Renaissance

by Caleb Fast

  “I hope it gains you all the bonus points you’ll need reel that girl in,” Richardson laughs before Phelix jealously elbows him.

  “You two all good now?” Audaz asks as she peers into the room. As per her usual, she was eavesdropping, always keen to know everything that was going on.

  “Yes,” Richardson and Clive answer in unison as they shake hands and smile, Richardson had finally won Clive’s trust.

  Five

  Paradise, Galatia

  “Get off of that!” Trix shouts to a prisoner who had climbed onto the windscreen of one of the old armored truck.

  “Calm down princess,” The man mutters as he shuffles down the vehicle, cracking the glass in the process. He looks around to see if anyone other than Trix had seen him, satisfied that she was the only one who had, he scampers off to fetch a ladder to get on top of the vehicle.

  “Jerk,” Trix whispers to herself as she strides away, toward the largest vehicle in the bay. According to one of Richardson’s guards who had led them to this particular bay, this vehicle was called a Helix.

  The guard had informed Trix that it was the ‘big brother’ to another vehicle called the Forager, which meant nothing to her. However, Trix couldn’t help but admire the sheer scale of the massive vehicle. It stands over ten meters high and extends several dozen meters in length. Its hull looks as if it can take a salvo from a battleship in orbit, and still keep trucking. Its treads have immense spikes which look like they could both kill and lend all the traction one would need to scale a cliff. Every corner of the beast is bustling with weapon stations, although half of them lack armaments.

  “Miss Trix,” A man by the name of Glenn calls out from his perch on the massive piece of machinery. He is sitting on the edge of a hatch, with his legs dangling into the engine bay.

  “Yes?” Trix asks once she draws near.

  Swinging his legs out of the engine bay, the man quickly slides down the hull of the Helix and lands in front of Trix. Pulling out a piece of paper, he starts, “The fuel lines are corroded, I will need to salvage some from several other vehicles if this thing is going anywhere.”

  “Do it,” Trix instructs with a nod.

  “Thank you,” Glenn says as he scampers away toward a section of the hangar that Trix had ordained as the graveyard that everyone could salvage from.

  “We don’t got weapons!” A man shouts as he pokes his head out of an empty gunner station.

  “I can’t help you there,” Trix calls back up to the man with a chuckle.

  “What’re the gunnies s’posed to do?” The man asks, saddened.

  “They’re going on a drive, not a killing spree,” Someone shouts from behind Trix.

  “What about the beasts out there?” Another inquires.

  “Then they’ll have to use the guns they’ve got,” Comes a sobering reply, “I’m just happy we won’t be going out in these.”

  “How many people are we leaving behind?” An inmate inquires as he pulls himself up out of a hatch on top of the Helix.

  “Just shy of a thousand now,” Trix replies, saddened by the fact that the number continued to decline as time went on. Every so often, someone would come by and give her an update on their breakout, including an ever-growing casualty report.

  “Are we sure we have enough vehicles for them all?” The man in the hatch presses as he surveys his surroundings.

  “I know we don’t” Trix replies with a shake of her head. Turning to leave, she continues, “But this is the best we can do.”

  “How far are they going to have to walk?” Another prisoner asks.

  “We still don’t know,” Glenn replies as he returns from his pickings with several long coils of fuel lines wrapped around his shoulders.

  Trix takes her leave as everyone begins talking amongst themselves, knowing that she had better things to do than answer the same questions all day long. It seemed like everywhere she went, people wanted to know how many people we going to stay, and if they had enough transports for the mass exodus.

  “Trix,” Srin’s voice echoes from somewhere nearby.

  “What?” Trix asks, not breaking her stride. She needed to get to the hangars above them which housed dilapidated hovercrafts which hadn’t seen the light of day for several decades.

  “What’s the rush?” Srin inquires as she emerges from a dark engine bay, covered in thick grease.

  “I have to make sure everyone’s work is progressing,” Trix hastily replies.

