by Sam Renner
They go through the pre-flight checks. Nixon answers questions about his manifest. He gets the all-clear from his man in the tower and pushes the buttons needed to finally put life into the engines. They shake at first, all that potential energy capped and waiting. They won’t actually get the ship off the ground without Nixon giving them permission. He reaches a hand out to push the button that tells the ship that it’s OK to really rumble the rocks.
It’s just then that in the real shipyard one of those real ships really does take off. It’s the hauler, and its big engines make the ground shake and windows rattle.
Nixon smiles and watches. The noise from the engines, the rumble he can feel in his bones. The rattle that shakes his soul. It's all deafening, so much so that Nixon doesn’t hear the first blaster shot. Doesn't hear the air sizzle as it passes him. Doesn't hear it crash into the alley wall across from him.
He sees the damage it does, though. An explosion of alley wall sprays down on him. Brick and mortar in his hair. He spins and another blast leaps out of the shadows.
A bloom of fire follows the blaster bolt leaving the barrel of the rifle, and it lights up the alley where the shooter has hidden. These aren’t Uzeks. This is the gang from the spaceport earlier.
There's a thunk of a third shot, and Nixon falls flat to the ground as it screams through the air just above him.
He hears the whine of the big gun reloading and scrambles to his feet. He sprints toward one of the alleys on the opposite side of the street.
The whine stops, and all Nixon hears are his shoes slapping against the street pavers.
Thunk.
He dives into the dark of an alley, and the bolt from the blaster crashes into the wall above him. He slides across the pavers. His shoulder slams into a wall and bits of busted concrete smash his back.
Everything he hurt yesterday is screaming out again. He scrambles on his hands and heels deeper into the dark and begins to hear voices. There’s more than just this gun man. The back of his head bumps into something. He feels behind him. It’s some sort of metal barrel and feels big enough to give him some level of cover. He ducks behind it.
He pulls the blaster from his waistband and gets it ready to fire. The opening from the alley into the street is still clear, but the voices are getting louder. They are doing nothing to disguise that they are there.
One man appears. Then a second, and a third. They all stop a few feet away from the opening to the alley. None of them are holding the big blaster that was firing at Nixon.
“What are you waiting on?” calls a voice.
One of the men at the end of the alley takes a step forward then hesitates. He pulls a blaster from his waistband then takes another step into the dark.
Nixon aims his own blaster at this man. He wants to pull the trigger, lay a bolt of blaster energy square in the middle of this man’s chest. He does that, though, and it’s like shooting a flare. Sure, he’d eliminate one threat, but he'd signal his position to the other two. So he drops his blaster and crouches behind the barrel he’s been using for cover.
He listens to the man’s steps. They get closer, and Nixon waits. Then, when the man is in front of Nixon he wraps his arms around the man’s legs and pulls him to the ground. The man lands with a thud and reaches out for Nixon and grabs him by the shoulder. The man tries to raise the blaster, but Nixon grabs his wrist and tries to push the arm away.
They struggle. Nixon rakes his fingers across the man’s eyes. The man screams and the hand with the blaster immediately grabs for his face. Nixon moves his hand up and grabs the man’s hair. He pulls the man’s head off the pavement then slams it back down. The smack echoes quickly down the alley, and Nixon does it again and then again and then again. The sound becomes wet then sticky and Nixon doesn’t stop until it sounds like he’s working a mop in a bucket.
It’s all over in a matter of seconds. The man is still and not breathing. Nixon’s never killed a man with his hands, but he doesn’t have time to think about that now. He looks back down the alley, and the two remaining men are staring into the darkness calling their friend by his name.
He grabs the blaster out of the dead man’s grip. He looks at it quickly. It’s not as powerful as the Uzek blaster, but it’ll get him out of this alley.
He pops up from behind his barrel and shoots once at the man leading the way. The man squeezes off a wild blast as he falls that winds up crushing a section of wall somewhere behind Nixon.
Nixon is back down behind his barrel and a shot from the second man pierces the top. A second shot rips a ragged chunk out of the wall above his head. A third hits the ground inches in front of him. He’s pinned down.
“OK! OK!” he shouts and puts one hand above the barrel.
“Toss the blaster,” the man shouts from the alley entrance.
Nixon tosses the Uzek blaster back into the dark of the alley. It clangs and clatters against the pavement.
“Now come up real slow.”
Nixon does as he’s told and stands slowly, one hand still raised above his head. Once his other hand, the one still holding the other blaster, clears the barrel he raises it quickly and fires a pair of shots in rapid succession.
The first: Hits the ground and tears up the paver stones there, the disintegrated tiles creating a cloud of dust.
