Renegade Earth

by J. N. Chaney

  I stuck my hand inside my pocket again and felt the bobblehead. Should I even have this on me right now? Holy shit, what was I thinking, bringing this here?

  “Hi there, Jace,” said Jerry as I approached his desk. He looked disappointed, almost sad. “I guess Brooks told you what was going on, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “We have two temps trying to juggle Officer Bishop’s case files, but it’s going to take time to organize them all. I’ll mark you down on the list so we know you checked in this week, but you can go home now. Just visit us again next week, same as usual. We should have a new parole officer for you by that point.”

  I nodded again.

  “Okay, good. Have a nice day, Jace. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  I turned and took a few steps towards the door, but paused before I reached it.

  “Something wrong?” asked Jerry.

  I looked back at him. “I was just wondering,” I said, having a hard time getting the words out. “Did Officer Bishop really skip town?”

  “Nothing has been confirmed, yet,” said Jerry.

  “But that’s what they’re saying, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “That’s the working theory,” he confirmed.

  My eyes moved to the base of the desk, lingering. “Oh.”

  “Look, I’m sure it’ll all come out in the news soon enough. Try not to think about it and just concentrate on your schooling.”

  “I will,” I said, faking a smile. “Thanks.”

  I walked through the door and back onto the street, waiting until I had enough space between me and the building before I started letting myself panic. Not completely, but enough to feel it.

  The urge to take off running swept over me, but I resisted it. The boarding home wasn’t far. I just had to get there and pretend like everything was fine.

  “Jace!” called someone.

  My name snapped me out of my trance and I looked around.

  “Jace!” It was coming from the nearby alley, beside the health department building.

  I had to blink a few times to focus my eyes. Everything was so bright right now.

  “Hey, man, you okay?” The figure waved at me. It was…

  “Matty?” I asked, finally recognizing him.

  He hurried me inside the walkway, taking my hand the second I was close enough and led me a few meters away from the sidewalk.

  Prisby poked his head from behind a dumpster, looking totally rattled. “Man, is it good to see you, Jacey! We’ve been wondering how you were holding up.”

  “You just come from the probie office?” asked Matty.

  “Yeah, what about you guys?” I asked.

  We’ve been waiting for you this whole time. Man, I told you we should’ve split up and watched both sides of the street!” said Matty, shoving Prisby in the shoulder.

  “Don’t blame me,” said Prisby. “Anyway, look, Jace, the heat’s coming down on Jesson right now. Ain’t no getting around it.”

  I felt the bobblehead in my pocket. “Because of Lawrence?”

  Prisby nodded. “These cops usually don’t give two pills what happens to a kid on the streets, especially a thievin’ one. Most of the time, they just toss the case and call it a day. Say it’s all for the best. One less punk.”

  “Not this time,” said Matty.

  “This time,” continued Prisby, “someone went and ratted Jesson out. He’s gotta skip town just to stay clear of the cops. They know he had something to do with Lawrence breaking into that house and stealing that money, but they don’t know who else was involved.”

  “They don’t know about us,” said Matty.

  Prisby reached into his pocket and took out a small pouch. He unzipped it, revealing a stack of credits. “Jesson’s gone. He stopped by yesterday and told me he had to leave and he wasn’t coming back, but he gave me our cut of the job.”

  He gave me a handful of money, which I quickly shoved in my pocket so nobody could see.

  “He said we gotta play it straight for a while,” said Prisby. “No acting up. No getting any attention. Otherwise, they’ll all figure out it was us.”

  “When do we get to see him again?” I asked, hoping for something more than a stupid goodbye.

  “I dunno,” admitted Prisby.

  I could feel myself getting frustrated. Why hadn’t Jesson come to my house? Didn’t he trust me enough to tell me everything? Maybe I could’ve helped him figure it out. Maybe I could’ve gone with him. Instead, I was hearing all of this from Prisby. “This is bullshit,” I finally said. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “Actually, we wanted to talk to you about that,” said Matty.

  Prisby leaned in. “We’re gonna keep the crew going.”

  “Keep it going?” I balked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Hear us out,” said Matty.

  I scoffed. “How are we supposed to even find jobs without Jesson?”

  “All he did was keep an ear down. We hear about shit all the time around the homes. Are you telling me you ain’t already got a few ideas? We brought half our jobs to Jesson anyhow.”

  “But he made sure it always went okay. Jesson was—”

  “You mean like he did with Lawrence?” asked Prisby.

  I tensed, but said nothing.

  “Jesson messed up. He knows it. He was supposed to be looking out for Flint, but instead he was busy packing his shit to skip town. That’s the truth, Jacey. He told me so himself.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said, shaking my head. “Jesson would never do that to us.”

  “Well, he did,” replied Prisby.

  “Jesson’s gone,” said Matty. “He’s not coming back. It’s up to us to keep the crew together now.”

  “I’ve been using the money for extra food for my sisters. They can’t eat on factory creds,” said Prisby.

  “Same was true with Lawrence, too,” said Matty.

  “What?” I asked at the sound of my dead friend’s name.

