Creation (3 page)

The harness straps bit into Sam’s arms and legs as the ship jerked hard under his back. His body sagging against the side of the chair was his first clue of gravity, indicating they’d arrived. He immediately reached for his restraints, ready to be free of his seat.

Lud pulled at his own straps. “That’ll be our landing. Best if we sneak out early.”

The pitch-black main corridor of the ship made Sam’s eyes ache for the dim light of their compartment. Lud’s hand pulled hard at the shoulder of Sam’s jacket just as he bumped into an unseen fellow passenger. As they found their way out the final hatch of the ship, Sam made out dark figures also leaving the ship to merge with the local population.

Lud’s hand remained at Sam’s shoulder. “Try not to walk so hard. Low gravity, remember. Continue to walk like you’re on Earth, and I’ll have to call out a rescue team to pick you out of some low-grav tree.”

Sam scanned the vegetation to catch Lud’s meaning. Trees looked more like unsupported vines, growing so tall he thought he could identify with the ants of Earth. A spaceship lifting from the ground caused the vines to sway, reinforcing the image of people as some kind of insect life on this unknown planet.

Lud continued to pull him along. The big man’s hands grasped vine-trees and hurtled the pair of them forward. Sam’s feet only hit the ground at odd intervals.

He’d lost track of how long they’d been inside man-made enclosures, breathing filtered air. Being outside, even on a foreign planet, made him giddy. There was nothing overhead—no ceiling, no strange wall walkways, only space. The air was filled with the scents of plants, dirt and water vapor—natural air, not the flinty stale air filled with too much human stench. The muscles around his ears relaxed as they no longer strained for any hint of a human voice or attempted to filter out the drone of ship engines. Even his stomach approved. For the first time on the trip, he experienced hunger.

They slowed as they exited the low-gravity jungle. Sam assumed what lay before them must be a village. But he couldn’t imagine how people lived in the twisted scraps of metal, vines, and wood.

Lud pointed to one of the better-lit buildings. “That’ll be the local bar. Most business is conducted in bars. But don’t do any more talking than is necessary. The general attitude is, keep to yourself.”

The knife Lud pulled from his jacket shocked Sam back to the reality of their situation. This was a pirate outpost, not some nature hike. Lud thrust the black handle into his hand. “You shouldn’t need to use it. Just having it on you will be deterrent enough for the casual thief. Anyone who pulls one on you will know what they’re doing. There’s not a lot of bluffing when it comes to violence out here.”

The blade stretched from Sam’s fingers to halfway up his forearm. Without trying to look too conspicuous, he found a place in his jacket to stash the weapon. As they entered the village, he saw similar bulges in the clothing of most of the people on the street.

If people in the bar took notice of their entrance, they did so without looking up from their drinks. With a roof overhead, and humanity again pressing in on him, Sam wondered if he wasn’t better off out in the wild, low-gravity jungle. If anyone meant him harm in town, he’d be the last to notice.

Lud scanned the patrons, barely turning his head, then chose a couple of seats toward the back. “Xavier tries to send a shuttle out here every few days for supplies and to give his workers some time off. Working on a spaceship this far out can leave one feeling isolated. Or worse, for workers who clash with each other. If I don’t spot one of the crew by the end of the day, we’ll hire a spacecraft to take us out to the junkyard.”

A waif of a girl drifted up to the table. Sam suspected she was a beggar, but Lud ordered a couple of local beers from her. Without a word, she nodded and slipped back behind the bar. “Go easy on the drinks. The effects have a tendency to sneak up on you. A typical bartender will start off with the easy stuff, but when they think you’re about to leave, they’ll pour you one meant to land you flat on your back the moment you walk out the door. The dark figures who lounge around outside are always on the lookout for the uninitiated.”

Sam wondered how he was meant to survive out here. Lights from the overhead solar arrays outside intensified then dimmed, leaving Sam to guess the day had passed from afternoon to evening.

He didn’t catch sight of the thin man until he swung the spare chair out from the table. Gray hair jutted out from the cowl that covered his head. Matching gray hair covered his face. “Nice to see you two made it. Hope you got some rest since there won’t be much time for it once we get aboard ship.”

Lud let out a heavy sigh of relief. “I’m glad it’s you, Xav. For a moment, I thought we were going to have to hire someone.”

The gray mustache twitched as the man gave a quiet, good-natured laugh. “I’d never leave you out here, Lud. Too damn hard getting workers this far out. Why else do you think I made the trip myself?”

Lud glanced at Sam. “Meet Xavier, your new boss.”

