Gambler (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Tabryn was a converted desert planet which,
centuries before, had been founded by refugees and criminals.
Unfortunately, it hadn't evolved much since. Even more
unfortunately, Nova had been forced to grow up there.

The capital city that had been Nova's home
for many years shared the planet's name. The rich and powerful
lived in the small inner city where drug lords and the mafia ruled
the streets, and wealthy business people spent their holidays. It
was a wonder to behold.

Surrounding the jewel which was Tabryn's
inner city was the dirt and squalor which made up the rest of the
planet. In those outer reaches, away from the shine and glitter of
inner-Tabryn, drug abuse was almost as high as malnutrition and
violence. Limited jobs resulting from the planet's failing
infrastructure meant that there was little hope for improvement for
the citizens of outer-Tabryn. So they turned to the underbelly for
the happiness they couldn't find in real life.

In the end, all that resulted was a huge
number of orphans with no one to take care of them. Most of their
stories went the same as their parents, and the same as it would
for their children; a life of cold, loneliness, and hunger, ending
with an overdose that would take away the pain.

Nova had been one of the lucky ones. She had
managed to get food from a shelter that struggled with the swarms
of hungry children. She'd still had to fight for her survival on
more than one occasion; at thirteen, she had killed a man who had
tried to take advantage of her as she slept in a cardboard box.

Nova's memory skipped forward.

She walked across the hard red dirt. The
bottoms of her trouser legs were perpetually stained brown from the
dust. The air was dry and hot. It burned her nose and throat as she
breathed in, but it was the only air she'd ever known. One hand was
clasped around the cred-stick in her pocket; the other clutched a
knife, hidden under her jacket.

She was eighteen. Three years fighting in
the Pits had given her a stack of credits, more than she'd ever
seen in one place. She knew exactly what she was going to do with
it; she was going to buy her way out. There was a whole universe to
explore and she'd be damned if she was going to waste her life on
the backwater which was Tabryn.

Once she had found her place in the Pits and
made friends there, she'd been happy for a few years. But now that
was over. Tabryn was a vacuum determined to suck the very life out
of every resident.

But why did it have to take Caila?

She should have been prepared really. The
signs were all there. She knew as well as anyone that Caila was
spiralling down into a drug-addled haze, thanks mostly to the
popular street drug Zine. She was so high most of the time that she
couldn't even blink. The worst days were when she couldn't breathe.
Nova would wake up to the sound of struggled gasps. She would run
to Caila's side and find her gasping for air, fighting against her
lungs which were no longer under her control.

Nova would sit there for hours, manually
pumping air into Caila's lungs with the artificial respirator. When
she eventually came round, Caila would cry and wail. She'd promise
Nova that she'd stop now; no more drugs. Of course, that only
lasted until the next pay check arrived.

So many times Nova wanted to leave, to get
out. It was Caila's own fault after all. She chose to keep taking
the drugs. She could have said no; she could have stayed clean. But
despite that, something kept Nova there. She couldn't abandon her
friend. They'd grown up in the same orphanage, fought the same
battles. Nova just happened to have won more than Caila.

But last night Caila lost her final
battle.

Nova was woken for the third time that week
by ragged breathing. She ran to Caila's side, the respirator
already in hand. She put the tube down Caila's throat, ignoring
Caila's gagging reflex. Nova pumped gently on the ball at the end,
forcing air down into Caila's throat. This time instead of
recycling air, a spurt of red came out.

The crimson liquid poured out of the end,
onto the floor, and over Nova's hand. The blood was laced with
green and black. Chunks of meat floated amongst it. The smell was
overpowering, a mixture of rotting meat and toxic fumes.

Nova stifled a scream and pulled the
respirator out of Caila's throat. What had she done? Nova called
for help but the night remained silent.

Caila's glassy eyes stared, unseeing. Blood
seeped out of the side of her mouth, bubbling as she struggled to
breathe.

