Mercury’s Thanks – A Sci-Fi short story

For Thanksgiving 2025, I wrote a little short story about a family at Thanksgiving dinner, called Thanks. I love that little storry, and I wanted to continue the trend of writing a story that shows people being thankful.

This year, I started by thinking of writing a very similar story to Thanks, but wanted to see how I could make it different. I thought about putting it in space and making it a little more action packed, but to have a character be thankful by the end.

I turned to my space traveling rouge, Mercury Johnson. I hope you enjoy this sci-fi short story full of action and thanks.

Mercury’s Thanks–A Sci-fi short story by Jarrett S. Smith

Mercury threw his back against the bulkhead of the storage room. The sparks would start any minute. His quick maneuver to break the electric lock would only last so long before the Sovereign’s troopers could cut the door down.

Mercury patted the rounded rectangular device in his pocket. Getting this relic had landed him in a storage room on a Sovereign space station. The job was supposed to be simple, and this cargo ship was not supposed to have a garrison of troops.

He sighed as he surveyed the room. There was nothing but four rows of metal boxes, each containing three or four unstacked crates. He lifted and shoved boxes as quietly as he could, since there was a chance that soldiers wouldn’t know where he was once they entered.

A single metal box came to just below his hip. They were probably made of Nickizen, which could deflect blaster bolts. But they were heavy. He would strain to stack more than two on top of each other.

If only Breaker had been with him. His navigator could lift one of these high enough to make a stack of three without breaking a sweat.

But she wasn’t with him on this mission. She had predicted how difficult the mission would be. It was such a big risk that she left his crew instead of going with him. It appeared she had been right, but he wasn’t sure he’d get the chance to tell her.

Instead, he thought about how lucky she was that she wasn’t with him.

Sparks erupted around the door, illuminating the room with flashes of bright white and yellow. He couldn’t look in that direction without harming his eyes. He snapped his head to the left and attempted to make a stack of two boxes that he could hide behind.

Mercury’s legs strained and his back hurt as he lifted a box, making a tower. After a few moments, he had two towers, but no energy. His forehead dripped with sweat, no doubt worsened by the heat of the torch burning through the doorway. He didn’t think he could lift another of the boxes so instead he squatted down behind the stack.

There were now two makeshift towers, although they were separated by a couple of rows. He thought that would help his chances of taking the approaching troopers by surprise. A single tower would alert the troops to his location. If there were two, they’d have to guess.

This wouldn’t matter; he would be dead within minutes.

He pushed his back against the tower he had made and looked at the wall. With narrowed eyes, he checked how far they had cut around the door. He still had a couple of minutes before it all came crashing down.

Mercury wiped his brow with his shirt and forced himself to smile. It had been a good run, but he didn’t see how he would get out of this.

Mercury pulled the device he had been sent to recover from his pocket. The rounded rectangle wasn’t much bigger than a deck of Dackle cards. The front was mostly white, with an ancient square screen on top and a circle below. Mercury turned it over in his hand trying to figure out if he could use it somehow. The client had said it was some type of music player, but Mercury didn’t understand how it worked. If nothing else, he could just throw it at a soldier.

Mercury put the device back in his pocket and readied his pistol. They had almost finished cutting the door.

The first red blasts hit the wall in front of Mercury before the door came crashing down. The crash of the wall sent a wave of sound blasting through the tiny room. All he could hear now was a deep hum. It sounded like he had stuffed Gruto fur in his ears.

It wouldn’t be long before the soldiers realized that he hadn’t been waiting for them in the middle of the room. Hopefully, the effort he had put into making two towers would pay off and the coming troopers would be confused. Not being able to hear anything would cripple his plan. He wouldn’t be able to hear which side of the tower they would come. His head stayed on a swivel, checking any clue of which way the troopers would appear.

A grey armored foot stepped out to his left side, between the box towers. The soldier had stopped to try to see around the other tower. He loomed over Mercury in his grey armor held together by black connectors. His rounded helmet reflected the entryway and the other guards behind. His blaster carbine was drawn, but pointed toward the wrong tower.

Mercury didn’t hesitate. He shot at the soldier’s foot and jumped to his feet. As the soldier lifted his now burnt foot, Mercury plowed into him. Mercury’s shoulder throbbed with pain as he hit the soldier in the armor and tumbled to the ground. The blaster bolts from the soldiers at the doorway raced over their heads.

Mercury grabbed onto the soldier’s gun-holding right hand as they fell behind the other stack of metallic boxes. While he held the soldier’s arm, he used his other hand to shove his blaster between the guard’s armor plates. He squeezed the trigger, and the man went limp.

Mercury spun the body around to help protect him from the incoming horde of troops. Blaster bolts ricocheted off the grey armor and metal boxes, singeing the walls and ceiling. Mercury attempted to fire off shots toward the door to keep the rest from attacking.

