Dust

by Jason Hutt

  ***

  Chapter 2

  Drool threatened to drip from the corner of Nick’s mouth as he stared dazedly at the console in front of him. He wiped at the corner of his mouth with his shirt sleeve and groggily looked around his room. There wasn’t much to look at. The room was empty save for his travel bag, a couple shirts lying about, and the small bunk opposite the console. He had spent the better part of the last three days seated in this spot, reading manuals, watching training videos, and running through landing and lift-off simulations.

  Max was true to his word; Nick had not been allowed to set foot in the cockpit while he was going through all the training materials. The flight out to Dust had been incredibly boring, save for the brief moment of excitement when Nick’s stomach nearly revolted after the wormhole jump. Beyond that, he had been seated at the desk studying.

  Every now and then, Max or his maintenance robot, Reggie, would pass by and offer a word of encouragement. Once Max had stomped down the corridor, grumbling obscenities about a problem with the toilet. Other than that, the trip was uneventful.

  Nick hadn’t received any additional messages from his father since they made the jump into the Dust system. For that, Nick was relieved. He felt the data crystal in his pants’ pocket. He still wasn’t sure what to do with the information it contained. He wasn’t even sure he could do any good with it. But his father wanted it back, that Nick knew for sure. His heart beat faster just thinking about that.

  Nick was stirred from his reverie by a crackle of the intercom.

  “Okay, kid,” Max said, “We’re approaching Dust. Time to see if you’ve learned anything.”

  Nick stood up and stretched. He massaged the sore muscles in his neck. He slipped on a billowy shirt and a pair of stylish, metal boots and headed for the cockpit, his palms sweating slightly. The boots clanged off the deck plating as he marched into the cockpit.

  Max sat in the pilot’s seat mindlessly chewing a toothpick, which had the faint tang of the recycled garbage it was made from, as he stared vacantly out the window. His arms were folded across his chest; his legs propped up on his console with his black boots resting perilously close to the thruster manual controls.

  A million stars littered the view from the cockpit window. Just below the horizon was the reddish, tan planet of Dust. Nick couldn’t help but be exhilarated by the view.

  “Does that ever get old?” Nick asked.

  Max smiled. “Do a couple hundred supply runs and tell me if they lose a little bit of their grandeur.”

  “No sense of romance for you then.”

  “Romance died a long time ago. Now, I just gotta pay the bills,” Max said.

  Nick shook his head and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. His boot banged loudly off the bottom of his console.

  “Why the hell do you wear those things?” Max said.

  “Because, boss, somebody on this crew has to have a sense of style,” Nick responded, “We can’t all be old and crotchety.”

  “You sound like a rusty, old robot lumbering down the hallway.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Nick said.

  Max sat up and slowly lowered his boots off the console.

  “Welcome to Dust, the last colony humanity ever established. Last stop for warm showers and cold beers.”

  “I thought Petra was the last colony,” Nick said.

  “It was up until about six months ago. Colony collapsed due to some kind of outbreak,” Max responded.

  “Wow.”

  “Colony life’s a hard lot, kid. Probably why the Republic has given up on establishing new ones,” Max said, “That and they’ve lost whatever sense of courage they ever had. If it’s not good for the bottom-line, it’s not good for the Republic.”

  Nick shrugged off the comment; he had no desire to discuss politics at the moment. The sun crested the horizon and revealed a barren landscape below with two enormous beige continents and vast green bodies of water. Few clouds littered the sky. A mountain range appeared on the horizon followed by the greenish-blue of the planet’s ocean. Nick stood there quietly, taking in every detail.

  Max shook his head and said, “Nick, the only things you’ll find out here are shattered dreams, shady pasts, and the occasional misguided wanderer, though they usually wise up real quick. So which one are you?”

  “Ha,” Nick said, “I’ll go for misguided wanderer at the moment, though shattered dreams might not be far off, given my father and all that.”

  Max nodded knowingly. “Just what did your old man do?”

