“Bullshit! They killed each other,” I snapped at Jimbo, but he just looked at me with that same stare he had back at the cantina.
“Look, Boss,” I began. “What I saw was that everybody had a gun, and everybody had a bullet hole in them. Do the math. It’s not luck, or any ‘anti-luck,’ just a bunch of superstitious idiots on the border who killed each other.”
To this, the Big Boss just threw his exasperated hands into the air, angrily, like a heaving gorilla (at least that is what he looked like to me).
“Oh, this is just fucking beautiful! No killer, just victims—Fuck! I might as well as turn this in for the damn bounty, why don’t I?”
The Big Boss got up from his desk. His arms are still waving in the air as he ranted and stomped away, still talking to himself. “It’s not dead or alive, but hell—maybe they’ll take it anyways? Here you go client; the Saloon Slaughterer!”
I’ve got my usual blasé smirk across my face as I stared at Jimbo, waiting for him to get up. Because I know he’s going to.
“Christ, fine! I’ll run damage control,” he bitched as he gets up and follows the Big Boss, leaving just me and the Blood Stone alone. I stared at it for a little while, thinking about the entire night; the figurine; and what that stranger said to me.
“A special kind of fatalist, eh?” I say to myself as I stood up and grabbed the Blood Stone, making ready to slip it into my front shirt pocket.
“Are you serious, you suicidal idiot?” Jimbo’s voice screeched down the hall at me. “You’re actually going to keep that thing after everything that’s happened to you?”
I cocked an eyebrow at him, surprised because I thought he had left. “Well, now that you mention it, I was thinking about stuffing it in your locker on Halloween.” He didn’t find that funny either.
“Jesus Christ, Loki, you really do keep knocking at the damn Devil’s Door.”
“Well, Jim, maybe I’m just waiting for someone to finally answer me.”
“Loki,” he started. “Someone did answer you tonight, damn it! Think about it! What are the odds that we’d be in the bathroom at that split second, right before the bullets went flying, even after you touched that damn thing? I just—I just don’t understand how you don’t see it.” He stomped away down the hall, muttering under his breath.
I smirked again, and I addressed the figurine one last time.
“For the record,” I told it, “I still don’t believe in luck.”
A. Lynn
A. Lynn is a native of El Paso, Texas where she was born and raised. Though she is a boring computer nerd by day, she lives a double life as a zany animator and fiction writer by night, when her creative soul is allowed to roam free and tell tall tales about her rather unique hometown on the border.
7. Runner
J.R. Murdock
With my shirt in my teeth and my hands trying to button up my pants, I ran down the corridor. This was the first time I’d ever been caught in the head when an alarm went out. I cursed myself for not being better prepared, but when nature called, there was no denying it.
I made it into the hangar and pulled on my shirt. I hadn’t had time to grab my boots, but I didn’t need them to fly. It wasn’t as if I would be setting foot outside of my ship in the middle of space. The siren tone wasn’t that of a smuggler heading down to the planet or an attack on the station. It wasn’t even a signal of an unauthorized vessel we would need to inspect. No, this alarm was one of my favorite. It signaled a runner.
A runner was a ship trying to get off planet. We had strict immigration and emigration laws. A long list of people wanting to get on the planet meant we needed to restrict who and what came in. On the same note, we had even stricter laws keeping residents from jumping planet and fleeing to go anywhere else. When a vessel was spotted, it was shot down on sight. Actually that’s what we did with all ships breaking the laws and trying to make a run through the borders. It was a danger to have ships flying recklessly through our space. The quickest and easiest method was to shoot down the offending ships. I’d done the job for better than twenty years and shot down more than my fair share of runners.
Carasome orbited around the massive giant star, Lurrie. The fifth planet in the system with two, life-supporting moons, Casar, the smaller, and Hepta, the larger. In all, the system had three planets and seven moons capable of supporting life. Carasome wasn’t the only planet with strict laws concerning the coming and goings of its citizens. Runners weren’t all that common, but they always gave the best chase. Men trying to break free to start a new life on another planet. If only it were so simple. These men needed to be shown that it was best to keep the status quo and not rock the boat.
The hangar had red lights over every docking bay save one. Most of the ships had either launched, or were in the process of launching as no one had an assigned ship of their own. All twenty vehicles. All save one. The ship everyone called “Lucky.” Now I’m not a superstitious person, but there was something about going in Lucky that got a lot of laughs from a lot of folks. This was the first time I’d been caught with my pants down and I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into good, old number thirteen. It had nothing to do with its number. All the ships were identical. It was the stigma and the ribbing I was sure to get once I returned back to base. I would get hazed for being the last one to leave the base and the one to participate the least amount in the ensuing chase. Being the senior pilot, I didn’t want to have to put up with that kind of mocking. I guessed I would just have to prove that the ship was just like any other ship.
The only part of the ship visible was the cockpit. Everything else sat below deck. This made getting in easier and the ship was already connected to the magnetic catapult system. I grabbed the helmet off the hook, settled down into the pilot’s seat, and began the sequence. The ships were kept in working order so a preflight checklist was never required unless there was a red light on the panel. Once buckled in, I brought the power up and everything was green for about three seconds. One light flipped to red. I slammed my helmet into the back of the seat.
