyed watching a minor bar fight between the crews of a tramp freight hauler and a Rock Gypsy clan asteroid prospecting ship. The fight was more entertaining than the previous poker game I had played.

With my left hand, fortunately behaving right now, I grab the wrist holding a knife that appeared in a fighter’s fist. “This is all in good fun. Non-lethal weapons only, you stupid fucking space squid.” I squeeze his wrist tighter, feeling the small bones grind together.

“Ow! Fucking hell! You old fuck, let go of me,” he wheezes out through split lips. I tighten my grip on his wrist, further increasing the pressure.

His face with pain goes even whiter than the pastiness typical of spacers. I could quickly reduce his wrist to a bloody pulp but squeeze just enough so that he dropped the knife.

Letting the space squid go, I pick up the knife he dropped. With my left hand, I break the blade off at the handle. “Here, you dropped this,” I said, handing him back the pieces of his knife.

Holding his injured hand, the freight spacer takes the broken knife and quickly leaves the bar. It's a short walk to the merchant spaceship piers, where his ship is likely docked. Judging by his ship suit and the absence of facial clan tattoos, that space squid is probably from a hardscrabble independent intersystem merchant.

Anyone who fights that recklessly better not be military if they expect to have a long service or live to see the end of their indentured service time. With no clan tattoos, it is unlikely he has a significant, powerful body to protect him. Despite the best efforts of social engineers, human tribalism is alive and well.

“You move fast for an old man,” Mitch, the bartender, remarks, his shoulder-length dreads swinging as he tends to customers. With a thick Caribbean accent, a café au lait complexion, and no clan facial tattoos, I have always wondered what brought him to this godsforsaken rock.

From the tap, Mitch fills a glass with Bawno, a Titan-made lager of decent quality. This rock's non-replicated food, beer, and alcohol mainly come from Mars, Titan and older colonies. Nearly as much water enters Eros as booze as what comes in from the Mars-based ice asteroid haulers. Eros is not a major contributor of brewing ingredients currently. Eros isn't yet capable of self-sufficiency because of size limitations.

When more of this rock gets hollowed out, Eros might have the room for crops, hydroponics, and aquaponics typical of colonies. I wonder how many ships moor in the large space docks encircling the Psyche crater? Once assembled, the first fusion-powered tunnel boring machine tore into Eros through the bottom of the nearly five-kilometer-wide crater. Other TBMs carved 25 meter wide tunnels in the Psyche crater, creating several large openings which are used as the main points of entry and exit from the colony.

Behind Mitch, hanging on the wall on one of the information-scrolling holo screens, I watch the galactic news for a few minutes. Since we are close to Mars right now, soaring closer to perihelion, at least we get a stable connection to the Galactic Net. This is the only way I can get news. I know I am a bit out of the loop. Speak of the devil, as my left arm twitches uncontrollably. I am also cut off from email, video messages and control of some of my bodily functions, such as my apparent age.

Just another day stuck in a shithole bar in a tiny rock sailing through space, I thought. Eros used to be a lot more fun.

The other players I had been playing poker with have left. I notice that my preferred table is now vacant. I frequent Glen’s House of Exceptionally Low and Ill Repute often enough to be considered a regular. The smoke-laden air hung thick, a visible haze, slightly stinging the eyes. The scent of stale, spilled beer clung, a musty, lingering odor.

At my table, I sit, placing my slightly more than half-full bottle of expensive bourbon beside me. Bored, I shuffle the cards, contemplating a game of solitaire.

The rough, graffiti-marked top of the table groaned under the weight of three figures. Their grimy, patched-up mining suits reeked of ozone and something metallic. I could hear the scrape of their heavy boots on the worn floor as they sat.

"Hey Captain Rourke, did you hear about the rhodium strike in shaft L4?" Squish asked as he sat down.

"No I hadn't, but I don't really care. Doesn't matter to me anyway."

"Rourke, you don't own shares in the mining company?"

Even if I had the money, I'd never invest in Charalampos, Gregor, and McCrackenone. CGM owns just about everything on this fucking rock, but they don't own me.

"No, I'm not a miner. Tried it once. Didn't like it. Do you own CGM shares Squish?"

"Yes. I've been taking part of my pay in company shares. A highly valuable resource strike such as rhodium will increase share value. Rhodium is much more valuable than even the small amounts of hydrogen cyanide from the surface."

