Garbage Star (Galaxy Mavericks Book 4) Page 3
The opposition took the ball and started working it back toward the middle. But Santa Juana stole and he cheered.
Only then did he realize that he had finally calmed down.
He hadn’t thought about the dead man ... for a couple of minutes.
He drank the rest of his soda, took a lingering glance at the game.
Then the ship’s computer chimed.
“Autopilot deactivated. Please return to the cockpit.”
“What the?”
The ship slowed to a stop, and the computer beeped incessantly. The engine whirred slowly as it powered down.
Autopilot didn’t just shut off.
The computer system was smart enough to deal with almost any situation.
The only reason it would shut off was when the ship was in danger.
Or in an immediate collision-course with an object.
Eddie charged upstairs, skipping two at a time.
He burst into the cockpit. The joystick was rumbling. Sliding into his seat, he grabbed it and checked the star map.
A blinking white dot appeared directly in front of the garbage ship.
He looked out ahead.
Far in the distance, a white ship sailed toward him.
Ships normally corrected their path when something was in the way.
Why hadn’t the white ship corrected its course?
Eddie checked the autopilot logs.
The autopilot had tried to change paths, out of the way of the approaching ship. But the white ship adjusted. Again Eddie’s ship re-corrected—but the white ship re-corrected too. The inevitable result was a head-on collision.
Eddie opened the radio.
“Hey, do you not see me? This is a garbage ship. I can’t exactly turn in a moment’s notice here.”
Silence.
“Do you hear me?” Eddie asked. “Divert your ship.”
Silence.
“Divert your ship!” Eddie cried.
But there was no answer from the radio.
The white ship was coming straight for him.
Chapter 5
“Please identify yourself,” Eddie said.
But the ship didn’t reply. It continued its quick sail through space.
As it came closer into view, he observed its shape.
The ship was a sleek white private passenger ship almost as large as the garbage ship. Diagonal black lines ran along the side, giving it the appearance of a fish. A wide bridge spanned the front of the ship like sunglasses, orange and glowing.
Eddie picked out several people standing on the bridge. From their posture, they meant harm.
Trust your gut, his abuela always said.
Talking to these people wasn’t going to do him any good.
He switched the radio channel.
“Mayday. Mayday. This is Eddie Puente onboard the Repetition garbage ship. I’m from Refugio and I’m a co-owner of the Puente Waste Management Company. I’m traveling alone and I’ve run into some trouble.”
The radio crackled, but someone responded.
“Repetition, we hear you. This is the Regina VII Star Base. State your trouble.”
“I just dropped off a load of trash at the Upper Arm Transfer Station,” Eddie said. “Found a dead body in an abandoned spaceship.”
“State your location.”
“I’m somewhere in the upper quadrant,” Eddie said. “Sending my location to you now.”
“Received. Please remain where you are and we’ll send someone to meet you.”
“That’s the problem,” Eddie said, glancing at the white ship. “There’s a hostile ship moving toward me right now.”
“Understand. We just had an incident at the base and don’t have too many ships to spare. Do what you can to escape and defend yourself,” the radio said. “We’ll come and find you.”
Eddie sighed. “Got it.”
The garbage ship had artillery onboard, but he had never used it.
He never encountered trouble on his route. In the old days, his abuelo had run into space pirates once. But that was before GALPOL patrolled the galaxy. Attacks didn’t happen much anymore unless you wandered outside the system.
But now, he had to fight.
He activated the guns on the bottom of the ship. With a separate joystick he prepared them and aimed.
He hoped all those video games he played as a kid would help him now.
“Identify yourselves or stand down,” Eddie said, hailing the ship.
Nothing.
“This is your last warning,” Eddie said. “I’m armed and will fire.”
The radio beeped. A strange, youthful but rasping voice responded.
“You think we’re not armed?”
The computer beeped.
“Warning: weapons detected on approaching ship.”
Eddie cursed under his breath.
“What do you want?” he asked.
After a moment of eerie silence, the voice spoke again.
“We want the body,” the stranger said. “Give us the body.”
Chapter 6
Eddie gulped.
How, for all the planets in the universe, did they know he had found the dead body?
And so fast?
“What body?” Eddie asked.
“No games,” the voice said. “Give us the body.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eddie said. “You think I’d be leisurely traveling through here if I found a dead body?”
Silence.
Something rocked the ship, and Eddie’s seatbelt tightened around his shoulders.
“Enemy fire detected,” the computer said. “Minor damage sustained on the lower hull.”
“Damn.”
“You idiot,” the voice said. “Your lie is obvious. We have the data. Are you going to give us the body or are we going to have to dismantle you just like the others?”
Maybe lying wasn’t such a good idea.
He was sweating again.
But something in his gut told him not to hand over the body. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t rationalize it.
