Trae stopped instantly and glared in her direction. “This guitar will never be retired If I have anything to say about it. Do you have any idea who this once belonged to?”
“Nope,” Krista said. “Don’t care neither. A guitar is a guitar to me.”
“My God woman! How could you say something like that?” Trae protectively cradled the instrument. “This guitar once belonged to the rock guitar god, the cowboy from hell himself, the one and the only…” Trae proselytized.
“Well if it’s so damned important, then where did you get it from? Hu?” Krista glared at him, daring him to lie to her.
“Um...I found it in this place down in Texas this one time when me and Fergus were down there making a delivery.”
“Uh hu,” Krista nodded and smiled.
“Yup, that’s how it happened.”
“Alright, I guess that’s as good an answer as any,” Krista said. “So, how's the hand healing?” She grabbed a bowl from a stack near the fire and stepped toward the cookpot.
“Stiff and still hurts like a motherfucker,” Trae said. He bent his hand backward at the wrist once again to fully stretch the tendons.
“It’s been just over a month,” Krista said reassuringly. “It’ll take a little while to fully heal. It’s a surprise that you even have a hand left after that dirt dog got a hold of you.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Fergus said as he walked into the light from the darkness of the hanger. “It’s a good thing that she could save it. How else would you beat off without missing a lick.” Fergus chuckled, slapping Trae on the back as he walked by, making his way to the pot.
Strange dolphin-like barks accompanied the clatter of pans falling to the floor. Three nearly hairless, eight-legged dog-like things circled Melanie. They leaned on her legs, reaching for a block of cheese that she held high over her head.
“No! Down! Trae! Get these damn things out of my cooking area!” Melanie snatched a spatula from her makeshift prep table and threw it at the three dirt dog pups. Noses raised, they sniffed at the makeshift table made from alien storage containers.
“Shwartz, Midna, Bear, go lay down,” Trae ordered. The three creatures chittered irritably then fled to a ratty looking doggie bed placed on the outer edge of the camp.
Doug walked up to the serving line and nodded at Trae. “Looks like you’ve just about got them trained.”
“Almost, but they are still pups,” Trae said. “No telling how long their life spans are, so they could be puppies for a few more months or a few more years. We’ll just have to see.”
“Did you and Fergus finish setting up the solar panels?”
“Almost,” Trae said. He leaned the guitar against a container table and shifted in his seat. “No!” He swatted one of the dogs away from his guitar. “Get your ass back to your bed.” The pup whimpered and sulked all the way back to the doggie bed. Trae turned back to Doug. “We need to scrounge up a few hundred meters of cable to run it back here to the battery coils. Unless you’d rather have a base camp set up closer to the opening.”
“No,” Doug said, drifting off in thought. I think we’re better off back here toward the core of the complex. There’s less chance that we’ll have any radiation issues down here. Do what you can to get it all set up. I don’t want to launch and leave base camp in the dark.”
“We could maybe get it done quicker if we strip the derelict ships in the other landing bays,” Trae suggested.
“Um...no,” Doug replied with a nervous laugh. “Let’s not do that just yet. I want to keep those intact until we can really take a good look at them. We might be able to get them running. If we can, that would be some good salvage to take back with us.”
“Hail to Miss Melanie, queen of stew and goddess of the famished,” Kara loudly proclaimed as she made her way down the loading ramp of the Betty. “You have outdone yourself. This looks like a feast meant for royalty,” she said with a flourish as she grabbed a bowl.
“Uh-huh. You just remember that tonight if the new mushrooms cause your insides to become your outsides,” Mel warned.
“It smells wonderful Mel. Thank you,” Wes said.
“Thank you, now eat,” Melanie ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tiffany ran down the Betty’s loading ramp. “Where’s my kiddo’s? Puppies? Where's mommy’s little babies?” The three little beasties chittered, barked and skittered their way over to her. Their thick claws scratched and scraped across the concrete like nails on a chalkboard. Tiffany crouched down to meet them on their level. Each pushed the other away as they tried to climb into her lap. “There’s my babies,” She scratched each of them behind the ear. “Are you all being good for daddy?”
