by Sam Renner
GALAXY RUN:
AZKEN
by
Sam Renner
+++++
PUBLISHED BY:
SIX to ONE Books & Media
Copyright © 2021
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01
Nixon sits at the galley table on EHL trying to catch his breath. Sweat beads on his forehead, and everything covered by his cloak is sweltering. He pulls the cloak off and tosses it on the ground over his shoulder.
Laana sits next to him and also struggles to catch her breath. Running full sprint out of a bar and across most of a civilization-class ship, an alarmed Tychon case shouting its presence, will do that. Her friend Aldius sits across the table from them, and he’s the most settled of the three.
“How many people do you think saw us?” Nixon asks.
“All of them?” Laana says.
“Nobody,” Aldius says. “People here tend to keep to themselves. They mind their own.”
“I don’t believe that,” Nixon says. “You can not see a lot of things, but the three of us—you,” he jams his thumb at Aldius, the gigantic orange creature that Nixon has only just met, “you notice that, no matter how much you are wanting to keep to yourself.”
The alarm still sounds from the case that Nixon has been carrying with him since Exte. He’d turned to Aldius to get the thing open. He was Laana’s suggestion after she’d halfway convinced Nixon that he wanted to see what was inside, what has caused so much trouble.
He did want to know what was inside. He did want to see what was so important that it’s caused all of these ripples in Nixon’s life.
Ripples? Waves are more like it.
Aldius seemed duly impressed by whatever is in the box, but Nixon hasn’t had a chance to ask him what that was. The alarm made sure of that. Once it sounded, the three of them were up from their seats at the back of the bar where they’d met and sprinting out the door.
Laana led the way with Nixon shouting for her to just go back to the ship.
Aldius has the case unfolded on the table in front of him. He’s focused on nothing else, his head down and leaned in close to the case. His hands are so big that they make it impossible for Nixon to see what Aldius is doing.
A moment later the alarm stops, and the inside of EHL is quiet. Aldius sits back for just a second then leans back over the case. His elbows straddle, and he looks like a victorious giant staring down another defeated villager.
Laana asks the question that Nixon has been wanting to ask since they ran from the bar. Aldius had told them that the case held the whole galaxy, but he’d never explained what that meant.
Aldius smiles and sticks a finger into the top of the case. He hooks a meaty knuckle around something that Laana and Nixon can’t see yet. He pulls it out and tosses it to Nixon. He reaches in for another then two more after that. He hands those to Nixon as well.
“Toss them,” he says.
“Toss them?”
“Just out in front of you, gentle.” Aldius makes a tossing gesture wanting Nixon to copy it, and he does.
The orbs that Aldius handed to him immediately scatter and create the four points of a horizontal rectangle. They all bounce slightly for just a moment then the space in the center of all of them fills with a shimmering black surface.
”Oh my …” Laana doesn’t finish.
“Right?” Aldius says. “I’ve heard … but I never thought they’d actually be able do it.”
“Somebody tell me what I’m supposed to be impressed by,” Nixon says. “What am I looking at?”
“It’s a portal,” Aldius says.
“A portal?”
“Wiggle some fingers in there.”
Nixon hesitates a moment then pushes a hand into the void. It disappears. He pushes his arm up to the elbow, and everything below that is just gone.
“Careful,” Aldius says. “Pull your arm back out.”
Nixon does, and he’s whole again.
Laana steps up next to him and brushes her hand against the shimmering blackness. “I’d always heard …” she says but doesn’t finish. “I just assumed those were rumors. Stuff that hunters told each other about while waiting for work. But look …”
She takes another swipe at the portal, and her fingers briefly disappear.
“They did it,” Aldius says. “They’ve been working on it for years. But they did it. This changes everything.”
Nixon listens to this conversation, but he’s not understanding. “Changes things how?”
Aldius: “This opens the galaxy to Tychon. These portals allow them to be anywhere at any time.”
Laana picks up the narrative. “No more taking turf. You hadn’t seen much of Tychon back on Exte because it was just too far from Azken. They haven’t made it out there yet.”
“With this,” Aldius continues, “that’s not a factor anymore.”
He spins the now unfolded case to face Nixon.
“Coordinates go in here,” Aldius says pointing to a small keyboard. “That tells the portal where to open to. Toss the orbs and step through.”
He wipes a hand in a wide circle and gathers up the orbs and the portal disappears. “Toss them again.”
He does. They scatter and float in a horizontal rectangle again. “Ready to come back? Step through from the other side.”