"Well, good for you."

We play a few hands of low-stakes poker while I evaluate my fellow players and assess their playing skills and sobriety. After a few hands of poker, I convince my fellow players to raise the stakes a little.

“Read ‘em and weep,” I said, tossing my cards on the table.

Despite excellent air filtration systems, a thick, smoky haze permeated the bar, fetid with the smells of tobacco and drugs. Slim looked at his cards, tossing them down in disgust. For some reason, now lost in the mists of time, Slim’s all-black, two-pair hand comprises what is called a “dead man’s hand.”

Slim pulls a popular Erosian-made cigarillo containing a blend of tobacco, cocaine, and marijuana from his pocket. Sticking the smoke in the corner of his mouth, he looks around. Patting his pockets, he mumbles, “Where the fuck did my lighter go?”

A young male prostitute dressed in a one-piece, skin-tight, shiny black leather bodysuit approaches our table. He struts gracefully despite the stupidly tall high-heeled shoes he wears. He moves so elegantly that his platinum blonde Mohawk of Liberty spikes doesn’t move. I can’t see them from my seat, but I wonder if his toenails are the same vibrant fluorescent red as his fingernails.

The effeminate, exceptionally pale prostitute gracefully leans forward; using a shiny, brass-bodied Zippo plasma lighter, he lights Slim’s cigarillo. The lighter clicks shut with a definitive metallic snap. Slim sucks deeply on the cigarillo; its tip glows cherry red. He slowly releases the smoke through his nose. Brushing a hand lightly over Slim’s crotch, the prostitute whispers something in his ear before sauntering away, making sure everyone gets a good look at his ass.

The tightness of the leather leaves no doubt that he wears nothing underneath. His suit proves that he is erect and impressively hung. The tip of his obviously circumcised, beer-can-thick penis must be somewhere north of where I guessed his belly button to be. I absently wonder how long he takes to wiggle out of that skin-tight suit, or does it have quick access points or speed releases?

Like most men, the young prostitute probably has control of his erection through his neural net and wetware. With a mere thought, a man can go from flaccid to rock hard, no matter his arousal level. I have heard rumors that the ancients needed pills, which didn't work as well as today's cyber wetware and neural nets.

Reputable cyberware companies use nanites, and skilled surgeons install wetware such as neural nets with several built-in safety features. A man can think his dick hard but keep that erection too long, and the safety features return his dick to flaccid, preventing priapism. Get wetware from a less-than-reputable street hackjobber, and you can suffer the consequences.

With some outpatient plastic surgery and enough funds, a man can have a truly fearsome cock. Going overboard with the size of your dick can have disastrous results. Dropping trou and watching someone break the current 50-meter dash record is hard on a man’s ego. No matter how enlightened we may be, men are still stuck on their dicks, and it is much of our psyche.

I’ve never found sex with men as enjoyable as sex with women. But even I have to admit, the young man has a fine ass. I find it an absurd coincidence that both of my ex-wives accused me of being too completely and stupidly hetero. Last I heard, one is still thankfully on Earth, but I am not sure where the most recent ex-wife is. I fervently hope she is still on Mars.

Yvette was always more interested in survival and self-interest. We finalized our divorce on Mars over 20 standard years ago. Yvette wouldn’t let something inconvenient and trivial as a monogamous marriage to a mere captain in the Exploratory Corps (EC) stand in her way. I thank whatever gods there are that I never had children with either ex-wife. A coughing Slim breaks me out of the melancholy memories of my former wives.

“Fuck. Nate, at this rate, you might pay off that piece of shit ship of yours in the next 50 years.”

I fucking hate being called Nate, but it is not worth reminding these three again. “Now, Slim, just because you suck at poker is no cause to disparage my Horizon Voyager. She is a fine ship, despite her age. She just needs some repairs and a restocking of basic supplies.”

“Nate, you have been whining about that fucking ship of yours since you got stuck on this rock.”

“Fuck all of you,” Tabby says. “You know that ship is not his anymore. It belongs to Kaourintin who holds the note on it now. It’s been in hock so long, I am surprised that it hasn’t been stripped of useful parts and the rest sold as scrap. The ship is probably worth more in its parts than as a whole.”

“That’s true,” Slim says. “K-Tin owns the note on your ship, Nate. I’m surprised that you can make minimum payments.”