  “Lawrence was using his cut to take care of his family. His mom’s working two jobs just to pay the rent. Lawrence was giving her his cut to pay for food.”

  I’d known about that, but was only just now realizing what losing Lawrence would do to his family, beyond the grief of it. He had all those siblings, most of which were too young to work in the factories.

  “You really think we can do it by ourselves?” I asked.

  Prisby nodded. “We still got the tech he gave us, like the Breakout Box. We can do this, Jace.”

  I thought about it for a moment, clutching the bobblehead in my pocket, flicking the head over and over again. Prisby was right. We could probably pull this off, even without Jesson giving us the jobs, but it was still dangerous. We’d lost Lawrence because we weren’t prepared enough, because we were cocky and stupid. No more of that.

  “If we do this, it has to be the right way,” I said, looking at the two of them. “We play things smart every time. No screw ups. Not after last time. If it means we gotta skip a bunch of jobs, then we skip them. We only take the safe ones we know we can handle.”

  They both seemed to agree, giving me a slow nod.

  “We were cocky before,” I muttered, still holding the bobblehead. “Maybe Jesson messed up, but we were loud in the house, and we didn’t have anyone on lookout. It’s all our faults, not just Jesson’s. That’s the real truth about it.”

  “Yeah,” said Matty, frowning.

  “That’s why we’re gonna split every job we do like Lawrence is still here. Four ways.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Prisby.

  “Matty said it before. Lawrence’s family needed the money he was making. We screwed shit up, so now we gotta make it right. He was our crew, so now we have to do what he can’t no more.”

  They both looked at the ground, almost ashamed, and nodded.

  I pulled out the bobblehead and showed it to them. “No more screw ups. We do it right this time. That’s how we’re gonna survive.”r />
  Nineteen

  I woke up with a head fog so thick that it took me close to a minute to figure out where I was and what I was doing here.

  A light pain ached in my arm, but it wasn’t bad enough to complain about. I looked beside me and saw Abigail, her legs folded inside a chair, her head lying in her arm.

  Next to her, I spotted a few familiar items. A change of clothes, a self-heating travel mug, and my Foxy Stardust bobblehead.

  “You’re awake,” said Abigail, stirring in her chair. She let her legs down and stretched her arms, smiling warmly at me. “Athena said you’d be up soon.”

  “Did she?” I asked.

  Abigail scooted her chair beside my pod and placed her hand on mine. “How do you feel?”

  “Rough, but better than the last time I was here.”

  “Well, you’ve been asleep for a day,” she said.

  “A day?” I asked. “No wonder I feel so stiff.”

  She gave me a stern look. “Considering how we found you, a little stiffness is hardly worth complaining about.”

  “Don’t tell me what to complain about,” I said, but in a way that suggested I was joking. I nodded at the pile of supplies on the nearby table. “Looks like you’ve moved yourself in.”

  “You know me,” she said. “I couldn’t stay away.”

  I smiled at her, taking her hand in mine. “How’s everyone else doing? What’s the situation?”

  “Everyone is fine, Jace. We lost a few more in the fight, but far less than any of us expected. Turns out, we had the worst of it down on that planet. Between Sigmond’s drones, Titan, and the other strike ships, the enemy didn’t stand a chance.”

  “What happened to those cruisers?” I asked.

  “Two were destroyed, but the others fled, with one exception.”

  “The Galactic Dawn,” I said.

  She nodded. “Without a working shield, defense cannons, or a slip drive, Bolin and Octavia’s squadrons surrounded the ship in record time. It’s ours now.”

  I had no doubt about that. Present company excluded, those two were the best pilots in our fleet, and they’d done a fine job training their squads. “How’d they manage that? Is the crew dead?”

  Abigail laughed. “Hardly. Alphonse bartered a deal with the remaining bridge crew. We let them leave on one of the other cruisers in exchange for the ship. It was either that or we destroyed it.”

  “I take it they accepted the terms,” I said.

  She nodded. “Almost immediately.”

  “Then, The Dawn belongs to us.”

  “It does,” said Abigail. “The Union’s flagship. Who would have imagined that?”

  “Not me,” I answered. “I still can’t believe the plan worked.”

  “Well, believe it, mister,” she said, reaching beside her for the travel mug. She gave the lid a twist. The scent of coffee hit me almost immediately. “But let’s save the business talk for later. Right now, let’s focus on what you need. Coffee, fresh clothes, and then some food.”

  “Now you’re talking,” I said, taking the cup from her and having a nice, long sip.

  “I knew you’d like that,” she said.

  I gulped half the cup down, gasping when I was done. “This is how I want every hospitalization to go. Make sure you remember that.”

  “I thought it would make you feel more at home,” said Abigail, taking the cup and setting it on the table, right beside the bobblehead.

  “Is that why you brought Foxy?” I asked.

  She glanced at the bobble and laughed. “You got me. Is it too much?”

  “No,” I said, staring at the toy. “No, it’s good.”

  She reached across my chest and ran her fingers down my arm and shoulder, placing her head on my chest, and we sat there together for a while in silence.

