text: [Themes: sci-fi, humor, science fiction]
  
  The sun beats down, drenching the field in blue light. The snubflower silently vibrates as they absorb it. You wipe your brow and lean against the hoe, breathing in the peppery air. Well that's enough exercise for one day, you think. With the flick of a switch, you leave it up to the Farmbot 2000 to carry out the rest. Why do they always call it 2000 with these robots? It's not like they had 1999 older models.
  
  You don't put another thought in it. Time to turn on Galaxy News and see what all those crazy planets are up to. Then maybe hit up a bar, since you can't get a match on NipthmMatches.com. It's not you, it's them.
  
  Click! The digi-screen forms from pinpoints, beading out from all sides of the holographic screen. The light coalesces and a middle-aged newsman appears before you, his face wrinkled in concern.
  
  "Alert! Alert! Infamous outlaw Raoul Chicharrones was just seen landing a craft only 20 miles away from the city of Hereish. He is a contemptible and dangerous man, known for his bingo gambling scams and underground midget fighting rings!" A picture of Raoul appears on-screen, with a Spanish complexion in all ways but for a lustrous, thin handlebar stache.
  
  "The robocam that identified him was destroyed by his own gunfire blast, and from then on, there were no further witnesses. Please do not interact with any suspicious looking characters in the meantime. This story will update in realtime as we-" the narrator looks away from the camera, talking on mute to someone else. He turns back.
  
  "Sorry for the interruption, folks, but this is now escalating to a major emergency. A bounty gang called AimFire has declared they will take generalized action if we don't find and hand over Mr. Chicharrones. Rest assured we will engage in negotiations even as we find him. We're confident in this. Thank you, that is all for now. Stay safe."
  
  Oh, you've heard about AimFire. Who hasn't? They pop up now and then for some high-profile bounties, usually wreaking havoc on everything around to kill their target. Their salaries are paid on a mixture of blasting cities to ruins to kill one guy in it, and massive bribes to not do that. The problem is, United Space doesn't recognize outer planets like Nipthm, and nobody else in the outer planets has the economy to afford those solutions. "Generalized action" could be an orbital bombardment with AimFire. There's a lot of caves on Nipthm, so they probably won't send a hit squad.
  
  This isn't good. Maybe you can do something about it.
  
  [Author's Note: You live a small farming life on Nipthm, a planet of scrublands and grasslands. Trouble heads your way, and it's bringing a mortal danger you can't avoid. United Space doesn't bother trying to protect the outer worlds. You're on your own. This is a story for Endmaster's Manifest Destiny contest. It was made in such a short period of time I wouldn't have normally been allowed to publish it (2 days). Hopefully it's entertaining, and I didn't make too many errors. Enjoy!]
  
  > seek and kill Raoul
  Raoul landed very close by; maybe you can catch him yourself. Now you don't sit around on galaxynet a lot, but you know there's a bunch of quacks that practically worship his mustache. Enough that, perhaps, you could say something about it and he'd pause, letting his guard down enough for you to shoot him. Well it's the best plan you've got in case you can't get the drop on him.
  
  You get on your hovercycle, which whirs at your approach before you even climb aboard. Ooh, this sleek baby was worth every penny from last year's harvest. You've got a pretty standard pistol, but you're a good shot afterall. You could ride to where his craft was shown landing, but he's going to be long gone, and it'll be covered in red tape. No, you need to be one step ahead. Raoul was probably headed to the Easeehid Caverns.
  
  You ride out from the farm, looking at your white house fade in the rearview mirror. Blue sunlight tints the road and fields in front of you. You zoom past a sign saying NOW LEAVING HEREISH. An hour passes by on the open road, but sure enough, the Easeehid rocks start looming up in the distance, all gray and pink. You used to play in these caves as a kid all the time, when you lived in Thereish, so you know a lot about them. The authorities are probably going to be looking on the side nearest the direction Raoul is coming from. He probably knows this.
  
