They had stayed for five blessed months, while his captain was investigated by the Interstellar Trade Corporation for allegedly smuggling and selling illegal goods to black-market collectors across the shadier parts of the galaxy. They had no idea who turned them in for the crime.
Their Interplanetary Exploration license was put on hold, theStarfallwas docked indefinitely, and even though itwastrue, and they were guilty as hell… the Captain had described the entire extended investigation as complete and total spacetrash.
Karr, on the other hand, had been given a gift by association.
“Five months,” he said aloud as he worked with the stubborn screw.
The extended stay on Beta Earth had been enough time for Karr to discover just how much he’d been missing by spending a lifetime in the skies.
It wasn’t entirely his fault. Earth was dying, and had been since 2052. The atmosphere had been torn to shreds, wild seas raged and continents drowned. Food sources had depleted, and people lived on bioengineered crops and pills meant to supplement their systems into survival. Something had gone wrong in the development of the crops along the way.
It had resulted in a disease called RP-53, more commonly dubbed the Reaper’s Disease, for once it came calling, none survived.
Karr’s parents had fled Earth, years ago, to escape the Reaper.Like countless other travelers, they spent their lives working for the ITC, searching other planets in hope of finding some sort of substance that would turn into the miracle cure. Karr was born in the skies, in theStarfall,during that endless search. He’d never had a chance to get to know a home planet.
But Beta Earth had given him that chance. It was new. Alive.
A terraformed wonder that was fresh on the market, only a few years open to residents, and the place where Karr wanted to spend the rest of his days.
The streets of the docking sector on the northern continent were packed with hundreds of thousands, both native and alien, every race and religion and language in the galaxy mixing together like a glorious nebula. The buildings towered on all sides of him as he walked, or took a taxi ship, soaring through rows of blinking traffic lights looming over the city like dying stars, the smoke-filled, drink-laden clubs…
Beta Earth was a place made of adventure.
A destination planet where people came and saw andlived.Where those who hailed from old Earth had a chance to start anew.
It was on Beta that Karr had also discovered freedom.
For once, he could get away from the Captain of theStarfalland decide for his own damned selfwhathe wanted to do,whenhe wanted to do it.
The Captain ran his crew like a pocketful of straight-backed soldiers, and Karr was always first to feel the burn.
Stand taller, Karr.
Polish your boots, Karr.
Go back and do it right, before you spend the rest of your time in the brig.
His personal favorite?
Shut your rutting mouth, before I eject you out the crapper tube, Karr.
Perhaps it was his age. Perhaps it was his attitude.
But when the sudden announcement was made that theStarfallwas miraculously cleared, not a single bit of the drugs that lined the interior walls of the ship discovered, their pilot’s license renewed to head back out into the depths of outer space… Karr did what every crew member wished they could do when they were sick of the rules and the grueling schedule.
He’d thrown a complete and total fit.
Hemighthave burst into Jeb’s holo bar, a recent purchase in the shadiest borough of the north continent, where black-market smugglers, pirates and privateers drank until the day’s end. Karr had stumbled inside with whiskey on his breath and a hell of a hangover already on its way.
He’d gone right up to Jeb before anyone could stop him, shoved the drinks on the table aside, and planned to give him a piece of his mind.
I’m not going back on that damned ship,he’d started, though the words came out slurred and uneven.
The last thing he saw was Jeb’s wicked half-smile, before someone cracked him over the head with the butt of his own Hammer rifle.
He’d awoken in his own cabin on theStarfall,the doors jammed from the outside. A trick he’d learned how to bypass, though it had taken quite some time with the hangover muddling his thoughts. He’d snuck his way through the ship, down to the storage bay, where he now sat.
And the damned lump on his head wouldn’t stop throbbing.