Nova tried everything she could think of to
save the other girl but it was to no avail. Roxanne, the woman who
ran the shelter, explained later that eventually Zine causes the
lungs and heart to literally burst. There was nothing left of her
internal organs by the time Nova had arrived. Her body was just
going through its final motions, and now Caila was dead.

Nova shook the memory from her head. She
couldn't stay on Tabryn a moment longer. Everything reminded her of
the cesspool of drugs, disease, and poverty that it was. She had to
get out, to get free of it all. She'd travel into the stars; see
the rest of the galaxy for herself. Tabryn couldn't have her.

So it was that Nova sauntered to the used
ship yard with money and knife in hand.

An old man bent over a rusted ship, spanner
in his hand as he cursed and grunted under the hot sun. His face
was bright red, a stark contrast to his white hair and stringy
beard. Desert dust stained his clothes red, intermixed with oil and
grime.

"Hail," Nova said as she stepped up to the
ship.

The man cursed once more, turned the
spanner, and then lifted his head to stare at her. He squinted and
his mouth turned down.

"I'm not a charity. Get out of here," he
said, waving his hand and returning to the ship.

"I want to buy a ship," Nova said.

"Look, girl. I'd warrant you don't have
enough to buy this spanner, let alone a ship." While keeping his
attention on the ship, he held up the spanner and waved it in the
air.

Nova's face went red and her blood boiled.
Her hands clenched tighter around her money and the knife, not
knowing which she'd end up using today.

"I have money," she said.

The mechanic turned to squint at her again.
He frowned but stood straighter, laying the spanner down on the
side of the ship.

"What are you after?" he asked.

"Something cheap. Something simple."

"How cheap?"

Nova glanced around the yard. She didn't
want to give away how much she had straight away; on the other
hand, she didn't know how much a ship should cost.

"I've got a thousand credits," Nova said. It
was half true.

"Ha!" the man laughed, turning away. "You
couldn't even get a broken hovercraft for that, let alone a working
ship."

"I didn't say it had to be working," Nova
said. It took all of her might to keep her voice steady. True, she
would rather have a working ship, but she knew mechanics. She could
get it running if she had to.

"Oh really?" he asked with a raised
eyebrow.

"Yes," she replied, standing straighter, her
chin jutting out.

"Hmph. The cheapest piece of junk I've got
here is going to cost you two thousand at least. And I don't think
you'll be able to get it working at all."

"Which one?" Nova asked.

The mechanic nodded towards a rusted ship.
It was half buried in the sand with dents running up its sides.
There were metal panels hanging off its side, and plenty of other
chunks of metal scattered all around its base.

"Another drunk driver," said the mechanic as
he shook his head. "I don't know how it happens when the ship has
autopilot, but there you go."

"How bad is it?" Nova asked.

"I was gunna sell it as scrap metal. But I
guess you could probably try to make it fly. I don't know how safe
it would be though."

"Five hundred," she said, crossing her arms
over her chest. There was no way a damaged ship was worth two
thousand credits, and she was no stranger to haggling.

"Get out of here!" he scowled, turning away
from her. "I wouldn't part with it for less than one thousand five
hundred."

"I'll give you one thousand if I can
scavenge pieces from your other wrecks and store it here while I
fix it up."

Nova's heart fluttered in her chest. It was
a fair deal but that didn't mean the man would take it. She was
just hoping that he was as down on his luck as everyone else on
this damned planet and needed the money.

The mechanic stared at Nova for a time, his
white hair waving in the desert breeze. "Alright," he growled.

Nova nodded and pulled out her cred-stick,
laying it on the bench next to the mechanic's. The numbers counted
down from her total and were added to the mechanic's.

"Good luck," he said, turning his attention
back to the ship he had been working on when she arrived.

Nova nodded and headed for the ship. The
desert wind of Tabryn blew against her as she made her way across
the red sand. Bits of grit flew up into her eyes and hair. She
squinted against the glare of the desert sun and scurried up to her
new home.

