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Herman frowned at the milk in annoyance, ignoring the explosion outside. “I don’t understand. This one is in pints, ja?” He gestured at the offending plastic carton. “But this one is not?” A brief retort of gunfire chattered in the background.
“That one’s oatmeal. Milk’s in pints, beer too - other stuff is liters.” The rotund Bretonian impatiently checked his watch before peeking around the edge of the aisle. The Tescorp blast shutters were still down. “Bloody hell, we’re going to be late.”
“But Thomas, mein freund,” Herman interjected, refusing to let go of his previous train of thought. “This milk has never been within a lightyear of a real cow. Why distinguish between artificial milk and artificial oatmeal?” There was a distant rumble and the lights momentarily flickered.
“Principle of the matter, innit?”
Herman quirked an eyebrow.
“Is it?” he asked incredulously.
“Look, it doesn’t matter - that’s just how it works. Come on, let's take a look at this door. Sounds like it’s calmed down outside.”
Both of the men were wearing filthy overalls stamped with a BMM logo and the stencil ‘BHIP345-3’. Bretonian Heavy Industry Plant, one of hundreds scattered across Planet Sprague. Only today, getting to work was A Nuisance that required perseverance.
Thomas was arguing with a put-upon looking cashier who was safely ensconced behind the checkout’s bulletproof screen. “Come on bruv, just let us out. Pull the shutter up a couple of feet and we’ll squeeze under. Bomb’s already gone off and they’ve stopped shooting.”
“I’m sorry sir," the cashier said entirely insincerely. "Company policy is to lock down the store during periods of unrest. Besides, the second bomb always goes off after the CDI turns up.”
At the time, the chinless wonders in Parliament had probably thought the that the Civil Defence Initiative was a strapping solution to wartime dilemmas. How well it worked in practice was another matter. These were the same people who had put an immobilized Gwent into Sprague's orbit, to predictable results.
These days the CDI had mostly metastasized into a network of gangs and corporate goons that were euphemistically referred to as ‘law enforcement militias’ by the BPA. They were certainly good at pilfering state supplies, at the very least. The Black Market had never known such an abundance of police grade sidearms.
With a sudden screech of poorly maintained gears, the blast shutter juddered into motion. It ground to a halt a few moment later, creating a small gap through which to leave. Herman nodded towards the exit as he wiped grease from the maintenance panel onto his overalls. The cashier gave an exasperated tut.
“Well, you are a man of surprises,” Thomas chortled. Wheezing, he got down on the floor and attempted to wiggle under the shutter. Regrettably, his gut caught, leaving him wedged until Herman intervened to pull him out.
Once they were clear, the blast door promptly slammed down behind them. A cheery message emblazoned across the front asked loyal Tescorp customers to go grocery shopping some other time. The bright red exclamation that "every little helps" was scorched and pitted by weapons fire.
The scene outside was tragic, grim and not too far off normal. It looked like the blast had actually incinerated some of the rubbish that usually littered the mineshaft-cum-public concourse. Looped cabling hung haphazardly from the wide tunnel’s ceiling, while an eclectic mix of overhead lighting ensured a headache within 20 minutes, or your money back. The acrid stink of burning plastic hung in the air, although it wasn't clear if this was from failing air scrubbers or the burning car off in the distance.
On the other side of the street, a Guild Bounty Hunter was attempting to get a retina or fingerprint scan off the firefight's losing side. There wasn’t a lot left. Eventually she settled for retrieving a mostly-full boot. Just another shootout in the street. Probably Chartists. Or Mollys. Or maybe a Gaian, Populist, Radical, or some other group of agitators that had bubbled up from Sprague’s turbulent squalor.
Moving quickly on, Thomas and Herman made best speed towards The Underground. This meant a leisurely jog for Herman, and a sweaty, undignified lurch for Thomas. Most of Sprague was underground, but The Underground was the rail service that connected the many hab tunnels to industrial sites and anywhere else that was worth seeing.
Thankfully, the train crawled into the station as they arrived, hissing and complaining as its brakes brought it to a crunching stop. The station quickly filled with the stink of biodiesel fumes. The pair joined the crowd of dour-looking tunnel dwellers who were also waiting to board.
