Grab The Bull
Once upon a spaceship
Little Miss Daisy
And they had. She could see the new patches on Sturdy Bird’s belly from where she stood outside the loading bay. But if Gus was worried, something else other than superficial wounds was wrong.
Daisy wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“I know,” she confessed.
“Yer pa never should have handed over the keys,” Gus sighed, shaking his head.
Right, because he doesn’t know. I haven’t told anyone.
Problem was, Pa didn’t hand over the keys.
Ma did. Pa died in that rust bucket. Daisy tried not to replay the horrific sound that escaped her when she found him cold in his bunk.
He played it cool up until the moment he wished her goodnight for the last time.
A terribly awful thing she found out only because her Ma, in her grief, confessed to his declining health.
How she begged him to stay home on that last trip, but he couldn’t because… well…they needed the money.
That what Sturdy Bird was—a paycheck. A class 4 freighter, big enough to take jobs from corporations, small enough to still be flown by 2 pilots.
Not that they didn’t need more people; they could never afford them.
Easier to insure that way and cheaper on the startup.
In a galaxy as wide as theirs, there were always two things in desperate need: delivery and transportation.
They couldn’t afford the licensing and insurance to move people from place to place, and her father was always too much of a goody-two-shoes to ever take illicit or under the table jobs, so large pallet cargo it was.
Every pickup, they sent back credits home. Every drop off, they sent back more.
Hard being the biggest earner on a moon that no one cares about.
No minerals worth mining, no resource worth collecting; the intergalactic community at large looked at Aquaterra and deemed it unworthy.
A small community on a small rock at the edge of the galaxy that gets too much sun but not enough money.
Her freighter was one of a few that sent funds back home to keep loved ones fed, housed, and comfy.
She had seven siblings, her ma, grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, and their little farm full of measly wiggles to support.
Wiggles are like caterpillar pigs, they grow to be 100 pounds, covered in fur with lots of legs, good for meat.
“Look, Daisy, we gave her the best patch we could but she’s dangerous.
Trade her to us for bits, we’ll pay you a good price.
” Gus slapped her bicep with one of his hands tenderly.
His jaw scales were growing pale, losing their usual blue-green color.
His beard was bleached of vibrancy and dangled a little lower than she remembered.
She hated how much it reminded her of Pa.
How her father was starting to turn silver around his ear fins, how his palms were more steel than bubblegum.
Aquaterranians always come in either pink or purple, with ear fins, 2 antennae out the tops of their heads, and webbed toes.
She looked so much like her father when he was a young adult, even with her pastel-colored, curled bob around her round face.
The only thing she got from her Ma, was her smile—something she’d not worn in a long time.
“You know I can’t do that,” she croaked.
“You can’t keep putting your life on hold for a moon that’s got no luck. Daisy, I know yer Pa was shackled to that place, but you got a real chance to do somethin’ for yerself. Take the credits and do something for you, for once.”
“Thanks, Gus.” She gave him a weak smile as she took back the keys he dangled off a claw.
He nodded, knowing defeat when he saw it.
Daisy unlocked the ship and walked up the loading bay door into her rust bucket.
Pa asked her a long time ago to help him.
Ever since she was old enough to have an intergalactic ID and shoot a blaster, she packed up her own bag into the dusty, rickety freighter.
Her family couldn’t afford her to stop and be selfish.
The farm didn’t make enough to feed them all season long and transport wasn’t cheap.
Besides, where would they go? It took money to move, money to start a new life, money… money…money.
Pa died beholden to it. And if she didn’t make it to the next cargo load, she might too.
Cranking on its engine, the bucket of bolts rattled and shook.
It made her shiver, hearing the loud banging as everything came back to life.
After a few more clunks and a spit of charcoal gray smoke out the rear, Sturdy Bird rolled out of the shop and onto the airstrip.
Arcon 7 was the main refuel and fix-it station as it floated between two large resource planets.
Arcon and Bixen were huge farming planets and always needed ships to pick up pallets of wheat, corn, or energy packs from their solar panel farms. Her plan was to drop down onto Arcon and scoop up an easy job. No more asteroid fields.
Sturdy Bird rumbled as she got up to speed and tipped into the air.
Daisy tried not to think back to what Gus said.
No one outside of her family knew what happened to Pa; they just knew he stopped coming to stops in the last few months.
She couldn’t keep having the same wound in her chest ripped open.
She needed to work. Flying off the edge of the station, the ship floated into the stars.
Daisy thought about turning around. Hand the keys back to Gus, just tear her apart.
Then her gaze dropped to the photo on the dashboard. A group photo from the last time she was home. In quick succession, she plugged in the coordinates to a landing zone on Arcon, then veered off toward the planet.
It wasn’t till she descended through the ozone that she realized that was the wrong choice…because the alarm bells started screaming. Something was very wrong with Sturdy Bird. And she wasn’t going to land anywhere near the landing zone.