Garbage Star (Galaxy Mavericks Book 4) Read online

  Garbage Star

  Galaxy Mavericks

  Book 4 (Eddie Puente)

  Michael La Ronn

  Copyright 2017 © Michael La Ronn. All rights reserved. Published by Ursabrand Media.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, dialogue, and incidents described in this publication are fictional or entirely coincidental.

  No part of this novel may be reproduced or reprinted without permission of the publisher. Please address inquiries to [email protected].

  Cover designed by Yocla Designs (www.yocladesigns.com)

  NEW BOOKS

  If you want to be notified when Michael’s next novel is released and get other cool stuff, please sign up for his mailing list by visiting: www.michaellaronn.com/list. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  SCIENTIFIC DISCLAIMER:

  I cannot guarantee that any of the following in this series are accurate:

  Physics

  Astronomy

  Chemistry

  Algebra

  Geology

  Quantum Mechanics…

  OK, pretty much every area of science probably got bastardized in some way while I wrote this book. Any and all errors were made lovingly for your reading enjoyment.

  Chapter 1

  A gentle beeping in the garbage ship cockpit woke Eduardo Puente.

  He blinked rapidly and then startled up.

  He had dozed off.

  Wiping his mouth, Eddie Puente sat up and yawned. The ship’s autopilot shut off, and his control joystick inched forward and vibrated until he grabbed it.

  The ship’s computer spoke. “Massive radiation levels detected. Please turn back.”

  Eddie checked the radiation levels. Several yellow bars rose toward the top of a computer screen on his panel.

  “Please say ‘accept’ to restore autopilot and set course for the most recent location,” the computer said.

  He checked his star map, a three-dimensional holographic map that hovered just over the instrument panel. His ship—a blinking blue dot—traveled quickly across a grid and appeared dangerously close to a star.

  “I decline,” Eddie said.

  “By declining, you accept and understand the risks of high radiation.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, checking his instrument panel.

  No concerns. The ship’s radiation ring was operational. The red ring rotated around the garbage ship like a coin twirling in the fingers of a magician.

  A two-foot thick lead shell covered the habitable quarters of the spaceship, separated by a one-foot vacuum. He had the most radiation protection anyone could ask for.

  The computer spoke again. “Dangerous methane levels detected.”

  “Okay, gracias!” Eddie shouted.

  He really wished that tampering with the ship’s warning systems didn’t void the warranty.

  Methane levels outside the ship were deadly high, and wisps of bluish red gas flowed around the cockpit glass. The vents switched on and funneled a mix of oxygen and a scent that reminded him of fresh laundry.

  The oxygen in his suit kicked on as well.

  Something rocked the ship, and he held onto the joystick.

  Several bits of metal and unknown debris floated in the distance.

  A television. Countless plastic wrappers. Jagged glass. Remnants of rotten food.

  The trash irritated him.

  “Rafi,” he said, smacking his helmet.

  He activated a control box on the bottom of the ship and steered toward the garbage. He captured the debris in the box. With a masterful move of a metal arm, he dumped it into the compactor on the top of the ship and pulled the activation lever. The walls rumbled as the machinery crunched the debris.

  He sighed with relief. Spillover was inevitable, but it should have been captured.

  He would have to talk to his cousin Rafi about this. Sometimes Rafi wasn’t as thorough as he should have been. He made simple mistakes.

  The galaxy fined Eddie’s company for every cubic foot of trash outside a specified radius of the star. After all, his job was to dispose of garbage.

  He just saved at least ten thousand dollars. That money would go a long way in paying his planet’s debt.

  Rafi shouldn’t have been so sloppy, not when the whole family was depending on him.

  Angry at Rafi, he wanted to reach for the radio, but forgot that it didn’t work. Not in the presence of massive radiation. Even though he’d made this journey a thousand times to the Garbage Star, he sometimes forgot about the limitations.

  He calmed down.

  “Mi familia,” he said.

  He turned on the ship’s thrusters and increased his speed.

  Outside, far, far in the distance, an orange star raged in space. He had never seen it up close, but remembered the videos taken by a nanocraft. Fire danced across its surface like a roiling ocean. Scraps of trash flowed away from the star like celestial dust.

  The Garbage Star.

