Cleaning House

“Time to clean house again,” Red said, tossing open the ammo bin. He started pulling out boxes of shells and tossing them into a cardboard box.

“What, already?” Julie asked. She sat up from her ramshackle cot, tossing her dog-eared paperback aside. “It hasn't even been a month.”

“Don't matter to them,” Red replied. “Sensors spotted another cluster showing up around the food court.”

Julie shook her head. “Guess I should put some pants on, then. Where the hell do they keep coming from? Doesn't seem like there's any spots left we have torched and salted.”

“With hundreds of kilometers of tunnels 'neath our feet, we could spend our whole lives cleaning up and still not find every spawner.” Red paused to assess the pile of shells, faintly glowing in the dim light of their hideout. “Which I suspect is exactly what we'll do.”

“Troop ship has to shown up one of these days, right?” Julie asked. “I mean, we know they got the signal. This station isn't exactly low priority.”

Red shook his head, hefting the ammo box and throwing it in the back of the autocart. “If they were coming, they'd have been here months ago. I can't say why. Maybe they have bigger problems to deal with.” He chuckled. “Or maybe they just figure we're doin' such a bang-up job here they'd just leave it to us.”

Julie threw her shirt at him as she changed it for a clean one. “I'm sure that's it, Red. No doubt they could sense your ego all the way back on Earth.”