by Tom Harem
Space Fun
Tom Harem
Space Fun Book © 2019 by Tom Harem. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Preview
Preview (Part One);
The wooden feet of the bed crept across the floor with every move we made. Matilda was on top of me, trying to take my belt off, but she couldn't do it alone. I helped her and she pulled my pants down. She admired my blue boxers for a few seconds and then looked at me again.
"I like what's underneath," she said and laughed, again with the yapping from before, "it will be our secret, a long, dirty secret."
I knew I shouldn't do it, but was I really supposed to stop her? After all, I would only be on the ship for a few days and then I would never see her or Amelia again. One time wouldn't hurt anybody, and it was always good for relieving tension. After racing through a whole new city, wounding myself and ending up tipsy in an unknown ship, having fun and then going to sleep didn't sound so bad. It sounded quite the opposite. My head was spinning as her lips came down my length. She moved her tongue while bobbing her head back and forth. All I could see was her blue hair and the threads falling on her face, as well as the brown root.
Chapter I
"Everyone here is running away from something, boy." The man behind the glass told me, his husky voice muffled, "Your name?"
"Kane Drummond," I told him, as I squeezed my backpack against my chest, afraid that someone would grab it and start running away with it. After all, everyone here was a thief or looked like one.
I looked around at the tall, shiny buildings surrounding the New Andreas spaceport. It was my first time there. I had hitchhiked from a space garbage carrier after running away from home with just a backpack containing 3 bars of cereal, a bottle of natural orange juice, my great-grandfather's gold watch, a few coins, and my father's travel diary. I left the rest behind without a second thought. I couldn't take it anymore. It was not only the daily problems at home or working as a slave in the old mines but also the dream I had since I was a child of something bigger. I had read the diary dozens of times, perhaps even hundreds, and imagined the worlds my father had described in such detail and how fascinating they all were. The adventure and the taste for danger were in my veins and I couldn't just ignore them.
"What can you do?" The man asked me, also telling all those behind me to stop pushing, "One at a time." He shouted.
"I worked in a mine. I can transport large and heavy quantities of different materials. Will that do?" I gave a tight lip smile.
"Hm, hm." The man answered me. He diverted the fringe covering his right eye and scratched the scar he had on his eyelid, the dry, red skin protruding from his pale-face, hiding it a few seconds later.
"I’ll put your name on the list. If any captain is interested, you will be contacted."
"That's it?"
"Yeah, and now get out of here. Can't you see there's a line behind you?" He said, green eyes wide open as he rubbed his cracked lips on each other.
I thanked him and gave my place to the next one in line.
I put the backpack on my back and wandered through the city's wide streets, the dust flying and obscuring the long-distance vision, also covering the faces of the people who crossed my path. Most of them were older, taller, and had a turtleneck covering their faces up to their noses. Everything there was new to me.
As soon as I reached the main streets, I released a long "wow " of so much shock that I was in. I had come from a planet inhabited by drunken miners, criminals who had no more than a knife in their pocket and taverns who had no name. But there everything was different. The bars had signs with letters of different colors indicating their names, the women wore ruffles and laces up to their knees and the men walked with their hands on each other's shoulders singing from door to door, with rosy cheeks and wet lips as well. While some people just roamed through the streets, others went to the bars or the casinos, and some stirred among the tents where weapons and items were sold. Truth be told, part of me felt that the people there knew that I did not belong there. They stared at me with disdain and a couple of the men even spat on the ground as they looked at me up and down. They were probably not used to seeing someone like me; dirty, ripped cloths, straying away from everyone, acting like I didn’t belong there. They weren’t wrong.
I ended up walking all the way to the end of one of the main streets where a small bar caught my eye.
Unlike the other bars, the walls there were harsh and stained by the time passage. There was no one at the entrance and the letters on the sign only blinked. Not to mention the ones that didn't even work. It was the perfect place for me to rest while waiting for someone to call me. I mean, I was hoping someone would need a carrier or I would have to sneak into some ship. And, let's be honest, most captains wouldn't be as kind as old Albald of the transporter.
I opened the door carefully so as not to make any noise, and yet the rusty hinges ravaged the floor. A thunderous noise that sparked all eyes to my tiny ass. Two men banged their full mugs on the table and turned to me. A woman in a corner lifted her pirate's hat and looked at me. The dimmed light did not let me see the color of her eyes, but they were as clear as daylight. I had no doubt about that.
"Close the door when you come in." A man behind the bar told me.
He had a voice similar to wood scraping on the floor and conveyed chills only with a pitch-black look.
So, I did. I sat on one of the swivel seats in front of the counter and in less than a minute I had a drink in front of me. A thick white liquid serving as a base for a brown that swirled around the middle.
"I didn't ask for anything," I told him, afraid it was a trap for tourists or rookies.
