Chapter 2 Tessi
I dangle from a rocky ledge by one hand, watching a commercial drone fly up behind me, zoom into the crevice I’ve spent the last hour climbing up to, and pry free the firing control module from a wrecked starship, the very reason I came all this way, then hum off like I don’t even exist.
A pained rasp leaves me. I’m exhausted, sweaty, and not going to get paid.
“Fuck you!” I scream at the drone.
It spins around, and the LED screen forms a radiant hand giving me the middle finger.
“Goddamnit.” I look down, checking my footholds, wondering why I’m still scavenging, and fearing it’s time for a change of careers.
An urge to shoot the drone down grips me. But that has only sent more drones after me to hunt everything I have my eye on, just to spite me, and to send me a message.
I get it. I’m an outdated model of machine: flesh and bone and heart and broken soul.
“Shit,” I mutter in disappointment, glancing down at the five story drop that would kill me if my hand slipped. I’ve been here a few times more than I like to admit.
“Drone got you again,” a distant voice shouts across the canyon, followed by triumphant laughter.
Falgus Ganim and his buddy, Rejillio, who the rest of the scrapper crowd out here calls Reji, are thankfully working a different crash site today.
No one wanted the towers of death. At least, that’s the locals call them.
With all the other areas either picked clean, or occupied by some other scavengers, I’m left with the most treacherous section.
“You need someone to watch your back...side,” Falgus adds. The quieter reply from Reji is barely audible, but I pick up something about watching it with his dick, followed by a grunt of lust, to which Falgus chuckles.
“Not interested!” I swing my other hand up to the rock, grab on and pull myself up.
“Afraid you’ll like it? Two for one!” Falgus chuckles.
“Pick a reason!” There are plenty.
Once I’m on the ledge, I stop and catch my breath. Falgus is a rust rat, a hoarder of anything he can get his grubby hands on, including every prostitute in every town.
Reji’s worse. He’s a bed shark. They’re both over confident leaches that drain the life from the world. A three-way isn’t off the table. But with their filthy dicks, I’m out. The last thing I need is to add more misery to my life.
I crawl back into the cracked rock to check for anything the drone missed. A glossy black corner peeks out of the dust. I brush it away and free a piece of a ship’s hull. It hums with a strange energy that I can feel the moment I put both of my hands on it. Like it’s transmitting current.
It immediately begins to smoke.
Holy shit. This is Neb.
I drop it like it’s going to burn me. I don’t have a license for Neb gear. Only Federation. I’m supposed to report it. It shouldn’t be in this debris field. The military is supposed to collect this type of wreckage.
The panel turns back to its solid mass, glinting with light when I release it to the dirt.
“Tessi?” Falgus calls out. “Don’t make us come over there and take what we want.”
I roll my eyes, hating that they try to toll me into avoiding a threesome with their dirty hardware.
There’s no reason to take the panel, but there’s some reason to take it. It would sell on the black market for a hot price. Collecting the piece with one hand, I slip it into my armored chest pouch and scout the rest of the area.
I find a handful of smaller items, mostly busted and in need of repair before I can sell them, everything from molybdenum torque drive parts for engines to a large chunk of palladium used in exhaust systems. And then I find a badge.
The metal insignia is still attached to a scrap of fabric. A lieutenant died in this wreck. I collect the badge and wipe the dirt off until the pale gold shines. Then I pack it away in my not-for-sale pouch.
Collecting a nice chunk of palladium to sell to Aphria at the market, I crawl out of the crack and scan the sky for drones. The only advantage I have over drones is that I can dig deeper and find the goods they can’t detect.
A body shield winks out atop a different plateau, far from Falgus and Reji. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Eian or Geist looking for an easy grab from one of us doing the hard work.
The canyon has many fingers that zigzag across the land. I am stuck in a cluster of stone pillars between two narrow passages. And I know the moment I’m free of the rock, I’m subject to attacks from other crews with scanners who can detect a variety of metals, including the palladium I’ve found.
A hovercar lifts off the plateau opposite Falgus and Reji. A blast rips by my head from its position.
I drop the palladium chunk, scramble for it, and watch it fall.
“Fuck!”
As the ship flies closer, I realize who it is. Carielle is always lurking, trying to steal my finds because she’s a lazy, entitled brat with Daddy’s money who expects everything to be handed to her. Just once, I want to see her scrape and beg and cry herself to sleep at night.