“You know Herman, these engines really are the pride of Bretonia. Good, solid pieces of engineering that you can run hard for a decade with nary a mechanical complaint.” Thomas bounced on his heels happily, thumbs hooked through his belt.
Herman cast a considerably more skeptical eye over the wheezing and dilapidated looking machine. “Ja? How old is this line?”
Thomas sucked his teeth for a moment, considering. “Probably about 12 years. One of the first laid down, y’know?” Herman closed his eyes and kneaded the bridge of his nose for a moment, before the crowd surged forward and swept both men through the doors.
It came as absolutely no surprise whatsoever when the train broke down halfway between two stations. “Please wait aboard,” the tannoy announced. “Recovery services are en-route and will have your journey resumed within 5 hours.” Groans rippled along the overcrowded carriages.
“Stone the crows,” Thomas complained, mopping his forehead with a sleeve. “It must be at least 30 degrees in here.”
Herman stopped trying to extract himself from a nearby man’s armpit and narrowed his eyes. “Is that metric?”
“Are you stupid? Of course it’s Celsius. Fancy even asking.”
Further up the carriage, someone hit the emergency door release. Foul smelling tunnel air rolled in, to further complaints. “I ain’t waiting around for them to sort this mess out,” the perpetrator announced. “Half a mile back there’s a service tunnel that’ll bring you out on the A204, can hoof it from there.”
Some time later, the pair emerged from the maintenance tunnel, blinking in the fluorescent lights of the A204 - that being a major arterial roadway for terrestrial vehicles. This mostly meant militia ‘battlewagons’ full of bulky men with batons who could be relied upon to monster the locals when ‘policing by consent’ failed. Not that the BPA were able to do much more than secure the spaceport and BHIPs themselves.
“Look, taxis won’t come down this way. We’re going to have to rent a car if we’re to make our shift on time. I’ll split it with you?” Herman shrugged. He wasn’t getting paid otherwise, and failure to attend would get both of them sacked - bombing or broken trains be damned. There was a Hurtz Rentals place a little further up the road at a tunnel junction.
After a bit of haggling, they were given an old two-seat beater that was covered in scrapes and the odd bullet hole. The tank was empty.
Herman settled into the driver’s seat as Thomas fuelled it up from the forecourt’s pump. “This is absolute daylight robbery, I tell you. $3.98 a litre for biodiesel is extortion, even if it is from Cambridge.” Herman frowned.
“That’s priced in litres? I thought you used… What are they? Gallons?”
Thomas looked perplexed. “Why would you think that?”
Herman gestured towards the vehicle’s filthy dashboard. “The fuel gauge is telling me how many miles per gallon it’ll do.”
Thomas hauled himself into the passenger seat, the suspension squealing under the weight like an Outcast on Newgate. “Well, of course. You need to know that so you don’t accidentally run out. Especially in this thing, I want to get our deposit back.”
Herman resisted the urge to scream and slammed the car into first gear. “Geisteskrankheit," he muttered. "Bretonia is insane.”
The wind whistled tunelessly through the bullet holes in the glass. After forty minutes of stop-start traffic, dodging displaced commuters and an abortive carjacking, the road took them up to the planet’s surface and their destination: the BHIP345-3.
Sprague had once been covered in a kind of yellow, scrubby grass that was simply too stupid and stubborn to know it shouldn’t have survived there. On this part of the planet, the grass was long gone, having been replaced by enormous piles of industrial tailings and slag. The source of this detritus loomed ahead, squatting across the horizon.
The BHIP was a vast industrial complex; a conurbation of smokestacks, smelters and factories that produced the ‘stuff’ Bretonia needed. As a matter of a fact, these factories were the one of the only reasons the Bretonian government was remotely interested in what happened on Sprague.
Only, the smokestacks were quiet and the pervasive roar of machinery was suspiciously absent.
Herman rolled up to the perimeter security checkpoint and cracked the window. The security guard inside the booth cast a lazy eye over their employee passes. “Best turn that rustbucket about, boyos. Bomb threat was called, factory’s closed while they investigate. Shift’s canceled.”
Herman’s knuckles turned white on the wheel. A vein pulsed in his forehead.
He deeply regretted turning down a Red Hessian recruiter in his youth, forestalling a life destroying Bretonian shipping.