Grimacing at the thought of dealing with that Francophile degenerate again, I am not looking forward to visiting his office tomorrow. K-Tin tries to act as if he is the epitome of le grand banditisme, but he is merely a big fish in a minuscule pond. K-Tin might be on the lowest rungs of his criminal organization, but at least he is on the ladder. Only my stupid pride has kept me from crossing the line into a true criminal.

“Well, I get the odd job here and there. Plus, a little from poker winnings helps. And like every Erosian citizen, I receive the Basic Living Stipend (BLS) and a small monthly retirement from the EC.”

Eros does not tax its citizens' income, as most colonies do. Instead, Eros taxes everything fucking else. I don’t have to worry about greedy tax assessors taking some or most of what little there is of my money. They tax prostitution, drugs, alcohol, and other similar items. Most of the Erosian government’s income comes from taxes on the precious metals and other commodities the mines produce. Nearly all the commodities mined on Eros go for sale on the Galactic Exchange (GalEx).

The other two players at the table, Squish and Tabby, toss their cards down as well. All three are hard rock asteroid miners with the scars and rough features mining imparts to anyone who does it for any measure of time.

Gathering my winnings from this hand, I am pleased that at least this month I will make the minimum payment. I have missed monthly payments before; the penalties compound, so I want to catch up if I can. The other men don’t know how many times I’ve skipped meals. I have hocked or sold nearly everything of value I owned.

I did some things that I am not proud of just to keep my ship in hock. My dream of blasting off this rock as fast as my ship’s screaming inertia dampers can handle gets dimmer with each passing year.

Squish has said nothing. Tabby introduced them when they sat down. Judging by the vibrant, colorful clan tattoos covering their face and hairless scalp, Squish is from Mars or one of the Martian moon colonies. In the bar’s dim light, I try to catch a glimpse of what Squish has tattooed on their upper eyelids. Martian gang members often have their rank, job, and other details marked there.

“I think you’re cheatin’ as well,” Tabby says, speaking for the second time this evening. Tabby’s lack of front teeth gives him a peculiar lisp when he speaks. He slurps designer drug-laced blue beer from a large frosted stein. I watch beer drip through his dirt-encrusted short orange beard.

“Then here, you deal the next hand,” I casually mention, sliding the deck to him. Fortunately for me, I am still sober while the other three players have imbibed heavily of both alcohol and drugs. Parts of my wetware augments thanks to the EC are nose filters preventing me from becoming affected by the secondhand smoke.

Taking another shot from my bottle of “bourbon,” I am thankful that manners and custom prohibit anyone from asking for a shot unless I offer it. Preventing anyone from realizing that my bourbon bottle contains sweet iced tea seems like a good idea. I activate the chemical spritzer hidden under my ship’s overalls with a neural network thought, so that I smell like alcohol.

Playing a few more hands, just for show, and while I lose a little, I am still far ahead of the others. I will probably not see these three again until the next payday at the earliest. That thought makes me feel confident that they will not be able to find me for a while. The miners get paid every Friday evening, roar into town and blow all of their money before Sunday evening.

With my winnings and bourbon bottle securely under my bionic left arm, I make my excuses and leave, nodding at security as I go by. Leaving the bar; I affect the walk of a more than slightly inebriated person.

Triggering the clock in my wetware, the time floats in front of my eyes in a hologram that only I can see. I note that it is nearly three in the morning. By long-established custom, all ships and colonies from Mars, such as Eros, are on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

The colony on Eros is a marvel of human ingenuity. Deep within the asteroid’s rocky heart, it boasts towering crystal spires and labyrinthine tunnels. Here, colonists live and thrive, aided by advanced technologies that wrestle sustenance from the cold stone. The colony maintains fusion-powered artificial gravity at a comfortable Earth normal of 1G.

The colony's governing body states that it will eventually transform the hollowed-out interior into a sprawling metropolis. Right now, most of the under-city closely resembles the meanest slums of Mars.

Within Eros, towering arcologies gleamed, housing the wealthy privileged elite, while the poor working class toiled in the vast mines. Laws are more of a formality than a reality, with the wealthy navigating them effortlessly.

Stepping outside onto the street, I inhale deeply of the crisp, cool, slightly harsh, chemical-scented air. Walking back to my flat takes less than ten minutes. Once at my building’s door, I drop the fake inebriated walk. I give the young street thug wannabes lounging in the doorway a nod.