The soldiers in the doorway weren’t fazed at all. Their armor repelled most of his attempts. At least the humans underneath the suits were still afraid of the bolts in a way robots weren’t. That fear kept them locked down.

Mercury aimed down the barrel of his blast and focused on the first trooper by the door. If he could drop that soldier, his fortune might improve.

He breathed out and fired.

The soldier flinched and moved. His beaked visor of his helmet deflected the bolt, but it knocked him back as well.

As the soldier fell backward, he knocked down a few others. Mercury dumped the one he had been using as a shield to the ground and tried to get to his feet. He knew he should capitalize on the moment of confusion. He leapt over the soldier on the ground and took two steps forward before the guards had recovered and begun firing again.

Mercury fell to the ground and rolled behind one of the boxes that hadn’t been stacked yet. He rested his head against the cold metal stack and sighed. His thoughts swirled. He thought about Ger, his troublesome ship’s system, and their long history together. Of course, the Sovereign would find his ship in the port eventually and probably decommission Ger. Or at least clear the robot’s memory, thereby ending it as well. He had to wonder what would happen to the robot then.

Then his mind drifted to Breaker. He felt more glad than ever that she had decided to leave him to this quest. Now that the mission had failed, he was glad that he was the only one who would suffer.

But this adventure looked to be his end.

Staying to fight an entire platoon by himself was a fool’s errand, and he couldn’t see any other way out.

His blaster was almost out of energy, so making a last stand wouldn’t go well if he couldn’t fire. He could throw the music player at the next guard, but he didn’t think it would do much to help. Then he spied the limp guard’s blaster carbine by his leg. Mercury hefted it up. It was more of a weapon for heavy combat—which was just what he needed.

He tucked his blaster back into its holster and readied the carbine.

There wasn’t much time until he would be swarmed. He needed to move, so he got his legs underneath him and jumped up, his finger already on the trigger. Two troopers entered the storage room, blasters drawn and trained on him. His sudden appearance shocked them. He didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger and blasted them both. Both crumpled backward.

Oddly, he noticed that no one from the door had fired since he sprang up. Had they thought that two troopers could have handled him alone?

Mercury ducked back down, ready for more—hope of an escape slowly returning to him. Then a blaster bolt streaked from the doorway, but landed harmlessly feet away. Whoever had shot that bolt hadn’t been aiming at him.

Mercury dove back behind his stack of boxes. He had no idea what was happening out there, but it couldn’t be good. He would have to push through if he had any hope of escape.

Mercury rolled out from behind the boxes toward the door, keeping himself low. Someone shouted. He could make out the vibration of sound, but his hearing was still so muffled he couldn’t discern what it was.

His finger stayed ready on the trigger of the large blaster. He aimed it towards the door only to see a barrel of a bigger gun pointed at him. He looked down the barrel before he broke out into a smile.

He pressed his tongue to his cheek, trying to stop a tear from trickling out of his eye. He blinked a few times, unable to contain it. Right away, all the tension and stress flooded out.

The purple-skinned alien glared at him before shaking her head, her flame-colored hair swishing around.

“I’m so glad to see you, Breaker,” he said. He dropped the blaster and moved to her. She seemed to sense the anguish in his body.

They embraced, although it took her a moment to return the affection. She held him tight, but not as tight as she could for fear of popping him like a grape. She ran her hand down his back and continued to speak. “phook a mmmmommmmennt phooo phind pho.”

He shook his head and pointed to his ears. “I can’t hear anything,” he shouted. She recoiled at his high volume and bared her purple-tinted teeth. He rubbed his ears and could hear a little better.

“I told you this was too risky,” she said, dragging him out of the storage room.

“You were right,” he said.

“I knew you’d get in trouble,” she said as she continued to pull him by the wrist. They exited the storage room and took a right into the hall. Mercury noticed the platoon of motionless soldiers strewn about the sterile hallway and then admired his navigator’s strength.

“I’m genuinely thankful you did,” he said and smiled. He wiped a tear out of his eye with his free hand and worked on keeping pace with the stronger alien. “Let’s get out of here. I have a payday to collect, and a meal to share with my crew.”

“It’s only me and Ger,” she said as she pulled him down the hallway towards the port.

“I know,” he said as he got his feet under him to try to keep up with her.

Further Reading

I hope you enjoyed this little sci-fi short story of thanks. If you enjoyed it, make sure to check out my fiction library with all of my current short stories and more.

Make sure to check out my other Mercury Johnson stories, The Gamble and Black Lotus.

And if you made it this far, let me know what you think of Mercury Johnson. Would you like to read a full length novel about the sci-fi smuggler?