Huskies from Hell

*Another original version, on the list for rewriting later.

Where an unlucky young man is sent to the freezing side of the planet to work with four toughened snow transport drivers, who are known for effectively getting rid of unwanted employees.

*Warning! No sex. :-p

***

Chapter 01

There he was, shivering in the cold at the last station the cargo train could possible reach into the depths of the Snow Ring, the forever dark and freezing shadow side of the toroid planet. His new home.

Petrash had been the only passenger in the single carriage for people for the better part of the day, no-one else in their right mind headed this way. He tried but he couldn't really fall asleep with the noise of the train around him. It was made for extreme conditions which made the ride harder than the trains he was used to back at the city.

He stretched his legs, then pulled away the blanket he had found in an overhead compartment while exploring the carriage. Its label said it was made from two synthetic insulating layers and felt like fuzzy plastic. But it helped him keep warm on the worn dark and light blue striped seats that took a while to get warm from his own body heat.

He walked up and down the length of the carriage several time to loosen and warm up his limbs, ending up on one side at a warm air exhaust, leaning back against the wall above it. It wasn't very warm and he couldn't find any controls, but at least it meant a little relief from the cold temperature inside.

The cold white overhead lights and mirror-like reflections in the windows made him feel even more cold and alone. Outside was only darkness with snowflakes rushing by, lit up by the train's light. After the previous station the white landscape around him had soon turned darker and the distance he could see diminished.

He stared through his own reflection at the white fuzz on the other side of the window, wondering how long he'd last if he was stuck in that weather. He had heard dying of cold was like getting a high at the end and smiled wryly at himself.

Despite taking several books with him, he couldn't keep his mind relaxed enough to read and had been bored for most of the last leg of the journey. Before that he still had other people and a landscape to watch. He leaned forward and turned his head to look at the digital clock above his head. Still some time to go.

He pushed away from the wall and went back to his seat, a little colder but still slightly warm thanks to the blanket he had left on it. He wrapped himself in the blanket again and sat with his legs across the couch, leaning back into the corner of the seat and carriage wall.

Shaking woke Petrash up from a half sleep. He wasn't sure if he should be glad for the bit of rest he had gotten since it left him very groggy. A couple of bright lights in the direction the train was heading came closer and a look at the clock told him he had arrived.

He rubbed his face to chase away the grogginess, unwrapped the blanket and folded it, leaving it overhead while more lights shone outside while the train sounded like going through a short tunnel as it slowed down before stopping in what looked like a large warehouse. People and cargo lifters were going around, moving crates, barrels, bags, containers.

With a deep sigh he grabbed his two black sports bags containing what he'd needed most, moved to the doors, turned the squeaky door handle and stepped out into the freezing cold.

The warehouse was made to protect the people here from most of the weather while they loaded and unloaded the trains and he felt grateful for the respite before experiencing the real thing. Several men were unloading crates at the carriage behind his and walked up to the one who held a clipboard and was dressed in a thick tweed coat with reflective stripes above thick synthetic pants and heavy boots.

'Excuse me?' Petrash said.

The middle aged man, his face worn from the harsh weather here and sporting thick stubble looked at him with a slight frown. 'Yes?' he said with a grating voice.

'Can you direct me to the office?' Petrash asked, trying not to shiver while he hadn't gotten used to the cold.

The man pointed between a stack of crates and barrels and containers. 'There.'

'Thanks.' Petrash said with a nod, then walked a little stiffly in the direction he was told.

He found the office, a clump of several different prefab office shacks normally used for temporary use mashed together to form two larger spaces, one for the workers with a canteen and their lockers, the other for the administrative personnel.

He pulled open what seemed to be the main door, it needing a slight yank to come loose as expected of these cheap shacks, and was greeted by a waft of warm air smelling of a mix of food, body odours and damp paper. After a moment to get used to it, he stepped inside, facing one of the various models of desks in use with a canine behind it, looking up over a pair of black thick rimmed glasses. He had thick, light beige fur and a short firm muzzle and Petrash thought he fit in perfectly with the cold weather here.

'Hi.' he said, putting down his bags and rubbing his hands to get some warmth back into them. 'I'm looking for the manager. I've been sent here from the head office.'