“No, they aren’t,” Mel grumped. “If they don’t stay away from my cooking area, I’m going to put them in the stew pot next.”
“But they’re just babies,” Tiffany said with a whine.
“I couldn’t care less. Keep ‘em under control or they’re fair game in my opinion.”
“Trae,” Tiffany said then stuck out her lower lip.
“Don’t look at me,” Trae said. “You’re the one that wanted to keep them after they followed us back. I’d just as soon eat them as to keep them.”
“Last one is a rotten egg!” Rachel suddenly sprinted down the loading ramp of the Martian ship.
“I’m too damn old to race, Cheezy,” Willy shouted after her. “Hey Cap! I’ve got some good news for ya.”
“Cool, Willy. Get yourself some grub first, then we can talk.”
“I’m good right now,” Willy said. He took a seat on one of the cargo containers and stretched. “I’ll get something in a minute.”
“Suit yourself,” Doug replied.
“Andy! Where the hell is that man?” Melanie pounded three more times on her makeshift dinner bell.
“Smells good, Mel,” Amanda murmured.
“Yes, it does. Thank you, Mel,” Maggie said as she took a bowl. “It is very much appreciated.
“Hey Maggie,” Krista said. “Did you get a chance to look over the possible garden area?”
“Yes. We went up and looked it over. It should be a great space as long as we can get water up to it. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”
“Sweet,” Krista said, rubbing her hands together. “We can get started on it first thing in the morning.”
Lizz appeared on the loading ramp as she disembarked the Betty. “We got everyone?”
“Doug looked around, counting heads. “Has anyone seen Andy? He’s the only one left.”
“Andy!” Melanie pounded on the drum with all of her might. “Get your ass out here now!”
Doug took a seat at the table with Willy and spooned some of the stew into his mouth. “So, what you got Willy,” he asked, sucking in air around a lava hot potato.
“I was right. It was the emitters that were the problem in that new drive on the Hans Landa. Everything kept checking out, then I decided to take one more look at the drive’s main matrix. From what Lizz had translated for me, the Martians called it a faster than Light Universal Xcellerator or fLUX drive for short. It basically pokes a hole in the thin spots of the space-time fabric. So, it uses natural wormhole points to get us from one place to another without all that muddling about actually getting up to the speed of light or that warp drive idea that they never could get to work out.”
“Okay, and? What was actually wrong with it,” Doug asked.
“Well ya see, the drive is this gyroscope looking thing. Three rings that spin on different axis points that circulate this super saturated ferrous mercury slurry within the rings. Four EM emitters bombard this crystal matrix at the center once the gyro spins up to full speed. The best I can tell without taking a sample, the crystal is a Kyanite cluster. The gyro itself generates this field that I haven’t quite figured out yet. But they use the crystal matrix as an amplifier and that creates the field around the ship to allow it to pass through these weak points.”
Lizz took a seat at the table with Doug and Willy. “How are we doing today, gentlemen? Have you found out what was wrong?”
“Dunno yet, he was just starting to tell me about it,” Doug said, taking another bite of stew.
“Oh, I’m sorry that I interrupted. Please, continue,” Lizz said.
“Well anyways, when I got to really looking at this amplifier assembly, I found two of the four emitters were 0.0005 millimeters off alignment,” Willy said. “But they were still within the design specs. The best I can tell, the thing works best when all four emitters are at the same declination to the matrix. If one is off 0.0005, they had all better be off by that much.”
“Ok, but were you able to fix it?”
“Oh yeah,” Willy said with a big smile. “It wasn’t nothing to adjust. I’m just not sure yet what might have knocked it out of alignment or if it’ll do it again on the next jump.”
“That’s just wonderful,” Lizz said.