The second: Hits the man in the neck, causing a fountain of blood to arc to the ground. The man grabs at his throat and falls to his knees then over on his side. He’s not dead, but it won’t be long.
The world is suddenly quiet again. Quiet but for the whine of the big blaster charging. Nixon steps toward the street. He presses his back to the wall and takes small stuttering steps. He pokes his head out quickly but the street is empty. He pulls back.
He pokes his head out again, looking across the street to the alleys across from him. They all look empty, but he knows they can’t be because the big blaster still whines.
He scans one more time, looking quickly from left to right and back again.
Then.
There.
A red light flashes. An indicator on the big blaster that it’s ready to fire.
A bolt of blaster energy as thick as a tree trunk leaps from the alley and obliterates the wall next to him. Brick and concrete fall all around, and Nixon looks back to the alley opening where he’d seen the light before. It’s dark now, but the whine has returned. He has time, but only a bit, and firing blind into an alley isn’t going to do him any good.
He fires the blaster instead into the ground in front of the alley, and the shots start digging up and destroying the paver stones and creating a second cloud of pavers and dust.
It's cover. Not much, but enough.
Nixon breaks out of the alley. The blaster is in one hand. The case is in the other. The bottom of his cloak waves and pops behind him as he runs.
In front of him are the silhouettes of the ships in the spaceport. They are becoming a clearer picture as he sprints toward them. The little speeder doesn't look so little. The cruiser looks bigger and boxier the closer he gets.
Again, the big gun whines.
Then there’s the concussive thunk of the big gun firing. The shot misses and digs a crater out of the ground in front of him. The impact knocks him to a knee and the case falls out of his hand. The metal box skips and skids away.
He scrambles on his hands and knees to get it, and he hears the sound of footfalls behind him. He looks, and coming up fast is the man who’s been firing the blaster at him. The gun is whining again.
Nixon gets to his feet and picks up the case then turns back toward the spaceport. He runs an irregular path, trying to keep his next move unpredictable. The big gun fires again anyway, the shot smaller this time because whoever is operating it didn’t let the gun get a full charge.
Nixon looks behind him, and the gunman is fiddling with the blaster, changing whatever kind of shot he’s been firing. Nixon turns back around and tries to will more energy out of a body that’s mo
re than tired.
Has this only been two days? Was it really just yesterday morning that he was pinned against that alley wall, worrying what Uzel the Uzek was going to do to him? Just a day since he was sitting with Shaine at the Goodtimes Palace?
The air sizzles and a shot from the blaster passes over Nixon’s shoulder. It bores its way through the wall of the spaceport that’s still a hundred feet away. Nixon changes direction and hears another shot crackling its way toward him. This one is from a second gunman, and it catches the edge of his cloak.
He runs toward a wide opening in the wall in front of him. Above the opening is a sign: Exte North Spaceport. To the right of the text is Tychon’s bisected triangle.
Nixon passes under the sign then stops and presses himself against the concrete wall. A shot from the blaster follows him in. The shot somehow misses hitting anything and drives a hole into the wall at the back of the spaceport.
Nixon looks back out the opening and fires a pair of shots at the gunmen who’ve been chasing him. They both miss, but these are moving targets. Still, they give him a moment. He starts running toward the ships and pulls out the card from Mira.
He’s looking for slip 1112. A sign points him in the right direction, and he starts to run harder and faster, the possibility of imminent escape putting extra energy into his steps, an extra beat into his heart. A blaster shot comes from the entrance. It hits the ship in front of him, and Nixon changes course. He wants to put whatever he can between his back and these gunmen.
As big as these ships looked on the way here, they are ten times that large when running between them.
Slip 1108.
Slip 1109.
The air crackles with blaster energy, and a fat hauler absorbs a shot from the blaster. It leaves a scorched and jagged hole in the side of the ship.
Slip 1110.
Another shot. This one hits the bubbled pilot cover on the speeder and cracks it into a million spiderwebbed pieces.
Slip 1111.
Slip 1112.
There it is. Shaine’s ship. The cruiser.
It’s bigger than it looked from the street. Shaine didn’t waste any credits on this ship. She’s not a pretty bird, but she doesn’t need to look pretty as long as she flies fast.
Nixon has been keeping something, anything, between him and the gunmen, and it’s worked mostly. But now, he’s going to have to step out into a clearing and expose himself.
Nixon counts down then sprints into the open.
Thunk.
Another thick and heavy blast from the big gun. It crushes the side of the speeder.
Nixon slips behind the side of the cruiser, and there’s a ramp lowered to the ground. Nixon steps across and into the ship. It’s all overwhelming—so many buttons and screens and switches. He looks at the card again. There are codes there that will get this cruiser started.
