Flux Runners

by William Joseph Roberts

  “I’ll have to remember to drop one of the pallets then,” Willy chuckled.

  “Hey, it’s your funeral, big man. I’ve got nothing to do with it.” Trae continued on his way down the loading ramp.

  “If you’ve got a handle on things, I’m going to see what Mel has cooking and give her a heads up on all the new folks,” Doug said to Willy. “Oh, and we have a load of cots to temporarily bunk everyone until we can get full quarters set up. Found a bulk deal at this old Army-Navy store out near Cartersville. You might want to get those off and set up somewhere fairly quickly. Get Richie, Flip and Andy to help you. As soon as you can get the loads swapped out, we’ll head back on another run.”

  “Yeah boss, I’ve got this,” Willy replied.

  “Good, I’ll leave you to it then,” Doug said as he strode away down the Betty’s loading ramp.

  Anderson (Eltanin 2) / Dragon’s Lair

  August 19th, 2176 / Lunch-time-ish (Betty Time)

  “W

  ell hello there little fella,” Krista cooed. “You look like you need a nap. Want me to hold you?” She squatted and held out her hands to pick up Joquon, the young cat creature, son of Casraownan. “I know, that big bad sun is bright up here, isn’t it? It’ll be alright little one. Come here, let Aunt Tata hold you and we’ll go sit in the shade.” She reached for the small cat creature, stretching to grab him up as he entered the upper concourse area of the complex.

  Cassraownan and Mapharye followed close behind the young Chinchassan. Jouqon blew past Krista and ran straight to Amanda with his arms held out, he leapt and wrapped them around Amanda’s neck.

  “He loves me more,” Amanda teased. She stuck out her tongue toward Krista, then hurried over to a shaded camp area that was set up away from the outer walls of the primary concourse of the ancient starport.

  “I see how it is. I’ll remember that the next time I make something sweet.” Krista slicked back sweat-soaked wisps of hair from her face.

  Cassraownan and Mapharye nodded a bow, fists across their chests, then both suddenly extended their middle fingers toward Krista.

  Krista stared at the cat creature couple in utter disbelief.

  Maggie burst out in laughter. “I guess they have been hanging around with Fergus, haven’t they?”

  “It is good to meet you once again great Earthbound Goddess,” Mapharye said slowly in a cat-like yowl that heavily accented her words.

  “Oh, well now. Doesn’t that just sound absolutely lovely,” Krista chortled with delight.

  “Don’t let it go to your head, sadist,” Amanda said.

  “Will you two stop the petty bickering for once.” Maggie moved her crate of tools forward and began to drive another stake into the ground. “I get so sick and tired of hearing you two go back and forth about nothing.”

  Casraownan sniffed with a curious curl of the nose at the air, then continued. “Our people still fear the surface, but we wish to learn,” he said slowly, careful to pronounce each heavily accented syllable.

  “Well, um.” Krista glanced around, unsure where to start. The concourse area was tall and open to the outside world. The glass or what the ancient Chinchasan’s had used like glass had broken and deteriorated ages ago. Sand littered the floor in small drifts and dunes. Remnants of preserved fixtures and furniture poked out from beneath drifts of sand. They had been driving stakes into the ground and marking the areas with string in preparation for building raised bed garden boxes. “I’m not sure if any of this will interest you or not. We’re just leveling and marking out garden spots at the moment. Once we get that done, we’ll use what we have at hand to build the beds and prep as much soil as we can. Willy is working on a pump system to get water up here from the underground spring that you showed him. That might be more interesting to you.”

  “I am very interested to know how you will grow food.” He nodded and smiled. Pleased with his progress of the English language. The sour smell of fermented waste wafted in on the breeze. He wrinkled his nose again and turned to Mapharye. “Ene ni yamar ünertej baina?”

  “Look out, toxic waste coming through,” Fergus announced through the speaker of his containment suit. He guided a self-propelled wagon into the concourse area. It carried a large cylindrical tank that was secured to the wagon deck with cargo straps.

