by Sam Renner
A few blocks later the sounds of pilots and crews and mechanics gets added. Then Nixon looks up and his guideposts are now in front of him stretching tall into the sky. A block later and it’s the Exte starport.
The outside is all metal with a pair of doors on the front. Nixon steps inside, and the place is packed. Crowded. Loud. The air full of the funk of a dozen or more species inside, either looking for a ship or looking to work on one.
Captains fly into Exte, put down at the port solo and leave a few hours later with a full crew. Plenty of the people Nixon knew from the Goodtimes Palace made their money crewing for those captains. It often didn’t pay much, at least not what was expected. Those captains come up with creative ways to justify increasing their share of whatever job they were doing. So Nixon stuck to planetside work. At least that was honest. Mostly.
Nixon pushes through the crowd waiting in the lobby of the starport. It’s full of filthy looking Uzeks. Spit-shined Snapsits. And at least a dozen other species looking for a few fast credits.
He repeats “Six twenty eight” over and over as he makes his way toward the elevators. He waits for the doors to open then steps on. He keeps his hood up and head down and listens to the chimes for each floor. He counts his way to six then steps off.
The smell of burning oil and fried electrics hits him in the face as he steps off. Air recyclers woosh and a thin haze of smoke hangs in the air. Signs point the way to the slip he’s looking for and the smoke gets thicker. He can smell the scent of fire retardant foam, and the chatter of voices starts to rise over the air recyclers. Then it’s footsteps. The people who belong to these voices are moving around.
Nixon raises his head, and the floor is full of people. All of them are holding blasters, and they are milling around what’s left of a small hauler. Holes are punched in its side where holes shouldn’t be. Scorch marks cover the sides, and everything looks like it’s slightly warped. Everything near the ground is covered in the fire foam that’s slowly dissipating.
Nixon looks up from the crowd to the slip number above the ship. Six twenty eight.
“Shit,” he says and keeps walking. These aren’t Uzeks. It’s more humans. “What the hell, Shaine?”
The case tucked under his arm starts to feel heavier, more like an anchor now and less like the opportunity it seemed it’d be last night. He pushes the button for the elevator and thinks again about just setting the case on the ground before he gets on. Just leave it there and walk away from this whole thing.
He can avoid the Uzeks. Go back out to that little spot in the sand and dig up the buried bucket of seeds that he stashed away. Take them to someplace other than Exte. Sure, it’s the biggest city on the planet, but it’s not the only one. There are other places where he can sell seed. There are other buyers, both nefarious and righteous.
The chime for the elevator sounds, and the chatter from the humans milling around slip 628 stops. Nixon waits for the doors to open. He hears footsteps. They are getting closer. The chime sounds again and the doors to the elevator begin to slide open, and Nixon steps inside before they are finished.
Footsteps turn the corner as the doors begin to close, and a face appears just on the other side as they finish.
“Hey!”
The man who’d been approaching jams an arm in the doors as they close and keeps the elevator from leaving. Nixon steps forward to push the arm back through and the guy grabs a handful of Nixon’s cloak.
Nixon struggles to get himself free, and the man who’s holding onto him calls others for help.
“It’s him,” he shouts. “I’ve got our courtyard man.”
Nixon digs at the fingers that are clinging tight to his cloak, but they aren’t moving. They are big meaty things, thick like the lower branches of a Gefta tree. The man takes his other hand and his Gefta fingers and pulls the elevator doors open. He looks at Nixon.
The whites of his eyes are yellow. The pupils are red. He smiles a big, wide smile at Nixon. He reaches with the other hand and tries to grab another handful of Nixon’s cloak.
Nixon stops him then smiles back. He takes one of the man’s fingers that he’s got hold of and jams it in his mouth. He bites down hard and feels the skin snap under his teeth. He works his teeth through the meat of his finger and gets to bone.
The man is screaming and whatever bits of cloak he’d been able to get a hold of he’s let go of now. Nixon works harder, bites with everything he has and feels the knuckle snap. There’s the tip of a finger in his mouth. The tang of blood is on his tongue. He spits all of it out at the feet of the man who’d had hold of him.
The man pulls his hand back and holds it in front of his face, staring at the space where the end of his finger should be.
Nixon rapid-taps the button that will send the elevator to the first floor. The doors close as another of the men who were milling around Slip 628 rounds the corner. Nixon sees the man skid to a stop when he sees his friend with his own fingertip in the palm of his hand.
A bell signals the elevator’s arrival on the first floor. Nixon pushes his way back through the crowd to the exit. It’s all the same people who’d been there earlier. He’s listening for the elevator to chime it’s arrival again on the top floor. He’s waiting for a shouting mob to appear behind him and the burn of blaster fire to eventually catch him in the back. But it doesn’t come. Maybe his little display of violence was enough to keep them away. For now.