Thunk. And an instant later the sound of metal tearing, and the whole ship rocks to one side. Nixon hurries to the exit, and there’s the gunman at the end of this row of ships. The blaster is up to his shoulder with the cruiser sited.
Another thunk, and the ship rocks again. This time alarms sound when it settles. An indicator on the board in front of the pilot’s seat flashes. Nixon takes a seat, the card still out and in his hand.
The light says that one of the three engines is out. She should still fly if Nixon can get her started.
Nixon holds the card in front of him and starts punching the code written there into the keypad on the panel in front of him.
He enters the first few numbers and the ramp that had been open begins to close.
There’s another thunk, and the ship rocks again—opposite direction this time. Another engine absorbing another shot.
Nixon continues with the code once he settles. He has to get it entered before the gunman fires again. He hits that second engine one more time and Nixon’s not going anywhere.
He’s staring at a series of three codes, each progressively longer. The first started the ramp closing.
He starts entering the second code and things inside the ship begins to ping and pop. Something liquid is moving behind these metal walls. Fuel, Nixon assumes.
He enters the last number on the card and the ship jostles. He can hear the fire in the engines waiting to be told that it’s time to go.
Then there’s a voice from outside. Barely audible but there.
“We know who you are, Mr. Nixon.”
He keeps punching the final code, the longest of the three and the most complicated. While he’s doing this he’s waiting. Waiting for whoever is outside to continue their speech. Waiting on the gunman to …
THUNK
The ramp that had just closed crushes in on the ship, but the seal holds. Then there’s more talking from outside the ship.
“We’ll hit you again, Mr. Nixon. Maybe not here, but we’ll find you. We’re everywhere. You won’t be able to outrun us no matter where you go.”
THUNK
The gunman hits the door again as Nixon enters the last bits of the code. The ship shakes and Nixon is pushed back into his seat as the craft jumps from the surface and rushes into space.
The flight is uneven, off balance. It’s the missing engine. The cruiser isn’t sprinting out to space on a straight trajectory. It’s going at an angle. Nixon is fighting to keep her from arching over and crashing into the ground somewhere outside of Exte. It’s keeping him from thinking about the gunman. It’s keeping him from thinking about whoever was shouting at him from outside the ship. It’s keeping him from thinking about anything.
He fights the controls until the sky fades to black and the gravity has stopped trying to drag him back down into the dirt. He watches the screens to his left. He’s expecting to see the indicator of another ship there, someone blasting away from the starport and giving chase, but he doesn’t. The screens are empty except for ships and rocks and debris that was already out here.
With the screens clear, he settles into the pilot’s seat. He lets his body sink into the cushions. He lets himself really exhale for the first time in two days. He knows he’s not out of the woods. This is all just starting, especially if the warning that was being shouted from outside the ship is true.
“We’ll hit you again, Mr. Nixon. Maybe not here, but we’ll find you.”
If whoever this is really is everywhere then nowhere is safe. He checks the monitors again. There’s nothing suspicious there. Not yet. So, for now, this may be the safest place he can be.
He looks again at Shaine’s card. There’s another set of numbers on there. Nixon recognizes them as coordinates. He turns to the navigation console and inputs the numbers. The ship processes the coordinates for just a second then a plotted course to Planet Azken appears. It’s going to be a long flight.
Nixon unbuckles from the pilot’s seat and stands. He pulls off his cloak and empties the pockets. He puts all of it, the blaster and the case, on the top of the dash in front of him then folds his cloak over twice and sets it in the seat meant for the co-pilot.
He looks out the front of the ship, and it’s nothing but the black of space. He sits again in the pilot’s seat and grabs the case as he does. He rolls it over in his hand. It’s smooth surface is reflecting the lights from the dash. The thin seam that runs around the case’s middle catches the grooves of his fingers. Three buttons are slightly sunken into one side just above that seam.
He pushes the buttons, and they softly beep. He tries to work out the combination, but the case never comes open. Never even close.
He tosses it, and it tumbles across the dash.
“What have you gotten into, Shaine? What’s in that case that can be causing this much trouble?”
END
Continue Trevor Nixon’s Galaxy-Hopping Adventure in Episode 2
Galaxy Run:
Umel
Blaster fire has a way of focusing the mind. For Trevor Nixon, that focus was on one thing—survival.
Off Exte, he�
��s safe. For now. But he’s stuck with a ship that’s nearly shaken itself apart in his escape, and it’s forced him to land on a planet he’s never seen and work with people he doesn’t know. All in an effort to keep his mission of redemption and revenge going.
But how long can he lay low and stay hidden when he keeps making enemies?
GET IT NOW
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