When humans first learned how to survive in space, it hadn’t yet crossed the world leaders’ minds to search for systems with stable suns and lots of neighbors. Otherwise, the fate of planet Blaze might not have stood out as singularly tragic amidst humankind’s infant history out among the stars. In the blink of an eye, an entire civilization sufffered utter annihilation; not even their shadows remained. Whatever life had been clinging to the Blaze’s wretched landmass—a single, desert continent encircled by a vast ocean—was licked away by a solar flare of mythical proportions. Where once there stood a great hive-city, sprawling with skyscrapers and teeming with millions, a skeletal network of melted beams now lay buried beneath a mountain of ash and soot.
As the Milky Way became the broader cradle of humanity, faster-than-light slogans like, “Get Your Kicks on the Interstellar Route Sixty-Six” manifest alongside humanity’s restless destiny. All the while, planet Blaze’s cold surface went on collecting craters and space debris, playing host to a handful of outlaws and ne’er-do-wells. Up from the sky, a silvery scar appears screaming against the atmosphere. A closer look reveals a spacecraft in shambles: sheet-metal tears away from Sorcerer’s hull in razor-sharp ribbons, while a cacophony of alarm bells squeal indside the cockpit. A lone Pilot taps at a squarish holo-slate, heavy beads of sweat pooling over his furrowed brow. He brings together his forefinger and thumb like a pinch, then spreads them wide to paint a checkered grid over the display, quibbling, “How about…hm. How about we touch down…”
The Pilot’s eyes dart back and forth, desperately searching for a landing zone. An amplified voice suddenly echoes throughout the cockpit, his syntho-sapien partner, Alexia. She inquires tersely as to why Sorcerer’s heat shield has stopped responding. Ignoring her question, the Pilot yells, “Here!” while flipping a sequence of switches. Slowly, thruster
power reduces by fifteen percent. A turn of this dial, and a slight pull of that lever reduces power by another thirty percent. The Pilot sinks into his seat, calling up his partner. Her artifical eyes burn with contempt.
“Hex, we’re miles above the surface, and the ship is a wreck! Just what did you do while I was asleep?” Sheepishly, the Pilot concedes to cheaping out on the last supply run; instead of the folded sheets of titanium alloy he intended on procuring, he admits that the quartermaster on Delvar convinced him that a gel-based ceramic coating would work just the same. Alexia scoffs, “A craft like Sorcerer requires the best of the best. And anything less only leads to a tragic, fiery leads to a tragic, fiery death.”
The Pilot turns and flicks his partner’s miniature face, remarking “Hey now, turn that frown upside down. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind either!” Rather than stabilizing, her face returns contorted into a snarl. “No. Oh no, not this time, Hex. There’s no way. You’re planning on killing us with one of your schemes again, aren’t you?” Again? thinks the Pilot, what is this with again? He won’t let that one slide. “It’s my way or the highway from here on out. And little lady…” Alexia threatens to turn off the life support. But the Pilot continues, in spite of her rage.
“…You’ve earned a time-out.” “…You’ve earned a time-out.”
“Hex Johnson, don’t you even think about—”
“Boop.”
Alexia’s electrified voice switches off in a hiss of static, powering down alongside the cockpit. Sighing, the Pilot glances beneath the helm to find a tangled mess of copper wires and plastic-coated cables. Taking hold of a thick, red cable labeled POWER1, he plunges his arm, elbow deep into the helm’s service hatch. Blindly searching, he realizes, “FUCK! I’m gonna need a new power unit!” roaring as the cable clicks into a receptacle labeled EM//AUX_BYPASS.
The Pilot keys a final sequence, and a red standby light flashes. He hesitates before slamming a red lever, the final step in his daring scheme. Sorcerer roars back to life, and Alexia’s tirade resumes, this time from the Pilot’s communicator. “HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!” The Pilot chuckles with a cocky smile, resting his arms on the control panel.
“Save it for the surface, “Save it for the surface,
Lex…if we make it that far. Lex…if we make it that far.
Just hang on!”
The spacecraft’s silvery hull lies buried in an ashen heap. But, for Hex Johnson, the cockpit lid flies open easily. Stepping out with a whistle, he flicks open a mirror-polished cigarette case. “Alexia?” Her amplified voice resonates with a metallic timbre. “Dip-ass?” Oh bother. “Hey—don’t start it, Lex. We’re alive, aren’t we?”
“I’m not so sure, “I’m not so sure, major dip-ass.”
His first steps on planet Blaze are the shuffling trots of an addict patting himself down for a cigarette. “Don’t get smart. That’s no way to treat your very dashing, very daring savior.” “Hmph.” Alexia declares, on account of them not being dead yet, and the pathetic look on Hex’s face, she’ll forgive the crash-landing. “Mark my words, fancy pants—if you start up with that grandstanding horseshit again, I’ll jump ship, and I’m taking the flight computer with me. Sometimes, you ain’t even worth the scum beneath my boots.” “You can’t get scum on your boots, Lex. They’re not real.” Confined to the communicator, Alexia quiets like a caged bird; a canary in a coal mine quietly unbothered, until there’s danger afoot. This is how they do business.
