He put his hands on the airlock door and pulled the handle.
It wouldn’t budge.
“What the?”
He pressed a nearby control panel and activated the fans. The wispy gray smoke disappeared, revealing a clear glimpse of the airlock.
It had been on fire.
The walls were charred and he smelled the burning through the door.
The bay doors were busted open, revealing hyperspace. Sprinkler heads in the ceiling sprayed steady streams of water, which blew out into space.
No wonder the door wouldn’t open.
Eddie shut the sprinkler heads off to conserve water.
“Ay,” he said, putting his hands on his head.
He glanced at the airlock supply closet. It was still shut.
The body was probably still inside, but he couldn’t get to it.
He glanced at the hold where his fuel barrels were.
They were gone.
The impact from the white ship’s artillery had released them into space. Eddie thanked God they didn’t explode—he didn’t know if it was good shooting or pure luck.
But something else was missing. He couldn’t figure it out.
He swept another glance across the airlock, watched embers smoldering along the walls. Sniffed and took in the fiery smell.
Then a rope with a hook slapped against one of the walls.
That rope. He used it to restrain…
His corsair.
His baby.
His ship.
It was gone. Floating in space with the busted pioneer.
And whoever was onboard the white ship was probably inspecting it right now, gathering his name, personal information, and his family address from the instrument panel because he always left the keys in the ignition, despite constant nagging from his wife not to.
“Great,” he said in a little voice. “Just great.”
Chapter 8
The ride back to Refugio was long and uneventful. Eddie had to shut down several systems and features to conserve fuel. He had just enough to get home.
Here and there Eddie passed an occasional private passenger ship. One even hailed him, and the pilot told Eddie that he had his kid onboard and that they wanted to see how the garbage compactor worked. Eddie obliged, stopping the ship to run the compactor. From the cockpit of the approaching ship, a little boy sat wide-eyed with his fingers on the windows, watching the ship rumble and buck as the roof closed in on itself.
And then Eddie continued on his way, blasting into hyperspace to save time.
He checked the soccer scores—Santa Juana del Bosque won, of course—and the Rah Galaxy News Network.
He watched footage of an Argus invasion on Provenance, the galaxy capital, and he sighed with relief when the anchor announced that the aliens flew away in fear.
Crazy. But nothing out of the ordinary.
He tried to rest in his bed, but he couldn’t sleep, thinking about the broken airlock and the white ship and his corsair.
Every time he nodded off, he imagined the owner of the white ship overtaking him, climbing aboard and shooting him in his sleep.
The man appeared as a shadow, and he spoke in his strained, gravelly but youthful voice.
“Welcome to your death wish!”
“Where is the body?”
“You’re the biggest idiot of all time…”
And every time Eddie startled awake, jumping at the slightest sound, crawling into the living room with his handcoil at the ready.
But there was no one. Just the television playing on mute, and the refrigerator in the kitchen humming.
When the computer chimed and announced arrival at Refugio, Eddie ran to the cockpit and smiled as he approached a brown gas giant with a band of reddish brown rings.
The ship steered toward a moon near the rings.
As Refugio’s wispy, rocky surface loomed, he strapped himself in and prepared for landing.
***
Refugio, despite being a moon, was considered a planet for human resources purposes and the fact that people lived there permanently and not on a colony like other moons in the galaxy.
That it revolved around Reader IV, the smallest gas giant in the galaxy, was also favorable. The moon was one of the last to be discovered, hiding between Reader’s rings and the countless other moons that circled the planet.
It was also one of three moons in the solar system to have an atmosphere, drawing instant curiosity from the media and scientists.
The Great Western Realty Corp scrambled to stake its claim on the brown moon, but when it did, it found that the methane levels in the air and lakes were a serious problem. Almost half the sky was covered by Reader IV and its tremendous rings—scenic for a photo, but dangerous, as debris from the rings often rained on Refugio’s atmosphere. Many a Great Western worker was injured from pea sized, red-hot rocks.
The company lost almost all of its investment in the little moon within the first few years, all of it sunk into research and development.
So it did what all companies do with an asset that fails to perform: they put it up for sale.
A short sale.
But those with even the most rudimentary understanding of astronomy wouldn’t consider buying the moon.
Galactic tycoons fell in love with the gorgeous views of Reader IV, but balked at the price of modifying a dangerous planet for commercial purposes. Reader IV was out of the way of most commercial spaceship thoroughfares.
Other real estate companies had their bottom lines to worry about and had paid careful attention to Great Western’s missteps.
But a small, family-owned realty company in the center of the galaxy was looking to expand its portfolio. It had all but mastered the aggressive interplanetary real estate market, branching out into expertise in space travel and tourism.
This company—the Macalestern Corporation—identified a potential that no one else saw in the planet; instead of scientific development and study, it believed in residential terraforming.