He gestured at the far corner of the room. 'You can find Chief there.' he said. 'Can't miss him.'

'Thanks.' Petrash said, picked up his bags and headed for the corner desk along a naturally formed path between more desks, tables with papers and boxes underneath and on top, an old large printer which sounded like it wheezed to get air, and various racks with more boxes and binders on the shelves.

He stopped at a desk littered with paperwork, stamps, a couple of mugs filled with pens, pencils, probably dried markers and a small space heater in front of it, blowing warm air into the opening under the desk. A large figure was sitting with his back to him in a leather that had seen better days, flipping through pages of a binder on a table behind the desk.

Petrash cleared his throat. 'Excuse me,' he said. 'are you the manager? I was told you could get me to outpost Zero.'

The figure turned around and Petrash saw he must be part of the polar bear clan. White fur, heavy body underneath the dark blue snow jacket and grey trousers. His ears showed scars of frostbite so Petrash figured he must have been working here for quite some time.

'Ah, you must be the guy they sent to Zero this time.' he said, smiled cheerfully and held out his hand. 'Call me Chief.'

Petrash shook his hand, trying to keep cool under the strong grip and Chief continued. 'HQ told me you'd come and asked to get you to the outpost.'

He grabbed his battered beige cap from a stack of papers and led him out a side door. They walked through the warehouse towards the garage at the back.

'Unfortunately I can't spare anyone to guide you right now because I've got extra cargo deliveries to a nearby lab.' he said. 'But if you're not willing to wait you can use a bubble to get there by yourself. Navigation will show you the way so it's not really difficult.'

Petrash sighed. 'I'm here so I might as well get there as soon as possible. The sooner I go crazy there, the sooner I'll be back.'

Chief laughed and slapped him on his back. 'I guess you heard about the stories of all those who were sent here.' He looked at Petrash and smiled. 'Then again, they just might take a liking to you.'

Petrash shuddered at the thought of being liked by a group of hard-ass snow ring truckers nicknamed the Huskies from Hell as Chief opened the large door to the garage. The stories he'd heard about people sent there ranged from deliberate fake signatures on order forms for saying they must be correct to being dragged through the snow behind a snow scooter for spilling one of their beers. Who knew what they'd do when they liked someone.

Most of the dark grey garage was empty except for a dark green tracked vehicle the size of a house and two yellow tracked trucks the size of regular street trucks. Petrash couldn't imagine anyone other than burly gruff looking men driving these things and shuddered again at the thought of seeing nothing but that from now on.

Chief led him to the other side of the huge truck where there were a couple of bubble shaped tracked vehicles. Most of the top half of the bubble was transparent plastic, the bottom a dirty yellow metal.

'Here you go.' Chief said and opened the door at the side of the first one. 'Navigation has the coordinates for Zero in the preconfigured list.'

The bubble was large enough to hold four people and baggage. There were two seats in the front and a couch in the back with enough space between them to stretch ones legs. The material looked like dark brown leather, the floor and instrument panel was grey.

'Thanks.' Petrash said as he dropped his bags on the floor in front of the back-seat. 'How long will it take to get there?'

'About eight hours.'

'Damn.' said Petrash, but he knew travelling here took more time.

'If you like, there's rations and even a couple of bottles of the strong stuff in the back so you won't have to feel cold during the trip. As long as you don't overdo it.' Chief said with a grin.

'Heh, no worries. I intend to get there in one warm piece.' Petrash said as he climbed inside.

'Well said.' Chief chuckled. 'But just in case, there's an emergency beacon, and you wouldn't be the first one going there to have to use it.' he said, pointing at the big red button on the dashboard. 'Anyway, have a good trip, and good luck. I'll open the door for you.'

'Thanks, I can sure use any luck right now.' Petrash said and settled into the driver seat. The controls were pretty close to a car's. He started the engine and put the automatic gearbox in drive mode. Carefully feeling how quick the steering reacted he drove forward and turned to the open door where Chief waited for him. He gave him a quick wave as he entered the outside world of the Snow Ring for the first time in his life.

