The Stink of Salvation

The worst part of asteroid mining is the smell.

In the asteroid belt, where the rocks were rich with platinum and peril, the mining colonies of Krag-7 were infamous. High pay lured the desperate and the daring, but the risks—hull breaches, equipment failures, and the occasional pirate raid—kept turnover high. And then there was the smell. Cramped living quarters, recycled air, and a diet heavy on protein paste made the hab modules a nasal nightmare. New recruits gagged; veterans just shrugged.


Tanner Voss, a wiry engineer fresh from Earth’s slums, arrived on Krag-7 with a duffel and a secret. Tucked in his bag was his pride and joy: the Fart Screening Filter System (FSFS), a prototype built into a custom hammock. It was a pet project, born from years of sharing bunks with flatulent cousins. The FSFS used nano-filters and chemical scrubbers to neutralize volatile organic compounds—farts, essentially—before they could pollute the air. Tanner figured it’d make him a hero in the stench-ridden colony. He didn’t expect it to spark a panic.


His first night in the hab, Tanner rigged his hammock in the crowded bunkroom. The air was thick with the usual funk: sweat, grease, and something like burnt cabbage. As he slept, the FSFS hummed quietly, pulling in the foul air around his bunk and spitting out something close to odorless. By morning, the bunkroom smelled… better. Not fresh, but noticeably less like a sewer.


The crew noticed. “Oi, who cleaned the scrubbers?” grunted Mara, a grizzled driller, sniffing the air suspiciously.


“Nobody,” said Jek, the ops chief, checking the environmental panel. “O2 levels normal, CO2 nominal, but… huh. VOC readings are down 30%.”


“Thirty percent?” Mara’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not right. Those sensors are janky. Bet we’ve got a leak somewhere.”


Tanner, bleary-eyed and unpacking, kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t ready to reveal his invention yet—he wanted to test it first, make sure it held up under the colony’s brutal conditions.


By day three, the air was cleaner than anyone could remember. The crew’s mood lifted, but so did their paranoia. The environmental sensors, which usually spiked with every meal, were reporting impossibly low volatile organic compound levels. Jek ran diagnostics, cursing as the system insisted everything was fine. “These readings are garbage,” he muttered, tearing into a control panel. “If the sensors are borked, we could be breathing poison and not know it.”


Whispers spread. A failing sensor could mean anything—leaking seals, a breached scrubber, or worse, a chemical buildup that could ignite.
The colony had lost a hab to a methane spark years back; no one wanted a repeat. Mara started double-checking her suit’s seals. Others hoarded O2 canisters. Tanner, oblivious to the growing tension, marveled at his FSFS’s success. The hammock was a silent champ, scrubbing the air around him while he tinkered with mining drones.


On day five, panic erupted. Jek’s latest sensor sweep showed VOCs at near-zero levels in the bunkroom, despite a curry-paste dinner that should’ve gassed the place. “This is bad,” Jek said, slamming his tablet down. “Either the sensors are shot, or we’ve got a chemical sink somewhere. Could be pulling volatiles into the walls, ready to blow.”


The crew tore the hab apart, checking vents, pipes, and filters. Mara ripped open a duct, expecting a clog of rancid sludge, but found nothing. “Something’s eating the stink,” she growled. “And I don’t trust it.”


Tanner, finally catching on, hesitated. He wasn’t a showoff, but the crew was one step from spacing his hammock out of fear. “Uh, guys,” he said, raising a hand during a tense mess hall meeting. “I think I know what’s happening.”


All eyes turned. Jek folded his arms. “Spill, newbie.”


Tanner dragged his hammock into the mess hall, its unassuming fabric hiding a web of micro-tubes and scrubbers. “This is the Fart Screening Filter System,” he said, cheeks reddening. “It’s… uh, cleaning the air. Neutralizes VOCs, like methane and sulfur compounds. Been running since I got here.”


Silence. Then Mara snorted. “You’re telling me your bed’s eating our farts?”


“Basically, yeah,” Tanner said. “It’s why the air’s better. Sensors aren’t broken—they’re just reading clean.”


Jek grabbed his tablet, ran a quick model, and cursed. “He’s right. VOC drop matches his bunk’s location. No leaks, no sink—just this kid’s fart trap.”


The crew erupted, some laughing, others red-faced at the thought of their emissions being silently judged by Tanner’s hammock. Mara clapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. “You little genius. Why didn’t you say something?”


“Didn’t want to jinx it,” Tanner mumbled. “Was still testing.”


By week’s end, the crew demanded FSFS units for every bunk. Tanner became a colony legend, his invention dubbed the “Stink Savior.” The air stayed clean, the sensors stayed honest, and Krag-7’s reputation for stench faded. But the high pay and high risk? Those never changed.