  “Don’t want to talk about it,” Nick said with a shake of his head, “Just mentioning his name makes him feel closer.”

  Nick had to resist the urge to shiver. His father’s last message was rattling around in his mind. He could hear his voice, bating and berating him. Nick needed something else to think about.

  “Well, I should be glad you’re not out here on some damn-fool adventure. I’ve seen kids your age out here with some stupid glint in their eye, with some sort of romantic fantasy about adventure in the far corners of the galaxy. There’s no magic out here, Nick. Sure, there are a lot of pretty sights, but most of the time, all you’re doing is grinding out a living.

  “For me, the only journey is from one job to the next, paycheck to paycheck, earning a living, keeping to myself, and staying out of everyone else’s way. The sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.”

  “Not exactly a slogan for the Central Exploration Office,” Nick said, staring idly at some flashing indicator lights on the console.

  “It’s called reality, kid,” Max said with a shake of his head, “Now, let’s focus on landing this crate.”

  “Right,” Nick said, looking ahead at the shining star that illuminated the sand-covered planet below. Call him naïve all you want, but Nick refused to believe that this life had to rob you of your sense of wonder. He had seen more of the horrors of life than Max realized, but he didn’t feel like going into that.

  Max leaned forward again and tapped the console just below the green communications indicator.

  “Medium Freighter Hannah, this is Dust Spaceport Control, do you copy?” A strong, male voice resonated throughout the cockpit.

  “Dust Spaceport Control, this is the Hannah,” Max replied, “I copy loud and clear. Two minutes until re-entry profile initiates. Please provide pad coordinates.”

  “Pad coordinates en route,” the voice responded, “Please verify receipt.”

  Another indicator on the console turned blue and Max replied, “Coordinates received. See you on the ground, Control.”

  “See you on the ground, Max. Welcome back.”

  Nick listened with one ear as he continued to take in the majestic view.

  “I thought the landing sequence was automated?” Nick said.

  Max cracked a you-have-so-much-to-learn smile, “It is, kid. Some things are done more out of tradition than necessity. Besides, it gives me something to do.”

  Nick shook his head.

  “Tradition is for those afraid of change, set in their ways.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Max said.

  The bulbous bulk of the Hannah, a modified Venali Medium-Class freighter, slowly positioned itself for re-entry through the firing of a dozen thrusters spread across its hull. The thruster firings were measured, precise, and completed efficiently at the direction of the massive ship’s flight computer. Moments later, the two main thrusters fired and the ship lurched forward on its re-entry trajectory.

  Within minutes, the massive ship, shaped like an engorged tick with an elongated head, began glowing from the friction of the atmosphere along the hull. A hair’s width protective coating absorbed the heat, used the energy to charge the ship’s batteries, and then shunted the excess energy. In the cockpit at the fore of the ship, Max had reassumed his reclined position with his feet propped on the console. His eyes were closed and his fingers laced behind his head, enjoying the ride.

  Nick stared inten
tly at the tendrils of flame that obscured the view out the forward windows. He felt beads of sweat sprout on his forehead and trickle down his face. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach and his mouth became parched. His knuckles were white as his fingers dug into the arms of his chair. He forcibly slowed his breathing. Nick blessed himself with the sign of the cross.

  Max looked over at him and asked, “You going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, the word slurred slightly due to the dryness of his mouth, “Just not quite used to this.”

  “This technology’s tried and true, kid,” Max said, “Nothing to worry about. Haven’t done much space travel, have you?”

  Nick shook his head. “My parents got me a couple of suborbital joyrides on Valhalla when I turned 18. Other than that, my first trip on a spaceship was the one out to Nexus.”

  Max shook his head and gave Nick a wry smile. “Remind me why I hired you again?”

  “Desperation,” Nick said with a sigh, unable to take his eyes off the forward window, “Few people share my sense of adventure or willingness to get in over their heads.”

  “Right,” Max said, “It certainly wasn’t for your humility.”