The bubble swayed lightly from the wind outside. Petrash watched the door close behind him and sighed. The colourful shacks that formed the town for the people working here laid to the right, but the navigation showed his route to the left into lots of nothing. Not having to worry about streets he turned until the arrow pointed straight ahead and activated the cruise control.

It didn't take long for him to feel lonely out in the white void. With the navigation the only thing guiding him and the only sounds the wind and rattling of the tracks he wondered if he'd start to go crazy before he could reach the outpost.

"How the hell did I get into this mess?" he thought, then remembered. "Oh yeah."

He sighed, crawled into the back and opened one of his bags for the pack of cookies he had brought along and took one of the unlabelled bottles with clear fluid from the rack behind the chair.

'To a new career.' he said to himself, unscrewed the top and took a swig from the bottle.

"Holy fuck!" he thought when the liquid burned down his throat and coughed. "I just drank the cleaning fluid or the fuel reserve." He rummaged in his bag and took out his player, plugged it into the sound system of the bubble and cranked up the music to sing along to it and get his frustration out of his system.

He kept himself awake by singing and reading a little, even if he could have slept since it wouldn't have mattered, the autopilot from the cruise control would get along fine without him keeping an eye on it. The navigation screen showed it would be another hour until the destination and he sighed. He couldn't wait to see something else besides dark nothing on top of white nothing.

It was while eating the last cookie that he noticed something was off. He turned down the music and listened. He heard the engine and tracks of the bubble and howling of the wind and couldn't lay his finger on it. Something in the back of his mind said he had to take notice. He looked around but still saw nothing out here. Thinking it had to be all the time out here alone playing tricks on his mind he sat back down in the driver's seat.

But moments later he sensed, more than heard, a rumbling noise getting louder. Figuring something was wrong he stopped the bubble and shut it down completely. Squinting his eyes and looking around again he saw nothing in the dark. Thinking whatever it was came from behind him he stared in that direction when he was suddenly blinded by several headlights lighting up. He shouted and duck down with his arms over his head in protection.

Seconds later a large tracked vehicle ran right over him, the bubble fitting by a large margin between the tracks and underside of whatever that thing was and buried him under snow.

'GODDAMMITMOTHERFUCKINGPIECEOFSHITSONOFABITCHASYLUMRETARDASSHOLE!' he shouted.

After taking several deep breaths to calm down his racing heart, he fumbled in the dark to find the starter button and let out a deep sigh when the engine started. He let the automated system drive the bubble back and forth until the bubble was freed from the snow after a while, and continued his way grumbling in a pissed off state.

Eventually he saw blue lights in the distance. Getting closer he saw they were tall masts with three blue lights on top of each other, marking the way to the outpost. He followed the way and ended up at a collection of smaller and larger grey concrete boxes connected through blue corridors. The lights along all edges made it look like a giant wireframe.

He found the vehicle that ran him over in a covered vehicle bay next to another one like it and several smaller ones like he had seen back at the warehouse.

He parked the bubble close to a couple of doors, took a deep breath, grabbed his bags and entered the door marked "MAIN". The entrance led into a dimly lit corridor littered with an assortment of boxes and small crates, most of them rations and snacks according to the labels.

"There'd better be normal food here, or I'm going to die of malnutrition before the cold." he thought.

Passing a few empty rooms he came at the end of the corridor to a large barely lit room where he saw the guys were slumping on couches watching an action movie on TV.

Tiredness had taken the edge off of his anger and left him irritated and groggy, and not caring about what those mean truckers would say or do to him later.

'All right, very funny.' he said as he put down his bags. 'Who do I have to thank for-.' was as far as he got when he noticed the guys were not guys at all when the screen lit up the room more. They had small muzzles, full, long hair and tails. And to confirm it, the definite female chest curves.

'Ah, so you came on your own.' a black and white female husky said, then continued to watch the TV with another blue-grey and red-brown one on the couches, all dressed in large t-shirts with prints of a cartoon kitten, a comic image of a serial killer in hockey mask underneath the text "Got blood?", and on with the text "I believe!" above the smaller text "I think..".

'Are you the..?' Petrash said, his momentum gone.

