by Sam Renner
She pulls the tin that Nixon has flattened in front of her and begins to work. She’s quiet and concentrating, and Nixon watches as she bends the metal. She gets up and looks for more tools. She’s using a ruler to measure lengths and to force clean seams and distinct folds in the metal.
She works and reworks certain sections, leaning close to work out finer details. Nixon admires her precision, and it’s easy to get lost in her concentration. An hour passes quickly, then a second hour. And by the time she lifts her head and pushes her creation to the middle of the table it’s been nearly three hours since she’d come back to the galley.
She’s smiling and staring at her case. Nixon looks at it too.
She looks up to him. “Well?”
Nixon hesitates then says “It’s good.”
“You think so?”
“Considering what we had to work with and that, I assume, you’ve never made one of these before, yeah. It’s good.”
Her shoulders slump. “That’s some qualified praise.”
Nixon bends and grabs one of his crumpled attempts that landed at his feet after he threw it across the galley. He shows it to Laana. “You did infinitely better than I did, and on one attempt.”
He squeezes his case into a ball of thin, malleable metal and tosses it toward the trash bin. He misses.
“Problem is we can’t just do a good job. We have to do a perfect job. It has to be able to pass an up-close inspection. At least for a moment or two.”
Laana nods. “Fair.”
Nixon picks up Laana’s case. She’s included a lot of the details from the original case. She’s tried to replicate the etched lines. “Look,” he says, pointing to the lines she’s drawn and the small dots she’s added to indicate the pinholes on the original case. “That’s good stuff, but it’s all facade. Run a finger across that, and it’s all smooth. We can’t have smooth.”
“We’ll never make a perfect copy.”
Nixon shakes his head. “Doesn’t have to be perfect. But it has to feel like it just long enough that I can pass it across, get the credits, then get out of there.”
Laana nods along as he speaks. “OK, then. What do you suggest?”
“I think we need help. I think we need Aldius.”
06
Laana’s reader connects after the second attempt, and Aldius’ large, orange head fills her screen.
"Trouble already?" Aldius asks through a laugh.
"Not trouble," Laana says.
Nixon finishes the sentence: "But we could use your help."
"So this isn’t just you guys wanting to check how I’m doing?"
Aldius sits back in his seat and his image on Laana’s screen jiggles as he sets his reader on a desktop stand.
He props his feet up on the desk, and now they are about all either Laana and Nixon can see.
“So if you weren’t wanting to know how I was doing …”
Nixon interrupts him. “We have a plan we need a little help with.”
“A new plan? Already?”
“We aren’t giving them the case,” Nixon says.
Aldius pulls his feet off the desktop and sits straighter in his chair. “Interesting new direction.”
“We’re keeping it and all of its potential for ourselves. We’ll use it to make as many credits as possible until they find us and make us give it back.”
“Oh, they won’t make you give it back. They’ll kill you and take it.”
That stops Nixon for a moment. It wasn’t how he ever saw this ending. He didn’t know what the end looked like specifically, but it wasn’t with him or Laana dead. It just ended with them leaving the case behind somewhere. They make an agreed upon amount of credits, shake hands, congratulate each other on a good run, then go their separate ways, the case sitting on top of some empty table somewhere just waiting for someone else to pick it up and discover its secrets.
That, or they crush it and the orbs under some big rock somewhere then call the partnership agreeably dissolved.
“So what did you need me for?” Aldius asks.
“We need you to make us a fake case,” Laana says.
“Why do you need a fake case?”
“Because we are still going to try and get the credits for this job. I have to give them something to do that.”
Nixon stands and steps toward the wall. He picks up one of his failed attempts and also grabs Laana’s version. He holds them up to the camera.
“We thought this wouldn’t be that hard. Clearly, we were mistaken.”
Aldius laughs. “Points for effort.”
“Can you help us?” Laana asks.
Aldius considers the question and asks Laana to show him the original case. She holds it up to her camera. He leans in close and his face again fills her view. His eyes narrow in concentration.
“Turn it?” he asks, and she does.
He asks her to turn it again and then to open it. The light from inside the case makes Laana’s reader glow green.
Alduis leans back again and says “Yeah, I can make you a copy.”
Nixon lets out a breath that he’s been holding since this conversation started. “Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.”
“For a third of whatever it is you guys are getting,” Aldius says.
Nixon stops his internal celebration. “What?”
“Whatever it is that’s been worked out as payment with Tychon, I want a third of it.”
“For building a case?” Nixon says.