“I went ahead and made lockdown brackets out of some steel bar and duct tape for the time being. Hopefully, they won’t move again before I can fabricate some proper locks for them.”
“Willy fixed the drive,” Doug said with a conspiratorial grin toward Lizz.
“That’s some really good news for a change.” She raised an eyebrow toward Doug. “I suppose this would be a good time to let everyone in on what we’ve been discussing.”
“I suppose it would,” he grinned. “Give it a few. Let everyone eat first.” Doug continued to eat his stew in silence. He smiled at the scene before him. They may have vastly different personalities and get on each other's last nerve at times. But they were still one big dysfunctional family.
Once everyone had had the chance to eat, Doug stood and cleared his throat. He knocked his fist against the container he had been using as a table. “Listen up,” Doug announced. The mealtime chatter went silent as everyone turned to look in his direction. “I’m not going to wait any longer. Someone can catch Andy up later.” He looked to Lizz. She nodded back with a smile.
“We have some good news for a change. Willy has found the problem with the fLUX,” he started to say then looked to Willy, who nodded back, “the fLUX drive onboard the Martian ship.”
“Wait, what are you saying,” Kara interrupted. “Does that mean that we can go home?”
“In theory,” Doug said slowly, “yes.”
Murmured prayers, chatter and hoots erupted around the encampment. Doug motioned for them to all quiet down.
“Well thank you I suppose, but it wasn’t nothing,” Andy said as he proudly strode into camp.
“Where in the hell have you been, Andy? Sit your ass down right now,” Melanie said.
“Is dinner ready?”
“You can wait,” Mel said with a huff. “Now sit and hush. Doug was talking.” She turned her back on Andy and faced Doug.
“So why in theory?” Trae asked, getting them back on track. “Can’t we fire it up and go back the same way we came in?”
“I believe so, but Wes and Rachel have been digging into the guidance systems among everything else. Better to be safe than sorry. Also, before we head back, I want to document everything we can about this system. As far as we know, we are the first humans to leave our home solar system, to actually encounter aliens and step foot on an alien planet. But beyond that, Lizz and I have been discussing other possible future plans.”
Lizz stood and nervously smoothed the skirt of her jacketless power suit. She smiled at the crew with a sort of condescending motherly grin. It was the kind of grin, where you know that not everything, she is about to say will be pleasant. “What seems like a lifetime ago, I met Doug and Krista on the streets of Atlanta. At that time, I had lucked into the Betty, but I needed people to crew her. These two were young, homeless and damned near starved to death when our paths crossed.”
“Wait. I thought the ship belonged to Cap,” Fergus interrupted.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Willy said.
“Hey, shut your pie holes,” Krista yelled. “Can’t you see that she’s having a moment? Let her finish already!”
The crew went silent.
“Thank you, Krista,” Lizz said with a nod, then continued. “Since I knew nothing about running a ship and had no want to learn, I made them an offer. I would take care of the business side of things. Trade, sell, negotiations and the like. They would handle all of the day to day ship operations so I wouldn’t have to. So, we came to an amicable agreement. I founded our operations; they ran it and we were all even partners in the venture. But it would be our little secret, so I didn’t have to deal with personnel issues.” She looked toward Rachel with a sidelong, motherly glance at a trouble-making child.
“What? I didn’t do it,” Rachel said defensively.
The crew laughed, then Lizz continued. “Shortly after, Wesley and Willy were hired on. They did an amazing job getting the ship space worthy and running again. Over the years other crew members have hired on, then went their separate ways. But all of you, you are the ones that have stayed on through the rough times and the good times. And there have been a lot of rough times, but still, you stayed,” she said, fighting back tears. “However dysfunctional that we are, we have become a family.”
smiled and swallowed hard as tears began to well up in her eyes. She sucked in an emotionally ragged breath and smoothed her skirt again, composing herself. She cleared her throat and continued. “That being said, Doug and I have discussed a great new venture and I would like to offer each one of you a true stake in it and in our futures. I want to offer each of you the chance to become full partners if we decide to pursue this opportunity.”
