Galaxy Run: The Case

by Sam Renner

  GALAXY RUN:

  THE CASE

  by

  Sam Renner

  +++++

  PUBLISHED BY:

  SIX to ONE Books & Media

  Copyright © 2020

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  01

  Blood drips in thin streams from the gash on his head. It comes in wider rivers from his nose. Which, he knows, is probably broken. The tears in his eyes—pain tears, not crying tears—make everything in front of him a blurry mess. But his ears, those still work, and he can hear Uzel growling something in Uzeki. He doesn’t understand it—can’t speak Uzeki—but he knows it’s not good.

  He also hears the two Uzeks that have his arms pinned to this alley wall breathing heavy from the chase he forced them to make.

  He was close—so close—from making a turn out onto the street and losing them in the crowd milling about in front of the market. He could have donned the hood on his cloak, dropped his posture just so, and quickly looked like all of the people there buying ingredients for that night’s dinner.

  Would have if not for that busted little robot someone had tossed aside and that bent little antennae that caught his foot as he tried to jump over it. He landed on a knee, his shin catching a brick as he went down. And now that aches too.

  He twists his wrists, trying to force a little circulation back into them, but it only causes the Uzeks to grunt and snort some kind of warning and clamp down harder.

  The tears—pain tears, not crying tears—are almost gone now. He can see Uzel pacing in front of him. He’s a squat little thing. Short arms and short legs and shaped like a garroway fruit that’s gone soft—thin at the top and thick at the bottom, like Nixon could put a thumb in his guts if he were to push hard enough.

  The shadows here make his light green skin look darker than it is, and the calluses on his forearms look more like armored plates. Uzel continues to grunt something then looks over at the translator he’s brought with him. She’s a young Uzek and begins to speak. Nixon hears her, but he’s too lost in his own thoughts to actually comprehend what she’s saying.

  She’s just a girl, and he hates that she’s already gotten mixed up with Uzel the Uzek.

  “Where are the missing seeds? The twelve pounds?” she asks again.

  Nixon tries to work up an answer, but he can’t. He doesn’t have a good one.

  He’d told himself this wasn’t a position he’d find himself in. He was better than this. He wasn’t the same man his dad was, and he wasn’t going to go out the same way—busted up and broken over a few pounds of seeds. But that’s what he’s done.

  But this is what happens on Exte. You take work where you can get it. You hustle credits however you can. Work your angles. Find people who need regular work done and then put yourself in a position to do it. Maybe you’re working for a day to help build one of those new towers going in over near the starport. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you get to do that for a week or more. That’s proud work. It’s the kind that leaves you something to point to and say “See that balcony up there on the fiftieth floor? I installed that.”

  Most days, though, you weren’t that lucky. The work wasn’t something that made you proud. It was just something that earned you credits. You ran some deliveries. You helped organize something or clean something. Then, when that work dried up—or you did such a poor job of doing it that no one who needs it will hire you—you turn to the cartels. Like the Uzeks. They always had work. None of it legal. Like running seeds that they’ll then use to make Cloud90.

  You do that for a couple of months, revelling in the credits you’re earning but also telling yourself that for the danger you’re putting yourself in—running seeds means dealing with the kinds of people who see you as nothing more than a cog in a wheel, a piece in a broken process—you should be getting more. And if they won’t give it to you then you’ll have to take it.

  So, you take the small ship they gave you and fly it out to the desert. You scoop out a bucket full of the seeds from the canvas bag they are in and cover the bucket before you bury the seeds three feet deep into the sand. Insurance policy, you tell yourself. You’ll only get it if you need it. Find a fence for the seeds and restock your credits. Besides, it’s 1,500 pounds of seed. Who will even know if a few pounds are gone.

  Who will know? Apparently, Uzel will know.

  “The seeds, Mr. Nixon.” the girl says.

  “Where are they?” It’s Uzel. It’s tough, but Nixon understands it. It’s the first time he’s ever heard Uzel speak in a language that’s not Uzeki.

  “You steal my seeds.”

  Nixon shakes his head and clears his throat. He clears it again and then again. He’s working something up from deep in his chest. Something that’s not an answer to Uzel’s questions.

  He’s being dramatic about it, dipping his shoulders then bringing himself back up to standing over and over again, looking and sounding like a skeen cat bringing up a hairball.

  Then he stops, his mouth full of something phlegmy and loose. He turns to the Uzek that’s pinned his right arm to the wall and spits this internal concoction in its face. When it hits the Uzek in the snout, and its grip on Nixon’s arm changes. It loosens just enough for him to yank himself free.

  He has control of his right arm again. He spins to his left and puts a fist into the other Uzek’s throat. It lets out a gravelly grunt and struggles to breathe. Nixon brings both of his hands to the Uzek’s neck, and it drops Nixon’s other arm.

  Nixon grabs the thing’s shoulders and spins it around, putting the Uzek between him and Uzel. Blaster fire catches the Uzek in the back. Uzel is shooting.