“Tower, this is thirteen. What’s up with the light? I thought everything was ready to go.” I did my best not to shout.
“Captain Stalling? You got Lucky this time around? Just tap lightly on the console. The light should go back to green.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
“No sir. Lucky was cleared for flight just an hour ago. There must be a short or something. This happens from time to time with that one. Just tap lightly on the console.”
I closed my fist and tapped the panel. Four other lights went red. I growled and tapped it again and everything went green. “I don’t know that I feel safe going up in the bucket.”
“We haven’t lost anyone in Lucky yet, sir.”
It was the ‘yet’ that stuck in my craw, but there was a chase I needed to get involved in. I wasn’t about to miss the chance for another scummy runner getting his due. “Fine, just launch me and fill me in once I’m out.”
The wall slid open in front of the cockpit and the ship moved forward slowly. Once in position, I heard the lock close and the ship exploded forward. I loved this part as Lucky shot from the base station and into open space. Twenty years and I never tired of it.
The radar screen popped up as soon as I cleared the base and I could see the scattered ships. There didn’t appear to be any logical pattern to the ships currently involved in the chase.
“Tower, where’s the target?”
“We think this one may have a cloaking device, so you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled, Captain Stalling.”
On the one hand, it was annoying when someone used cloaking because it made the job that much more difficult. On the other hand this was a boon as my lateness to the party had been nullified and we were all playing on a level playing field.
“Hey, Lucky, nice to see you join us.” Laughter filled the communications channel. I knew better than to respond and draw even more taunting. I needed to pro
ve that it was the man, not the ship that got the job done. Let them have their laughs.
“This is tower. Let’s cut the chatter on the line. We’ve got a runner on the loose and we need all the eyes working and not joking. Let’s get a move on and wrap this one up. Initial reports say it’s a two man vehicle.”
It was almost always a one or two man vehicle. One could never tell from the radar blips and after the shot was fired, the debris never gave you a chance to see just how large the vehicle was you’d shot down. The dark of space also did its best to make sure that you didn’t see your target until it exploded. A pilot had to rely on his wits and his ship’s sensors.
I tapped the console when a red light came on and it went back to green, but another red light came on. It almost felt like a game trying to keep the red lights out and I gave up after the sixth or seventh time mashing my fist into the console. If the red lights were meaningless then I had no reason to pay them any heed. Instead, I put my bare feet to the pedals and began scanning the space looking for a flicker of stars while I listened for my radar to pick up an unidentified blip.
The main cluster of ships had begun to orbit the planet, another small cluster headed toward the smaller, and more densely inhabited of the two moons, Casar. I went for the larger, less dense moon, Hepta. It had many large spots of desert and only a small handful of oceans and jungles. The life on it was unintelligent and not very likely to help if anyone landed there. It was a common ploy by anyone leaving the planet, cloaked or not, to make a quick hop onto either moon before attempting to leave the system entirely. It was rare for any runner to try and make for any other inhabited planet due to deportation laws. We didn’t keep theirs, they didn’t keep ours. It was just that simple. Whoever this was would be headed out of the system.
I angled the controls toward Hepta and for the most part I was headed in the general direction, but the turn maneuver halted and instead I wound up pointing between Carasome and Hepta. I tried to force the controls to complete turning, but the controls had become unresponsive. I tried turning the other way, and that worked just fine, but turning back, it again stopped before it completed.
“Tower, this is thirteen. I’m having a little difficulty with my steering mechanism.”
“Captain Stalling, Lucky appears to have a red light showing you are attempting to steer into a collision course. If you just…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I just tap the panel.” I slammed my fist into the console and all the lights flickered off and then went green. My turn maneuver completed. “Thank you, Tower. I’m good now.”
The crew of pilots I worked with were a good bunch, just a might bit forgetful. From time to time they’d have their moments, but I’d spent the most time on patrol and I’d seen this a couple times before. Sure, most ships would jump to Casar and try to get lost in the traffic and using a cloaking device, they might even succeed. The trouble was that with a cloaking device, they ran the risk of running into something else. It was even possible they would still be in orbit around Carasome, but again, the same trouble of being cloaked and running into something.
No, the best bet with being cloaked was to head to Hepta and hide out for a couple days and disappear on the far side of the planet. There was enough life on the planet that, even with the most basic supplies, a person could hide out and live off the land. They could even be there for a couple weeks without drawing any attention to themselves. Then, once they were certain the chase was off, they could get away and exit the system.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. My job was to make sure citizens played by the rules, followed the laws, and didn’t put others in danger. Leaving the planet without proper authorization meant they were putting people in danger. I had to find this rogue ship and put an end to their shenanigans. That meant I had to shoot them out of the sky to make sure they didn’t give this another try.
I flipped some switches and tried to get a bead on the planet, but Lucky had different plans. I had tried to change the viewer to infrared to look for heat signatures, but instead the viewer went black.