  “Oh good, the fertilizer is here.” Maggie quickly leapt to her feet and dusted off her hands. “Just put it back there in that old shop area. It’ll work great as a compost.” She pointed in the direction that she wanted Fergus to go.

  “If for some reason that you run out or that you need more, there shouldn’t be a problem. We have plenty more where this came from. Just make sure that you specify to whoever gets stuck with the shit detail,” he emphasized with air quotes, “that they make sure to transfer it from the untreated tank. Anything from the treated side will most likely poison the garden since it’s packed full of processing chemicals.”

  “Blegh,” Krista gagged. “My God, do we really have to have that here?”

  “Yes,” Maggie quickly replied with an annoyed glance over her shoulder.

  “There is still over six months’ worth of shit from the Betty’s waste recycling system available,” Fergus informed. “No one bothered to turn the thing back on and it completely slipped their minds to empty the tanks when they were back Earthside.

  “Blegh,” Krista gagged again.

  “You’ll be fine,” Maggie admonished. “It’s the best chance that we have to get a good crop started in this sandy soil. Suck it up, buttercup,” Maggie laughed, then returned to marking the garden spots.

  cHAPTER 42

  Anderson (Eltanin 2)

  Dragon’s Lair / Mel’s Diner

  August 20th, 2176 / 0900 (Dragon Time)

  L arge stockpots toppled from their pallet and clattered across the concrete floor of the ancient alien warehouse.

  “Set down everything in your friggin’ hands right friggin’ now before I cut them off!” Melanie ran shaky fingers through her hair with a frustrated huff. “I swear to God. If I wanted kids, I could so easily have them. I promise you, I really could. All of these here parts still work.” She waved her hands about her torso like a game show prize girl.

  “But Willy told me to come over here and give you a hand,” Andy said.

  “I couldn’t give a shit what Willy said.” A small saucepan flew in Andy’s direction and bounced off of one of the many pallets of supplies that littered the area. Melanie firmly cupped her right breast. “Hell, these things might even produce some milk if I ever decide to drop a living human being out of the dusty leathery sack I call a womb. But that’s on the rare off chance that I actually have sex and manage to get pregnant. Get out of my kitchen!”

  “But I’m supposed to be helping,” Andy argued as he dodged a large copper plated frying pan.

  “I’ll do it my friggin’ self. If you do it, I’ll just have to go back behind you and do it all over again.”

  “But…” Andy started, then ducked behind a stack of boxes.

  “Go hang on Willy’s skirt tails for a little while so I can clean up this mess you made.” She carelessly picked up and chucked one of the large stock pots through the doorway of what was to become the kitchen and food prep area.

  Andy ducked behind a pallet stacked full of cooking equipment, boxes of utensils and packages of supplies as he escaped what had been designated the Dragon’s Lair cantina, or better known as Mel’s diner. “Look out, coming through!” Andy shoved his way past four individuals at the entrance of the cantina and made a hard right. His boots clanked on the metal grating of the catwalk style steps as he raced to the platform of the levels above.

  The new arrivals gazed about in awe at the nearly empty three stories of the space.

  “Are you Melanie,” a quiet voice asked.

  Melanie turned to the four individuals at the entrance of the Cantina. “That all depends on who you are and what you want. I haven’t had time to cook anything
more than some stew, so if you don’t like stew, I guess you’re just shit out of luck. If it’s anything other than that, then I don’t know what to tell you.” Another pot soared through the kitchen entrance and clanged against the back wall.

  “Hi, I’m Becky,” the young woman said introducing herself. “This is my sister Sabrina, my husband Perry and my sister’s husband Chris,” she said as she pointed in a quiet, mouse-like tone. “My sister and I were sent over to give you a hand. We were told that you needed kitchen helpers when we signed up.” She nervously picked at a jagged fingernail.

  “And what about those two? I suppose they are just here to do the heavy lifting for the two of you?” Mel glared at the two men.

