by Sam Renner
How is there even room for a ship between all of them?
He hasn’t piloted these kinds of ships in a long time. Hasn’t been out among the stars where every direction is a possibility. Hasn’t been jammed up with opportunity, so thoroughly confused by the fact that any direction is an option that you just fly straight and fly far.
He flips the card over and over in his fingers. He rubs a thumb across the raised lettering of the codes. He presses the hard edges into the flesh at bottom of his palm.
He’s been walking a half hour now, and warehouses stretch out in front of him on either side of the street. These places are shut down. Empty. So he shouldn’t hear voices, but he does. And these aren’t human voices. These are grunts. Growls. These are Uzeks.
The hand that’s resting on the blaster now has two fingers wrapped around the trigger.
Just because these are Uzeks doesn’t mean they are associated with Uzel. Uzeks come in a variety of flavors, so there’s not a reason to panic. Not yet.
More grunting and snorting coming from the shadowy spaces between the buildings. Nixon picks up his pace and he pulls the blaster free from his waistband. He pulls the cloak up from the ground with his other hand to keep it out from under his feet if he needs to run.
Footsteps crunch behind him, and, in front of him, the lights from the shipyard start to glow. He’s still a mile away. Maybe it’s more. The Uzeks are talking again. Whispers this time, as much as something that speaks a language based on grunts and snarls is able to whisper.
He doesn’t speak Uzeki, but he has picked up a little and listens for the words he knows. He knows enough to know what he doesn’t want to hear. There’s two voices now, best he can tell, and they keep going back and forth. One grunts; the other groans.
He grips the blaster a little tighter. He eases the trigger back just a hair. He’s careful not to pull it too much farther, but he doesn’t want to be caught unprepared.
Then there’s a third voice. These grunts are higher pitched, almost sounding female. The crunching of street gravel picks up. They are walking faster. Nixo’s pace quickens. His followers double theirs.
He looks behind him. He doesn’t recognize the two larger Uzeks, but the third—the one that belongs to those higher pitched grunts—he knows. It’s the translator from the day before. She doesn’t look so innocent out here. Especially with the blaster she’s carrying across her chest.
Nixon gathers up more cloak in his hand and begins to run. All of the pain from his Uzeki beating he’d been trying to ignore has his body screaming at him. His knees. His shins. His nose. His chest and sides. It’s all there and singing a chorus of “What the hell are you doing now?”
He takes a fast glance behind and sees that the Uzeks are running too. Well, two of them. The translator isn’t. She’s standing still and pulling the balster up to her shoulder. Nixon turns back around and begins to run in a zig zag, keeping his this ways and thats unpredictable—two steps this way then five steps in the other direction before going back seven toward the other side.
He’s waiting for a shot to come, bracing for something to hit him in the back. He hears an initial shot, the deep thunk of a big blaster being fired. Then it’s the sizzle of the air as a wide column of energy gets closer. Its crackle is nearly deafening as it passes by him and slams into a warehouse wall a few dozen feet ahead.
Stone and metal explode from the wall, and only fancy footwork keeps Nixon from stumbling to the ground.
A second thunk, and this time it’s the ground in front of Nixon that disappears in a shower of dirt and rock. It’s all too close for Nixon to avoid. His feet get caught up in the loose debris, and he goes down sideways.
A third shot passes over his head just as Nixon rolls onto his back. Heavy steps approach. It’s the big Uzeks.
Nixon pushes himself up to standing and grabs the blaster that’s fallen out of his hand. He takes off in a dead sprint for the entrance to an alley that’s twenty feet away. He has his head down and fires a pair of blind shots up the street. They hit nothing, but do allow him to make it to the alley.’
There are still running steps behind him, but they stop just as Nixon gets into the deep darkest parts of the alley. They don’t leave the alley. They just stop following him deeper. They are like Koona hounds on the scent of a Grindl cat until the translator grunts something loudly in Uzeki, and they return to her side.
“Well, Mr. Nixon,” the woman says. “It seems we have ourselves something of a situation.”
Nixon hesitates then decides not to say anything.
The translator goes on. “You killed my father. Now, I have to kill you. I don’t like it. You’ve got a fight in you that I admire. But, this is how the business works.”
Nixon still says nothing. It’s blacker than black inside of this alley. He works his hand tighter around the grip of the blaster, and that’s when he feels it. His other hand. It’s empty. He’s lost the card.
“So come out of that alley. Toss the blaster out in front of you, and we’ll get this all settled.”
Nixon inches toward the alley entrance. He has no intention of turning over the blaster or handing himself over to this girl and the memory of her father. He looks out to the street. There’s something in the debris pile that doesn’t look like it belongs, but he can’t tell from here.
“C’mon, Mr. Nixon. I don’t want to have to send someone in there to get you.”
Nixon moves a couple of feet closer and looks again. There it is, the card that Mira gave him.