She zooms toward me and my palladium. Aphria could turn it into corrosion resistant medical implants for low-income families. Carielle will make jewelry or some useless shit out of it, no doubt.
I draw my capture gun, drop to my stomach on the rocky ledge, and fire.
The net races toward the metal, snatches it up, and begins hauling it up to me. The rope hums as it coils up in my gun.
“Bitch!” Carielle calls over her PA as she whips out her hook. She’s going to try and cut it free again.
Not this time. I’m not a confrontational person, but I’ve grown tired of having everything taken from me by people with bigger muscles, better tech, or more money.
I get up and tug hard on the cord, and it hauls the palladium back into view. I catch it, stuff it in my pack, holster my gun, grab a rock, and sling myself over the edge.
Gun blasts slam into the rock around me, raining dirt and gravel over my head. I smash the collar of my suit, and it seals a helmet over my head, then I hustle down the hillside, crawling as fast as I can.
She doesn’t like it when I win.
Clouds of dust puff around me, making it difficult to see the rock face. I feel my way down and worry that my dog can’t see me either. He barks below.
“Radar, hide.”
He quiets.
I crawl.
Rock breaks free under my hands. I drop a story, scramble for a new handhold, but can’t find one. A shelf greets my body hard. Pushing up, I search for a new path down.
Another blast breaks free the rocks I cling to. I flail heels over head and smash into my side. The uneven cliffs knock me into a tumble. I land, face down on the ground, and cough in the dust.
My head throbs like my heart. My body thrums with hot pain like cold fingers reentering blazing warmth. For once, I consider not getting up. My chest aches from the effort of just staying alive. My stomach tenses from the impact, but there is nothing inside.
But Radar… He needs me to feed him. He has no one else.
Get. Up.
I curl up on the ground and weakly choke out a sob. How has this become my life?
Looking up at the hazy sky, I think back to my last memory of my mother, how she kissed me goodbye at the base.
Then it was military boarding school until college, scholarships for a year, then bartending.
Now I just chat with aliens at the market and read books on alien cultures and languages, searching for a connection, a reason I am alone, an explanation for why the military wouldn’t take me even though she served.
I think it is why none of the soldiers I’ve reached out to, and every office I’ve walked into just to talk, always kick me out like I’m some sort of criminal.
When I manage to get my hands under me and pick my head up, I notice something jagged beside me. Protruding from the dirt, inches from my face, is a sharp piece of metal. Panic makes me scramble back.
If I had landed two inches to the right, I’d be dead. Metal would’ve punched through my face, leaving Radar alone and me to die a slow, painful death.
“Radar?”
My dog bounds to the edge of the trees, the gear and armor on his body wiggling side to side as he stops at the edge of the trees. He gives me a single tail wag.
I get my feet under me and take one more glance back at the metal that could’ve taken my life.
The universe just had to nudge me a little to take me out.
I’m not sure if it’s luck or destiny. I just don’t see what the point of life is anymore.
If it wasn’t for Radar, I fear I would’ve given up years ago when my last friend met their final fate.
Carielle hovers above, likely unable to see if I’m dead or alive thanks to the cloud of dust my tumble created.
“Heel.”
Radar stays with me as I run through the forest along the river.
Carielle zooms overhead, calling out on her PA. “I can see the palladium moving, Tessi. I know you’re alive. I’ve got it on my scanners. Give it up, and I won’t have to kill you on accident.”
Movement in the forest ahead of me makes me stop. Radar stills beside me.
“You have palladium?” A gruff man in worn camouflage and decked in weapons halts a three-man crew behind him. But they aren’t quite men. They’re far too gray.
His eyes illuminate green. He’s augmented and scanning my goods.
“Lot of high value stuff, sir,” says a man behind him, one with a single red eye. “She’d be an easy mate.”
Mate? Did he say... No. He said take, right?
Radar snarls at them.
“Easy, boy.” I do not want him getting shot. I’d rather lose all my shit than him. But if I lose everything, I can’t buy food. And foraging in unfamiliar territory is often fruitless.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a dark hole in the rocky towers just big enough for us to fit through.
“Radar, inside.”
He looks up at me, bright amber eyes filled with worry like he doesn’t want to leave my side.
I point to the left.
“Now.”