  You hover silently on a rolling road to the backside of the formation, far more eroded, and with many more holes to scan. Stepping off the bike, you begin to stalk through the towering eighty foot ferns separating the road from the caves. They end tens of feet before the foot of the rocks, gnarly and withered from the baking heat of midday.
  
  Flip. The thermal scanner picks up nothing so far. You walk forward to the very edge of the ferns. All you see is empty space between you and the first cave, so you run for it. Beep beep beep, the scanner relays through your earbud. Small shadows begin to walk towards you, clicking. Could it be the dreaded Nipthm coyotes?! The clicking increases, and suddenly stops. You want to fire at them, but that'll set them all off at once. Perhaps if you back away slowly, they won't attack.
  
  > back away, fire if necessary
  You back away slowly. As you do, a voice emerges. "Haha, the matchstick is scared"
  
  "Hehe, he walks stupid too," another voice jeers. The anonymous crowd breaks into a cacophony of mediocre insults. This can only mean one thing: midgets.
  
  "Well, well," a deep yet oddly effeminate voice calls out from behind them. Even in the faint light that penetrates the mouth of the cave, his mustache stands out exquisitely.
  
  "Raoul," you utter. "I-I had to find you to see you're amazing handlebar mustache!" You wipe the welling tears of joy against your sleeves.
  
  "I don't really care," he says indifferently, "and it's a double-whirl tapered reverse handlebrow. Any true fan would know this." Tch-tch! The midgets round up and you realize all that clicking was the sound of weapons being readied.
  
  "So what's it going to be, are you going to plead? Normally, I wouldn't give a second thought to your life."
  
  > plead for Raoul's mercy
  "Oh, you are a generous man, Raoul!" You practically want to shave his crusty lip beard off. "Please do spare me, and I won't mention this again!" If only you were holding a razor, he'd have the most clean-shaven face around. It'd be a very close shave, maybe with a few deep nicks.
  
  "Hahaha," he laughs merrily. "Come with me, follow the little folk. I think I have something for you." Raoul gently rotates a pistol of his own, which you never saw him draw. "Don't try anything on the way. I have a few tricks up my sleeve." As he says this, the pistol retracts at the end of thin trusses back into the cuff of his jacket. He leads from behind, with the midgets taking point.
  
  "Haha, this'll be a fun one," you hear from the crowd. They descend ever deeper into the cavern. The mottled pink-and-gray turns into gray and darker gray as you work you way down. Is it possible they know where the deep caves are? It's not mapped or publicized, even. And how did Raoul get all these midgets so quickly? You only know about them from a chance encounter as a kid.
  
  "Perhaps you don't know this," Raoul says in his odd delicate baritone voice, "but these caves are volcanic in origin. There are fumaroles that lead down from just two vertical shafts, into a much wider cavern. That's where we're headed."
  
  Everyone begins to squeeze through the tight crawlspace. It occurs to you this would take a lot longer for a company of full-grown men. There are a few places you figured you might get stuck in, but you manage to wiggle your way through somehow. Following the flashlights in front of you, the cavern does seem to open up.
  
  Floodlights are set up around a neat ring filled with sand. Small folding benches encircle the fighting ring, and you can see a few other midgets down here.
  
  "Flap, this nameless man here is going to do whatever you want him to do," Raoul declares to a particularly fat midget. He smiles at you in a most unpleasant way.
  
  "First day on the job, Matchstick? I know what you get to do. Go up one level with Videk here and find these." He produces a black mushroom, its stem twisted up like a dead spider leg. "These are edible and right now, we need these to lie out of sight for a few days. Those AimFire idiots are probably going to drop some kind of explosive tomorrow, but it won't penetrate all the way down here. So we need all the food we can get. Deal? Deal."
  
  It doesn't look like you have much say. Videk shows up soon enough, sporting a scowl and a hand on his gun at all times. Doesn't look like he trusts you, and he probably shouldn't. You're always sent first ahead, and he keeps the gun drawn.
  
  "I'm not dealing with bullshit, he says. As soon as we go up this shaft, you're on the ground scraping for mushrooms. These bullets are real social and they'd just love to meet you." He sure likes to talk big, but you're wondering if he's the type to fall short on those words. His height already betrays him.
  