The idea: take a planet that was otherwise inhabitable, modify its atmosphere by taking out the bad stuff like methane, adding a bunch of the good stuff like oxygen, nitrogen and water, and introducing rapid-acting greenhouse gases that warmed the planet up and made the atmosphere more dense. This first phase would take quadrillions of dollars and approximately ten years.
The second phase was to develop the land. Unlike early human history, which expanded across Earth without any plan, every inch of the moon would be reviewed and developed for sustainable growth. This would take approximately five years.
Phase three was fine-tuning the atmosphere, increasing the gravity with plate technology, and finally, habitation. Two years.
A seventeen year development cycle. Fifteen quadrillion dollars. A skeptic market.
Every actuary in the galaxy told them it would never work, that too many people would die. Engineers and construction workers protested due to conscientious objection and the health hazards.
Macalestern fired back, attacking the critics. If the human race didn’t find new ways to expand its resources, the company argued, it would be relegated to only the default Earth-like planets that already existed. That, the company warned, “would be a severe limitation on business, housing, and the human spirit.”
Right around this time, a war broke out in the neighboring galaxy when an empire began to overreach its borders.
Mass murders. Persecution. Fear.
Such was the world that Benito Puente, Eddie’s grandfather, grew up in. He led a resistance against the Zachary Empire, but had to flee for his life when it went wrong.
Benito and a band of refugees entered the Rah Galaxy. They didn’t have much money. But they were willing to start over.
They needed a home, and the moon that nobody wanted was still for sale.
The company that no one believed in still wanted to try its bold new idea.
In a groundbreaking deal, Macalestern bought the moon f
rom Great Western at one-third of purchase price. Then it sold the property to Benito Puente and two thousand of his followers. The company started the terraforming with the understanding that if it failed, the deal would be null and void and Benito would owe them nothing.
But if the deal succeeded, Benito would need more money to develop and inhabit the moon. Macalestern would provide this capital in the form of an adjusted rate mortgage with twenty-two percent interest and certain, guaranteed easements to the moon, as well as percentages of profits in certain industries such as tourism and manufacturing.
The inhabitants of the moon would establish industries and pay monthly toward the mortgage over the seventy-five year life of the loan. When it was over, Benito’s progeny would own their moon forever, guaranteeing security for his family, Macalestern would make over fifty quadrillion dollars and triple their investment, and the whole galaxy would finally understand the company’s genius.
It worked. The moon became the first success in the company’s foray into a previously untapped market of residential and commercial planetary real estate development, a competitive advantage that few competitors could match.
When Eddie’s grandfather bought the planet, he called it el refugio—the refuge.
Refuge from the armies of the Zachary Galaxy.
He and his family were refugees, in a way.
The small moon was home. The second home Eddie had ever known.
***
Eddie arrived at twilight. One half of the planet shone from sunlight; the other half lay submerged in darkness.
He set course for a rocky plain in the middle of the gradient of sunlight.
Home.
Refugio.
He checked his watch.
He should have been home three hours ago. But delays weren’t unusual. He often came home late; Alma never called unless he was gone longer than one day.
The family was probably at home right now. His grandmother, Antonia, was probably at the stove, making tortillas from scratch, preparing dinner before she headed to church for Wednesday worship. Papá would be reading the news. Mamá would be giving a sermon at church. Alma would be getting herself ready for his return.
He couldn’t wait to be home, back in the familiar comforts of Refugio, his pod home in the middle of a rocky desert.
The ship rumbled as it entered the moon’s atmosphere. Eddie held onto his seat.
The ship was flying itself now. He trusted it to get him to the ground safely.
A hot arc appeared in front of the ship, shielding it from heat. A film of plasma coated the ship. He studied the instrument panels.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Not yet.
The computer beeped. The ship shook and he closed his eyes as he endured the worst part. His seat jolted around terribly and it seemed like the ship would tear itself apart at any moment.
Eddie said a prayer, focusing on nothing but calm thoughts as chaos ensued around him.
Then the beeping stopped, the shaking diminished to a dull rumble, and the computer made a dinging sound that let Eddie know he had made it home at last.
“Welcome to Refugio,” the computer said.
Chapter 9
The Puente Waste Management plant was a oval-shaped pod that could be seen high from the sky. It was a silver rosary in the sand, a glittering icon among the shifting dust.
As the ship descended, Eddie spotted rows upon rows of squares lined up outside the plant.
Cardboard.
Plastic.
Bales of them.
The rows were longer than when he left.
He smiled. Alma and the girls must have been hard at work. Alma could drive a front-end loader with a speed and accuracy that rivaled any man, and his cousin Josefina could fly in a forklift.
He counted the rows and did quick mental math.
Macalestern would buy the cardboard—they always needed recycled supplies for things like office projects and cubicles.
Recycled glass was precious and sold for good money. They had a separate plant that processed the glass. Off in the distance, he spotted mountains of glittering glass.
Paper wasn’t the family’s favorite—no one read books anymore—but they developed a steady stream of income selling to schools and manufacturers.
