“You think?” Craze asked.
“Life. Freedom. Good friends. A
working ship ‘n the best of folks to sail it with. We’ll be all right. There’s
places we can go ‘n start over.” He held out Craze’s tab with one hand, pinging
it from the tab in his other. “We still have the money the Elstwhere patrollers
gave us, which means something on some worlds. I made a list.”
Taking the proffered tab, Craze
glanced at Talos’s data. Six planets offered homesteads and businesses at
prices within their means. Six. A galaxy of possibility had narrowed down to
those few options.
“We need another propellant cell
for the Sequi though.” Talos fingered the pin on his lapel. “So you can scratch
the first place off.”
Five options. “Can we get more
chips if we keep chasing after the Fo’wo’s?”
Talos shook his head. “Dactyl got
fired.”
“How come?”
“Because I made the choice to give
up any chance at getting a reliable lead on the Fo’wo’s to help
yous
sorry asses ‘n I lost the shits. Then there’s the
issue of bartering with stolen goods,” the lawman said, leaning into the room,
nodding at Talos. “We about ready to go? Rainly’s anxious to start the home
search. She’s never had one before. Ain’t that a shame?”
“You seem OK with how things turned
out,” Craze said to the Quatten.
“It’s only a job ‘n money.”
Dactyl’s long brown coat was gone, but he had sewn the sleeve back on his
shirt, covering up the symbols that had scared the piss out of Rock Man.
Who exactly was Dactyl? Craze
swallowed wrong, choking on his own spit. He held up a hand as he fought to get
enough control back to speak. “Only? ‘N who’s Quasser? What’s that tattoo you
got mean?”
“We all have a past. I won’t ask
about
yous
dastardly pa unless
yous
want to say.
Yous
don’t ask about before I was a
lawman unless I want to say.”
“OK. What will you say?”
“I joined up with the law to make
up for things I’d done. Saving
yous
‘n Rainly was the
right thing to do no matter the consequences.
Yous
make up for things ...”
Craze could tell he’d learn nothing
more. Not at this point. Maybe some day in the future when they’d all had many
more adventures together. “Well, thank you. I appreciate it ‘n I’m pretty sure
Rainly does, too. Where is she by the way? She OK?”
“She’s fine, thrilled to hear
yous
well enough to leave today.” Dactyl saluted Talos,
fist to chest. “The
Sequi’s
ready to go, Captain. Except
for the fuel cell.”
“I’m about to go buy it.” Talos
stood with a sigh.
Craze knew he owed the aviarman for
helping with the failed heist, for getting him out of custody, for giving him a
place when he had none, and for not running off when things got rough. Nice
things. Craze would keep his vow to return the kindnesses to Talos and Lepsi.
“I have some really nice bottles of booze in my pack,” he said. “One or two
should get what we need. Save your chips. Put option six back on the list.”
“Really?” Talos’s face brightened.
“Running into you on that transport from Siegna turned out to be great fortune,
mate. Life isn’t dull with you around. ‘N to think I didn’t want to be anywhere
near you at first.” Laughing, he buzzed Lepsi on his tab, telling him to get
Craze’s pack and meet them at the trader’s bay.
With Dactyl’s assistance, Talos
helped Craze to the shop. Craze aided in negotiating the hooch for the
propellant cell. His friends then guided him back to the Sequi, strapping him
into his usual seat.
Rainly beamed at him. She wore a
halter and shorts made from Dactyl’s coat with a patch over her heart that was
Craze’s cuff. Over that bit of material she wore the lawman’s old badge,
literally advertising her heart to the world. “You starting to look better. I’m
so glad.” Her bruises were black as a cosmic void, but no darkness could
tarnish her radiant disposition.
It made Craze smile, despite
wishing most of his body parts would find new homes and leave him in peace. He
squeezed her hand. “Good to see you, too.”
Sitting up so long made him moan,
which led to thoughts of misery and the lost chocolates. They had left so much
wealth behind on Wism. Maybe. Or maybe they didn’t. If they didn’t, that was a
problem. One as big as the Rock Man and his brother. “What if most of those
bars was mealworms? Those dudes will come for us. Won’t they?”
“As long as Quasser lives, we’ve
nothing to worry about,” Dactyl said, settling into the chair beside Rainly’s.
“You ever
goin
’
to tell us who he is?” Craze would risk a slug or two to sate his intense
curiosity.
“
Yous
may
hear whispers of Quasser from time to time, but not from decent folks. He’s
somebody
yous
don’t want to know. Not even by
somebody else telling
yous
about him. Drop it, or we
gonna
talk for the next few hours about
yous
pa ‘n Yerness.”
Craze pressed his lips together,
biting back his myriad questions. He didn’t want to pollute today or tomorrow
with Bast and Yerness. Dactyl was right. The past was the past. “New
beginnin
’ right here. For all of us. Where we
goin
’, Captain?”
“Carry on!” Talos slapped the
console. “We’ve been cleared for
Danysovia
. First
stop on the list of possibilities.”
Craze peered at the planets Talos
had pinged onto his tab. Little to no information besides the names and
locations graced the
InfoCy
data files. After
Danysovia
was
Lleteboor
,
Foradil
, then a place called Pardeep Station.
Exsix
and
Awjiscar
were the last
ports of opportunity.
Worries coated Craze’s palms in a
cold, slick sheen. If
Mortua
and Wism lay outside
their monetary means, what kind of holes in the galactic arm would these
planets be? Shit. He wiped his hands off on his coveralls.
