It's A Deadly Job, But Somebody's Gotta Do It

I brought the cube to my mouth and sniffed, wrinkling my nose in distaste. I glared at the grey, featureless cube, then, gritting my teeth, I popped it in my mouth and waited for it to dissolve.

Food cubes are hard, too hard to bite. Too hard for just about anything except breaking other things, teeth included. You can't chew 'em. You have to let them melt before you swallow. It wouldn't matter, except they taste like a mixture of week-old coffee and moldy bread. Delicious.

You'd think High Command would have designed a liquid formula by now, for use aboard ship and on the stations. Or at least one with a better flavor. But, as usual, they had more important things to do than consider the welfare and happiness of naval personnel.

Yep, I thought. At least one person won't be disappointed when the Terrestrial Engineers get some real food growing. Jon Cougar won't mind a home-cooked meal! Even if it's only rice. Steak would have been better, but I'd have settled for day-old ham and cheese. At the moment, food was hard to come by on Station Omicron 4.

Station Omicron 4, or SO-4, was located on the outskirts of Earth-controlled space. Far on the outskirts. In fact, a lot of uninhabited systems filled the distance between SO-4 and the rest of the Federation of Earth-Descendant Planets (FEDs) (1).

SO-4 was a heavy weapons platform with a full compliment of naval pilots, not one of the cushy diplomatic stations orbiting the established stellar systems. It flew in plano-synchronous orbit with Ureil, a mere seven-thousand kilometers off the planet's rusty red and pale cyan surface.

Station Omicron 3, SO-4's sister station, mimicked our path, flying in plano-synchronous orbit seven-thousand klicks inside Ureil's orbit. The two stations orbited Czalor, protecting the system from attack.

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(1) The Federation of Earth-Descendant Planets consists of Earth and all planets, moons (artificial and natural), and asteroids officially colonized by planet Earth, or by one of Earth's subsequent colonies. Once a colony is considered viable, it may petition for admittance into the FEDs. The FEDs does not include any rogue, pirate, criminal, or splinter group who chooses to live outside the recognized territory of the FEDs or who breaks the laws as set by the Interstellar Congress.