“At least you assume that’s how it works,” Nixon says and looks closer at the case’s new configuration.
Aldius shrugs. “Sure. I assume. But it’s the technology that’s complicated, not the concept.”
“And that’s why you say it was the whole galaxy in the case.”
Laana gets up from the table and pulls a cup from the cupboard. She’s making something for herself, a cup of java drink. She offers a cup to the other two. They both wave her off.
She talks as she makes her own cup. She’s not speaking to either Aldius or Nixon, just reasoning things out loud.
“If Tychon can now get anywhere in the galaxy just by stepping through one of these portals then they need a much smaller security team. A smaller team made up of better agents. Beating Tychon just got a lot harder.”
Aldius stands, and the galley suddenly feels smaller. Nixon pulls the unfolded case closer and begins to study it.
The keyboard is small, just enough keys to enter in galactic coordinates. There’s a small screen, again just big enough to display the coordinates entered. This case is a one function tool.
But, man, that one function …
“And what’s this indicate?” Nixon asks, pointing to a small green light that’s just started blinking a pattern near the corner of the display. “It wasn’t doing that a second ago.”
Aldius looks over Nixon’s shoulder.
“Oh … gorotza.”
“Gorotza?”
Aldius has the unfolded case back in his hands. He’s looking at the back. Then he spins it around and looks at the bottom. He runs a finger in a very distinct path along the outside of the case back to where the green light is quietly blinking.
‘Gorotza,” he says again.
“Why do you keep saying that?” Nixon asks.
“If the audible alarm wasn’t enough to scare us away from this case, then this could.”
“Because…” Laana says, waiting in expectation for Aldius to finish her sentence.
“It might be a warning signal back to Azken. Back to Tychon.”
“Might be?”
“Yeah. Might also be just some light. I don’t know enough about the actual workings of the case. Could just indicate some sort of benign network connection. Or it could indicate …”
Nixon interrupts. “Yeah, we just don’t know.”
The room goes quiet.
Aldius and Laana look to Nixon. He looks at them. Things hang in this awful limbo for a few moments when Laansa finally asks: “What now, boss?”
Boss.
Boss?
Nixon’s never had anyone call him boss before and actually mean it. He’s always been the one looking to others for direction. He’s looked to them for next steps, for marching orders. And now he has two faces looking to him.
He thinks. What would Shaine do? That’s the person he’s seen model this kind of role most often. He’s the person who sat himself at the head of the table and started giving out assignments. The person who laid out the plan, the always complicated plan and all its steps. A person in every role and a role for every person. So what would Shaine do here?
Someone who may have spied out your position? Someone who might know when you’re coming? Someone who may have stolen the element of surprise and is looking to strike? Shaine would take the fight to them. So that’s what Nixon is going to do here.
He’s been in enough fights to know that if you see someone getting ready to lay the haymaker on you then you step into the punch. You shorten the blow. You lessen the impact. You reduce the force with which the punch lands. Then you counter.
“We go to Azken. Today. Now. We leave, and don’t give them a chance to surprise us.”
02
“Laana, let’s get everything secured. Get things cleaned up in here. I’ll get the engines started.”
Laana begins clearing java drink trash from the counter. She puts mugs and tools back into the cupboards and engages the locks on the doors.
“Aldius, it’s going to be tight, but we’ll figure out a place where you can sleep. It’s not going to be much, but …”
Aldius interrupts.
“Don’t bother. I’m not going.”
Both Laana and Nixon stop what they are doing.
“Not going?” Nixon asks.
Aldius grabs his rolled package of pins and keys and heads back to the main cabin. Both Nixon and Laana follow.
“Everyone here saw you with that case. They saw you with us.”
“Not everyone,” Alduis says as he gets to the ramp. “Fewer than you think probably. I’m not at the kind of risk you think I am. Besides, when you two put distance between me and that case, things will be fine.”
Laana: “That thing was howling. Screaming as we ran down the hall. And you’re big and orange. You think someone didn’t make note of that interesting trio?”
“I’ve been here a long time. People keep their heads down most of the time. And a good majority of the people aren’t here long. Even if they did see us, they won’t be on the ship by tomorrow.”
Nixon is about to interrupt with his own protest, but Aldius continues.
“I can go back to my place and hole up for a bit. Let all of this pass. Let the crowd here cycle off. I’ll be fine.”