“I am so confused now,” Tiff murmured. “Is she about to try and sell us a condo on a beach in Utah or something?”
“Does that mean that we’re not going home?” Kara asked in a confused tone.
Doug pursed his lips and blew out an ear-piercing whistle. “Calm down!” He glared at the crew. “Yes, we are going back to Earth one way or another, now that Willy has the flux drive fixed. The thing is, I think that we have an amazing opportunity here beyond any of our dreams. But it’ll take a lot of work to set it up and get it fully functional.”
“Whatever you think is good, I’m in Cap,” Willy offered.
“Same goes for me Cap,” Wes added.
“Wesley,” Kara denounced.
“I’m in,” Wes sternly glared at Kara. “You haven’t steered us wrong yet,” he said, turning back to Doug.
“Really Wesley,” Kara huffed and slumped in her seat.
“Now just hold on,” Doug interrupted. “Hear me out first, then take some time to think about it. It will be a life-changing decision for each and every one of us.”
He straightened and stretched, then slid himself up onto one of the storage containers and got comfortable.
“For one reason or another, we have each made a fairly happy home for ourselves on board the Betty. And for possibly the first time in any of our lives, we have the opportunity to create something great. It will be of our own making, by our hands, and by our rules. No corporation or government will tell us what to do or how to do it. We call the shots and decide our own fates. So, my question to each of you. Do we fall back into line like good little sheeple or do we blaze our own trail on the new frontier?” He looked at each of the astonished crew before continuing. “As far as we can tell, this system is deserted. What life we have encountered has been feral to primitive. We know that there is another sentient species here, but other than Andy’s sighting, we haven’t seen any more sign of them. It makes me think that there are very few of them and that they aren’t a real threat.”
“So then, what are you thinking, Cap?” Trae leaned forward, intrigued.
Doug smiled a manically wide smile. “I propose that we establish a permanent base here in this hangar facility and establish our own colony, free from the control of Earth and the Independent Alliance.”
The cr
ew exploded in expletives to one another and murmurs of disbelief.
“By contract,” Doug shouted over the din. “The Martian ship is ours. We fairly negotiated for information only to be returned to the Independent Alliance. Any and all salvage was ours, fair and square. When we go back, Lizz and I will fulfill that contractual obligation. But before that, Wes and Willy, I want you to make a special copy of the ships specs and schematics and do a little editing work to them. I really don’t want the I.A. making their own drive and putting their nose in our business before we can get ourselves established.” He pulled out his silvered cigarette case and retrieved the last smoke in it.
“Our plan,” Lizz continued, “is to set up salvage and mining operations in this system. There is an entire planet worth of tech and salvage, plus the existing natural resources of the other planets and the asteroid belt. We would like for each of you as full partners to head up your own respective departments as founding members of the colony.”
Doug cleared his throat once again, then continued. “I will handle the day to day operations as always. Lizz will continue with the overall business operations and negotiations. She’ll take care of the books as always. Each of you will have your respective departments with people eventually working under you as we can bring them in. Wes will become department head for tech. Witches, medical. Willy, engineering, so on and so forth. For the short term, I want to load our holds to the brim with anything of value so that when we return to Earth, we can get the supplies, equipment, and manpower that we need to bring back and pull this off.
Any new hires that we bring back will be placed where they will benefit our goal best and will be your direct subordinates. Before we go back though,” Doug added, “I have a number of tasks that I think we need to complete first. Cheezy, I need to know where we are. People aren’t likely to hire on for a trip to the great beyond. But if they can put a finger on a map, it might help out. I also want a full survey of the system with the safest flight paths plotted through The Belt from the flux. We can set up beacons later as needed. But you’ll be in charge of all system traffic. Nothing moves without your say so.”
Flux Runners Page 16