The first craft is a hauler. Boxy shaped. The kind of ugly pretty that you see when all that’s left is the potential of what something could become. The second is a speeder. It’s sitting so the cockpit points straight up. Big engines bulk up the backside of the ship. Two long arms reach out from the front.
There’s another ship. A triangular cruiser with a pugged nose that’s the best of both worlds. Plenty of room for gear but enough fire in the engines that it can get him where he needs to go and keep away from those he needs to keep away from. These are big ships, the kind of ships he hasn’t flown in a while. Sure,the Uzeks have let him fly around little utility ships when he was doing work for them, but real piloting of real ships isn’t something he’s done in a long, long time.
He’s missed the feel of a big engine pushing on you as you take off. Pressing you into your seat. A fire roaring beneath you. The rush of stars into your face and that feeling of possibility. Down here, he’s trapped. This road tells him where to go. It’s either this way, or it’s that way. These low warehouses keep him from going any other direction. Even the alleys between the buildings don’t offer much more in the way of choice.
But up there in the sky, controls in front of you and a ship all around you, everything is a possibility. Want to go higher? You can. Lower? Can do that too. Forward. Back. Left. Right. All of them, yes.
Nixon stares at the ships in front of him, even those ships in the second row that he can only see the tops of, but mentally he’s behind the controls of one of them—doesn’t matter which—and he’s hitting the buttons needed to tell the engines that he’s about to ask them to bring the big fire. He’s talking to the guy in a tower that he can only see pieces of from here.
They go through the pre-flight checks. Nixon answers questions about his manifest. He gets the all-clear from his man in the tower and pushes the buttons needed to finally put life into the engines. They shake at first, all that potential energy capped and waiting. They won’t actually get the ship off the ground without Nixon giving them permission. He reaches a hand out to push the button that tells the ship that it’s OK to really rumble the rocks.
It’s just then that in the real shipyard one of those real ships really does take off. It’s the hauler, and its big engines make the ground shake and windows rattle.
Nixon smiles and watches. The noise from the engines, the rumble he can feel in his bones. The rattle that shakes his soul. It's all deafening, so much so that Nixon doesn’t hear the first blaster shot. Doesn't hear the air sizzle as it passes him. Doesn't hear it crash into the alley wall across from him.
He sees the damage it does, though. An explosion of alley wall sprays down on him. Brick and mortar in his hair. He spins and another blast leaps out of the shadows.
A bloom of fire follows the blaster bolt leaving the barrel of the rifle, and it lights up the alley where the shooter has hidden. These aren’t Uzeks. This is the gang from the spaceport earlier.
There's a thunk of a third shot, and Nixon falls flat to the ground as it screams through the air just above him.
He hears the whine of the big gun reloading and scrambles to his feet. He sprints toward one of the alleys on the opposite side of the street.
The whine stops, and all Nixon hears are his shoes slapping against the street pavers.
Thunk.
He dives into the dark of an alley, and the bolt from the blaster crashes into the wall above him. He slides across the pavers. His shoulder slams into a wall and bits of busted concrete smash his back.
Everything he hurt yesterday is screaming out again. He scrambles on his hands and heels deeper into the dark and begins to hear voices. There’s more than just this gun man. The back of his head bumps into something. He feels behind him. It’s some sort of metal barrel and feels big enough to give him some level of cover. He ducks behind it.
He pulls the blaster from his waistband and gets it ready to fire. The opening from the alley into the street is still clear, but the voices are getting louder. They are doing nothing to disguise that they are there.
One man appears. Then a second, and a third. They all stop a few feet away from the opening to the alley. None of them are holding the big blaster that was firing at Nixon.
“What are you waiting on?” calls a voice.
One of the men at the end of the alley takes a step forward then hesitates. He pulls a blaster from his waistband then takes another step into the dark.
Nixon aims his own blaster at this man. He wants to pull the trigger, lay a bolt of blaster energy square in the middle of this man’s chest. He does that, though, and it’s like shooting a flare. Sure, he’d eliminate one threat, but he'd signal his position to the other two. So he drops his blaster and crouches behind the barrel he’s been using for cover.
He listens to the man’s steps. They get closer, and Nixon waits. Then, when the man is in front of Nixon he wraps his arms around the man’s legs and pulls him to the ground. The man lands with a thud and reaches out for Nixon and grabs him by the shoulder. The man tries to raise the blaster, but Nixon