  The Uzek falls heavy against Nixon. This thing is dead or dying. Nixon grabs the blaster that’s in the holster that hangs at the Uzek’s side.

  Nixon fires one shot at the other Uzek that had been holding him to the wall. It hits the thing in the gut, and deep green goo splatter-paints the wall where it stands. The thing makes a guttural cry and falls to its knees.

  Another blast from Uzel digs a small crater into the stone wall at Nixon’s feet. He fires a wild shot at Uzel that hits him in the shin. He falls immediately and raises the blaster from his back. Nixon fires a second shot at him that hits the blaster and blows off two of Uzel’s three fingers.

  “Graaaaaaaa!” Uzel screams and grabs at what’s left of one hand with the other. “Nixon!”

  Nixon pushes the Uzek off of him and slips the blaster into the waistband of his pants under his cloak.

  The translator stares at him. He stares back, and for a moment doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what she’ll do. But she doesn’t do anything. Not for a long second then she drops to her knees to attend a still-groaning Uzel.

  Nixon watches for a second. Uzel’s breathing heavy. He’s moaning without knowing he’s doing it. Then, in between two of those moans, he looks at Nixon and squeezes out the words “Dead. Man.”

  Nixon turns and walks out of the alley.

  “Dead. Man.” Uzel says, louder this time, like he’s used all of his energy to push it out.

  Nixon gets to the end of the alley and looks to his left. There’s his market. There’s his crowd. He pulls the hood of his cloak up over his head and pulls his arms inside. He slips the Uzek blaster from his waistband. He keeps it pressed to his chest, a finger on the trigger. It’s hidden but ready to fire.

  Then he stoops his body just so and disappears into the crowd.

  02

  Nixon sits at the bar of the Goodtimes Palace and wipes the sweat off the glass that sits in front of him. He wipes now-wet fingers on his pant leg and picks up his data pad. He opens it and pulls up his credit balance. It hasn’t miraculously increased in
the ten minutes since he’d checked it last, and it hasn’t gone up from any of the other times he’s checked it since he sat down.

  He doesn’t have enough credits for the drink that’s going warm in front of him. He definitely doesn’t have credits for the second one he’s already ordered. And there’s no way he can pay for the drink that Shaine just asked for.

  “You look like a skeen cat got hold of you and you had to fight your way free.” Shaine laughs at his joke.

  “Just about.” Nixon says. He fakes a laugh that jiggles his insides and a new wave of pain shoots to his toes. As bad as he looks on the outside, he feels ten times worse inside. That’s what an Uzek beating will do to you. It was the beauty in their torture. Even on the receiving end of it, Nixon could appreciate that.

  The bloody nose and the gashed forehead, those were Nixon’s fault. Pay better attention during a footrace that he was going to win, and he doesn’t go down into the ground face first. He doesn’t slide a couple of feet on the hard-packed soil and go head first into the dried-mud alley walls.

  He doesn’t do that and Uzel and his friends aren’t able to catch him and pull him off the ground and start putting their stun sticks hard into his middle. Adrenalin had covered the pain earlier. Now it’s fading, and Nixon can feel where every stun stick hit him over and over and over.

  He grimaces and puts his hand to his side.

  “Gonna tell me what happened?”

  “Not tonight.” Nixon finishes what’s in his glass.

  There’s a bell over the door to the Goodtimes Palace, and it rings everytime the door is opened. And every time that bell rings, Nixon flinches and shoots a look to the door. Uzeks don’t come to places like this. They don’t drink the kind of things served here. And even if they did, they wouldn’t come to a place like the Goodtimes Palace.

  Nixon and Shaine are sitting at a table slapped together with shipping materials and the soft pinkton wood that’s used to make crates. Other patrons have picked at the edge of the table until the top is jagged on all sides.

  Nixon looks down and catches a fingernail on a spot on the top and pulls. A thin peel of wood comes off in his hand. He drops it to the floor, and the bell rings again. He flinches hard. Waves of pain radiate out to his feet. Nixon checks the door. It’s not an Uzek, of course. Just some other guy who looks like he’s been up two days too long.

  “You look like you’ve been dragged up and down the block, and every time that door opens you jump out of your seat. Your about snap your neck trying to see who’s come in. Are you expecting company?”

  Nixon watches a Snapsit woman wave at a friend sitting in one of the tables behind him.

  “Not expecting it. No.”

  “But if you see someone you recognize. Or if someone coming in recognizes you …”

  “Yeah. Maybe that.”

  There’s a new drink in front of Nixon. The glass isn’t sweating yet. He picks it up and takes a sip. The liquid stings a cut on his upper lip, but he drinks anyway.

  “Had a seed job,” he says to Shaine, “and it went a little sideways.”

  “A seed job?”

  Nixon nods. “And it went a little …”

  Shaine doesn’t let him finish. “The Uzeks?”

  Suddenly his face explodes with recognition. “That was you? Uzel?”