Sam nodded a greeting.

Xavier gave Sam an appraising look. Light from the fires that lit and warmed the room played about his gray eyes. “If you two are done socializing, we can get to work.”

The main street of the dilapidated outpost held too many dark alleyways for Sam’s liking. Instead of heading into the jungle of low-gravity plants to get to the clandestine landing sites, Xavier marched his workers to a large, open area of shuttles, each guarded by at least one individual outfitted in more weapons than clothing.

Sam attempted to identify which shuttle Xavier was heading toward. Each looked worse than the last. Dented, scarred, and patched, none looked capable of making it back to the village let alone undertaking space flight. An odd sense of calm swept his thoughts. All that worry about how to fix
Leviathan
’s computer paled in comparison to the question of how they’d reach the large ship.

Xavier nodded to one of the guards. The man holstered his weapon and opened the hatch of a craft that looked as though it had crash-landed rather than being primed for liftoff. The landing skids, so badly bent the door didn’t need stairs for people to access it, sunk into the red dust. Scrapes of bright, newly exposed metal crossed darker dents down the length of the hull.

Lud grimaced as he ran his hand along one of the new areas of damage. “She’s looking a little rough there, Xav.”

The thin man grunted from under his gray beard. “We had a slight disagreement on the way here. On our way back, if you see a black ship with a half dozen gashes out of her top, you let me know.”

The interior of the craft did even less to convince Sam of its abilities. Winding his way past wires hanging from the ceiling, display screens bent out from the walls at every angle, and metal plates twisted up from the floor, Sam wondered how he’d even secured himself for liftoff.

Lud pulled at a couple of cargo harnesses and thrust Sam between them. “Hang on tight. This thing never was a smooth flight. And if Xavier thinks there might be trouble, he’ll be rock hopping out to
Leviathan
.”

Sam winced. “Rock hopping?”

Lud nodded. “Sections of the Kuiper Belt can be more asteroid field than open space. I’d just love to tell you that Xavier is an expert at flying around those big rocks. But truth be told, he’s better at skipping these shuttles off the rocks than avoiding them. This is our third shuttle in the last year.”

Sam swallowed hard, his throat dry, as he tried not to stare at the view screens that lit up around him. The liftoff caused his legs to buckle even with Chiron’s low gravity.

But his fear didn’t totally paralyze his limbs until the pebbles on the view screens grew to boulders and then to the size of small buildings. And in the middle of them was an all-black ship with fresh, bright metal scrapes along its top.

T
he prospect
of a pirate enemy intercepting their shuttle, already hell bent on self-destruction, put every one of Sam’s nerves on edge. His eyes darted from view screen to view screen, each time certain he’d caught a glimpse of something moving among the asteroids. The smell of burning electronics stung his eyes and nose. If they were attacked, it wouldn’t be a long fight.

His gaze narrowed to the view screen in front of him. Something wasn’t right about one of the largest rocks to the right of their ship. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t moving in the same direction as all its neighbors.

Before Sam had a chance to warn the captain of the enemy, Xavier let out a loud war cry. Instead of turning to avoid the confrontation, the battered shuttle swung into a direct path toward the ominous black ship.

Lud yelled out to their employer, “You sure this is a good idea, Xav? Don’t we have some work to do?”

The gray-haired mass of insanity at the helm laughed as he leaned into the controls. “Just trying to round up some spare parts for your precious engines.”

Sam had never seen Lud exhibit anything but an aura of confident power. Attacking a hostile ship in little more than a tin can, however, brought out his more cautious side. His hands gripped the view screen as he glared at the captain. “You know those engines work a whole lot better if they’re not turned into scrap metal across some asteroid?”

The black ship grew large in the view screen. But before a confrontation could be engaged, Xavier swung the shuttle down hard toward a grouping of unavoidable rocks. Because of the lack of gravity and corresponding physical sensation, Sam’s stomach floated up into his mouth.

Lud pressed a survival mask into Sam’s hand. “Better put it on. Once he gets in one of these moods, it’s either us or them.”

The mask clipped around the collar of his space-travel jacket and over his head. Following Lud’s lead, Sam secured a series of snaps and latches that converted the full-length heavy garment into a space-survival suit. The smell of burnt electronics mixed with the well-worn rubber of the mask and his own body odor. His adrenaline-fueled rapid breathing forced too much of the noxious mixture into his lungs. Even if they survived the assault, the suit meant to keep him alive would likely suffocate him with its stench.