“I’m not building a case,” Aldius says. “I’m building a working replica of a private internal Tychon case. I’m building you a replica that your whole plan hinges on passing muster at the exchange. And your whole plan wouldn’t even be your plan if you didn’t know what was inside that original case. You owe me for that too. Only asking for a third almost feels like I’m cheating myself.”
Nixon doesn’t like it. It’s selfish, but it’s been his life on the line this entire trip. He’s the one who’s been chased. He’s been shot at more than anyone else. He’s been the one trying to outrun trouble. Why does he have to share a third of his take with Aldius? Just as quickly, he realizes that he’s not in the power position here. He needs a case. That means he needs Aldius. He reluctantly agrees.
“Give me a few days to get this together. The details might be a little tricky to figure out.”
“We are a few days out from Azken,” Nixon says. “We’ll connect again once we’re there and settled.”
“Sounds good,” Aldius says. “I’ll get to work.”
His connection blinks closed.
“Well,” Lanna says. “Looks like we’ve got a case.”
“Yeah,” Nixon says. “A damn expensive one.”
07
Nixon is in the crew quarters, the case open in front of him. He’s keying in coordinates again, places he knows this time. There’s the numbers for his old hole on Exte. There’s Shaine’s house. The Goodtimes Palace.
He doesn’t toss the orbs, although he wants to. As he gets closer to Azken the more this plan seems like a bad idea. He’s talking about running a scam on one of the biggest powers in the galaxy. This is a company that could make him and his ship a ball of hot, galactic slag without even lifting a finger. And it wouldn’t think twice about doing it.
Key in any of those familiar coordinates, toss the orbs and step through back onto Exte. Let EHL and Laana continue the trip to Azken. He’d just go back and find his old life again. Get a small place. Scramble up work every day. Small stuff, here and there. A little construction. A little courier work. Just enough to keep the credits flowing. And now that he’s had this little taste of adventure, he’s not going to live that life wondering what else is out there. This ship and this trip has stamped out that little spark of curiosity for more, that expectation that it has to be better than this. Maybe that life was the better one. He didn’t have people chasing him. He didn’t have the threat of a blaster bolt appearing from nowhere and for unknown reasons.
Except he knows none of that is true. That life that he’s remembering now didn’t have that golden glow he’s recalling. It did have looming threats. It had Uzeks. It had desperation and bad deals. It had back alley beatings and mad dashes through crowded streets.
Those things, though, were things he knew. Those were things he was familiar with, enemies he knew how to fight. This, though, this is picking a fight with the biggest of the baddest. This is turning the volume up well past its top levels.
He grabs the orbs from the case, and he rolls them in his palm. They make a dull pulsing sound as they go around and around each other. They start to warm his skin. He thinks hard about tossing them out in front of him. The muscles in his arm twitch, just waiting for his head to give them the instructions to do it. And he almost does, but …
“Hey,” Laana says.
She snaps him from his spiralling daydream. He shakes his head and places the orbs on his bed.
“How are we looking?” he asks. “Everything OK up front?”
She steps into the room and takes a seat on her own bunk. “No change. Everything is running fine. We’ll be at Azken soon.”
Nixon folds the case back up and drops the orbs inside before closing the top.
“Playing with that thing again?”
“Just … making sure I’m comfortable with how it works.”
“I figured you’d have it cold by now.”
“Getting there.”
It’s quiet in the room for a moment, neither of them speaking. Laana breaks the silence.
“You know,” she says, “the more I think about this plan of yours, the more I like it.”
“You do?”
“Not the part about trying to fool Tychon. I give that a fifty-fifty chance at succeeding. But, if it does, that second part is smart. Time is critical to landing these big-credit jobs, and this gives us a big advantage. We could really set ourselves up well pretty quickly.”
“She’s right.” It’s a new voice. It’s Shaine. He’s standing in the doorway now, leaning on the jamb. Arms crossed. “Get past that risky first part and you guys can make some quick credits. You need to do this.”
“I don’t know. I’m starting to think …”
“Stop,” Laana says. “Don’t overthink this. You’ve already thought it through. There are things that could go wrong, sure. But there’s also a lot that can go right. We just have to be smart.”
Shaine: “Be judicious with the jobs you pursue. Don’t go after everything. Look for the things where there's likely to be success. The things where you aren’t putting yourselves at risk. If you don’t let greed start making your decisions …”
Laana starts reminding Nixon that she does have experience looking at these boards. She knows all those secret codewords that these captains use when they don’t want to be exactly clear about what the job entails.
“Great opportunity for someone who’s self-drvien” means that the captain isn’t looking to help you at all. It’s going to be lots of work, and it’s going to be all on you.
“A chance to build your legend” means this job is hard, and I don’t have many credits to pay for it. But you’ll definitely earn some reputation points.