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to pull this off?” Srin presses.

  “Yes,”

  “Why are you so confident?”

  “I’m not, I just have faith. Besides, failure isn’t really an option here—”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because we are playing with people’s lives here,” Trix shoots back, growing irritated by all the useless bantering. She wouldn’t be able to get any vehicles running if everyone kept asking her questions that truly didn’t matter.

  “Touchy, touchy,” Srin grumbles as she peels away from Trix, likely irked with Trix’s short replies.

  “Need a little help?” Trix asks an inmate who is struggling to open an engine bay hatch.

  “Please,” He begs, he had clearly been struggling for quite some time now.

  “You have to pull here first,” Trix instructs as she reaches through the hatch’s grill. Releasing the lever, she continues, “And now we can open it.”

  “Oh,” He says sheepishly, clearly ashamed by the fact that he had been held up with something so simple.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Trix laughs.

  “I should have figured that out by now,” He moans as he tries to hide his face by ducking into the hatch further than necessary.

  “It gets everyone the first time,” Trix points out.

  “I doubt it,” The man mutters, clearly wanting to change the conversation.

  “It got me my first time,” Trix admits, “Took me a whole day to figure out how to open the dumb thing.”

  “Really?” He asks with a chuckle. He turns around to face Trix and offer her his attention.

  “Sure did,” Trix laughs, “And once I got the bay open, I realized I still had no idea what to do!”

  “Sounds like I’m in the same spot you were then,” He confesses as he glances back toward the engine with disdain.

  “Follow me, I’ll take you to someone ho can teach you a thing or two,” Trix offers with a knowing smile. She continues as she helps the man ease the hatch shut, “And what shall I call you?”

  “Renault Escobar,” He announces proudly.

  “Nice to meet you Renault,” Trix smiles, “I’m Trix,”

  “Wait, the Trix?”

  “The one and only,”

  “Oh great,” Renault moans, “Sorry you had to see me like that,”

  “It’s fine! It took me ages to learn anything abut mechanic work, and I even had teachers.”

  Trix marches along to a rickety tower of stairs on the other side of the hangar. The stairs rise up to a hole in the ceiling which leads to the hangar above them. Renault had fallen silent and had resolved to just follow Trix like a shadow. At the base of the staircase, Trix sizes up their daunting ascent.

  “Wait, we’re going up there?” Renault inquires timidly.

  “Yep,” Trix answers simply peering through the grated stairs all the way to the ceiling, “Are you afraid of heights?”

  “Yes,” Renault admits bashfully, “That, and stairs like these that you can see through.”

  “That makes two of us on the stairs,” Trix admits with a laugh, “I hate these things.”

  Renault hesitantly chuckles as Trix ascents several stairs on her way to the first landing. Trix waves for Renault to follow, and after a few moments, he does.

  “Excuse me,” An inmate grunts as he brushes past Trix and Renault. He huffs down the last few stairs, careful to not drop the large canister he is struggling with.

  “I always t
hink it’s easier to race up these things,” Trix offers, “That way I only focus on going fast, not on looking down.”

  Renault nods silently, and motions for Trix to go first. Without hesitation, Trix flies up the stairs, causing quite a lot of noise as the metal frame shakes with every stomp. Before long, Trix hears Renault’s footsteps crashing behind her. She and Renault finally crest the final step, winded and laughing at how foolish they had likely looked.

  “Thanks,” Renault wheezes after several moments.

  “What for?” Trix inquires as she looks around the hangar they had entered.

  “For helping me face my fears,” Renault whispers.

  “Were you really that afraid of heights?” Trix asks, surprised by the look of achievement on Renault’s face.

  “Yes, I was terrified!”

  “Of heights?”

  “Yes, I came from a planet where the tallest thing was maybe three meters high!”

  “Even the trees?”

  “We didn’t have trees,”

  “So, you came from a desert planet?” Trix asks as she begins leading Renault toward where she had spotted Raycee. Fortunately, Raycee knew his way around engines, and he was also an apt teacher, something Trix intended to capitalize upon.