“My father was patient, Mr. Nixon. It’s not a trait I inherited. I’m going to give you to the count of ten and then I send someone to come get you.”
Nixon moves back from the entrance and feels around in the dark for anything he can stack.
“Ten.”
“Nine.”
He’s groping around and finds one crate. It’s narrow and tall. Then there’s a second. He puts one on top of the other and climbs up. He gropes for the top of the warehouse wall, but he hasn’t stacked crates tall enough.
“Eight.”
“Seven.”
“Six.”
He stoops and keeps a hand low, hoping to find anything else that will give him some kind of height. His hand catches something cool and smooth. It’s a metal box. He picks it up and puts it on the other two boxes.
“Five.”
“Four.”
Nixon grabs Shaine’s crate and tosses it onto the roof of the building. He tucks the blaster back into his waistband, then he climbs to the top of his stack of boxes and grabs for the edge of the roof. His fingertips catch the moulded concrete lip at the top of the wall, and his feet kick the stack of boxes over. They go down with a crash, and Nixon scrambles his feet up the wall just as the two big Uzeks round the corner.
“Oh, Mr. Nixon, there’s that fight. But I’m afraid you’re making a bad choice.”
Nixon stands so he can see from his new position down into the alley. The Uzeks that rushed into the alley have stopped. Their eagerness superceded by their fear of what’s in the dark. They start grunting something to one another, but neither of them move.
Nixon quietly steps closer to the street and toward the edge of the roof. He’s standing over them now. He’s got a shot, but he can’t fire this blaster accurately without both hands. He bends to set Shaine’s case to the ground, but his fingers are slick with sweat and dirt and it slips. It bangs into the roof, and both Uzeks whip around. They bring their blasters up with them and both fire wild shots.
Nixon drops to the rooftop and hears the shots blister the air just above him. He goes to stand and three more blaster shots explode the brick and concrete at the edge of the building. A large chunk smashes Nixon in the forehead. He puts a hand to it and presses hard. He wipes, and his palm is covered in blood.
His head is light and he gives himself a moment before crawling back away from the edge of the building. He finds a large piece of mechanical equipment and crawls behin
d it.
“Gonna be harder than that to take me out.”
“We can be here all night,” the translator calls back. “Now that you’re trapped like a dog.”
Nixon looks around. He’s safe here, for now. But he’d be safer if he could get off this roof. He puts a hand to his forehead and wipes away blood that was about to dribble into his eye.
It's all rooftop behind him, and that’s the safest place to run, so he does. He’s not more than a dozen steps away before he hears the Uzeks grunt their way onto the roof with him. One of them shout-grunts something that he ignores.
He’s at a sprint.This pace can keep the Uzeks at bay, but that assumes there is endless road in front of him. This road ends abruptly. In about 20 yards.
Nixon tries to slow, but he’s too late. He stutter steps until the very last second then leaps into what looks like a black hole.
From mid air he looks down and makes out a pile of crates and boxes. He braces then crashes through them, back first. The case comes loose and falls out of his arms. It clangs against the ground, and Nixon hears it bounce away.
He picks himself up out of a pile of sticks and busted concrete, and there’s a voice that starts speaking: “There you are, Mr. Nixon.”
Grunts come from above him. Grunts and footsteps.
The translator, closer now: "Just come out and let's put an end to this. You owe us a debt, Mr. Nixon."
Blaster fire blows a hole into the wall next to him, and he rolls away then scrambles to his feet. One of the Uzeks is looking over the edge of the roof at him, a smaller blaster up and aimed at Nixon.
Nixon raises his blaster and fires a quick shot. It misses the Uzek standing at the edge of the roof, but there’s a deep cry coming from behind that Uzek. The second one stumbles forward and into view. Nixon fires again and catches the thing in the shoulder. It spins around and toward the edge of the roof. It grabs at the air, trying to get hold of anything that can keep it from going over. It finds the forearm of the other Uzek. They struggle to stay up.
The other Uzek frantically works to free itself from the other’s grip. It raises his blaster and points it at its friend, but it’s too late. A misstep by the injured Uzek takes one leg off the roof, and its weight does the rest of the work. Both of them go over the edge, but there’s nothing piled on the alley floor to break their falls.
They aren’t high enough that the fall kills them, but Nixon’s blaster does. A couple of shots into each, and the alley floor is shiny with Uzek black goo blood.
“It’s just me and you now,” he shouts.
“That’s good,” the translator says. “Fairer fight.” She’s not as close now. She’s moved.
Nixon approaches the corner where the street meets the alley. He wipes at his eye, and peels away more blood. He has both hands holding the blaster. He sneaks a look out into the main street, but he can’t find the translator.
She calls again: “Over here. I think I’ve found something that belongs to you.”
Nixon pokes his head out again. She’s out in the middle of the street bending over the pile of debris that Nixon tripped over earlier.