Be aware of anyone offering a mound of credits and still calls the job easy, because it never is.
Shaine stands behind her nodding along.
Nixon looks back to the folded case, and he can feel the orbs in his palm. He can feel their smooth surface sliding across his skin. He can feel their heat. He can see their possibility again.
“You’re right,” he tells Laana. And Shaine. “It’s a good plan if we’re smart. We just have to make the first part work.”
He looks specifically to Laana. “How do we get you more confident that it will work? You put our odds at fifty-fifty, and I don’t like those.”
Laana shrugs. “That’s all riding on Aldius and what his case looks like. I’ll let you know more once we see his work in person.”
A chime from EHL sounds from the main cabin.
“Please find a secure seat, sir. We are preparing to enter Azken’s atmosphere.”
08
Nixon buckles himself into the captain’s seat in the main cabin. Laana secures herself into the navigator’s seat next to him. EHL shimmies slightly as it enters with the growing atmosphere around Planet Azken.
The thick clouds out the front windscreen make everything look soupy. EHL cuts through them quickly and springs out into a briefly clear bit of sky, but in front of them Nixon and Laana can see the dark clouds that hang over most of the planet. Lightning ripples through them, and Nixon grabs the seat as EHL dives inside. The ship twists and turns and fights the winds that are pushing these clouds across the Azken sky.
EHL breaks through the clouds, and Nixon winces. This planet is all industry. The buildings are all made of grey steel, and their jagged tops are practically reaching out to grab EHL from the sky. The ship bucks and twists to avoid the metal spires.
Even up here the traffic is thick. Nixon looks to Laana, and she has her eyes closed. She’s missing EHL jumping it’s way through the haulers that are carrying the gear and equipment that feed the industry that makes this planet run, feeds the machine that is Tychon.
“You OK?” Nixon asks, looking back out of the front of the ship and everything happening there. Below the clouds, rain is peppering EHL’s windscreen and peeling off in thin streaks, blurring what Nixon can see into smears of greys and blacks.
EHL suddenly drops out of the traffic lanes full of heavy haulers and into more open sky. A second traffic lane is rushing like a river below them. These ships are more EHL’s size. These are the small haulers full of cargo that keep the day-to-day businesses working and running.
Laana’s eyes are open now. Ships rush by on either side of EHL, and the ship is in constant motion as it adjusts to their washes.
“This doesn’t bother you?” Nixon asks.
She doesn’t say anything, just grips the arms of her chair tighter.
A blast of air from a passing ship clears EHL’s windscreen, and the ship drops out of this traffic lane back into clear sky. It’s flying by the upper floors of the planet’s tallest buildings now, the ground still feels impossibly far away. But it’s visible now, and with a clear windscreen Nixon can see the little pools of bright neon lighting everything down by the streets.
“Where to now, sir?” the ship asks.
“Find us a place to put down. Not Tychon if possible.”
“One moment.” The ship goes quiet again.
EHL returns. “Not Tychon is going to be difficult, sir. I’ve scanned all of the public ports. THere are only two that don’t belong to Tychon and those are showing full.”
“Just find us something.”
“Yes, sir.”
EHL drops into the lower traffic lanes. The ducking and diving it was doing earlier in the upper atmo is over now. This is a different kind of travel. Slower. Stop and go.
“We need a plan,” Laana says. “We are trying to pull off something pretty impossible. We don’t do this right, and that’s it. Tychon doesn’t play around. They don’t offer much mercy or grace, not in my experience. We have to get this right.”
Nixon knows she’s right, and how they actually pull this off has been on his mind. He’s been thinking, when EHL hasn’t given him reasons to panic, about earlier days when he and Shaine were still working together and about the schemes they pulled and the people they took as marks.
He tries to think of schemes that were similar and modifying the plan to make it work for two people. It’s not easy, though, because Shaine was always in charge of figuring out a plan and he loved nothing more than a complicated scheme. He liked involving lots of players and lots of moving parts. This piece reliant on that piece, all of it building to success. At least in his head.
The reality was that so many of his schemes failed because something didn't go right. Either someone forgot a piece of the plan or som
ething didn’t work exactly like Shaine had laid out. So that left everyone scrambling, and Nixon hated scrambling. Scrambling required you to anticipate, to know what the others were going to do, and Shaine’s schemes often involved so many new players that you couldn’t anticipate. Nixon didn’t know any better when he was younger. He followed Shaine’s lead. But Shaine’s not here. This is his team. This is his operation. He knows how he’s going to play it. Fewer people. Fewer parts. Eliminate the points of failure.