But he tried to imagine that he was the dead man.
How would he feel if someone just handed his body over, possibly to the murderer?
Eddie switched on several buttons on the control panel.
The computer responded.
“Are you sure you wish to enter hyperspace?”
“Yes,” Eddie said. With a blue joystick he aimed at the enemy ship and fired several shots.
Success!
A small explosion bloomed on the front of the ship before smoldering away.
“By entering hyperspace, you—”
“You’ve got a death wish!” the stranger cried, interrupting the computer. “I have no problem taking you out.”
“Then bring it on,” Eddie said as his ship entered hyperspace. “Órale.”
***
Hyperspace severed the communication with the enemy ship.
For a moment Eddie could finally gather his thoughts and breathe.
Whoever that guy was, he was serious.
Hopefully he wouldn’t follow. Eddie had jumped into hyperspace without warning.
He had a good head start.
He pushed up the throttle, increasing to max speed. Hyperspace streamed around him.
He prepared a message to blast as soon as he left hyperspace.
“This is Eddie Puente of the Repetition with the Puente Waste Management Company,” he said. “On my regular garbage route, I found an abandoned pioneer ship. In that ship, I found a dead body belonging to a T. Miloschenko. Now I’m being pursued by an unknown spaceship who is trying to kill me. If I don’t return home, let it be known that I was probably murdered.”
He jammed the broadcast button.
“Message stored for transmission,” the computer said.
And then Eddie saw, out of the corner of his eye, a white streak in the rear view cameras.
The enemy ship popped
into hyperspace. And it was coming for him.
Fast.
***
Eddie’s heart raced at the sight of the ship.
It traveled at max speed, and the sides of the ship were shaking.
Eddie had had an effective head start.
There was no way the ship could catch him—not on speed alone.
And weapons were dangerous in hyperspace. If you fired, you never knew what could happen. You were traveling fast, and if you weren’t careful you could blow yourself up.
His best hope was that the enemy ship ran out of gas.
Eddie had a full tank. He’d go as long as he could.
But what if the enemy followed him home?
He couldn’t put his wife and la familia in danger.
He had to do something…
How did the enemy ship find him?
And then he remembered the busted ship.
It had a beacon on the underside of the wing.
He thought it was strange that the beacon was still functioning.
But it was.
And that’s probably how the bad guys found him.
He unstrapped his seatbelt.
He jogged downstairs past the television, which was still playing the game, and into the airlock, where the busted pioneer ship lay.
The purple beacon underneath the left wing was still blinking, a momentary flash of lavender against the white walls of the airlock.
He walked over to the wall, where a bunch of tools hung from hooks.
He grabbed a crowbar. And a step ladder.
He positioned the ladder under the wing. Then he climbed on and swung the crowbar upward.
CRACK!
The crowbar connected with the beacon, smashing it.
But it still blinked.
He whacked it again. And again.
One more jump—CRASH!
Purple shards rained down on him and he put up his hands in defense.
The casing shattered, but the beacon still flashed.
He flipped the crowbar around and pried at the edges of the beacon.
He strained with all his might, pulling at the beacon.
A nail popped out and hit him on the chest. He grimaced but kept pulling.
With a shearing sound, the beacon disconnected from the wing. Eddie lost his footing on the ladder.
He landed on his back. The beacon landed near him, breaking. The flashing stopped.
Rogue wires hung from the underside of the wing.
Eddie panted.
It was done.
But the work was just beginning.
***
He pulled his spacesuit up over his shoulders. It was still sticky and damp from when he’d used it earlier.
But he had no choice.
Clicking his helmet on, he breathed in fresh oxygen and started for the busted ship.
“Computer, how are we doing on trajectory?” he asked.
“Max speed. We are approximately seven point five hours from Refugio.”
Eddie sighed.
He climbed through the pioneer’s broken bay doors and again began his journey through the dark ship.
The shadows seemed scarier this time, the darkness even bleaker than before.
He smelled gas.
Something had leaked since the last time he was here.
At least it wasn’t toxic.
He turned on the flashlight and stepped delicately through the dark, around broken pipes and debris.
He opened the door to the Specimen Room.
The dead body was still there.
And so were the flies and the maggots. And the blunt, pungent smell of death.
Eddie coughed. Somehow the smell had grown stronger since his first visit.
He stood over the dead body. He tried not to think about vomiting.
“You better be worth it, dead man,” he said.
And then reached down, grabbed the dead man’s legs, and pulled.
Chapter 7
The body landed on the airlock floor with a thud.
The maggots popped off the body in a tremendous cloud of white, and the flies buzzed away.
Eddie swatted a few away. He groaned and dragged the body across the floor, leaving a trail of blood and guts behind it.