There was probably several million in gross sales down there right about now. After profits…maybe another fifth of a percentage point toward the mortgage after everyone was paid and Macalestern took its cut.
The family had several satellite recycling plants—six on Refugio and three more strategically placed around the galaxy. Along with garbage runs, which planetary governments paid annually for, recycling classes and education, eco-tourism to the planet, and waste management consulting, the Puente family took a loan that many claimed to be predatory, and they turned it into one of the most entrepreneurial success stories in the history of humankind.
“It’s the only way to pay,” his grandfather once joked, “One dime at a time.”
No one expected Benito Puente to get into the garbage business. But he filled a desperate need, and, well, someone had to do it.
But the family was not rich by any means. All their money went toward the mortgage. A single shared purpose. Financial freedom.
Eddie remembered the days on Traverse II, under the Zachary Empire, when having money was just a dream, and they worked you until your body was raw.
He liked Refugio much better even though he still worked until he was raw. At least he had his humanity.
As he neared the plant, he opened up the radio and called home.
His abuela, Antonia, answered in her usual decrepit but fiery voice.
“Bueno.”
“Mama Tonia, it’s me,” Eddie said. “Que pasó?”
“Oh, it’s you, mijo? Thank the Lord. I saw the news about the Argus invasion. Los cerdos are going to kill us all.”
Eddie chuckled.
“Nah, they’re just a bunch of pigs,” he said.
“They have guns, mijo,” Mama Tonia said. Eddie could tell that she was frowning. “Just yesterday, Angel was flying near Provenance and he saw one.”
“Angel?” Eddie asked. “Who’s that?”
“You remember Angel,” Mama Tonia said, annoyed. “Your cousin. On your grandfather’s side. He was at your sixth grade birthday party that one time, remember? His mother used to come see us on Traverse II.”
“Oh. I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do. Anyway, he was on his way home from work and an Argus ship shot at him. His mother called me crying. Can you believe that? What a way to go—turned into bacon by bacon itself. It’s not right. It’s not right, and I’ve told your father he needs to man up and march into GALPOL and tell them to get their act together. It’s just not right.”
“No,” Eddie said, sighing. “It’s not right, Mama Tonia.”
He wasn’t going to shut his grandmother down. She was just concerned for his well-being. Fiesty as it was, it was coming from a good place.
“Are you hungry, mijo?” Mama Tonia asked after a moment of silence.
“Very hungry. Alma there?”
“She’s chasing your child around. I told her to discipline that boy more. The way he runs around this house, you’d think he had no parents.”
“Okay, okay. And Papá?”
“Reading the news,” Mama Tonia said.
“Mama Tonia, how are you feeling?” Eddie asked softly. “Good?”
“No one in this house pays attention to me. I’m going to fall down someday and they’re all going to miss me when I’m gone. Who else is going to cook them tortillas and carnitas, eh? And your abuelo, he…oh, never mind. ”
Her voice brightened.
“Now that you’re home…”
“What’s wrong with abuelo?” Eddie asked.
“Está bien,” Mama Tonia said.
Eddie sighed. His abuelo must not have been doing well. Each day was a struggle or a success.
“Come
home and eat,” Mama Tonia said. “And did you bring home the fifteen quadrillion dollars like I asked you to?”
Eddie laughed. If he did that, the mortgage would be paid in full.
“Not yet,” Eddie said. “But I’m working on it.”
***
The plant’s domed roof opened, and Eddie brought the garbage ship down gently and steadily.
He navigated toward a red circle in the middle of the plant floor.
He’d done this a thousand times. He could have done it with his eyes closed, in his sleep, in the middle of a nightmare.
The family was waiting for him.
Alma, in a floral dress, maroon lipstick and high heels. Her black hair flowed in the air from the garbage ship’s descent. She had her arms around his son, Dylan, who watched with wonder.
His dad, Delfino, stood in a sweater and khakis with a news tablet tucked under his arm. He was studying the ship, looking for damage.
And Mama Tonia was there, wearing a blue blouse, talking to his dad and laughing at something. Her gray hair was tied into a bun, and she hooked her arm with Dylan’s for stability.
Eddie didn’t want them to see the back of the ship so he eased down, with the nose pointed downward.
The ship touched down with a resounding clang.
Eddie shut the engine off and went down to greet his family.
***
“Something stinks,” Mama Tonia said, sputtering. “What’s that smell?”
Eddie climbed out the airlock and strode toward them, shrugging.
“Just some technical problems,” Eddie said. “Nothing to worry about.”
His son ran to him.
“Papi!”
Eddie crouched down and hugged his son. He was two, and he wore a Santa Juana soccer jersey with his name on the back. His black hair was starting to get long—Eddie needed to cut it.
“Did you take care of the house while I was gone?” Eddie asked.
“Yes,” Dylan said. “New bike!”
“New bike?” Eddie asked.
Delfino shrugged knowingly. “A few leftover profits. I picked a little something up.”
Garbage Star (Galaxy Mavericks Book 4) Page 4