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Calling the Pit a city is a bit of a stretch, but so is calling this reddish-brown liquid water. You've read that water is supposed to be clear and cities are supposed to be big, but no ship-born has ever seen either. Maybe in another hundred years water will look and taste like oil and people will be talking about the good old days when it was the color of rust and tasted refreshingly bitter and tangy. That's the kind of optimism that keeps you going.

The elevator crawls up a groove in the cargo hold's wall like a black steel bug that's worn a path traveling to the bridge and back. It’s time to get up there and earn a few credits, but first you need a drink.

Once tasked with adapting Terran plants and grasses to the alien environment of Proxima Centauri, Hydroponics was abandoned during the Mutiny. Quickly overwhelmed by out-of-control mutant vegetation, it more closely resembles deep jungle than a research complex. In addition to the abnormal plants, oversized pest control species –bioengineered to safeguard the colony's farmlands– are also on hand to punish the careless.

Plants were sacred to the Founding Fathers. They represented our connection to Mother Earth, our sustenance, and our future. Picture rippling fields of wheat, rye, and barley to the horizon, mighty oaks and cedars, children eating apples right from the tree. That was the vision for Proxima.

But they didn't anticipate how many seedlings would fail in the Ship's simulated environments. And unless they found a way to make good those losses, it would be catastrophic. Alien fauna and poor soil were deemed the biggest threats, so they matched the most important plant species with customized, symbiont fungi. The latter were meant to act as pest killers. Unfortunately, the fungus did its job a little too well. We’re the pests now.

Before the Mutiny, the rooftops of the Habitat supported a sprawling amusement park. There, the people of the Ship could experience at least a few of the novelties they would never enjoy on Earth or Proxima: walk barefoot on real green grass – courtesy of Hydroponics – or soft, red-tinted 'Proxima' sand; sit under tall, artificial trees; and watch the sunrise on gigantic screens suspended all around. This last was said to be indistinguishable from the real thing, not that anyone aboard had ever seen it.

Nowadays, the three remaining rooftops are heavily fortified platforms, patrolled by armed guards. The sky-screens went dark long ago, a frivolous luxury in a decaying world. The grass underfoot and simulations of golden fields have likewise vanished, replaced by watchtowers and checkpoints. With enemies on all sides, cheap entertainment is a useless distraction from reality and its harsh demands.

The Armory - Among the stars, the children of Earth wish most of all for peace. Neverth