They know better than to fuck with me. Last time the fools tried for me, I put several of them in hospital with many broken bones and dislocated limbs. It took them several months of working community service jobs to pay off their hospital bills.

It’s a challenge to appear tough while picking up trash wearing eye-watering fluorescent neon pink overalls. The wide, bright white reflective neural shock collar probably didn’t help either. I never know whether one of them might suddenly decide to try again. Even the gods can’t stop stupid.

Climbing the three flights of trash littered urine stained stairs has become routine. Neither lift has worked since long before I moved in. It’s not surprising that the two throuples in 3C are screaming at each other again. The argument in an unknown Eastern-European language, mixed with Castilian Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese, is an old one. Somebody fucked somebody else they were not supposed to.

Once in my thankfully silent flat, I strip and flop on the bed. Twisting my left arm, and opening the secret compartment, I remove the cards stashed there. I didn’t want to cheat, but living on Eros is costly.

Jobs for down on their luck space explorers are not exactly falling from the roof. Most of what I used to do is now done by battleship and dreadnought-sized AI-controlled drones. The shift to non-human ships put the vast majority of the EC humans out of a job. Remembering my heady early days in the EC, I drift off to sleep.

In the morning, I look at myself in the mirror. I am not impressed with the man who looks back at me. “Gods, I hate mornings.” I have never been a morning person, despite nearly 24 standard years in a quasi-military organization. Many of the EC traditions and structures are based on Old Earth wet navies, including the ungodly early mornings.

Climbing into my often less than reliable fresher, I take a quick sonic wash. Water is still far too precious to waste washing in it. Rummaging around on the floor, I find a ship’s suit that does not smell too badly and is devoid of the most obvious stains. Feeling the suit sag around my midsection, I ignore the twinges of shame while closing the tabs.

I once had a fashionable small pot belly, showing that I was wealthy enough to afford more food than I needed, and didn’t work hard for my living. I put on my sturdy boots, strapped my belt with the attached knife sheath around my waist, and grabbed my winnings from yesterday.

They keep Eros at a comfortable 38°C and very dry. I feel parched because water is such a precious commodity. I do not work up a sweat moseying the three blocks to Madam Fong’s.

Plopping onto a rickety plastic stool at her street-side noodle cart, I am one of only three customers. The other two customers, judging from their dirty, rough work clothes, and scarred safety equipment, are most likely night shift maintenance crew. Ebony-skinned, I wonder if their ancestors originally came from Africa, but I am not foolish enough to ask.

Eros is a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds. Someone may take offense if you assume their ethnicity. They preach tolerance as the epitome of Eros, but some have yet to meet that standard.

Madam Fong, a wizened mixed-race Asian woman of indeterminate years, holds her hand out for payment. Wiggling her fingers with their many rings for emphasis, Madam Fong gives me an appraising look. I feel as if she is trying to decide whether or not I have the money for a meal. If she gives the rats and cockroaches infesting the Erosian slums, the same look, I know how they feel.

After dropping 15 credits in her claw-like hand, Madam Fong grunts and plops a chipped bowl of chickpea and sweet potato curry in front of me. The heap of long, thin soba noodles is higher than the bowl’s rim. A frosted, extremely cold can of 2.3% ABV hoppy local light beer magically appears beside my bowl. The near-freezing canned beer slushies are one of the main reasons I come to her cart, the other being the size of her servings.

I wish I could afford to add some soy-synth vat-grown “chicken,” but this vegetarian curry will do. Gods know I couldn’t afford real chicken, if such a critter exists on this rock in anything but rumor. Street vendors using rat meat and cockroaches is a common rumor. You get hungry enough as I have been, and eating vermin doesn’t sound so bad. I suppose that I have not been hungry enough to eat a cockroach—yet.

I devour extremely spicy curry and noodles using my favorite false jade-tipped onyx chopsticks. I always get a laugh at the simplified Chinese on the chopsticks as it says, “Eat at Liang Lee’s.” The chopsticks are the only wedding present I kept from my first marriage. While I am eating, the workers leave. Several more customers come and go.

More than a few scantily dressed, sleepy-looking prostitutes order takeout from Madam Fong. The prostitutes probably have been up all night and are now heading home. None of the prostitutes proposition me, which is ok as I have neither the funds nor the inclination. Most prostitutes gain a keen sense of judging customers and can spot a broke loser at 50 meters or better.