“Tower, I’ve lost my viewer. Anything I should tap on to correct that?”
I flew blind while waiting for a response. All I could do was trust the control panel and hope that everything read properly. I was still far enough away from the planet that I didn’t need to worry. In our annual training, we were put into similar situations to help us fly while blind.
“Tower, I’m in the dark here. I could use a little help.”
The console flicked on and then went black again. I could still feel the hum of the engines, but I was in complete darkness. Neither the hand controls nor the foot pedals responded.
“Tower, come in. I’m in need of assistance. Lucky is really living up to her name today.”
I didn’t even have static in my ears. Just flat silence. Banging on the console did nothing this time. Repeatedly banging only made my fist hurt. Banging on the headset did nothing either. I couldn’t even get a response banging the headset on the console. I wasn’t about to just sit and bang on my drum all day. Hepta would pull me in and without navigational control I was helpless. Lucky would crash.
“Tower, this is thirteen. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ve lost control of my vehicle. I’m going to go into the lower section and see if I can regain control. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
I gave the console one more bang for good measure. Still nothing. Once I was unbuckled, I forced the seat all the way back and pulled the rubber matting. Underneath, I was able to open an emergency hatch. I pushed some wiring out of the way, a length of tubing, and dropped into the lower compartment. There was enough room to stand on my knees and I could see the wiring that went from the console into the main control box. It took me all of thirty seconds to figure out that everything looked in order. I wasn’t a mechanic, but I knew enough about the ships and their diagrams. I’d helped fix ships in the field before. I gave the wires a gentle tug to make sure they were secure. Nothing gave.
“Lucky, what are you hiding from me?”
All the connections were good. All the lights that should be lit were lit. The tiny panel showed everything I should be seeing on the above console. If I had a set of controls, I could fly Lucky from down below, but that wasn’t going to happen.
The room began to warm significantly. Lucky had entered the atmosphere. Without the use of controls, I was limited to only a few minutes before I hit the surface. When everything began to vibrate, I decided it was time to either get back in my seat and eject, or just call it quits. I wasn’t a quitter.
I tried to stand up and banged my head into the low ceiling. After a few seconds of cursing and a ringing in my ears, I heard beeping and static from the cockpit. I was really starting to hate Lucky. I crawled back up, buckled in, hit the console to get all the lights green once more, and began braking. I would need to land and give the ship time to cool down. Then I could contact the base and check in. Until I passed through the burning phase of reentry, I wouldn’t be able to tell them anything.
It took all my concentration to land the ship. The controls came and went. The lights shifted randomly from green to red to extinguished completely. Lucky was having its way with me and I wasn’t enjoying it one little bit.
“Tower, this is thirteen. Are you reading me now?”
“Captain Stalling, we’ve got you. What happened?”
“No time for that now. I’m going to be touching down on Hepta. I should be down in a couple minutes. Let me gather myself back up and I’ll be in touch.”
“Captain, we need you to…”
The communications went out, a few lights blinked from green to red. At the last moment before landing, I lost control of the ship and crashed a rather mild crash, but a crash landing all the same. So much for a perfect record. The crew back at the base were sure to have a good laugh over this one. At least I was on the ground, still alive, and if all went right, I’d be back in the air after a few minute
s. I just hated being out of the chase.
I flipped everything off and enjoyed a moment of silence. No free fall of terror. No intermittent communications. No chase to worry about. Just silence. I laid back and took several deep breaths to regain my composure. Soon enough I’d power everything back up, contact the tower, and then begin my search of the planet.
Something rapped hard on the cockpit window. If I hadn’t had the screen blacked out, I might have seen someone coming. I touched a control and the screen went clear. I hadn’t expected a person holding a wrench knocking at my door, but that’s what I had.
The woman had grease smears on her cheeks and coveralls. Her brown hair was pulled back in a loose tail and dark goggles covered her eyes. They looked like welding goggles. For a moment, I thought she might be one of the base crew here to repair my ship, but I’d only told them of my impending crash. They didn’t even know my location. Where had this woman come from?
I waved at her to get off the cockpit cover. Once she moved out of the way, I opened the lid. I took off my helmet and reached for my blaster.
No shoes. No belt. No blaster. I couldn’t have possibly been any less prepared. I looked up and waited for the woman to knock me up side the head with her wrench.
The woman cocked her head to the side. “Where did you come from?”
I should have asked her the same question. She must have seen me crash, but what was she doing on Hepta? There was no intelligent life on the planet save a couple small mining operations, but those were mostly automated. Perhaps she was just a mechanic and I was overreacting.
“I’m Captain Stalling. I had a little trouble with my ship and had to make an emergency landing.”
“What’s the big number thirteen on the side for? Are you part of a squadron?” She slid off the front of Lucky and stood on the ground waiting for me to follow.
Due to the tilt of the nose, I made an awkward exit and my bare feet slipped on the hot, metal surface and I went down face first. It appeared Lucky wasn’t done with me just yet. With a mouthful of hot sand, the rest of my dignity left me as the woman helped me to my feet. I spat to clear my mouth.
Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate Page 14