by Sarah Noffke
“The climate?” asked Julianna.
Hatch tapped the screen and then began reading. “At any given time, the winds can be upward of thirty miles per hour.”
“That’s not too bad. I’ve been in way worse,” said Eddie.
“Except this is the dry desert, and the city is prone to dust storms. Have you ever seen one of those?” asked Hatch. He looked smug, like he knew the answer was going to be no.
“If I did, then I slept through it,” teased Eddie.
Hatch shot right back at him, “Well, a dust storm offers zero visibility and can suffocate you within a minute.”
“Can you make us a dust-storm suit?” asked Eddie.
“I could, but you’d be shot on the spot,” said Hatch with finality.
Eddie jabbed his elbow playfully in Julianna’s direction. “I vote for no dust-storm suit, then. What do you say?”
“You mentioned a dress code?” asked Julianna.
Hatch puffed his cheeks. “Yes. This town was modeled after the old West on Earth, which fits the climate. There’s a main road, a saloon, horses, and a slew of cowboys.”
“Cow-what?” asked Eddie, a wide grin forming on his face. He thought Hatch was kidding, but the look on the doctor’s quickly deflating cheeks told him otherwise.
“Cowboys. If you hope to stroll through that town and not get shot immediately you’re going to need new clothes, something that won’t make you stick out,” explained Hatch.
“Knox goes there, so why can’t we dress like him?” asked Eddie.
“Have you looked at the boy? He doesn’t look anything like you two in your uniforms,” said Hatch.
“So we need torn-up clothes and a funky haircut?” asked Eddie.
“That would make you look like riffraff. You want to look superior enough that you don’t get everyone and their dog riled up. If you have the whole town shooting at you, you won’t make it out alive,” said Hatch.
“But if we blend in?” asked Julianna.
“Then you’ll stroll in there without a problem,” conceded Hatch. “You can find Axel and stroll out without being questioned.”
“So what do we need to do, and what do we need to wear?” asked Julianna.
Hatch spun the pad in his tentacles to face them. It showed a picture of a man wearing blue jeans, a crisscross-patterned shirt, and a Stetson hat. “You’re going to have to dress like cowboys.”
Chapter Six
Rooming Corridor, QBS ArchAngel, Behemoth System
Eddie nodded to the guard outside Knox’s room. Julianna might have been right that he belonged in the brig, but Eddie just couldn’t sanction that. Instead they compromised, and a guard was stationed outside his room around the clock.
“At ease,” he said when the guard saluted.
Eddie pulled a beer out of the case he’d brought and handed it to the guard. “For you,” he said, then added, “when you’re off-duty, of course.”
“Uh, yes, sir. Thank you,” said the guard, taking the beer with an awkward smile. He pressed a button on the wall, and the door to Knox’s room slid back to show him lying on his bed, hands clasped over his abdomen and eyes pinned on the ceiling.
“Hey there,” said Eddie, plopping the case of Blue Ale on the floor between the stiff chair and the bed. The room wasn’t cozy, but it was definitely adequate. Eddie had certainly stayed in worse conditions—way worse. He suspected Knox had too.
“Did you come to see if I was plotting to take over your ship?” asked Knox, his tone dull and bored.
“Not my ship, just borrowing it as a base of operations for the time being.” Eddie popped the top off the beer using a churchkey and took a sip. “And no. I think you’re a pretty resourceful guy, but I don’t think you’d stand a chance of taking over this ship on your best day. No offense.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Knox, sitting up. He eyed the case of beer before looking at Eddie.
“Go on, I brought them for you. Well, for me too. Okay, I mostly brought them for me, since I’m guessing you’re a lightweight.” Eddie laughed, giving the kid an easy smile.
Knox started to smirk, but stopped himself and grabbed a beer, although he didn’t open it. “I might be able to take this ship. You don’t know.”
“Yeah? Watch this,” said Eddie. He cleared his throat. “ArchAngel?”