The Pilot makes one more desperate search for a cigarette, and once again he comes up empty handed. But, what’s this? He brushes against a dingy, hand-rolled loosey, hidden within his breast pocket.
“That oughtta do it.” “That oughtta do it.”
A coughing fit follows after lighting his prize, but somehow, from somewhere inside of him, a laughter wells up which he is powerless to suppress. He saunters over to Sorcerer’s buried hull, inhaling and coughing, giggling away while brushing what feels like a mountain of dust off the vessel’s portside wing. A minute’s work reveals a secret hatch, which opens with another complicated series of commands.
Prominently displayed, an energy carbine hums to life with crackling, blue energy. He raises an eyebrow, and reaches instead for a stun gun and pocket tesseract. For good measure, he slings an electric net launcher over his shoulder.
“Look at you, space-hippie. If only Ma could see you now.” only Ma could see you now.”
Angling his head towards the sky, the cigarette drops a pile of ash, deposited inside the secret compartment. The starlight on his face brings to mind a silly, yet familiar question: Just how many of those star-shaped specks in the sky up there, are like,
actual stars? And which Stars are just faking at being stars, and what could they be otherwise? A part of him believes, and has always believed that they’re secretly a bunch of giant eyeballs. Yes, a coalition of lidless, menacing oculi secretly keeping
tabs on his every move. He trembles at the thought.
But a wisp of smoke, right in the eye, rudely interrupts his reverie. He winces, and the cigarette falls from his mouth. “Ow, Fuck!” The cigarette plops pathetically against the dusty, dirty ground, and the cherry goes out cold.
Fuck!
Fuck me!
Just my fucking luck.
Statue-still, he stands and sighs, then opens the communicator to key up a search for the nearest re-supply station. “Zero results? Son of a—” Sinking to his knees, the communicator’s light-array powers up, and the figure of a woman wearing a trucker’s hat and coveralls materializes. She shifts her weight back and forth between her legs with her hands upon her hips. Defiantly, she blurts, “I don’t know about this one, Hex. The more I think about it, this job just sounds like a smash-and-grab set-up. Heists these days are a hassle, you know—and all this background radiation is making me feel kind of…fuzzy? And that just ain’t right, Hex. Syntho-Sapiens aren’t made to feel fuzzy.” “What’s so wrong about feeling fuzzy?” “It’s a gut feeling, Hex.” “Thought you didn’t have guts.” Practically pleading, Alexia replies, “Isn’t it okay to skip a job just this once? Sorcerer’s a wreck. Can’t we just focus on that?” He tucks a slug thrower into his waistband. “Planet Blaze doesn’t have background radiation—well, it did at one point. But you don’t see me getting all
hot and bothered by it.” While closing the hatch, he adds, “And we can’t leave. Well, not yet, at least.”
“There’s a substation not too far from here—we’d just have to make it across the maelstrom first, then we’ll be right by coalition space.” Recoiling, Hex replies, “Maelstrom? Come on, Lex. We both know neither of us can run that hellhole.” “Please, Hex, forget the job and make a repair run instead!” Raising the communicator to meet his assistant eye level, he purrs, “Lex, we’re gonna be fine. And besides,” he pats the secreted pistol, “I’m not completely helpless.”
The projector destabilizes, and Alexia disappears. Climbing back inside the near-ruined spacecraft, Sorcerer’s cockpit, the Pilot places his partner’s uplink chip back into the helm. A faint, blue glow indicates a successful uplink, and pulses as Alexia’s voice returns. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m asleep.” “Don’t worry, MOM. I can take care of myself.” “Don’t call me mom, you orangutan fruit-fuck.” “Hey,” snaps the Pilot, “Don’t call me that.” “Let me have a little fun, alright? I almost died because of you. Anyways, I made sure to leave the last of my protection protocols inside of your communicator. But just in case you need them, which by the sound of things, you’re gonna. Of all the stupid shit I’ve been dragged along for, this has to take first prize. I abhor your judgement completely.”
“Everything’s gonna be fine, Lex. You don’t gotta worry ’bout a single thing.”
“You’re reckless, and a doofus, and I don’t wanna lose you like I did your old lady.” “Nobody’s gettin’ lost, ya hear?” After a momentary silence, Alexia speaks. “Go make some money, ya big trouble maker.” “Make sure the ship doesn’t run off, you drama queen.”
After the cockpit closes once more, the Pilot saunters over towards Sorcerer’s starboard, tapping another complicated
sequence into his communicator. With the grinding of gears, a large hatch opens to reveal a silver, slender hover-scooter,
which releases with a hiss. Magnetic particles flutter about as he releases the inertial dampeners, speeding off into the
wastelands of planet Blaze. ▲