Nixon looks to the now-empty dash. He’s so used to seeing the case sitting there. Closed. Taunting him. Now it’s in the galley. Opened. All of its secrets revealed. All of its possibilities known. He owes that to this big orange thing.
“You’re right,” Nixon says. “You probably can just hole up in your space here for a bit and all of this will pass. Wait until our little mad dash becomes just a funny ‘Did you hear about that time’ tale that people who live here tell to those just passing through. All the details will be so twisted up by then that no one will know that’s you in the story. You’ll probably tell it yourself.”
Aldius is smiling.
“But,” Nixon says, “that’s a lot riding on a probably. That’s probably what will happen. But …”
Aldius nods.
“What if you came with us for now. Get to Azken. See how this all plays out. Then we can bring you back here after.”
“Probably,” Aldius says.
“What?”
“You can probably bring me back here. If everything works out on Azken.”
Nixon smiles. He nods.
“Yeah. Probably.”
“I appreciate the concern. Honestly. But I’ve spent a lot of time getting myself setup here. Getting myself established. I’m not ready to walk away from all of it. Not going to give it all up for a probably.”
Laana begins to protest again, but Nixon puts a hand up and stops her.
“It’s fair,” he says. He’s thinking back to that courtyard with Shaine and how he made his choice. How it’s a choice that changed everything and how it’s one he made in a heated moment. He didn’t think. He just acted. And now look where it has him—squarely in the sights of Tychon and its security team.
“I wish you we’re making a different choice. We could use you …”
“I’m a cracker. What you’re doing, you don’t need a cracker.”
“A cracker is what you do. A fighter is what you are. We’ll always have room for another fighter. So if you change your mind …”
Aldius smiles and nods. “And if you ever need help …”
“We’ll reach out.”
Aldius thanks Lana and Nixon for letting him see an internal Tychon case that close up. They both thank him for the help. Then he turns and is gone.
Laana and Nixon watch him go then Laana begins to speak. “I just can’t believe …”
Nixon interrupts her.
“No time for that,” he says. “Aldius made his choice, agree with it or not. We’ve made ours. Let’s get the ship ready to fly.”
Laana responds with only a nod.
There’s not a lot to do. Laana goes back to the galley and continues working there while Nixon jumps into the captain’s seat.
He begins running through his personal checklist in his head. First, he presses the button on the dash that starts pushing fuel to the engines and gets them ready to fire. It’s all done in the back of the ship, but when it’s quiet you can hear the chemicals beginning to mix in the lines that will carry the fuel to the fire.
Today is not quiet, though. Laana continues to talk about Aldius’ decision. She’s shouting to be heard, and she’s literally the only noise in the entire ship that Nixon can hear.
About halfway through Nixon’s list, the engines begin to rumble beneath them. Nixon smiles. It still feels good to have that constrained power all to himself. It’s just waiting to be told what to do, to be told where to go. EHL is just like Laana. EHL is just like Nixon used to be.
Now, though, he’s in the pilot’s seat. He’s the one leading this mission.
Laana joins him in the main cabin a few minutes later. She slides into the navigator’s chair and buckles in.
“That mean we are ready to go?” Nixon asks.
“Everything is secure and tucked away. We need to do anything evasive, there shouldn’t be anything bouncing around the ship to hurt us.”
Nixon nods and smiles. “You said that like you think evasive maneuvers are something that’s going to be optional.”
“A girl can dream.”
Nixon laughs and lifts EHL off the ground. He signals to the Otanzia control team in charge of getting them out of here.
Overhead speakers crackle and a thin and anxious voice fills the cabin. “Request acknowledged, captain. Our pattern is currently full. We will send signal when your position becomes available.”
Nixon grunts a response. He looks to the screen in front of him. There are a dozen ships ahead of him in the departure pattern. It’s going to take more than an hour for his position to come up. Then, after it does come up, it’ll be another hour before his turn comes up to depart.
“EHL,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Sir?” The ship asks.
“Sir?” Laana says just after the ship.
“I said get us out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” the ship says.
Nixon sits a little higher. His first in-the-moment decision. Feels good. Feels smart.
“Are you stupid?” Laana asks.
EHL spins slowly so it’s facing out of the slip. Ships lining up
to depart are above them. The wide openings that Nixon and EHL came in through sits what feels like an extra long distance in front of them.
“What do you mean?”
“You jump the line like this, go out of pattern, and you get flagged. You won’t be able to come back here or to any of the other civilization ships that the Uhartea Corporation operates. You jump that line and the first thing you do with that new transponder is burn it on a stunt.”