"I know, but I can tell you need it." He answered and shoved the glass towards me.
"How much is it? I don't have much money."
"Don't worry, boy." He answered. He took a break and cleared his throat, "You're new around here, aren't you? You don't have the same blood-thirsty look on your face as those who stop here."
For a moment, I thought of lying to him, but something told me that he knew the answer and just wanted me to confirm it, "Yes, I’m not from around. I'm looking for a ship to settle on."
"Hm. I see. I give you the same advice I give to everyone who comes in here with no fixed destination. Keep your head down, don't get in trouble and hopefully you'll survive."
"I don't want any trouble," I answered him.
I was going to continue when three hooded men broke in, their eyes scrutinizing the whole room.
Chapter II
"Sometimes trouble comes to us." The man said, looking at the three muscle heads who were still at the entrance, "Are you in the right place?"
One of them came up to the bar. I took the drink to my mouth and moistened my lips. It tasted sweet and, at the same time, as bitter as a lemon. I never tasted anything like it before. I couldn't take my eyes off them. It was stronger than me, even if I knew the danger I was in, if one of them didn't go along with my face.
"Stay out of this. We just want Captain Amelia and we're leaving. There's no need to get hurt." The hooded man said to him, the light from the tavern striking on his wrinkled lips and his dark mustache.
"I don't know who you're talking abou
t," the bartender answered them without taking his eyes off the man while passing a white cloth through the inside of a glass.
"We can do this the right way or the wrong way." The man continued, "We have orders to take her. Don't worry about it. They demanded her alive."
"Look around. A bar in the middle of nowhere, almost empty. Why would a captain as recognized as she would be at this end of the world?"
One of the men, the tallest, still at the entrance, walked up to the bartender and lifted him by the collar, "That's enough! We know she stops here. We're not gonna ask you again. Where's Captain Amelia?" he said, right above the sound of the glass shattering on the floor, breaking into dozens of shrapnel.
The bartender remained silent. The glued lips were so thin that seen from afar they could be confused with only the upper part. His hands were close to his body, but part of his arms was covered with his long black hair.
"Thank you, Barn. I'll take care of it from now on." The woman sitting at the table, in one of the farthest corners, said to him and got up, "You're looking for me, aren't you?" She asked them with a sarcastic sharp tongue and bowed to them.
The woman walked until she was under the bar lamp. The long wine-colored wild hair matched with the brown mantle that covered her shoulders. She took off her hat and put it on the table behind her. It was the only table that had a vase of flowers, even though they were already dry. Her blue eyes jumped between the three men in front of her.
"Dante's looking for you. You know nobody gets away from him." The tallest man said and dropped the bartender, "You have to come with us."
"If you know who I am, you know I've never been one to do what I'm supposed to do."
"Then we’re going to have to take you by force.” He answered her.
They began to draw closer to her, the three of them in a horizontal row, closing the space between them. Still, she didn't move. She didn't seem to be worried. Instead, they seemed to be doing what she expected them to do.
The boy in the corner, perhaps the youngest and experiencing the pressure nerves, ran and tossed himself at her. She strayed from him, grabbed the vase and hit him on the head while he slipped on the table. The vase broke, the earth getting in his black hair and the already yellow water rolling down his cheeks. The boy landed on the ground and no longer moved. The first man who had spoken followed. He also rushed up to her and was about to catch her if she hadn't removed her coat and thrown it over his face. She swerved and he had no time to stop before his head hit the wall. He passed out. Everything happened in a matter of seconds.
I had never met a woman like her before. Even in a risky situation, her breathing remained normal. Her face was serene, and she would go so far as to have a diabolical smile in the corner of her lips. She was... she was having fun.
"You know he won't stop sending others after you, right? And you also know we can't give up... He won't accept failures." The only one of the three men still standing told her.
"Hm, I'll deal with my problem. With yours, well, no one ordered you to work for him." Amelia answered him.
Betrayed by her own ego, she squatted to get her hat off the floor. Those distracting seconds were enough for the man to run towards her, with his shoulders rearward and head forward, and to strike her right in the belly, knocking her down. She stood on the floor, clutching her stomach, moaning about the pain. She bit her lower lip until it bled out trying not to show that she was in pain.
The man didn't care. He grabbed her hair and dragged her to the counter. Her body groveled across the dusty ground, leaving a trail of her silhouette behind. The other two men in the bar kept drinking like it was nothing to them. The bartender's eyes followed her body, but he didn't dare to interfere.
As soon as her body crashed against the wood counter, the man tied her hands with black tape and warned her that if she tried to escape, he wouldn't be as sweet as the first time.
"Give me something warm." He said, "Let's wait for the others to wake up. We have time."
I couldn't let that happen. My father had taught me that if I'm going to get into trouble, at least I should do it for a good reason, and protecting someone sounds like one of the good ones to do it. I needed an object that I could use to knock down the man but other than the vase that she had already used there was nothing else there.
