Zero Magnitude (Galaxy Mavericks Book 3)
Page 12
This week’s route had been quiet, only a few minor disconnections, nothing major. The heft of the cargo felt right.
Felt like a million dollar payload.
He neared the transfer station. It was a rotating column with a ring around it like a Frisbee with its center missing. Distant stars glittered in the empty space under the ring.
He took the joystick and guided the ship toward the column, aiming for a large airlock in the center.
The giant garbage ship, whose shape reminded Eddie of a grouper fish, rumbled, and the engine whined as it decreased speed. He moved the ship into position, aligning the edges of the airlock with the edges of the ship.
Then he hit an auto-docking button.
The airlock on the column opened, revealing a blue interior.
The ship took control, guiding itself into the center of the doors.
It landed in a large air bay with several levels.
Once the ship was safely inside, his instrument panel beeped.
The ship’s airlock doors shut, severing the link between the spaceship and the cubes.
Through a slanted window at the top of the bay, he watched the surface of the disk slide open to reveal a hollow opening. Metal arms around the space station grabbed the front-most cube and slid it into the opening; the others followed until the disk was fully loaded with hundreds of cubes of trash.
Eddie cut the engine and unstrapped his seat belt. He climbed out of the cockpit into a long, narrow, dimly lit hallway where he had to crouch to avoid hitting his head.
He walked downstairs into a living room with a galley kitchen. A lone couch with a sleepaway bed was mounted to the floor. A television was recessed in the wall, with photographs of his family next to it.
Alma, his wife.
Delfino and Xiomara, his parents.
Mama Tonia and Papa Ito.
Dylan, his son.
And of course, tall candles of Jesus and the Virgin Mary resting atop the television, burning quietly. A mainstay of his Mexican heritage.
The smiling family photos seemed to watch down upon him. He closed his eyes and fingered a rosary hanging around his spacesuit as he whispered a short prayer in Spanish.
He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic blue lunchbox.
He couldn't wait to eat. He loved his ship, but he wanted a change of scenery and fresher air.
***
The garbage ship was a quarter of a mile long, and it was a long walk to the airlock.
Eddie checked a monitor on the wall and verified that there were no leaks from the compactor above; the floors of the airlock were still sparkling from when the drone bots had cleaned them yesterday.
In the airlock, a corsair spaceship glinted against the white walls.
His baby. A white body with a red wing and a green wing. Solar panels that could recharge the entire ship in just a few hours. Custom paint job. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, and auto-entry and exit technologies. The best of the best. Its shape always reminded Eddie of a falcon in flight.
He’d bought it with cash after saving up for several years. He would never forget the ship’s maiden voyage. He’d piled the family inside—his wife and kids, his parents, his parent’s parents, and three of his cousins and their girlfriends—and they’d gone for lunch at the Regina VII Star Base, something that they could have never afforded before.
As Mama Tonia always said, the Garbage Star made everything possible.
He ran a hand along the long, sleek ship. He patted the underside the red wing, a good luck gesture that never seemed to fail him.
Then he hit the button on the control panel, opened the airlock doors, and hopped into the space station.
***
The Upper Arm Transfer station was unmanned. Despite the huge open space, multiple walkways crisscrossing near the ceiling, and the glowing computer panels here and there, it ran itself, a mixture of artificial intelligence and smart computer programming supplied to Eddie’s family by the Macalestern Corporation.
Metal arms in the ceiling unfolded the compactor doors on the top of the garbage ship. A pneumatic tube sucked out leftover trash and carried it into the disk. Then the tube vacuumed out more leftover trash as circular drone bots descended from the ceiling, spraying the inside of the compactor with cleaning solution and water. Another metal arm began to refuel the ship.
Everything worked just like it should.
He stopped at a table with a recessed touchscreen. Several photos of faces—his family members—floated on the screen. He tapped a photo of his face and a green check mark appeared next to it.
“Welcome, Eddie,” said a voice overhead.
His wife.
A recording, a touch of comfort since he was all alone. Her low, sultry voice always cheered him up.
He climbed a narrow staircase that brought him up to a metal walkway running alongside a curved window wall.
A kitchenette sat in the middle of the walkway: an electric stove, microwave, a few metal cupboards and a plastic table.
He set his lunchbox on the table and unlatched his helmet, exhaling deeply.
He opened the lunchbox; strawberry Mexican soda, black beans and rice, a fried plantain, salsa verde, and two cheese tamales wrapped in corn husks. Attached to the tamales was a note.
Buen viaje mi amor.
Safe travels, my love.
He smiled. A note from his wife, Alma. She always packed his lunch and wrote him a note.
He checked his watch.
Eleven o’clock in the morning. She was probably at the plant, sorting out cardboard and recycling it. She was probably getting ready for lunch, herself. And at lunch she would probably be thinking about him, sitting under a mesquite tree with her girlfriends and looking up into the sky and wondering if he was okay.
He switched the stove on and slapped the tamales on a griddle. He whistled as he cooked, waiting until they were warm to the touch. Then he scooped the tamales off and served himself a plate.
He ate, watching the Garbage Star twinkle in the distance.
His computer beeped.
“Issue detected in Slot Twenty-six.”
Eddie cursed, scooped the rest of his lunch into his mouth and wiped his hands on the front of his suit.
Short lunch.
He opened a hatch in the wall and climbed into a narrow tube elevator. Hitting a button on the wall, the tube carried him away from the column and into the disk, where the slanted walls of the disk were transparent, revealing a sea of trash divided by metal walls. He walked, whistling as he eyed a series of purple numbers painted on the columns.
He stopped at Slot twenty-six and peered inside.
Nothing unusual from what he could tell. Just trash. A heaping, smelly, glittering mountain of garbage.
He hated climbing inside, but he had no choice.
He opened the hatch and jumped inside, clawing his way up a mound of trash. He prayed that there was nothing among the scrishing and scrashing that would perforate his suit and cut him. This was one of the most dangerous parts of his job.
He tried not to think about the danger. His family’s well-being depended on it, so he didn't think twice about getting impaled by metal rails, or infection from a puncture in his suit, or getting bitten by a rogue rodent or insect living in the rubble, or being crushed by the weight of a shifting cube, or suffocating from a system malfunction that trapped him inside the slot, or death from exposure to the vacuum, or worse—cancer from the elevated radiation in the slots that directly faced the Garbage Star.
Many garbage ship operators suffered those fates.
He ignored the thoughts and kept pulling himself up, trash rolling down under his feet.
Panting as he reached the top of the pile, he breathed in fresh oxygen as his suit funneled in more air.
Then he saw it.
A spaceship wing, sticking out from the top of the rubble.
***
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About the Author
Science fiction and fantasy on the wild side!
Michael La Ronn is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels including The Last Dragon Lord, Android X, and Eaten series.
In 2012, a life-threatening illness made him realize that storytelling was his #1 passion. He’s devoted his life to writing ever since, making up whatever story makes him fall out of his chair laughing the hardest. Every day.
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Also by Michael La Ronn
Android X Series
Android Paradox
Android Deception
Android Winter
Eaten Series
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Nutrizeen
The Last Dragon Lord Series
Old Dark
Old Evil
Old Wicked
Modern Necromancy Series
Death Marked
Death Bound
Death Crowned
Sword Bear Chronicles Series
Theo and the Festival of Shadows
Theo and the Solstice of Dreams
Decision Select Novels Series
How to Be Bad
Short Story Collections
Reconciled People
LEARN MORE:
www.michaellaronn.com/books