  “Of sorts,” Renault starts, “It was an artic wasteland.”

  “A mining outpost?” Trix inquires, she had never understood why anyone would want to start a community on an ice planet when there were plenty of hospitable planets across the galaxy.

  “Old research station actually,”

  “What were they studying?”

  “I honestly couldn’t tell you. The researches left ages ago, all they left was the building, which my people made the most of.”

  “Why’d they choose an abandoned research station to be a home?”

  “It was already built, and we needed somewhere fast,” Renault shrugs.

  “Trix!” Raycee calls out from a hole in a cockpit window in a nearby hovercraft, which appeared to be an old gunship of sorts.

  “There you are,” Trix exclaims, turning to Renault, she continues, “He’s the one that’ll show you the ropes.”

  Renault nods and follows Trix up a ramp that leads into the belly of the hovercraft. Trix quickly makes her way up several ladders and down a few narrow corridors until she finally makes it into the cockpit.

  “Welcome, welcome,” A woman says with a friendly wave as she turns from her work at a console whose lights are faintly flickering.

  “Where’d Raycee go?” Trix asks the woman as she looks around. The cockpit is actually rather spacious, despite the fact that every other bit of the hovercraft is cramped. Around her, Trix sees at least a dozen stations for the various systems aboard the ship, all of which are also flickering. Every surface appears to be caked in thick dust, even vertical surfaces had grown a layer of grime after years of disuse. However, Trix wasn’t too surprised, everything in this hangar was laden in the same grime, which included the cockpit’s viewport. If it weren’t for the broken window, there would be no way to even see the outside world.

  “Got enough power up there yet?” Trix hears Raycee’s voice call out from an open hatch in the ground on the far side of the room.

  “Not yet,” The woman at the control panel calls back. She dips her head beneath the console and pulls at several wires before finding the one she was searching for. She quickly strips the wire with a knife, and then she splices it to another wire she had already stripped. In a moment, the engines roar to life, shaking the entire craft as they acclimate themselves to their resurrection.

  “That’s it!” Raycee’s voice calls out joyously.

  “Perfect!” The woman exclaims gleefully.

  Through the broken cockpit window, Trix sees people outside cheering, as they celebrate the first vehicle’s revival. Trix walks over to the window, and sticks her head out, in order to see the rear of the gunship. Her eyes are immediately drawn to the smokestacks at the rear of the ship, which are belching out some of the darkest columns of smoke she had ever seen come out of an engine. She chuckles as she contemplates how long the craft had to have been sitting here for such a result.

  “Get some fans going!” Someone calls out from behind the gunship after a cough.

  “We need some more fuel!” Someone else shouts as they emerge from the ship’s underbelly.

  “One down, a whole lot more to go,” Trix jokes as she pulls her head back into the cockpit.

  “Thanks,” Raycee mutters in mock offense. He continues with a laugh, “I’m actually surprised we got this bird running again.”

  “Why’s that?” Trix inquires as she glances around the cockpit, which is now awash with lights form all the various consoles. Several of the walls at the rear of the cockpit are now glowing beneath their thick layers of filth. Trix continues as she walks over to one of the glowing walls.

  “The fuel tanks were all full of rust,” Raycee reports, “We had to flush the tanks and lines. In fact, I had to put in a lot of new lines too.”

  “Well, congratulations, you’re the first one to get anything running in here,” Trix informs Raycee.

  “Really?” He asks, “But we’ve been working in here for the last eight hours!”

  “I know,” Trix nods, depressed by the slow pace of their work.

  “What about recruiting the help of the others?”

  “You mean everyone that we aren’t taking with us?”

  “Yes,”

  “I like the idea, but I don’t know what Clive would think.”

  “Why don’t you go to find out? I can hold down the fort here while you’re gone.”