Both Madam Fong’s younger sister wives and all three of her husbands are attending to customers at the family’s cart. Finishing my meal and a second beer slushy, I leave a five-credit chip on the counter beside the dirty bowl.

As I am leaving, I notice that two of Madam Fong’s husbands have started French kissing enthusiastically. She yells at them with a voice like a neural whip in a rapid-fire, hard consonant language that I do not understand. I have 20 of the most common languages loaded in my neural network, and it does not recognize the language. The two giggling men break apart, but still grab ass some more before getting back to work.

Walking towards K-Tin’s much better hovel than mine, I do a Surveillance Detection Route (SDR) to see if anyone is following me. I didn’t win an unseemly amount of money at the tables last night, but some people are really upset about losing. More than one losing player has lain in wait for me. I never use the same SDR twice.

The subterranean city is a remarkable engineering feat, with slum-filled rock skyscrapers and a maze of vein-like tunnels. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that I am being followed by only one person.

Because of the baggy clothing and a full coverage dark colored shroud, I cannot verify their size or sex. I hope this is not another curious synthetic person. While SPs are exceedingly rare on Eros, there are a few in the colony. SPs pose a considerable threat to me, as they are significantly stronger and faster than I am.

Using the scanning intraocular lens (IOL) in my right eye, I check if the pursuing person has a normal body temperature. Not necessarily indicative of a human, as some SPs warm their bodies to the human average, although most do not bother.

The worst-case scenario would be encountering a combat veteran SP from the Machine Wars. I’m much too young to have fought in either war, but my military demeanor and older appearance might make me a target for revenge from veteran SPs.

Using a slightly illegal anti-surveillance feature in my left arm, I make sure that someone has not tagged me with any tracking bugs or being tracked by a drone. I wish I hadn’t had to hock my favorite 10mm pistol.

Even if I had my pistol loaded with the best high-explosive incendiary armor-piercing (HEIAP) ammo credits can buy, it might not be enough to stop a combat SP. Even selecting full-auto mode and dumping the whole 23-round magazine at point-blank range into a combat SP’s head might not stop it.

Many combat SPs could shrug off 50mm cannon rounds. The combat SPs legendary resilience led to the development of the 203mm Hyper Velocity Depleted Uranium Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot (HVDUAPFSDS) cannon round. Unfortunately, I do not have a 203mm cannon handy.

Last that I heard, no SP combat or otherwise ever made could withstand a 45 kg HVDUAPFSDS traveling at a fraction of the speed of light. Both machines and humans used DU during the Machine Wars as the Revered Ancients left several hundred metric tons of DU lying around.

Hanging at the small of my back is my monomolecular-edged knife in its horizontal sheath. It would be suicidal for me to use an MME knife against any SP. My knife reminds me of better days when I was still in the EC. Since graduation from the academy, my knife, which had its warning scream illegally removed, has been a loyal companion and one that I am most loath to give up.

It does not take much effort or time to get behind the individual. By the way they are frantically looking around; they might as well have a fucking huge flashing holographic sign floating over their head. I watch, fairly amused, as they finally decide to duck down a somewhat more disreputable-looking alley between a busy pleasure house and a popular drug den.

Ignoring bored prostitutes dressed in nothing but body paint and "come fuck me" shoes is easy. I notice the competing prices between the two businesses. Unrestrained capitalism in all its glory.

I probably should just ditch the talentless and or poorly trained sap, but curiosity gets the better of me. I quickly duck down the alley behind my former pursuer. Aided by the eye-watering bright neon and holographic signs from both of the businesses, it’s easy to follow my quarry down the alley.

My former pursuer finally walks down a dead end. Leaping onto their back before they can turn around, I violently pull them against my chest. Extending the three-centimeter-long dura-alloy claws of my left hand, I slam my hand into the person’s back. Feeling my claws slide effortlessly through several layers of fabric and barely into skin; surprised that I do not encounter body armor.

Drawing my MME knife, I place it underneath and about where I judge the person’s throat might be. A single quick cut will remove the person’s head with almost no effort.

“Don’t fucking move or I will rip your spine out, and chop your fucking head off,” I snarl in a low voice.

The person held in my arms goes rock still and utters a very feminine squeak. Then I realize that underneath my right arm I can feel a pair of unrestrained, enormous tits. Tits? What the fuck? And then I smell the person's perfume.