  The giant, ungainly ship was now gliding through the atmosphere, streaking towards its destination. Max sat up and did a quick scan of the data on his console.

  “Everything looks good,” Max said, “We’re about a minute out.”

  Nick watched as a giant, ten-petal, gray flower bloomed out of the desert floor. Each petal was a landing pad roughly two-hundred meters in diameter. In the center, a giant sphere covered with an array of satellite dishes rose fifty meters or so above the pads. As they drew closer, Nick could make out giant spikes lining each pad like elongated teeth. The spikes made each pad look like a giant Venus fly trap, just waiting for an unsuspecting ship to land.

  “What are those?” Nick asked.

  “Lightning towers,” Max finally answered, “You’ll see them around the settlement. This place gets some nasty electrical storms, local byproduct of the terraforming process.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Don’t know. I just chalk it up to being another part of the local charm of Dust,” Max said with a sardonic smile.

  Nick surveyed the barren landscape surrounding the spaceport. He could make out a couple of rectangular shapes sticking out from the sandy surface, but nothing else. There were no skyscrapers or factories or even neighborhoods, just miles and miles of sand.

  “Well, where’s the rest of the colony?” Nick asked.

  “This isn’t a bustling metropolis, kid. Most of the colony is below the surface. Was the easiest way to protect everything from the sandstorms.”

  The ship slowly settled in over its assigned pad and hovered. Within moments, it began a slow descent. A quick scan of the area showed that there were only a few other ships on the landing pads.

  “This place is a ghost town,” Nick commented.

  Max couldn’t contain a laugh. “This is about as far out on the fringe of humanity as you can get. When the Marshall Conglomerate decided there was no money to be made here and the Republic decided that exploration and colonization were no longer sound uses of taxpayer money, this place withered. Like I said, only reason to come out here is if you’re running, hiding, or are up to no good. Dust has plenty of the former and the locals don’t really tolerate the latter. Sorry to disappoint, kid.”

  Nick scowled. The ‘kid’ moniker was getting old and they’d only been travelling together for four days. He quickly put his annoyance aside, letting it show would just give Max an excuse to dig into him a little more.

  He leaned forward on his elbows to watch the freighter descend to the pad. Two pads over, he spotted an old Patton-class military transport. Judging by the amount of rust on the roughly trapezoidal craft, he would be surprised if it could get off the pad let alone reach orbit. Directly across from them was a saucer-shaped light freighter with a bubble cockpit of a make and model that he couldn’t quite remember. The saucer looked half as old as the rusted Patton, which probably put it at about a hundred years old.

  Finally, right next to the saucer sat a conglomeration of rusted, dented, and ill-fitted parts that looked like it was built from scrap scavenged from a junk yard. Nick didn’t bother trying to figure out what it was; it probably had fewer than ten percent of its original components. So much for shiny cruisers on the cutting edge, he thought; though he kept the remark to himself to avoid another round of advice for the ‘kid.’

  They were about thirty meters above the pad when the clunk of the landing struts lowering echoed throughout the cockpit. Then, with ten meters to go, a red indicator light appeared on the console and the descent stopped.

  Max grumbled, “Ah, looks like the hydraulics on strut twelve just went out.”

  “So, now what? Can Reggie fix that?” Nick asked, feeling a little nervous.

  “Normally, he could fix it with his optics closed,” Max said, “But the environment on Dust isn’t too agreeable with his systems. Still, we’ll need his help.”

  Max touched another spot on the console. “Reggie, meet us at strut twelve and bring the hydraulics bag. Come on, kid, we’ve got work to do. Can’t float above the pad all day.”

  Just as Max stood, the voice of spaceport control crackled over the speaker, “Hannah, we see your descent has stopped. Please advise as to your situation.”

  Max grimaced and opened the channel to control. “Control, no big deal, just have some balky hydraulics on a landing strut. We should have it taken care of in a few minutes.”

  “Copy, Hannah, let us know if you need any help.”