“Ready?” Talos clicked the course
into the ship systems, taking the Sequi up toward the Lepper.
The streams of cobalt blue reached
for the vessel to whisk them away from all the tragedies and failures,
inspiring the resurgence of hope in Craze. Not every stop could end in disaster
and disappointment. Could it? Nah.
And maybe there was nothing wrong with
those six places besides their being so far out on the Edge. Just remote and
unsettled, the new frontier, nothing worse than that. As the Backworlds healed
from the war, they’d expand once again, and the Edge wouldn’t remain the
boondocks forever. No. Untapped potential waited out there, and Craze would
grab it along with his new-found brothers and sister.
“
Danysovia
here we come,” Lepsi sang out, waving
Federoy’s
image
at the view out the spacecraft. “Give us chips. Give us chips.”
Dactyl held Rainly’s hand. They
shared a smile, intimate and warm. Seemed they’d found something as precious as
chocolate on Wism.
It made Craze miss Yerness for a
split second. Then he realized it was the intimacy he longed for and not her.
Someday he’d find the right gal. He knew that and knew he’d be OK. The aches
for lost love, Siegna, and home eased. He’d lucked into a cozy new life with a
new family. One that actually looked out for him and shared this same journey.
On a quest for better and for healing, together they would find it. One of
those worlds on Talos’s list would become home.
Craze felt a tinge of excitement,
wondering which one. “Let’s go.”
Thank you for reading!
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M. Pax-- Inspiring the words I write, I spend my summers as
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Table of Contents
:
Chapter headings inside the book will bring you back to the
table of contents.
Stopover at the Backworlds’ Edge
The Backworlds Book 2
by M. Pax
Humanity, bioengineered for survival, has colonized the
Backworlds. Craze’s Tavern sits on the fringes of expansion. Last stop for one
hundred fifteen light years.
The interstellar portal opens, bringing in a ship that
should no longer exist. A battleship spoiling for a fight, yet the war with
Earth ended two generations ago. The vessel drops off a Water-breather, a type
of Backworlder thought to be extinct. She claims one of Craze’s friends is a
traitor who summoned the enemy to Pardeep Station. A betrayal worse than his
father’s, if Craze lives to worry about it.
CHAPTER 1
Incoming! The message vibrated through
the floor, a low coo penetrating deep into Craze’s
subhearing
.
The drone of an engine grew louder until the floor shook, reducing him to a
speck in the galaxy’s workings. A reminder that liked to crop up twice daily
when he wasn’t hibernating.
He rolled onto his back. Orange
lights joined the alert, blinking at a frenetic rate. They fringed the mishmash
tavern and quit flickering when his foot kicked up at the switch on the wall.
Through the plexiglass skylight he saw the telltale flash, a cough of cobalt
disturbing the anemic blue sky. The brightness stung until moisture built up in
his eyes and he sneezed. Ship!
He inhaled deep, canvassing the
scents in the ventilation system, seeking something different. Something
revealing today would be the day the portal finally brought fortune, the means
of revenge, the goal he’d clung to since his pa kicked him off the Verkinn
homeworld three years ago. Had it really been that long?
“Damned Bast.” He spat. “Someday
I’ll know wealth big enough to make you choke.”
Craze’s shoulders shrugged, shaking
off the dregs of a nine-day hibernation, and he cursed not being woken sooner.
“Fo’wo’s be damned.” Nine days of not pouring a single drink wasn’t anybody’s
definition of success and certainly not his. At this rate, Bast would die
before Craze made the man woefully sorry. He groaned, wondering how destiny had
landed him here ... for the three thousandth time.
Pardeep Station had been fourth on
Captain Talos’s list of possible homes. Hole of dust as it was, it hadn’t been
as bad as
Danysovia
,
Lleteboor
,
and
Foradil
. Six months of hopping around dung heaps
and worse, searching, Craze had agreed with his shipmates —Talos, Lepsi,
Rainly, and Dactyl — that they’d find no better. Especially once a
Foradillan
showed him images of the two worlds left on the
list of possibilities. Indisputable proof there was much worse out there.
Yup, this dust ball was the best
Craze and his friends could afford, once they got past the crusty, old
caretaker — a war veteran still fighting the enemy in imaginary battles. When
the old coot finally became convinced they weren’t Fo’wo spies, Craze
negotiated homesteading fees for the lot of them.
Purchased with what they’d been
paid by the Backworld Assembled Authorities to chase after some smugglers,
Craze acquired space for his tavern, a permanent docking berth for their ship,
the Sequi, a trading post for Talos, the position of dock facilitator and
assistant for Rainly and Dactyl, and mining permits and a land transport for
Lepsi to take up prospecting. Lepsi had hoped to find some pocket of value on
Pardeep Station, something to set up an export business for himself and Talos.
It never came about.
Craze built his bar at the base of
the docking facility from scraps and unwanted materials, his friends helping
him to get it together and make it presentable. In exchange, he assisted in
setting up their new homes, although Craze couldn’t bring himself to call
Pardeep and his tavern that. It settled more like a stepping stone in his
heart. Someplace until something better came along. He’d been here two and a
half years, and the moon hadn’t grown on him at all. In fact, he despised it
more by the day.
To make it all worse, Lepsi
disappeared a year ago. Never came back from one of his explorations. No trace of
him had been found anywhere, not even his transport, coloring each day since
with a sorrowful ache.