“Yes, Eddie? What do you need?” asked ArchAngel’s voice overhead.
Knox’s eyes widened in alarm as the AI spoke, causing Eddie to show a slight smile.
“Who flies this ship?” asked Eddie.
“I do, of course,” answered ArchAngel.
“Can anyone take control from you, even someone who is quite resourceful?” challenged Eddie.
“All scenarios predict that to be impossible, so, no. This will remain my ship,” said ArchAngel, “indefinitely.”
“Thanks, ArchAngel. That’s all I wanted to know.” Eddie took another drink and leaned back in the chair, crossing his feet on the floor.
“If you’re not worried about me taking over the ship, then what’s with the guard?” asked Knox.
Eddie shrugged. “Just a precaution. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Knox used the key to open his own beer and tossed it on the table beside the bed, holding the beverage up slightly in Eddie’s direction as if in gratitude. “Was that an AI? I’ve heard about those, but I’ve never met one before.”
“Sure was,” said Eddie, taking another pull.
“You must have stolen this ship from the Federation then,” Knox deduced.
Eddie didn’t correct him, just sipped his beer and studied the boy. He was young, yet had wisdom in his eyes. It must have been all those years of living on the fringe. Hardship in all its many forms often made for clever men.
After a moment Knox said, “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Eddie shrugged like he wasn’t quite sure, even though he knew full well the reason. “We need you to take us directly to Axel instead of just arranging the meeting.”
Knox didn’t seem shocked by the suggestion. “I was planning to do that…if it turned out you weren’t a bunch of assholes. Axel doesn’t allow any visitors in to see him except me. He’d smell something fishy if I set up a meeting. Not really the trusting type, I guess.”
“Yeah?” asked Eddie.
Knox nodded. “He shoots trespassers, but usually doesn’t kill them unless he has to.”
“So, in one scenario you were going to allow us to walk in there and get ourselves shot?” asked Eddie, amused.
“That would only have happened if you were assholes.” Knox held up the beer. “But you brought me a beer and honestly, so far you guys seem all right. A bit on the edgy side, but who on the fringe isn’t? I just haven’t figured out if I can trust you yet.”
“Same here, but my instinct tells me I can,” agreed Eddie. He was watching Knox study the room, but suspected he was mostly putting things together in his brain. Knox was smart, and eventually he’d figure out what Eddie and Julianna were doing out here. It was only a matter of time.
“That ship of yours,” began Eddie. “The Black Eagle. Where did you get it?”
Knox smiled, his eyes a little distant as if he were remembering. “Catfish—that’s what I nicknamed her. Mateo gave her to me, let me paint her.”
Eddie remembered the immature whiskers and fin spray painted on the side of the ship. It gave the vessel personality—about like Knox.
“Mateo was in charge of the Defiance Trading Company, right?” Eddie’s tone shifted. He knew Mateo had died. Worse, he knew Knox had watched it happen. Now, hearing this kid speak of his former boss like this, it sounded like Mateo had been more than just the boy’s employer. A mentor, or perhaps even a father?
Knox nodded. “Yeah, but he wasn’t a bad guy, I can tell you that much.” His tone grew defensive, like he expected accusations to follow. The boy’s walls were going up again.
Eddie took a long drink and belched. “I didn’t say he was.�
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“Well, I get that it was a shifty operation. He wouldn’t have sold guns to Felix under normal circumstances, but we needed the money. Things were changing. Deals had dried up recently.”
“It’s because there are other groups doing what Defiance did. Groups operating inside Federation space,” explained Eddie. “How’d you get mixed up with them anyway? You mentioned your father before.”
Knox took a quick drink to cover his expression and wiped his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, after my pops disappeared I didn’t have anywhere to go. I was just a kid then.” His voice trailed off, memories reflected in his eyes. Eddie found it amusing that Knox thought he had been just a kid back in those days. He still looked like a teenager even now.