  I took the bobblehead off the table and examined it in my hand, slowly turning it and noticing all the dents in the paint, probably for the first time in years. I still remembered the night I found this thing in the junkyard. The stink of the cars. The cold chill in the air. The blood in my friend’s chest as he lay dying on the other side of that fence.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Abigail. She stared up at me with gentle eyes, inviting me to speak.

  “This toy,” I said in a raspy voice. “I promised you I’d tell you the story, didn’t I?”

  “You don’t have to talk about it right now,” she said.

  I smiled at her and kissed the top of her head, holding my lips there for a while. After a few minutes, I cleared my throat. “When I was a kid, I ran with a small crew. We did easy jobs, mostly snatch and grabs. Nothing too serious.”

  Abigail squeezed her cheek against me, saying nothing.

  “The night I picked this toy up, we were out in a junkyard, trying to steal some money from a safe. It should’ve been easy, but we messed it up and someone died.”

  “One of your friends?” asked Abby.

  I nodded. “He found this while we were waiting to break in, and I could tell it mattered to him, so I decided to hold on to it until the job was over.” I took a long breath. “But he never made it out of that junkyard.”

  “So, you held onto it,” said Abby.

  “At first, I kept it hidden away, afraid that if anyone saw it, they’d figure out the truth--that I was guilty, that I deserved to be locked up for getting my poor friend killed. I kept thinking that someone was going to piece the whole thing together and I’d wind up right back in juvie, but none of that ever happened. The cops decided Lawrence had done it alone. They didn’t give a damn about some junkyard owner and his missing credits, and they especially didn’t care about a trespassing kid.”

  Abigail took my hand and brought it closer so she could examine the bobblehead.

  “I never meant to hold onto this for as long as I did,” I said. “Somehow, I ended up keeping it around. My bedroom dresser, the dash on my first car, and eventually my ship. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the night he died, and I told myself I had to be better. Maybe I thought I needed it.”

  “Maybe you did,” she agreed. “It sounds like it kept you alive.”

  “I guess it did, in a sense,” I conceded.

  “Then, I’m thankful to it,” said Abigail, taking the bobblehead and kissing its visor. She handed it to me and smiled. “It brought you to Lex and me, all the way from Epsy to Taurus, and finally soon to Earth.” She gave me a warm smile, and I melted. “And our lives are all the better for it.”

  * * *

  Freddie was in his room when I found him, back on his feet and walking. He gave me a grin when he saw me at the door, relief all over his face. “Captain! Please, come in,” he exclaimed.

  “Thanks,” I said, stepping inside the doorway.

  The scholar kept his room as clean and pristine as a fine hotel, everything in its place, all his clothes folded and placed in a drawer. It was a stark contrast from mine. There wasn’t even a bottle of whiskey to be found.

  “So, how are you feeling?” I asked, after a moment.

  “I’m doing well. Thank you, sir. I still have some aches, but Athena says those should go away soon.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “How about you?” he asked. “You had it worse than anyone, the way I heard it.”

  “Don’t you worry about me, Freddie. It wasn’t my first time in the pod and it probably won’t be the last.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” he said. “Although, let’s hope it is, all the same.”

  I nodded. “How are you doing, aside from the pain?”

  He bent his head and looked at the floor, taking a second to answer. “Do you mean psychologically?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He sat on the side of his bed, pausing again. “Honestly, I’m just thankful to be alive, sir. The whole time we were on that planet, I assumed I might be killed. Knowing that possibility, I’d already prepared myself. Then, when I was shot, I started thinking, This is it. This is where it happe
ns, but it’s okay because at least—” He paused, swallowing. “—at least I was useful.”

  Freddie rubbed his chest and shoulder, bending his neck.

  I sat beside him. “Useful?”

  “Darius Clare once said that the greatest thing a man can do is find a way to be useful, to be someone through which others are made better and kept safe, so that when you leave this world, those who knew you, and indeed the world at large, is made better because you were alive.” He let out a short sigh, then shook his head. “I used to think I could do that by reading. I went through the entire archive and studied everything I could get my hands on, but I never felt like I was truly contributing. That is, until I came aboard your ship, Captain, and saw the things you could do and how useful you could be to others.”

  I laughed at the notion. “You sure had a higher opinion of me than I did.”

  “Maybe so, but everyone on Titan is alive because of you. You’ve done more for my cause than I ever could have dreamed. Possibly more than Darius himself. If that isn’t being useful, I don’t know what is.”

  “Kid,” I said, turning to him. “If you think for a second that you had to get shot to do that, then you can’t see the forest for the godsdamn trees.”

  “W-What?”

  “How many times did you risk your life to get here?” I asked. “More than I can count, that’s for damn sure. You were just a scholar, no combat experience under your belt, but you didn’t let it stop you from doing what had to be done. That’s more than the rest of us can say. If that ain’t being useful, Freddie, than I sure as hell don’t know what is.”

  “Th-Thank you, Captain,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just try to avoid getting shot next time, alright?” I smacked him on the back. “A dead man ain’t useful to anyone but the grass and the worms.”

  He laughed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  * * *

  Athena called everyone together on the bridge as I was leaving Alphonse’s room. “Captain, we should arrive out of slipspace in approximately twenty minutes,” said the Cognitive.