  “Alright,” Trix says nodding. She brushes the grime off of the wall she had been standing at, and then admires the screen which she had uncovered. She flips through a few of the menus on the screen before she continues, “Systems all look pretty strong, minus weapons and life support.”

  “And engines,” Raycee adds as he wipes another nearby screen clean with his sleeve, “This baby really doesn’t like all that stale fuel she had in her lines.”

  “It’ll clear out soon enough,” Trix points out as she steps aside to let someone else check the hovercraft’s systems.

  “If we are lucky,” Raycee nods, “I just hope all the old lines I didn’t replace will last.”

  “That makes two of us,” Trix laughs. Turning to face Raycee, she continues, “I got a favor I need to ask you,”

  “What’s that?”

  “This here is Renault,” Trix introduces as she points toward Renault, who had been following her closely the entire time.

  “I figured he was your stalker or something,” Raycee says with a laugh. After a beat, he tears his attention away from his monitor, and he offers Renault his hand, “Nice to meet you, kid.”

  “A pleasure,” Renault returns as he shakes Raycee’s hand enthusiastically.

  “What can I do for you?” Raycee inquires.

  “I need you to teach him everything you know,” Trix says.

  “That’s quite a lot,” Raycee boasts with a hearty laugh.

  “You know what I mean,” Trix clarifies as she motions around the cockpit.

  “You’ve got it,” Raycee replies with a smile. He takes a hold of Renault’s shoulder and begins showing him around.

  “Alright, I’ll go ask Clive about getting us more help, I’ll be back soon,” Trix announces before ducking out of the cockpit, and traversing her way out of the gunship.

  Back in the hangar, Trix pauses long enough to take in the view of the outside world. The closest thing to a view that she had had of the jungles was just a few hours ago in Clive’s meeting room. Now she saw that those fissures in the walls didn’t to a justice to the vastness of the jungles outside of the prison’s massive walls. She silently weaves her way to the mouth of the hangar, where she takes in a deep breath of the humid jungle air.

  “Absolutely beautiful,” Trix hears the now familiar voice of Clive behind her. She
spins around and sees him looking towards her and the jungle.

  “It is,” Trix admits as she takes in the scale of the wilderness. Not only was the world untamed as far as she could see, but everything appeared to be supersized. Every tree had to have been three or four times larger than the tallest trees she had treasured back home.

  “I wasn’t talking about the trees,” Clive says matter-of-factly with a teasing wink as he joins Trix at the mouth of the hangar.

  “Oh,” Trix blushes, surprised by Clive’s forwardness. Coming from anyone else, the comment would have been creepy, but something about Clive permitted him to say just about anything.

  Clive laughs and winks at her before continuing, “You know, the plants and animals on this planet actually grow bigger and faster than almost anywhere else in the galaxy.”

  “Why’s that?” Trix inquires, unsure if she really wanted to change the conversation. She had to admit that Clive had captured her attention in a way few men had in her life. Between the way that he carried himself and how he led his people, he really did seem special. He also had the most honest looking eyes she had ever seen, and she had met countless people through her travels. Finally, he had a patch of blue in his hair, which was as unnerving, as it was interesting.

  “There’s hundreds of volcanoes across the planet,” Clive starts. He pauses a moment to take a deep breath of the jungle air, just like Trix had done. He sits down with his legs dangling over the edge, outside of the hangar, and continues, “That makes for some of the most fertile soil known to man. Plus, the atmosphere is thicker here than most other planets, making this like a pressure cooker, except for growing things, rather than cooking them.”

  “Really?” Trix asks as she joins Clive on the ground. She suddenly realizes that all of the stress she had been feeling had melted away when she heard Clive voice.

  “Yeah,” Clive nods, “There’s other reasons too, but I can’t bore you to death quite yet.”

  “And why’s that?” Trix asks with a chuckle.

  “Because you still have work to do!” Clive says with a sly grin, causing both of them to laugh.

  “It is nice to finally take a break,” Trix breaths.