18:42, Firstsol 12th M5, 2226

Dread grows for the entire sol.

I tend to my patients in a daze, heart racing and eyes darting at the slightest movement at the edges of my vision. Every few moments my breaths halt in my throat in fear that a warden will burst into my little X-ray clinic in the hospital and burn my face off with a pulser. 

When my shift finally ends I dash back to my pod; throwing my possessions into a backpack takes all of three minutes. My counterpressure suit catches on my clothes in my haste to wrestle it on. My untethered airtank and helmet swing wildly against my back as I slam my pod door behind me and scramble to the garage.

I punch Eris Spaceport's coordinates into the nav system of the battered hov I bought from a dying miner when I arrived in Eris-1 eight months earlier. My destination: anywhere but Eris. I've fed on too many of this Dwarf's sick and dying to be safe from its wardens. At best the woman I drained has died in the alleyway, and I'm a murderer. At worst if she hasn't died she'll tell the wardens what I did to her, and I'll be hunted across Eris's six cities until I'm caught and executed.

That's what I deserve. I'm a monster.

Escape is my only hope. I'll go to one of the other Dwarf Planets. Pluto ideally, but I'll settle for Haumea or Makemake. They may all have smaller colonies and mines than Eris, but us Eris-born have an advantage over their doctors — meatware. Whatever meatware glitch has turned me into an energy vampire, I'm still radiation-resistant, unlike workers on the other Dwarfs. No need for me to go underground every six months to recover from mounting radiation sickness like the unfortunate residents of Pluto or Makemake. The Pluto colony governors will beg me to join any city of my choice; us doctors are spread too thinly around the Edge to be scrutinised, especially radiation-proof ones. Another Dwarf Planet, another fresh batch of weak, sickly miners and foundry workers. I'll just take a little. I won't hurt anyone. I hope.

Holy Shiva-Shakti.

I'm a fucking parasite.

The meandering network of hovway tunnels between Eris-1 and the Spaceport is decorated by the domes of crumbling fuel stations and hotel complexes. Any one of them could be patrolled by a warden. My lenses tell me that none of the nearby fuel stations have ammonia cannisters for sale. My hov's fuel indicator flashes in amber; it's running dangerously low on ammonia.

Two ammonia stations glow pink in my lenses, both of them located out on the barren sandflats beyond the domes and tunnels of Eris-1. My hov needs that ammonia. Besides, if I brave the sandflats to the Spaceport there's no chance of being stopped by a bored warden patrolling the hovway tunnel system.

Ignoring the tunnel map blinking in pink on my retinas, I set coordinates for the hov to take me across the uninhabited Eris dirt, usually only traversed by unmanned mining rigs and lumbering metal ore transporters. I have a decent counterpressure suit and my hov is robust despite being old; I can brave Eris's wilderness. I'll be OK.

Minus two hundred degrees, and getting colder. The hov bounces over sand, and Eris's ever-black sky shimmers in purple on the horizon, the sign of a methane storm crossing the sandflats in the distance. The weather predictions in my lenses advise me that the storm will stay ten kilometres to the south, and won't intercept my route to the closest ammonia station, nor to the Spaceport beyond. But Eris is unpredictable.

Twenty kilometres away from the fuel station, the pink fuzz of the methane storm begins to creep along my weather map. It's heading north-east at a slow pace, missing me by barely three kilometres. The pink intensifies, and the storm changes direction, shifting due north and picking up speed.

My heart sinks. The storm starts to move north-west — towards me — at a blistering pace, too quickly for the lens weather tracker to keep up. The sweat on my back turns ice-cold, my counterpressure suit suddenly too tight. I can't turn back now.

The storm hits gently at first, whipping methane and ice crystals into a pretty flurry that buffets the hov. The nav system reroutes to the hovway tunnels. I override it. The chances are that it's a rapidly-moving storm that will clear in minutes. Eris has ten of them a day. Weather alarms flash in my lenses. The nav system reroutes to the safety of the tunnels again. I override it a second time, re-entering the ammonia station's coordinates and plunging the hov deep into the storm. No turning back.