He just contaminated the entire airlock.
The dead man stared unblinking at the bright white lights on the ceiling.
Eddie expected him to blink, to just wake up and shake off all the maggots, tell Eddie sorry about this whole affair. But the dead man did not wake.
Eddie made it to a supply closet. Opening it, he removed a handful of bottles of cleaning solution and a mop cart. Then, as gingerly as he could, he placed the body inside and closed the door on the man’s temporary tomb.
He looked out at the airlock. Flies and blood and human fluids everywhere.
He wanted to vomit again.
Instead, he pressed a button on a nearby control panel, and his circular cleaning bits descended from the ceiling, beeping as they lathered the floor with cleaning solution.
He took off his suit. A drone bot took it and carried it to the compactor.
He tried not to slip on the wet floors as he traveled back to the pioneer ship.
Under each wing he unclipped the airlock hooks that he had used to secure the ship. He jumped out of the way as the ship slid backward.
CLANG!
The garbage ship shook as the pioneer ship struck the bay doors.
The doors were damaged but not compromised.
Eddie sighed with relief as he climbed out of airlock.
***
“Computer, how are we doing on trajectory?” he asked as he strapped himself into the pilot seat.
“Max speed. Approximate arrival time has not changed.”
He checked the rearview camera. The white ship was still pursuing him.
“Computer, what’s the nearest planet?”
“Alpha Distoid is approximately two minutes away with a slight course correction.”
A gas giant.
He checked the star map and zoomed in on a blinking planet. A rotating holograph of a blue gas giant with white clouds appeared.
“We are approaching the planet in the highest speed of its orbit,” the computer said.
“Perfect,” Eddie said.
If his plan worked, it would give him just enough time to fool the white ship and rocket home.
If it worked.
He hit the hyperspace button and the ship began to slow.
***
Hyperspace dissolved around the garbage ship.
In the distance, Alpha Distoid, the imposing blue planet appeared. It was the largest gas giant in the galaxy, and one of three in this solar system. Some called it an interstellar landmark.
It could have swallowed Refugio two thousand times and still had room to spare. It dwarfed the black space around it, its surface like a placid blue and white ocean among the stars.
Eddie slowed the engines but kept the ship moving quickly toward the planet.
“We are now orbiting Alpha Distoid,” the computer said.
The instrument panel beeped as Eddie’s previously recorded message transmitted.
Good. Now the Galactic Guard would have his location—and the location of the enemy.
He focused on the rearview camera.
Just as he expected, the white ship appeared with a purple flash.
Eddie slowed his speed slightly.
The radio crackled.
“Welcome to your death wish,” the stranger said.
“Wait!” Eddie said. “I’ll give you the body.”
“You’re lying,” the stranger said.
Eddie hit the airlock button.
The busted ship tumbled into space.
Something rocked the ship.
Eddie gripped his seat.
The enemy ship. It had fired. Into the airlock.
The computer beeped. “Fire detected in the airlock.”
“Oh boy,” Eddie said, raising the bay doors.
He watched the pioneer ship drift into space.
“There it is,” he said. “Take your stupid body.”
He increased the garbage ship’s speed. The planet’s orbit carried him faster than the ship’s max speed.
“Where are you going?” the stranger asked.
Fireballs darted past the cockpit. More enemy fire.
Eddie slammed the hyperspace button.
“Come back!” the stranger shouted.
But Eddie was in hyperspace before the white ship could follow.
***
The garbage ship tunneled through hyperspace, and Eddie held his breath as he watched the rearview camera.
Would the white ship chase him?
He hoped that giving them the ship would be enough of a distraction. By the time they found out the body was missing, it would be too late.
They would have slowed down and been unable to chase. Eddie kept his speed somewhat constant and used the power of Alpha Distoid’s orbit to slingshot him back into hyperspace.
It worked.
He counted down from ten.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
His fingers trembled as he depressed them.
Still, the rearview camera showed no signs of the white ship.
“Five, four…”
Nothing. Just empty space.
“One…”
He exhaled and rested his head against his seat. With a two minute lead, there was simply no way that the white ship would catch him. As long as he stayed in hyperspace, physics would protect him.
He crossed himself and thanked God for the luck.
The only problem now was fuel.
The computer chimed. “Please proceed to airlock. Issue detected.”
The fuel gauge was two-thirds full. He needed at least eighty percent if he wanted to get home safely. It was close, but not close enough.
He had spare fuel in the airlock for this kind of situation. He just needed to load the engine with a few more barrels of spaceship fuel. This way he wouldn’t have to stop. He could keep going until he made it to Refugio.
He ventured downstairs, into the living quarters.
The bitter, acrid smell of smoke entered his nostrils.
He coughed.
He couldn’t see through the smoke so he felt his way through the living room.