She stands up and Nixon sees it in her hand when it catches a spare bit of light. It's his card. She pinches two corners of the card and lets it spin between her fingers.
"Well now." She stops the card from spinning and holds it up above her head. "Looks like something important. How about you come out now?"
Nixon steps out from the alley and onto the sidewalk. He has the blaster raised and pointed at the translator.
“So that's how we're playing this?" She asks and raises the blaster rifle up to her side and points it toward Nixon.
"This is the game now," he says and takes three steps forward off the sidewalk. "And since I'm such a good sport, I'll give you first shot."
She laughs, casual. Then the rifle jumps in her hand. A shot goes well wide of Nixon, and he returns fire almost immediately. It’s a well-aimed shot, and the translator screams when her raised hand disappears in a glow of light as the blaster beam hits her in the wrist.
Her big rifle clatters to the ground and she goes down with it. She’s screaming and holding the nub that remains at the end of her right arm.
Nixon approaches slowly, keeping her in the center of his aim just in case she has some kind of plan for a situation like this.
She doesn’t.
She’s still screaming and rolling around on the ground when Nixon gets up next to her. He drops his blaster to his side and looks at the empty end of her arm. She doesn’t fight.
“Now you and dad have something of a matched set.”
He looks closer at it. Her hand came off just below the wrist, and her green skin has gone black. There’s very little of the goo blood that he saw from the other two Uzeks he killed earlier.
“You’re lucky,” he tells her and drops her arm to the ground. She winces when the burned end hits the pavement. “Heat from that blaster bolt did a good job sealling up that wound. You should be fine walking back to wherever you go to after a fight like this.”
She just looks at him and moans with the pain.
“I wanted to kill you. Still do, being honest. But you’re going to go back with a message for me.”
He pauses for her to at least acknowledge what he’s said, but she doesn’t. Not in anything that Nixon understands. She’s muttering something in Uzek under her breath and through the moans.
“This is finished. That’s what I want you to tell whoever it is that’s in charge now. We’re even. I let you live. That squares our books.”
She’s shaking her head.
Nixon stands and looks around. It takes him a minute, but he finally sees it—a small bump in the road. And something in that bump that catches the light. It’s her hand. It’s his card.
“Not. Finished,” the translator says as Nixon walks away. “NOT! FINISHED!”
08
Nixon picks up the translator's hand by its thick middle finger. It's pudgy and soft, like an overstuffed dumpling. He plucks Mira's card out of its grip and then drops the hand back to the ground. It slaps with a meaty whop.
He wipes the card across his cloak and cleans off her black goo blood then drops it into one of his interior cloak pockets. The crackers that were there are crushed to crumbs now. He pulls the pack out and rips open one end. He tips it up and the insides come out in a wave. Most miss his mouth and fall to the ground. The rest he chews quickly then swallows.
He balls up the packaging in his hand and lets it fall to the ground.
The spaceport is a glowing beacon in front of him. Bright lights become the only thing he can see. This kind of focus is dangerous. He recognizes that and tries to fight it off by looking away from the silhouettes of ships that continue to grow as he gets ever closer. He tries, but he doesn’t succeed. Not for long anyway. He’s drawn in by the spacecraft in front of him. He’s swayed by the possibility they represent. They will let him put some distance between him and this place. Some distance between himself and the people here who want to pull him off these streets and get their pound of flesh. Or their pound of worse.
The first craft is a hauler. Boxy shaped. The kind of ugly pretty that you see when all that’s left is the potential of what something could become. The second is a speeder. It’s sitting so the cockpit points straight up. Big engines bulk up the backside of the ship. Two long arms reach out from the front.
There’s another ship. A triangular cruiser with a pugged nose that’s the best of both worlds. Plenty of room for gear but enough fire in the engines that it can get him where he needs to go and keep away from those he needs to keep away from. These are big ships, the kind of ships he hasn’t flown in a while. Sure,the Uzeks have let him fly around little utility ships when he was doing work for them, but real piloting of real ships isn’t something he’s done in a long, long time.
He’s missed the feel of a big engine pushing on you as you take off. Pressing you into your seat. A fir
e roaring beneath you. The rush of stars into your face and that feeling of possibility. Down here, he’s trapped. This road tells him where to go. It’s either this way, or it’s that way. These low warehouses keep him from going any other direction. Even the alleys between the buildings don’t offer much more in the way of choice.
But up there in the sky, controls in front of you and a ship all around you, everything is a possibility. Want to go higher? You can. Lower? Can do that too. Forward. Back. Left. Right. All of them, yes.
Nixon stares at the ships in front of him, even those ships in the second row that he can only see the tops of, but mentally he’s behind the controls of one of them—doesn’t matter which—and he’s hitting the buttons needed to tell the engines that he’s about to ask them to bring the big fire. He’s talking to the guy in a tower that he can only see pieces of from here.