Nixon has always had to be that guy, the one who has just a tiny bit of crazy behind the eyes. Usually, it was good enough just to keep it there. The crazy promised but not proven. Sometimes, though, you had to be ready to unjar the crazy and pour it out all over the table.
He’s on the street and walking away from the starport with his hood down before he realizes that his cheek is smeared with blood. He swipes at it frantically with an open palm, and it only serves to solidify the image that he’s someone who might be a little less than stable.
He looks behind him, and there’s still not anyone following him. Not that he can tell anyway. But even if they aren’t following him now, they’ll be looking for him soon. And again he thinks about dropping the case, just setting it down in some doorway and leaving it for someone to find.
Shaine’s dead. Any ramifications of just walking away from this trouble for him are gone. Then he remembers one of the last things Shaine said to him: “Mira and the girls.”
He never really liked Mira. And he’s only met the girls a couple of times. Still. They meant something to Shaine. They shouldn’t suffer for Shaine’s bad business deals.
So fine. He’ll keep the case. He’ll get it to Planet Azken. He’ll keep the family safe. He’ll do it for Shaine.
But if he’s going to do this, he needs a ship.
06
Before he can find a ship, he needs to get off the streets. Nothing good can happen here. He’s a hunted man again.
He’s been walking for close to half an hour. He’s on the other side of Exte’s main district now. The buildings are again long and low, and his stomach is suddenly reminding him that it’s been nearly a day since he’s had any real amount of food. He needs to find a place to eat.
There’s nothing here, or not much. Neon signs color everything in a deep green, and they advertise just about everything other than food: blaster repair, ship modifications, combat gear that is designed to keep you safe but limits mobility as a byproduct. He walks at least two blocks before he sees something that sticks out like a bright star on a dark night.
It’s a noodle bowl made of red and yellow neon. The red is the bowl. The yellow is the noodles. Alternating white squiggles are the steam coming from the bowl.
Nixon goes inside and asks to be seated near the back. There are only a couple of other patrons eating when he gets there. None of them look up as he’s escorted to his table.
He pulls his datapad from a pocket in his cloak and sets it on the table. He picks up the menu in front of him, but before he orders h
e checks his credits. A few swipes of his fingers, and his balance is up in front of him. Nothing has changed.
A small part of him was hoping that Shaine had transferred the credits before they even met, his friend knowing that Nixon would take the job. But he’s here, and he’s seated, and he needs food. Nixon looks at the menu, scanning the prices first and not the items. He finds something he can afford. It’s a noodle dish that his mom used to make when dad was between paychecks.
The bowl is steaming when the waitress sets it in front of him, but Nixon doesn’t care. He takes a big spoonful of the broth and puts it in his mouth. He lets it cool on his tongue before swallowing. He savors the flavor. It’s a hot meal, and, even if it’s a cheap meal, he hasn’t eaten like this in days.
The noodles are thick and ropy and resist slightly when he chews them. He tells himself to go slow, to take the time to enjoy every bite. But he can’t. He tears through it, picking the dish up at the end and bringing it to his mouth to make sure he gets every drop of the broth.
He thanks the waitress and leaves. It’s darker outside now. The first sun has gone down and everything is cast in long shadows. The day is nearly over, and he still needs a ship.
He also needs to know who’s chasing him and who killed Shaine. The yellow eyes should be a giveaway, but he’s not in this game. He doesn’t play with these players. He’s been working almost exclusively with the Uzeks and doing jobs for the cartels in Old Town for so long that he’s not seen anyone outside that tight circle.
Then the threat to Mira and Shaine’s girls. The cartels in Old Town didn’t do that kind of thing either. Your job was your job. Those people around you didn’t get pulled into things. This was a different kind of cartel he was dealing with.
That’s when it hits him. Mira. The girls. Do they know what’s happened? Are they even safe?
++xxx++
Shaine’s place wasn’t much, but it was miles better than where Nixon had called home. It was just outside of Old Town. A couple of bedrooms. A living space. Shaine had bought the land while he and Nixon were still regularly partnering on jobs, just after he’d met Mira.
He’d called the little plot his insurance policy. A girl like her didn’t stick with a guy like him unless he gave her a reason. Shaine was betting hard on stability. It worked. They married a year later, and Shaine started building the home soon after.
Nixon stands in front of the door and knocks. “Mira!” he shouts. “It’s me! It’s Trevor!”
There’s movement behind the door and then it opens. Mira’s eyes are swollen. Her cheeks are red. She doesn’t say anything. She leaves the door open and walks back to the table and takes a seat.
Nixon steps inside.
“So you know?” he asks.