Knox cleared his throat and continued, “I was living on the streets trying not to starve to death, and every day I’d line up for rations from the Food Bank. It wasn’t much, just a slice of bread usually, but I’d get my rations and go off to eat. I didn’t like to cram it all in my mouth at once like the other kids did, because once it’s gone, it’s gone. You learn to save some of it, even just the crumbs.”
Eddie nodded but said nothing.
Knox took another swig. “I was about to take my first bite when something slammed into the back of my head. I still remember the shock of it. The confusion. I fell to the ground and my bread dropped into a dirty puddle. There was blood running down my neck, but all I could think about was how my bread was ruined. Can you imagine that?” He laughed, surprising Eddie, then shook his head. “Anyway, I rolled over and saw some bigger kids towering over me. They were pissed that I’d dropped the bread, since that was the whole reason they were there in the first place. They started beating me, one after the next, pinning me down so I couldn’t fight back, until a voice yelled for them to stop. They ran off when they saw it was a grown man and he was heading our way. I pushed myself up and tried to stand, but then I saw the one who had yelled at us. He was huge, like he’d never gone a day without eating a mountain of protein. You want to talk about terrifying? He had a long scar over his eye, and snarled when he got to me. I thought he was going to kill me.” Knox laughed again, a fond look on his face.
“What happened next?” asked Eddie.
“He yelled at me. Can you believe that? He yelled at me right after I got my ass beaten.” Knox took in a big breath and puffed out his cheeks, his voice suddenly much deeper. “What the hell is wrong with you, kid? You can’t just sit there like that! You need to stand up! Fight back!” Knox looked up at Eddie with a smile, but let it quickly fade into a frown. He pushed off the bed and exchanged an empty bottle for a full one.
Eddie realized he still had half a beer, so maybe this guy could outdrink him after all. “That was Mateo?”
Knox nodded. “Yeah. He took me in and cleaned me up to start with, but then he taught me how to fight and he gave me my first pistol. Later he taught me how to fly. Not anything professional like how you all flew those ships… He just taught me the basics, but it was enough for me to start with. After we pulled that Black Eagle, he started teaching me how to fix her. We’d been working on her for a few months when the deal went down and…” The smile on Knox’s face had vanished and now there was only the grief and anger. The expression had appeared quickly after the end of the story, and it made his eyes narrow with pain. “I’ve never had much, but now I have nothing and it’s all because of Felix and the Brotherhood. I wanted to kill them when I saw what they did. I wanted to mow them down.”
“I would have felt the same way,” Eddie agreed.
Knox deflated. “I ran away instead like a fucking weakling. What would Mateo have said if he had seen me doing that?”
Eddie shook his head. “He would have said that you were smart. You were outnumbered, but you’re alive to tell the tale. Sometimes you fight, but sometimes you run so you can fight another day.”
Knox nodded reluctantly. “I did manage to shoot two Brotherhood soldiers on my way out.”
“Did you kill them?” asked Eddie.
“Nah. I guess I could have, but Mateo had always taught me that if you didn’t have to kill someone you shouldn’t. I just disabled them.”
“You must be a pretty good shot to pull that off,” said Eddie, impressed. Going for the chest was the easy option.
“Axel taught me to shoot. That was why Mateo made it so I was the only one who did his runs. He’d always take an hour to help me train whenever I stopped by.” There was a new lightness in Knox’s eyes now, the anger suddenly gone. “You’ll like Axel. He’s a good guy, about like how Mateo was. Gritty as hell, but I think that’s part of the charm.”
“Mateo sounds like he was good at his core,” said Eddie, giving him a kind smile.
“I never much cared for what we did at Defiance, but I was indebted to Mateo so I did what he told me to do. He might have supplied criminals, but he wasn’t one of them. I know that’s not enough to justify his actions, but…”
“I’ve done some pretty questionable things in my past,” said Eddie. “Many out there are just trying to survive, like Mateo and his crew. However, when I had the means to do better, I tried to do better things. That’s what you have to ask yourself right now… Are you ready to do better?”