Gusts start to pummel the hov with a ferocity that sends medical equipment toppling from the passenger seat into the cluttered footwell. An ugly mess of scratched windows and buckled panels, still the hov is tough; it will hold. I can't stop now. I've fed on too many of Eris's people to stay.

Filthy. Dirty. Disgusting.

If the wardens execute me, wouldn't that be a welcome end to my misery?

Monster. Vampire. Parasite.

The hov limps on against the storm. The ammonia tank indicator flashes red. Two fuel stations had been displayed clearly in my lenses and the hov's navigation system, but all that remains of the first fuel station is a pile of storm-damaged recycrete blocks. The hov swerves between punctured ammonia cannisters that ricochet off the sand dunes, then it shudders with a gust that nearly tips it on its side. Methane flurries cloud the cockpit window. My heart withers. Nowhere to shelter, I ask the Goddess to deliver me from the eye of the storm and into serenity on the other side.

The second ammonia station's location glows magenta in my lenses, but no building rises out of the storm. I peer through the crust of methane frost blanketing the cockpit. As the hov approaches closer, I can make out a tangle of warped metal lying half-buried in the sand, steel struts poking out like the ribs of a great dead Earth beast. A shattered ammonia cannister slams against the hov's windscreen and bounces away into the dark.

The storm has taken both fuel stations. My hov's flashing fuel indicator turns from amber to red. I'm almost out of ammonia.

The hov will grind to a halt at any moment, trapping me in the storm. I pray to Shiva that its weathered panels can withstand being tossed around and buried under sand and methane drifts. If I survive the storm, it's a forty kilometre spacewalk back to the closest hovway tunnel, guaranteed to be manned by a warden.

That's when I see it.

Hope.

The inky silhouette of a mining ore transporter appears out of the blizzard.

The Goddess has saved me.

The transporter sits just minutes away on the rocks beyond the sandflats, its container encrusted with methane-ice, its antennas glazed brown from decades of tholins and grease. The cavernous container is probably bursting with platinum, rhodium and nickel ore, as well as a cache of ammonia tanks to power the 'porter's fuel cells. I'll use my medical number to override the 'porter security system and take an ammonia cannister or two; I'll only take what fuel I need. Besides, I'll be on Pluto by the time the mine finds out.

Not content to be simply a murderer, I can now add petty theft to my crimes too. I'm vile.

I bring up the 'porter statistics on my lenses. Strange. A heat trace burns in my lens vision. Thirty-seven degrees. Someone is in the cabin.

Why is this porter manned? What ore is so precious that they need to endanger a driver in a methane storm to prevent its theft?

My hov approaches close, docking almost flush against the 'porter's colossal side. I use the slim gap between the hov and 'porter as shelter, though the storm almost takes me with it. The comms panel glows red on my approach. I slap it with my gauntlet, methane snow whipping so hard at my helmet that I struggle to keep upright.

"I need help. My hov's out of ammonia. I'm stuck in the storm."

No reply comes. The comms panel dims a little. The airlock remains shut.

"I'm a doctor! I need ammonia to get to the Spaceport! I'm needed on Pluto!"

No reply.

"I'll die out here! Please."

Who would refuse a dying doctor? Unless the miner suspects what I am. Maybe everyone on Eris knows that I'm an energy vampire. Maybe everyone thinks that death in a methane storm is too good for me.

Moments away from hunkering down in the hov to die like the parasite that I am, desperation defeats my paranoia. One last plea.

I drag my gauntlet across my helmet's encrusted visor, shedding methane frost in white clouds that splatter against the comms panel. Perhaps seeing the terror on my face might move my saviour to act. 

I stare directly into the airlock camera. "Please help me. Please."

Seconds tick by.

The airlock clicks open.

Flickering Creatures by SmokeAndOranges (he/him).