Wade is this close to finishing an exhaustive three-month excavation on Summer Winter—a planet where temperatures can drop a hundred degrees within hours and its storms are deadly. Unfortunately, before he can clock out of the space barnacle for good, one of those expensive vehicles breaks down again. Of course the LES Corporation tasks his crew to fix it. That’s the reward for getting all assigned jobs done to standard or better.

Upon arrival at the site, his crew finds that the vehicle isn’t broken down at all. It’s destroyed! The wreckage shows definitive evidence that they’re standing in the middle of a murder scene. Before they can contact LES or figure out what is going on, their trusted and docile two-ton work animal goes berserk.

Those who survive its inexplicable attack manage to escape to a nearby Breather, but it’s there that Wade uncovers something hidden away by their employer. He realizes that the rapidly diminishing oxygen levels, the rampaging animal, and no communications due to an incoming meteor storm are the least of their problems.

Also included in: They Got Out: A Sci-Fi and Horror Collection

Chip McCullough