  Nixon lifts the bottom of his cloak and exposes the Uzek blaster he’s been carrying with him since the fight.

  “So you’ve heard about … it?”

  “Your little fight? Everyone has heard about it, hot shot.”

  “Don’t make fun.”

  “I’m not. But, man … you’ve really … wow.”

  “I know. I’m in a spot now. It’s all I’ve been thinking since it happened. That and I don’t have the credits I need to pay for these drinks tonight.” He checks his data pad again, still hoping for some kind of miracle. “I don’t have the credits to hole myself up someplace that’s not here and hope to just hide out for a while.”

  Shaine nurses what’s left of his drink and asks, “You were desperate enough for a seed job? Are desperate enough?”

  Nixon shrugs. “I’ve got to eat. I’ve got to earn credits. I didn’t want to do it, but what choice did I have?”

  “How many times have you run seed?”

  “A few.”

  “How many?”

  “Six. No, seven.”

  Shaine leans back on his stool. “Seven times? So you were becoming a regular. Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “And do what? Take a job that earns you credits? You need them too, maybe worse than I do. With Mira and the kids.”

  “I’ve got jobs. We have credits. Don’t worry about me. But you don’t need to be running seed again. And you can’t really stay here, can you?”

  Nixon shakes his head and takes another sip from his glass.

  “I know a guy who needs some work. Pay’s good because It’s not exactly above board. But it’s not running seed. The job is yours if you want it.”

  “What exactly are we talking about?”

  “Courier job. He won’t tell you more than that. Just give you an address and a name. If you are OK with that being all you know, it’s pretty easy.”

  Nixon is hunched over, elbows on the edge of the bar and the weight of the world on his back. He blows a long breath into the bar top and begins to slowly nod.

  “Yeah. I mean maybe. Let me think about it?”

  Shaine calls the server over and shows him his datapad. The server scans the code on his screen.

  “I’ll get these tonight.” He looks back at his pad and swipes a couple of fingers across the top then shows the screen to Nixon.

  “Remember this address. Tomorrow morning. Early, just after first light. If you’re there, job’s yours. If not, I’ll keep it for myself.”

  ++xxx++

  Nixon’s home is a small mud-walled single room. There’s a mat on the floor for sleeping, and a small fire-heated cooktop that vents smoke out through a hole in the wall.

  Nixon lays on the mat and repeats the address Shaine had given him over and over in his head. He doesn’t want to take this job. He doesn’t mix friends and work. Not anymore. It’s a standing policy, and one that’s served him well. It keeps things from getting complicated if a job doesn’t go well. And it keeps motivations clear. Friends are friends because they like each other. They aren’t friends because one can provide work or the other can complete jobs. Just easier. SHaine taught him that.

  A small fire crackles in the heat box next to Nixon, and he puts a hand above the hot plate that sits on top. It’s warm. Nixon grabs a small container that sits up against the wall and pulls out the last two slices of Bowtan steer meat. He lays them on the hotplate. A few moments later their aroma fills the small space.

  Shaine’s been a friend for a long time, the longest of anyone that Nixon knows. The two boys grew up together, both being sent to the same forming school at the same time. The two new kids in class sticking together, fighting back bullies, establishing reputations as a couple of toughs. Then moving here to Exte after school was over and building lives for themselves.

  Shaine had been more successful at establishing himself. Tonight, he’s laying his head down on a real mat with a real pillow and blankets. He’s eating real food cooked on a respectable cooktop. He’s not here, eating tinned meat and checking his credit balance every 20 minutes hoping that it will somehow change.

  He’s not going to spend the entire night trying to sleep with an Uzek blaster laying heavy on his chest, a finger on the trigger and an eye on the door.

  No, Nixon doesn’t like to mix friends and business, but with Shaine it’s different. He’s not a friend; he’s more than that. Still, sometimes you have to do what you don’t want to do. You have to break your own rules. You have to take the work that will provide you credits.

  03

  The ceiling in Nixon’s hole is low, and he has to stoop-stand to put on his cloak. He tucks the Uzek b
laster back into his waistband and takes one last look around his little place. This is a courier job he’s about to go accept, and if it pays what he hopes then he’ll have enough credits to find some place in the new city—or, better, new planet—he’s going to. He can lay low there for a bit. Let the Uzeks here get distracted by something or someone else. Then he can return. Maybe.

  No matter what, though, this is the last time he’ll see this place. He thinks for a moment about kicking the little heatbox until the mud sides crumble and the still-hot coals spill out onto the mat. Letting the mat catch fire and the flames get so hot that the straw inside the mud walls also goes up. Just watching the whole place burn. But, he doesn’t, because he’s not that guy. There’s the Snapsit family that lives behind him, three of them jammed into a little room not much bigger than his. And the widow woman who lives in the unit around the corner who would set extra tins of Bowtan steer meat outside his door. He’s not going to let their places go up too just because he hates his.