She nods and starts to cry again. Nixon takes a seat next to her and moves to put a hand on her shoulder. She dips and scoots away from him.
“What happened, Trevor? I know that you know.”
“I don’t.”
“Bullshit. I know he was in touch with you.”
“Not until recently. He offered me a job.”
Nixon sets the case on the table. “Moving that.”
Mira pulls the case to her and tries to open the top. Nixon watches her try to work the tips of her fingers in between the two halves and pry them apart. He watches as she adjusts her grip and tries again.
She slams the case down on the table and says: “You could have told me it was impossible, Trevor, instead of letting me look like an idiot.”
“Sorry.”
“So what’s inside?”
Nixon shrugs. “I haven’t been able to get it open. And Shaine was …” Nixon stops. He can’t say the word killed. He doesn’t want to hear the words come from his mouth. And he doesn’t know what Mira will do if he does say it.
“Shaine never got a chance to tell me.”
“You were with him?”
“When it happened?”
Mira nods.
“I was.”
Mira breaks down. Her arms are folded on the table top in front of her. She lays her forehead on her forearms and begins to sob. Nixon puts a hand on her shoulder, and Mira covers it with her own.
After a moment he says: “I’m really sorry. I loved him too.”
She raises her head and takes a deep breath to gather herself. “I know you did. He loved you too. You were a brother.”
“That’s why I’m here. It all happened fast, but the last thing he told me was that this job was dangerous and you and the girls aren’t safe.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But he told me about a ship at the starport…”
“Six twenty eight?”
Nixon nods. “It’s been damaged. Extremely unflyable. And the guys who did it … we had a moment. Chased me out of there.”
Mira stands and begins to say something, but Nixon doesn’t give her a chance to speak.
“You have to go,” he says. “Take the girls and get away from here. It’s not safe for you anymore.”
She’s walking the room now. She’s pulling things off of shelves and digging them out of drawers. They are all going into a large canvas bag with a heavy locking clasp on the top that she pulled from the bottom of a built-in cabinet.
Nixon watches her for a moment before she says: “It’s our disassembled go bag. It was Shaine’s idea. I knew he was working with people …”
Her voice catches. She stops for a moment and leans onto the dining table next to the canvas bag. She breathes deep once. Twice. Then she starts again.
“He didn’t give me a lot of details, but I wasn’t oblivious. He said not everyone using his services was on the up and up. But I didn’t know it was going to come to this. I always thought … if we had to leave, I thought he’d be the one getting this bag together.”
Nixon continues to watch her work. She’s methodical. There’s no hesitation. She knows what goes in the bag, and she knows exactly where to find it. It’s like she’s practiced this one hundred times.
“Where are you going to go?”
“Shaine and I had a plan.”
“And what was that?”
She drops the last of the items into the bag. She connects the clasp to close the top then sets the lock. She looks up to Nixon. “Nope,” she says. “Where we go is just for us.”
She pulls the bag off the table and the weight of it nearly knocks her to the floor.
“Fair enough,” Nixon says.
Mira heads for the door then stops. She puts the bag on the floor and goes back over to the builtins and pulls a vase off the shelf. It’s painted a rainbow swirl of colors. She looks at it one last time then throws it to the ground.
“I’ve always hated that thing,” she says and bends over. She stirs a hand through the shards of broken pottery and pulls out a card with codes written on one side. An address is on the other. She stands and hands the card to Nixon.
He takes it and flips it over, looking at both sides.
“Codes,” Mira says. “To another ship. Kind of our escape hatch if we needed it. Shaine said it was just in case. This feels like just in case to me. Use it.”
Nixon looks up from the card and back to Mira. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t need it where I’m going. Me and the girls will be safe. You on the other hand …”
“I really appreciate it,” he says. “Good luck.”
She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You too. Deliver that box. Do it for Shaine.”
07
Nixon studies the address printed on the back side of the card Mira gave him. It’s familiar. Another starport, if he’s thinking correctly. It’s back near the main district, an evening’s walk in the dark.
He goes to leave Shaine’s place but stops. He goes and looks for food, anything that won’t spoil. He doesn’t find much. A couple of sleeves of crackers. A tin of dried meat. He grabs both and tucks them into the pockets on the inside of his cloak.
It’s nearly black out, the only light is coming from the spaced out lamps hanging from wires high above the street. They cast wide pools of light, and Nixon hustles through the spots that aren’t lit at all. In between is a special kind of black that he’s never gotten used to. He doesn’t like the mystery of the dark. There’s too much unknown, and he’s spent all of his adult life trying to avoid what’s out there when you can’t see.
Out there. Where you can’t see. That’s where he’s headed. He looks to the sky and the multitudes upon multitudes of stars.