“I’m ready to bring down those assholes. I’ve seen enough to know that bullying others in an arms war is reckless. They all want the bigger gun, and it never ends. I’m fucking tired of bullies,” said Knox with real venom in his tone.
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Eddie, taking a long sip.
The two men continued to drink long into the night.
Chapter Seven
Omega-line Q-Ship, Gun Barrel, Planet Ronin, Behemoth System
Knox watched Eddie as he checked the radar.
Julianna kept peering at the boy. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him so much as she had trouble reading him. He appeared to have a natural curiosity, which meant he catalogued everything he observed. It was a quality not many people shared or even noticed, but this boy seemed to possess it—and that was something to be watched.
“These fucking boots pinch my toes,” Julianna said as she flew the Q-Ship closer to the surface. The land was brown, mostly, a long stretch of desert bordered by mountains.
“Over there is the town.” Eddie pointed to two rows of shanty buildings with roofs covered in piles of dust and dirt. “Is that the building where Axel is located?” he asked Knox, referring to a barnlike structure on the south side of town.
“That’s it,” Knox confirmed.
“Doesn’t look like such a big deal,” said Eddie, blowing out a breath. “I kind of agree about the boots, and this shirt is pretty scratchy too.” He pulled at the collared button-up shirt he wore that had red, white, and blue stripes.
“And it provides zero protection, so try not to get shot,” said Julianna with a commiserating look. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt as well.
“Wasn’t that why we dressed in this get up? To avoid getting shot?” asked Eddie.
“You’ll blend in with the locals,” Knox offered. “Mostly.”
Eddie spun around. “Mostly?”
“Well, your clothes look pretty new,” Knox observed. “That’s not usually the case in Gun Barrel, due to the dust storms.”
Eddie nodded slowly. “That makes sense. I’ll roll around in the dirt once we get there.” His eyes drifted to the window and he watched the sun as it towered over the horizon, beating its heat against the town. “Why do they call it ‘Gun Barrel,’ anyway?”
“Because the main road is as straight as a gun barrel,” explained Knox.
Eddie pursed his lips. “Huh.”
“What a literal place,” said Julianna. She had Pip cloak the ship before she landed it behind some caves on the north end of town. This area was significantly less populated, so it was the obvious choice. She couldn’t help but notice that Knox was observing her and took in everything she did, so for the second time today she n
oted how inquisitive he was.
Eddie got to his feet once the ship had settled. “Yee-haw! Who’s ready for a hootenanny?”
Julianna sank back, giving Eddie her trademark, “What the hell is wrong with you” expression. “What did you just say?”
“Yee—”
“I heard what you said, but where did you learn it?” asked Julianna.
“I saw a special on the Earth’s Old West. I kind of get why Gun Barrel chose to model their town after it. Cowboys were awesome.” Eddie picked something up from the other side of his chair—a cowboy hat, which he placed on his head.
Without a doubt he looked like a tourist, or maybe a cartoon character. Julianna and Knox started laughing.
“We’re trying not to draw attention to ourselves. Blend in, remember?” Julianna said. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. Currently the winds were low, but she’d heard that could change dramatically at any moment.
“I am blending in. Don’t they wear cowboy hats like this?” Eddie asked.
Knox nodded. “Actually they do, but that hat makes your head look big and it is obviously brand new. It hasn’t been worn in. Most of these people have been wearing the same hat for years, maybe decades.”
“First of all, I can’t help it if my head is big. I’ve just got a huge brain,” said Eddie, pulling his hat lower.
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Julianna. She rolled her eyes, but smiled.
“And second,” continued Eddie, “this was my only option. It wasn’t like we had a worn-out Stetson just sitting around. I had to act fast.”
“Fair enough, but that doesn’t change the fact that you look silly,” teased Julianna. She opened the back hatch and took a look at the oppressive desert that stretched before them, then stepped out and walked some distance from the cloaked ship so she wouldn’t give its placement away should anyone happen upon them.
