Francis Kincaid wasn’t destined for this. He wasn’t anything special. His life to this point had been standard, even boring. He didn’t deserve the accolade of dying in some forgotten temple on an alien planet. That was not how his story went.

He’d imagined he’d die after failing to take his heart meds at a ripe old age. Or maybe on the operating table during a necessary surgery. He’d even settle for a freak accident on the road in his mid 60s.

And yet, there he was at the ripe old age of 29, alone in a dusty cave, pinned to the ground and surrounded by noxious gases whilst wearing a supposed protective suit that had failed spectacularly from protecting him from anything.

He didn’t sign up to be an explorer or an adventurer of any kind. The only adventures he’d ever experienced was through the eyes of Maxwell Manticore, the plucky kid detective he’d long written stories about. Not that any of his stories had ever been published. He made his money working as an engineer, a “fixer”. He’d worked on starships throughout his twenties but had been trained to fixed various machines, particularly used in terraforming.

And that particular skill was how he’d landed himself in this predicament.

The money was good… that should have been his first clue as to the danger of this job.

Sure, they said it was risky, but they always said that. They had to say that. He couldn’t count how many waivers he’d signed over the years. Working on a broken ship had its dangers, fixing problematic terraforming tech had its dangers. Of course, that was all to be expected. But this, working on some troublesome machines on one of the rim worlds paid more than double his going rate. He should have asked more questions. But he was greedy.

Plus, he’d been to Boros before. He’d worked a dozen jobs here as a fixer. There was something about this world that didn’t agree with the terraforming process. Others would have been abandoned, been written off as black rocks, but this one they persisted with. Maybe it was because so much money had