Unless... Unless I used my own glass. It was my best chance. I came up with a plan within seconds. I drank what was left of the drink in one sip. The liquid went down my mouth, burning my throat and warming my body, leaving me also more liberated. I took one of the few coins I had out of my pocket. Truth be told, I had never been so nervous before in my life. I had never risked it, either. I pretended I was going to put the coin on the counter and accidentally dropped it on the floor when I actually threw it near him. I even made the whole thing of almost falling with it still between my fingers so he wouldn't suspect. I hid the empty glass behind my brown raincoat.
"You should be careful, boy. Money here is not as abundant as it may seem." The man told me, glancing at me.
For a moment I felt my whole body freezing, turning to stone and my feet being swallowed by quicksand. I dropped a short "thank you" without looking him in the eye.
My mother used to tell me that I would get into trouble soon and I never doubted her. I just never thought I'd get into such an epic mess on my first day.
I picked up the coin and stashed it in my pocket. An alcohol stain had left a mark on my black fabric pants. I tried to keep my breathing to a minimum and my steps slow, but not too slow for me to get caught as I moved closer. He sipped his beer shamelessly, the liquid flowing down his chin and falling into the brown mantle. At the back, above the neck and hidden among some hair tufts, there was a cicatrized symbol; a circle with a red line above it.
The bartender realized what I was doing and made his best impression of being interested in what the tall man had to say. The captain's eyes were on the old wood, which made up the counter. My heart beat like an earthquake dividing my body into the part where I couldn't wait to hit him and the part that whispered that I would be caught and punished. My panting breath reached the back of the man's head.
"What are you doing?" The man asked as he turned around.
I got scared and smashed the bottle in his head as fast as I could. The glass broke as soon as it touched him and he fell instantly to the ground, taking the chair with him. Blood flowed from his forehead and his eyes had closed. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I was hoping I hadn’t killed him. I touched the woman's shoulder and turned her to my side.
She looked at me from head to toe, then focused on the man lying on the ground and finally on my fingers with bits of glass and blood still on the surface.
"What the hell did you do?" She asked, and she seemed upset, "I had it all figured out."
"I just saved you," I answered her by kneeling by her side and undoing the knot.
"You just gave me one more problem, boy." She said, "Who's this?" she asked the bartender.
"New here. He saved your life, Amelia."
"What do you want in return?" She asked me, fixing her clothes and her hair.
"Nothing, I didn't do it to get something in return." I said, "I just fell like I had to help. 3 to 1 is not fair. And my name is Kane, not boy"
"Everybody wants something." She answered me as she walked up to her table to get her hat, “Kane, sure, whatever.”
"If you insist. I could use a place on a ship. I don't think I want to be here when he wakes up. I'm good at carrying boxes and I can try to learn new things. I'll do whatever it takes."
"I might have something. We better get going. I’ll charge a few favors and in half an hour you'll be wandering through space." She answered me and turned to the bartender, "Barn, are you gonna be okay?"
"Don't worry. It's not my first rodeo. I've been doing this for 40 years." He answered her and in return received a tiny smile from her.
Chapter III
We traveled across the same street
from where I had come until we reached the main alley. I had never seen such a crowded street, such tall buildings as those before my eyes, much less people dressed in such eccentric and colorful patterns. Some of them didn’t even seem human. I swear I had seen someone whose face was green and someone who had three legs.
Amelia lowered her hat, covering one eye and part of her face. She was trying to hide who she was, but it didn't seem to be working. People would glance at her and stray away from her path. What the hell had I gotten into?
I wanted to ask her who she was and why they were afraid of her, but I didn't think she'd even answer me.
I kept following her until we got to the end of the street. She stopped and looked both ways.
"My memory is not the best. Let's go this way." She said and turned to the right, "As I recall, he's always in the same casino."
"Him?"
"Someone who owes me a favor. He has a decent ship and he's always open to new crew members."
"And you don't?" I asked, treading carefully.
"You like to ask a lot of questions, don't you?" She asked me, "But no. Not inclined to accept new people. I've got enough."
"I understand... And who's Dante? I think I deserve to know what the hell I got myself into."
"Maybe you'd rather not know, but I assume you'll insist on it anyway. Dante is one of the five warlords. Let's just say I was doing a job for him and I didn't finish it. The rest doesn't matter."
"Won't they be looking for me?"
"At most around here. As soon as you get on a ship, you'll be safe. As far as they're concerned, you were just a drunken boy who wanted to protect the damsel. I advise you not to set foot in here again. And enough with the questions."
We walked along the wide street, the rustic lamps flashing despite the building lights and the casino lasers pointing towards the entrances. Amelia had her hands in the pockets of her skirt and whistled a song that got stuck in my head.