  “Oh no, nothing like that at all,” Becky said.

  “Willy said for us to wait over here for him,” the pudgy, dark-haired man added in a strange mouth breathing accent. “He’s got things for us to do, but he had other stuff to sort out first. So, we’re supposed to be helping you out for right now.”

  “Oh, so I’m supposed to babysit you is what you’re saying?” Melanie scowled at the small group.

  “Nope. That’s not what I said at all. Alright, let me break this down to you in words you can comprehend.” The dark-haired man said, accenting his words with a slow-motion of his hands. “Me Chris. You Melanie. Big man Willy,” he puffed himself up to look bigger, his chest out and chin tucked, “tell to me, come help you. Me Chris help you, Melanie,” he pointed to her as he slurred the words. “We work hard. We get job done.” Chris pounded his chest and grunted.

  Melanie stared at him in consternation. “Well bless your heart. Your momma must have dropped you on your head a few times, or ten, didn’t she? Or did you eat too many paint chips when you were younger?”

  “Ya know, with all of the space that you have here, there’s plenty of room to expand the menu to include some specialized Earth favorites. I bet if you give me and Chris the chance, we could build you a smoker that will be the envy of the galaxy,” the orange-haired man said. “Have you ever had true southern applewood smoked barbecue? Delicious, melt in your mouth flavor. And I’m not even talking about just Texas-style barbecue. We could set aside a few smokers specific for Carolina style or Jamaican jerk. It just depends on what folks would want.”

  Melanie angrily glared at the orange-haired man. Her left eye began to twitch ever so slightly in the span of a single breath. Another large stockpot effortlessly soared through the air into the kitchen entrance. “I have days and days’ worth of work ahead of me just to get things in this kitchen set up. Crates full of supplies to inventory, stack and find a home for. Pallets of cots to assign to all of the new personnel and no one has even told me where all of the crew quarters will be located. Then you want to come in here and start adding shit to my list of things to do or be responsible for when I’m already stretched way too thin as it is. I swear that I’ve had it. I’ve had it up to here!” She motioned with a knife-hand above her head.

  “I’d leave if I were you,” Andy said, shouting down from the second-floor catwalk.

  Melanie’s glare shifted upward toward Andy. “Andrew Lee Kleszinski!”

  Andy sprinted down the stairs for the open doorway.

  A frying pan sailed in a high arc across the length of the cantina to connect with the main entrance door frame, inches away from Andy’s head.

  “Do we need to have another talk about maiming the hired help, Mel?” Doug asked as he entered the cantina.

  “No. We don’t. I just don’t know what else you expect from me. You have me cooking and cleaning and putting all of this stuff away and assigning quarters for the new people when we don’t even have any quarters for them to be assigned to and…”

  “Mel!” Doug interrupted. “I expect you to use the resources that I give you to your advantage. Work smarter, not harder.” Doug looked away toward Becky. “Have you ever worked in a hotel or anything in the service industry? Anything to do with serving the public. Fast food would especially count in this situation.”

  “Yeah,” Becky replied. “I was the barista at the java bar on Luna station Camden when you guys found me.”

  “Good, then you understand how to prioritize your orders and organize? At least minimally I’d hope? Oh, and a side thought now that you mention the java bar. If we picked up the equipment would you be up to setting up a coffee shop here?”

  She gave Doug a suspicious, sidelong glance. “Yes, I do and okay, sure, I guess,” she said suspiciously slow.

  Doug redirected his questioning, “Mel, you prefer to just cook and keep everyone fed, right?”

  “I’d be much happier to just deal with the cooking and nothing else,” Melanie said.

  “Then that’s what you do. Consider this kitchen and cantina as your personal little kingdom and run it as such.” Doug turned back to Becky and Sabrina. “I need someone to run general services around here. You’d be assigning quarters, arranging community functions, group movie night or any other creature comfort sort of thing. The little things that will help to make this place home to folks. Temporarily, we need barracks-style arrangements for all of our workforce. But eventually, we’ll need to set everyone up with their own places. Especially the ones that have no want to return to Earth and would rather call this place home. Then we’ll eventually have to look at the prospect of people having babies and starting families. Do you want the job?”