  Your arms reach outside the claustrophobically small tunnel, and you're back in the upper levels. You pull yourself up as quickly as possible. A thought passes.
  
  > shoot Viden before he climbs up
  You decide to act on impulse, drawing your weapon to shoot him. BANG! You pull the trigger, catching him in the skull as he tries to reach his own gun. His body quickly ragdolls down the vertical shaft he was climbing, having no braces against the fall. That's going to alert the others really, really quick. You run to fetch a large rock. To your luck you actually find one you can roll over the entrance. They'll probably take some time trying to get through that.
  
  The best option at the moment is to alert the authorities, now that they have time to come and capture Raoul. Hopefully you'll be lauded as the hero, but most of the credit will probably go to whoever comes in on your call.
  
  You make your way well outside the cavern to wait for their arrival. Another five minutes later, they show up, asking who you are and what you're doing. You give a brief summary.
  
  "Thank you, citizen. You've surely done your part. We'll take it over now," one of the officers informs you. They begin entering the cave just as you hear a thud resounding throughout. Shouting and commotion ensues; the police cautiously turning corners somewhere within have met resistance. You're still lying low in the trees.
  
  > follow back in now
  The last officer has already made their way through the cave. If you followed into the cave now, Raoul and his gang of midgets wouldn't be expecting it. You begin to stalk back up to the entrance. Thin lines of smoke still waft through the tunnels; the damp smell of rock accompanies it. That thud was probably an explosive to destroy the boulder you rolled over the hole.
  
  With flashlight off, it's all eyesight in the dark. Turning it on would expose you too quickly. It'd be so nice if you had night vision contacts to see right now. You take a few steps forward, turning to the left where you think the cave turns, all on guesswork. Several feet later, a shoe stamps down on one of the casualties, luckily making no noise. A shimmer catches your attention.
  
  You can see it, Raoul's mustache. It's faint, but still, the perfect glossiness seems to catch and reflect what little ambient light there is. He shifts a little, and it's gone.
  
  Your gun is still trained on where it was.
  
  > shoot the stache
  You steady the shot. BANG!
  
  Instinctively, you duck and move out of the way from the storm of bullets that would be hitting you now.
  
  "No, Mr. Twists!" a deep voice calls out in lament. You fire a few more times at the crowd of midgets, but eventually, a bullet sails through your shoulder, putting an end to that.
  
  "If we had more time, we'd cut your legs off and make you fight in the ring," a mean little voice declares. "But we don't, so this is how it's going to be...what's going on, hey, what is this gas?"
  
  Paralyzing gas fills the chamber, soon followed by a second wave of police. You think everyone is escorted out, but it's a little fuzzy and hard to tell what's going on. You're aware that you're alive, though, so that's better than you figured.
  
  You sit up in a bed surrounded by undecorated walls, with a tiled floor. As best you can tell, you're in a hospital. The events of the shoot-out come back to you.
  
  "He's awake," a voice confirms from outside the room. The nurse walks in, followed by an investigations officer, who drills into you for an hour. It looks like he believes your side of the story in the end, and he walks off. You never hear about it again.
  
  Raoul was captured and returned dead to AimFire, who after confirming his identity, left entirely. You returned to the ever-exciting life of farming on an automated farm, more or less content because it's all you've really done, though the adrenaline of the AimFire situation was appealing in a sense. You content yourself with a steady stream of adventure novels on the galaxynet.
  
  Years roll by. You meet Linda, who also works the same kind of occupation. The two of you hit it off over a discussion about hay bailing. No sooner does she move in than she redecorates some of the bland walls, with spicy choices like a Live, Love, Laugh picture. You're happy together, more or less.
  
  Time goes on and on. You have one child named Austin, who never really develops a strong personality. He just goes with the flow, 100% of the time. In other words, he's perfect for this line of work. He'll never get bored.
  
  On one particular day, sitting on the swinging couch outside, you croak. It wasn't the most interesting life, but it was pretty good, more or less.