The rattletrap spaceship waited till the last minute to light a fire under its main engine. It came down hard on the landing pad, kicking up a cloud of dust. Whoever was behind the controls knew their tanks were on empty.

 

Moony O'Malley waved the chalky particles from his visor and waited. Manny was his given name, of course, but somewhere along the line everybody started calling him Moony. Probably about the time he set up a refueling station on this out-of-the-way moon.

 

Eventually, the airlock split open and two people emerged cautiously onto the gangway. “Rough-looking customers,” thought Moony. But he was used to that in this part of the solar system.

 

Both wore surplus, Federation-issue counterpressure suits. The first was a woman with a hard look in her eyes and a pistol belt around her waist. The second was a hulking fella with a bald dome and a jaw you could shovel snow with.

 

Their comms buzzed. “This your dump?” asked the woman, shooting a critical gaze around Moony's humble outpost. It wasn't built for the tourist trade. Moony threw it together from whatever leftover Colonial supplies he and Ma could scavenge. An oxygen dome stretched over the building that served as both home and garage. Old advertising vid-screens, half of them broken and flickering, covered the front.

 

“Yup,” said Moony. “What can I do ya for?”

 

The man pointed at Moony's hand-painted signpost: “LAST CHANCE FOR FUEL IN 100,000au.”

 

“I'll get you folks set up.”

 

The woman started nosing around the airlock on Moony's oxygen dome.

 

“You put all those billboards up in the asteroid belt?” she asked.

 

“Me and Ma did back in the day. Not many folks come that way anymore. Not since the Fed built that shiny new spaceport.”

 

“You got a subspace radio in there?” asked the woman, hooking her thumb toward Moony's ramshackle building.

 

“Course. Yours not workin'?”

 

“Heard any news from downplanet lately?” she probed.

 

“I don't pay no mind,” said Moony who busied himself unrolling tubes from the nearest refueling unit and searching for the correct fitting. The customer's ship was a Marko Industries Light Duty Runabout, if he knew his ships. At least 20 years old. It had a parsec or two on its odometer from the looks of it.

 

The hulking fella looked up and noticed the faded blue flag standing motionless on a flagpole above Moony's service station. He recognized the simple geometric symbol and turned to Moony, lip curled in amusement.

 

“You fight in the Colonial War, old timer?”

 

“... I did.”

 

The woman popped back around, having circled Moony's oxygen dome. “That was, what, a hundred years ago?”

 

“My pops fought in the war,” said Big Chin proudly. “Said he used to potshot those breakaway Colonies from orbit. … Dumb backworlders.”

 

Moony stole a glance at his old Colonial flag and went back to hooking a Tritium tube to the Runabout's fuel intake.

 

“Way I see it,” said Moony, philosophically, “you leave a man alone, he leaves you alone.” When the rough customers didn't respond, he changed subjects. “This H3 gonna do it? That ship of yours looks like it's been in a firefight or two. Might could use an upgrade. Got a junkyard out back if you're lookin' for parts.”

 

“We're in a hurry,” said the woman, pinning him with her sharp gaze.

 

“Anybody else live on this chunk of rock?” asked Big Chin.

 

“Just me and Ma.”

 

Moony eyeballed the gun slung low on the woman's hip. A flechette round pistol. Not enough to knock a hole in a ship's bulkhead, but it could tear hell out of a man's counterpressure suit and take a centimeter of flesh along with it.

 

“You, uh, have hard credits or do ya wanna cover the bill electronic-like?”

 

Sharp Eyes set her palm on the pistol's textured grip.

 

“So you didn't hear nothing about any depot robbery downplanet?”

 

“Nope. … Pretty much keep to ourselves out here.”

 

“Good,” chimed in Big Chin. “Maybe we should hole up here for a spell.”

 

“Why don't you do us a favor and tell your old lady to come out of that oxygen dome?” said Sharp Eyes.

 

“You don't want me to do that,” said Moony as he flipped off the tritium pump.

 

Big Chin moved in close, balling his fists.

 

Moony looked up at the battered Runabout. Those were definitely laser scorch marks on the hull. With a sigh, he called out: “MA!”

 

A soft hiss and a loud clank sounded from inside the garage. That was followed by the whirr-zzzz-whirr of series-chained servo motors. Squeezing out from the shadowed frame of the hatchway came the imposing bulk of a military robot. Its shell was pitted and roughly welded in parts. Outside the hatch it extended its multi-jointed legs and rose some seven feet tall. Big Chin and Sharp Eyes watched, jaws agape, as the airlock irised open.

 

“Mechanical Armament ADL-163 reporting for duty, Sergeant.” said Ma in a jittery electronic vibrato.

 

The MA unit was at least 50 years old. A decommissioned battlefield robot, its like had been banned from use and consigned to assorted scrapheaps since the end of the Colonial conflict.

 

A stubby chain gun unfolded from its back and locked into place on its wide shoulder.

 

Stupidly, the woman yanked the pistol from her hip and fired. The flechette rounds bounced like mosquitoes off Ma's tank-like surface.

 

The chain gun spun up.

 

* * *

 

Moony looked out over the meteor crater behind his service station. It was littered with ships, some in pieces, some whole. Ma had loaded the Light Duty Runabout into a heavy hauler and was towing it to an empty patch of moon dust.

 

Between the scrap value of the ship and the 180,000 stolen hard credits he found inside, Moony figured it was a good day at the pumps.