The front of the ship caved in where it had
crashed into the sand, and wires poked out everywhere from the
metal exterior. The ship was a dull grey and as Nova got closer she
could see chips of red paint that had peeled off under the
buffeting of the desert sand. The red block letters spelled out the
name of the ship.

"Crusader," she said under her breath. It
seemed to suit the ship perfectly.

She gripped the crude handle and yanked the
door open. It squealed in protest. Nova stepped up inside, having
to lean to one side because the ship was lodged in the sand at a
strange angle. Inside, the ship was simple, but perfect for what
she needed.

As she wandered through the storeroom, she
opened various lockers and cupboards. Begging for some money or
rare jewels, but of course all that was left was junk. The mechanic
had already thoroughly inspected the craft for valuables.

Nova came to a single locker which was
embedded into the ship's wall; it sat apart from the others and had
the letters C4L inscribed on the front. She opened the door with
curiosity. Inside she found what looked like a heap of scrap
metal.

Wires and curved metal plates lay piled in a
heap at the bottom of the locker. The power socket at the back had
been torn part of the way out of the wall. Beneath the metal plates
she found tiny robotic limbs and tools, as well as a hard metal
ball.

Nova turned the ball over in her hands a few
times. It didn't take long for her to piece together what she'd
found. It was obviously a Class 4 Labourbot, or C4L for short.
C4L's were robotic drones responsible for servicing small crafts,
but it had been a very long time since this one was used.

She clicked her tongue. If she could get the
robot working it could help her repair the rest of the ship. It
shouldn't be too hard to fix; she'd done similar to robots she'd
found in the Tabryn dump. She went to another locker in which she
had previously spied a toolbox and sat on the floor of the ship,
spreading the C4L's parts about her.

It was a painstaking process and Nova
continuously found herself on all fours looking through the locker
and the surrounding floor for the tiny screws which held the metal
parts in place. It was like a three-dimensional puzzle as she tried
to fit all of the tools around the inner ball in such a way that
the outer casing would fit. There were some parts that were beyond
salvaging, but luckily these were, at least for the moment, not
necessary. She did have to scavenge some wires from the main ship
to replace the ones which had been fried by the power surge from
when the previous owner had crashed the craft. She made note of
changes which would have to be made to the robot once the ship was
fixed and she had the money.

It took the rest of the afternoon and most
of the night, but eventually Nova put her tools aside and rested
back against the wall. It was only then that she noticed the hard
metal floor on which she'd been sitting for hours and the dimness
of the room, lit only by the ship's emergency lights.

A pile of burnt wires and broken metal sat
on her left, but resting on the floor between her knees was a large
metal orb which looked almost as good as new, albeit with some
minor dents and scratches. She reached down and lifted the orb
until its projector eye was level with her face.

"Class Four Labourbot; power on," she
commanded.

At first there was no response, but after a
few moments Nova felt a slight vibration through her hands and a
tiny red light blinked at the side of the robot. An audible whir
emanated from the robot's centre. She was wary in case the robot
exploded in her hands, but thankfully it stayed in one piece.

"Class Four Labourbot reporting for duty,"
the slightly digital male voice said from its invisible speakers.
"Reporting massive damage, alert, alert, massive damage. Main
control room non-responsive."

Nova breathed a sigh of relief as the robot
reeled off the damage report.

"Thank you Class Four—" Nova looked to the
side of the robot's swivelling eye where the acronym C4L had been
stamped. "—Cal, from now on you will respond to the title Cal," she
said.

The robot, now named Cal, fell silent at her
words and the whirring got louder as it processed the new
information. "Acknowledged."

"Good. I need to sleep now, but we'll get
onto repairing the ship tomorrow. Please run a full diagnostic
tonight and generate a list of urgent repairs required before the
ship can fly."