  Rebecca’s throat bobbed as she attempted to swallow. Her eyes narrowed to a suspicious glare as she let out an exasperated huff. “You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”

  “Nope, not in the slightest.” Doug grinned, then continued. “Everyone that we bring in will need to learn how to be flexible and do more than a few jobs initially. Well, at least until we get the Lair fully functional and self-sufficient. We have brought back twenty-eight new crew members, including the four of you,” he pointed to each of them, “plus four light-transport crews. Mel will be busy keeping everyone fed, which includes menu planning and supply orders for two or three months at a time since we don’t have a regular schedule for Earthside trips as of yet. When you aren’t working directly on planning or assigning accommodations, I would expect you to help Mel in the kitchen and with service, at least until we hire in a few others.”

  “I could handle that, I guess,” Becky said.

  “You guess, or you know?”

  “I know I could handle it and do the job. Do I get to choose who works for me,” she excitedly asked.

  “That would be one of the perks of being in charge of something,” Doug replied.

  “Good, then my sister Sabrina is working with me.” She pulled Sabrina in for a sisterly side hug.

  “What about these two?” Doug nodded toward Chris and Perry.

  Her face crinkled in a snarky, disgusted visage. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t hire them if I had to. They are your problem.”

  Perry shrugged his shoulders and chuckled. “What can you say to that? There’s no real argument worth arguing there.”

  “Do you two have anything to do?”

  “Oh yeah yeah yeah, we’re good,” Chris stammered. “Willy sent us to help in here temporarily till he was ready for us.”

  Doug looked back at Becky, “If you can use them in the meantime, then go ahead. It all depends on what Mel needs, but I’d make getting bunks set up a top priority.

  Doug turned back to Mel, who had busied herself with inspecting the contents of a large container. “Now, back to the reason that I came here. We’re heading back Earthside just as soon as Willy and Trae can get us loaded. I need to know if there’s anything else that we missed on this load that you immediately need. The next load we were going to focus on equipment as much as possible. But if we need something for you then I’ll make sure it gets into the ship’s manifest.”

  “Can you take Andy with you and just leave him there while you’re at it,” Melanie suggested.

  “Um...No. Not really, Mel.”

  “The
n there isn’t much you can do for me, now is there.” Her glare could have burned a hole through a six-inch steel plate.

  cHAPTER 43

  Earth

  Isla Escudo de Veraguas

  The northern coast of Panama

  August 28th, 2176 / Afternoonish (Local Time)

  “I

  really don’t know, Cap,” Wes said as they walked along a sandy boardwalk. It gradually led the way from the shore up a small rise to a Spanish style beach house. “I mean, the thing is huge compared to the Betty. Is Willy absolutely sure that the flux drive can handle something as massive as a Brynhildr class foundry ship along with the Betty and the Veronica passing through the flux? What happens if the opening collapses while we’re halfway through the flux? Do we just cease to exist? Do we snap to one side or the other? Are we divided between the two points of space?”

  “He said that drive could easily handle the aperture diameter and the mass involved,” Doug replied. “I had him and Trae both review the data and they are both certain that the flux drive will be fine. He said it isn’t a matter of how big something is when passing through the flux, but more of how wide that you can expand the opening. They both did say that the flux drive can only channel so much energy through the emitters, which is what limits the aperture opening. But right now, we’re good.”

  “Okay? I’m still skeptical,” Wes said.

  Doug stopped momentarily, lit a cigarette and took a long draw. He turned to take in the beauty of the picturesque, tropical beach, then exhaled slowly through his nose. A comfortably warm breeze carried the scent of the sea and tropical flowers across the island toward the beach where they stood. Doug closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. “It’s like something you’d see on a postcard, isn’t it?”