  Or, as his family called it, La estrella de la vida. The Star of Life.

  A disk-shaped column glittered ahead—his destination.

  He set course for the Upper Arm Transfer Station.

  ***

  He checked the rearview cameras. One hundred cubes of compacted trash followed behind the giant garbage ship connected by metal trays, like a long train. The cubes were as big as houses.

  All the cargo was present and accounted for. Sometimes it disconnected during flight, and that made for a very unpleasant stop. He’d have to climb into his corsair—a smaller spaceship stored in the airlock—and manually pick up the trash. It was a one-man job that wasn’t difficult—just tedious. And it delayed him many hours.

  He did a quick scan of the cargo and compared it to the bill of lading screen on his instrument panel.

  Provenance—50 cubes

  Macalestern—100 cubes

  Asiazil (Colony)—10 cubes

  Asiazil (Planet)—50 cubes

  Refugio—50 cubes

  The list went on.

  His regular route.

  He yawned. Already he’d been gone for two days, stopping at every planet in the western quadrant and collecting their trash cubes on his weekly journey to the Garbage Star.

  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 piled the family inside—his wife and kids, his parents, his parent’s parents, and three of his cousins and their girlfriends—and they went 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 26.”

  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 26 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 from 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.

  Chapter 2

  The ship was a late model pioneer, a brand of spaceships known in Eddie’s part of the galaxy for science and exploration.

  He could tell this much by looking at the wing. A homing beacon glowed purple on the underside of the wing. It was a miracle it still worked.

  He slid down the mound of trash and climbed out of the hatch. With two joysticks outside the door, he commanded two metal arms that dug into the trash around the wing and separated it. The slot filled with humming and buzzing.

  He grabbed the wing with the metal arms and pulled, fully expecting to see nothing else.

  But the entire ship, silver and busted and broken, rose from the junk. Its right side was crushed. Its windows were broken. And its wings dangled from the body as if on a string.

  What was a pioneer ship doing in the garbage?

  Eddie couldn’t figure it out. Using the metal arms, he brought the ship into the space station and loaded it into the airlock of the garbage ship so he could study it.

  It was remarkable that a ship could withstand the force of a compactor.

  To avoid being completely destroyed, it must have been in a lucky position. Or, last in the compactor.

  In any case, it was beyond repair. But maybe some of it could be salvaged and sold.

  Eddie thought about all the things he could do with money from spaceship parts.

  Maybe take the family out to Regina VII again.

  Take a long vacation to Kavios II, where the beaches glit
tered and the sunsets literally glowed.

  He stopped his daydream and entered a launch code on a touch panel on the wall.

  The disk on the space station rotated. Then, in a quick motion, it fired a cube into space.

  Then it fired again.

  And again.

  And again, until all the slots were empty.

  The trash cubes flew quickly on their trajectory toward the Garbage Star.

  They’d arrive in approximately one week, slowly disintegrating on a crash course with the star’s surface.

  “Successful ejection,” the station’s computer said. It was Alma’s sweet voice. “Please return home soon, mi amor.”

  ***

  Back in the rectangular, windowless airlock of the garbage ship, Eddie inspected the vessel. It was busted in every sense of the word, as if a hand had crumpled it up and tossed it among the stars.

  Stepping around a pile of metal shards, he approached the ship carefully.

  He’d only seen pioneer ships, never been aboard. Once, he’d seen one fly over the orange skies of Refugio, the lights on its stubby wings blinking as scientists studied the atmosphere.

  It had been a PR debacle: the Macalestern Corporation had sent it without announcing, and several fearful families in a mountain village had fired coilshots at it, which would have been completely justified had it not been for a clause the company had inserted into Refugio’s planetary mortgage contract.

  The Survey Clause. Page three-hundred and ten.

  The Company, in exchange for a yearly credit built into Refugio’s mortgage payment, shall have the right to mount scientific expeditions at any time for any reason in order to learn more about Refugio’s terrestrial conditions.

  Eddie himself had never seen the clause until recently. His grandfather had signed it generations ago, and even he, a shrewd man, could not have memorized the draconian contract outside of the payment terms. The payment terms alone were dozens of pages long, and it was a constant struggle to stay in compliance with them.