'Yeah.' a white-grey female husky in a large t-shirt with a heavy metal band logo said as she walked into the room, munching on crisps. Not counting the ears, she was just as tall as him. 'I guess you also thought we were guys, like everyone does.'

Petrash held up his hands. 'Gomen, but everyone made it sound like you were a bunch of mean, bullying guys. Not a team of girls.'

'And who says we're not a bunch of mean, bullying girls?' the red-brown one asked.

'Ehmm, well, I never really believed girls could be that bad.'

They all kept silent for a moment, then the white-grey one leaned closer. 'You're a virgin, aren't you?' she asked with a devious grin.

He stepped back blushing. 'Wait, what? What has that got to do with anything?'

The black and white husky sniggered. 'Well, so far he has made the best introduction of them all.'

'Who all?' he asked.

'This is a punishment game from the company. All those who piss off the boss end up here in this freezing hell with us.' the black and white husky said, then grinned at him. 'And leave with a few less marbles.'

'Ehm.' Petrash muttered.

The white-grey husky gestured at the black and white one, 'That's Dice.' the red-brown one, 'Rusty.' the blue-grey one, 'Dusk. And I'm Ghost. You can use the room at the end of the corridor.'

'Ah, thanks. I'm Petrash by the way.'

Ghost sat down on the couch. 'Okay.' she said and continued to watch the movie, just like the others.

He sighed and brought his bags to the only room full of dusty boxes that also had a stretcher.

'Great.' he said and dropped down on the squeaking bed. 'I'd be better off if I had gotten lost forever.'

Chapter 02

Tired from the journey Petrash fell fast asleep until the morning. He groaned at the sight of the grey ceiling and bare light bulb reminding him where he had ended up. With unexpected muscle aches all over his body he took off his coat and dragged himself to the kitchen looking for something to eat and drink. What he found was something beyond the gates of hell.

Dishes piled up in a sink covered by strange goo, empty boxes and plastic bags in one corner surrounding a trash can so full the lid wouldn't close. Half-eaten bits of food seemed to be hunting other bits of food. This place had to be a biological hazard. He walked out into the common room where Rusty was preparing to make her delivery.

'Wha..?' was all he could say while pointing to the kitchen.

'Ah, yeah. That's part of your job, housekeeping. Good luck. We're back at the end of the day.' she said and left.

He looked back frightened at the kitchen and contemplated using the standard equipped anti-alien flamethrower for isolated stations in the snow ring. He sighed deep, then reluctantly walked back into the kitchen in search of something to chip away at the dirt and a bandanna in exchange for his plaid cap.

At the end of the morning he had managed to wipe out the new lifeforms growing in the sink and the fridge and sat down on one of the couches in the common room, leaning his elbows on his knees.

"I could have made scientific discoveries here. Must not forget to mark the trash container with a medical warning." he thought, then fell back and slept.

When he woke up it was time to make dinner. Something real instead of the instant stuff he found all over the place, he decided. Luckily there was real food in storage so he was able to make something simple but decent. He looked satisfied at the table he set up with the clean dishes, bread and salad.

"All that's left is warming up the pork chops and potatoes." he thought, looked at the time and decided he could take a rest before they'd be back.

He made himself comfortable on a couch and fell asleep again soon after.

Some time later the girls walked in and halted at the delicious scent in the air.

'What's this?' Dusk asked. 'It smells of food.'

Dice pointed at the kitchen. 'Something happened here.'

The girls looked at a cosy dinner table and a clean kitchen.

'Did he..?' Rusty asked.

'I guess he did.' Ghost said and looked at the food on several plates, ready to be heated and served. 'And by the smell of it, he did a good job.'

'Let's eat.' Dusk said. 'I'd hate to waste this opportunity.'

'Wait,' Dice said as she looked at Petrash. 'It's only fair to have him eat with us.'

Ghost scratched behind her ear. 'I guess you're right. For something this good we haven't had before.'

Rusty poked him. 'Oy, time to wake up and serve us.'

Petrash woke up startled and looked around with half open eyes. 'Oh, you're back. We can eat.'

Half asleep he got up and walked into the kitchen to heat up the rest of the food while the girls sat down.