The battle commenced in slow motion. For a moment, Sam wondered if his impression was the result of fear, but then one large, shuttle-crushing rock drifted off to the left and another appeared dead center in the view screen. Sam found he could count his breaths to establish the pace of events.

Lud’s muffled voice crackled from the speakers in Sam’s mask. “Not like your adventure stories? There’s no
pew-pew
of laser fire out here. Costs too much. Energy is everything out this far. A good blast from a laser gun could power us all the way back to
Leviathan
. Battle out here is more like a life-or-death game of billiards. Honestly, I’d take a good firefight. It’s far less nerve-wracking. But Xavier likes to cannibalize as much of his enemy’s ship as possible, so he’ll do all he can to wound, but not destroy, an adversary.”

A moment later, Sam got a firsthand example of Lud’s explanation. Xavier plowed the reinforced nose of the shuttle into an asteroid. The shuttle shook violently, sending Sam face-first into a view screen. The heavy space garment cushioned the blow. To his amazement, the rock—much larger than their shuttle—shot out in front of them.

As the asteroid shrank in the view screen, the larger black ship darted out from behind it. But Sam only got a glimpse of Xavier’s adversary as the black ship spun to the left and ducked behind a rock not much bigger than their shuttle.

The view screen at the lower edge of Sam’s line of sight displayed a boulder passing with unnerving speed below their ship. Xavier sent a blast of engine power out the front of the shuttle and spun the craft into a slap shot against the rock that hid them. Again, the boulder moved away with surprising speed. But the move positioned the nose of the shuttle directly into the path of their adversary’s next shot. An asteroid the size of a ten-story building clipped the front of the ship. View screens exploded with light as wiring shorted out in the front of the craft.

Nothing around them, however, appeared damaged.

Lud smiled knowingly at him and nodded toward a schematic screen of the ship. “We’re buried deep in the shuttle. All those stories of yours had us positioned right at the front, I’ll bet. Probably even with a big glass window to look out at the stars. Stupid. We’re in the safest place possible. This ship can take a lot of abuse before we’ll be affected.”

Sam found that little consolation as another asteroid sent the shuttle into a dizzying spin. His stomach wasn’t going to stand for much more of this abuse.

Lud’s voice penetrated the sound of ripping metal. “Here comes the money shot, Sam. Hold tight to those harnesses.”

Instead of issuing a crushing blow that would end the shuttle, Xavier used the spinning momentum to flip a relatively small boulder around the ominous rock in front of them and directly into the leading scar in the nose cone of their adversary.

Even without large glass windows, Sam could see that their enemy had been gravely wounded. One bank of engines at the back of the ship sputtered to a halt. Then the other. The large black ship spun slowly until a passing asteroid gently bumped it to a stop.

The front view screen crackled back to life. The view of rocks, space, and a disabled enemy transitioned to a thin, angry face behind a survival mask. “You win, Xavier. What do you expect to steal from me this time?”

The gray, thin man stretched his body upright, away from the shuttle’s controls. “Just your engines. You can keep whatever you’ve got in your holds. Hell, I’ll even send out a distress call if you want.”

Their adversary’s face looked skeptical. “You’re leaving me my energy pods?”

Xavier’s laugh shook the shuttle worse than some of the asteroid impacts. “Good Lord, no. I’m taking everything but your life support. Figured that was a given. You can eject the engine and power pods willingly, or I’ll have Lud come and rip them from your shuttle. Of course, whatever else he finds is also fair game.”

The image of the enemy captain transitioned back to that of the disabled black ship. Two large cylinders containing the ship’s powerful engines discharged out the back of the craft, followed by two smaller cylinders Sam guessed to be the energy pods.

Lud breathed deep as he removed the survival mask. “Not a bad negotiation. For a moment there, I thought we’d be floating.”

Xavier turned with an evil temper. “When have I ever fought to the point of losing a ship? Have you ever found your miserable hulk swimming with the asteroids?”

Lud backed away from the man not even half his weight. “No offense, Captain. I’m just saying you looked pretty intent.”

Xavier’s demeanor softened only slightly as he growled in response. “You said you needed engines.”

Lud laughed, making Sam wonder if that was the best way to deal with the captain’s volatile mood. “Those things won’t even push
Leviathan
out of that space dock.”

The captain scratched at his scruffy beard. “No, I expect not. But they’ll sure as hell give this tin can some unexpected thrust. How many times do I have to tell you: it’s all about trading up.”

Lud settled back into the harness as Xavier maneuvered the shuttle to latch onto the floating engine and power pods. “One day, that man is either going to run this section of the solar system or get us all killed, Sam. There’s no in-between.”