Sanyah Allani, born on a space station, once dreamt of retirement on a cabin down on Earth. But when she finds herself suddenly a widow, that dream loses all appeal. Instead, she goes to a mining asteroid, taking work as a security officer.

But what was meant to be a sleepy posting becomes anything but, when a dead body is found deep in one of the mine’s caves. A murder, but worse, the victim isn’t even supposed to be there.

And the aliens the humans share the mining rights to the asteroid with are livid. Now Allani has to not only solve a murder, but also keep an important, if hard to communicate with, species of allies at peace.

“Death Spiral”, a science fiction short story originally published in Analog magazine.