  Max didn’t bother to reply. He gestured for Nick to follow as he left the cockpit. The two men quickly walked down the long corridor that ran the circumference of the cargo hold. Along the way, Max stopped at an equipment locker and retrieved some goggles and a filtration mask.

  “What’re those for?” Nick asked.

  Max gave him a crooked smile. “You’ll see.”

  A minute later, they turned right into a relatively cramped access corridor that stank of ages old grease, mildew, and rust. They arrived in a cramped two-meter square compartment the center of which was occupied by a half-meter rectangular shaft. Right next to it a matte gray, four-foot tall humanoid robot squatted next to an access panel.

  “Watch your ears,” Reggie called out in his deep, smooth baritone. Seconds later, Nick’s ears popped. An indicator light on the shaft flashed green as the pressure between the outside air and the ship equalized. Reggie set to work opening the panel.

  “Hold up, Reggie,” Max said, “Get back, I don’t need you getting sand in your gears.”

  Reggie obediently complied and handed a powerwrench to Max. A minute later, Max had the panel removed and the roar of the rushing wind outside filled the small compartment. With the noise came a mini-sandstorm of dust particles. Max drew his shirt up over his mouth and held the filtration mask out to Nick.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Nick asked.

  “You’re going to need it to lower the strut,” Max replied, “Trust me.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” Nick said.

  “Nope,” Max said and although he wasn’t kidding, Nick could clearly tell he was smiling behind his pulled up shirt.

  Nick sighed and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

  “You’ll need these, too,” Max said as he handed over the goggles, “There’s just enough room in there to straddle the strut. There are footholds around the edge about two feet down below this floor. Work your way around clockwise and you’ll see the manual override socket. Just insert the powerdriver and drive until the hard stop.”

  Nick’s eyes glazed at the instructions; all he could really do was look at the ground far below them. His palms started to sweat at the thought of stepping out onto the footholds. His mouth went dry. Max grabbed him by the shoulder and thrust his wrist computer into Nick’s face. The scree
n showed an image of the strut and its housing. Max tapped the picture of the housing and it rotated to show the opposite face. Max tapped the image again and it zoomed in on the manual override socket.

  “See it?” Max asked, shouting above the din of the rushing wind.

  Nick nodded and tapped the screen on his own wrist computer. The same image popped up on his screen. Nick took a look back into the open space and gulped. His voice cracked slightly as he spoke, “Are you sure Reggie can’t do this?”

  “Can’t leave everything to the robots, kid,” Max joked, “Or else someday they’ll rise up and kill us all.”

  “Very funny,” Nick said, reluctantly taking the powerdriver from Max.

  “Don’t worry kid, it’s only ten meters. If you fall, the worst you’ll do is break an ankle.”

  Nick nodded numbly and seated himself on the walkway with his feet dangling over the opening. He could feel sweat break out on the arches of his feet. Then with grim determination, he forced himself into the compartment. The wind howled and swirling sand scraped across the goggles.

  Max watched as Nick nervously worked his way around the strut. Nick tentatively reached out with his left leg, extending it toward one of the footholds. His foot slipped slightly and his face paled. He looked up at Max, whose expression had gone from playful to concerned.

  “Sir,” Reggie said, “I would be more than happy to retrieve a tether.”

  “What was that?” Nick yelled.

  “Hold on, Nick,” Max said, “Reggie, get that tether.”

  Reggie, Marshall Conglomerate Automaton serial number RGE-874, tromped off down the hallway and returned with a four-foot long, black tether. Max clipped one end to an anchor point on the floor and handed the other end to Nick.

  “Clip this to your belt,” Max shouted above the roar of the wind.

  Nick nodded in reply and attached the clip with shaky hands. While the tether made him feel safer, he still moved cautiously. After a few minutes of trying to find a comfortable position in the cramped space, with his heart racing and sweat pouring down his face, Nick found the socket. He inserted the powerdriver and within thirty seconds, he felt the drive hit the hard stop.