Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

His uncle stepped closer, sniffing the air.

“You feeling alright, Nephew?”

Walter nodded. “I’m fine. Just… a little spacesick thinking about it, that’s all.”

Walter’s uncle loomed over him. He slapped Walter on the back. “Don’t you worry. After a few flights, your belly will be hard as steel. And if not, you’ll soon be running this joint, so you can send whoever you want up into space for you.”

Walter dipped his head. He tried to think of normal dreads, like his fear of the floods, hoping to maintain the ruse of being afraid to fly. He buried deep his thoughts on the following day—the idea that his grand plan had been for naught, that soon he would be whisked off to Earth with the rest of the Palan fleet.

The irony of it all was nearly too much to bear. He’d always wanted to escape to the mystical planet of freedom and riches, but it had always been with a mind of getting away from the other clans. Now he had discovered a way to send them off, surely to be captured in Earth orbit and rounded up while he and his Hommul clan took defacto control over a shipless Palan.

But now Walter was going to get all of his wishes. He was going to get a ship; he was going to visit Earth; he was going to become a Full Pirate, and all on the same day. And all those tasty treats were doomed to mix together like the putrid slop of a restaurant’s flooding alley.

“Look at all that water. You could flood the hyperspace out of something with all that water.”

Walter leaned close to the porthole and peered dutifully out at his receding home. It was a sight he had longed for many times, but now he wanted to be elsewhere. Anywhere.

“You can see more clouds already forming over there.” Pewder jabbed a finger against the glass, pointing to another flood forming on the horizon as the last rains dissipated out at sea. Walter looked from these new clouds to his mud-colored continent, which sat like a dollop of dirt on a bright blue sphere. The clouds were probably less than a week away—a rare double-flooding—but already they appeared big enough to swallow all the lands. The new perspective had Walter marveling that all of dry Palan hadn’t long ago been washed away completely.

He turned away from the sad sight, the fragility of his home too great to contemplate, and surveyed the cargo bay one more time. “I sure hope you didn’t pay too much for this,” he told his uncle. He thought about the fact that it would soon be impounded in Earth’s orbit, anyway.

“We got a fine deal. In fact, I think the Smiths were eager to ditch it.”

Walter sniffed the musky air trapped in the old ship. “Ownership dispute?”

His uncle shrugged. “There was a Human in here this morning claiming the ship was his. The man reeked of lies, though.”

The ship jittered in a pocket of turbulence—or perhaps a bout of poor piloting. Walter’s uncle swayed, his arms out, while he and Pewder clung to the handles by the portholes. They all threw scowls and hisses toward the cockpit.

“This Human,” Walter said. “He didn’t have any ownership papers with him, did he?”

His uncle shook his head. “Forget him. It was just another crazy Human thinking everything not tied down is theirs.” He waved his hand. “Now why don’t you boys go do some proper snooping. See what’s in the bunk rooms.”

Walter lit up at this. He had been looking for an excuse to see if his hack of the ship’s drive could be undone. He turned away from the porthole with its dreary view of Palan and headed toward the back of the ship. He hissed at Pewder as the boy raced past, nearly knocking him down.

Pewder turned into the first room he came to and let out a loot-cry of “Spacesuits!”

Walter stuck his head in the small room, which looked like a place to change clothes. Full-body suits hung on one wall, and there was a sky hatch or something in the ceiling. He turned away while Pewder began patting down one of the suits.

Across the hallway, Walter found what he was really interested in: the ship’s hyperdrive. The unit was bigger than he would’ve thought, having only seen schematics of the main board. It looked like a boxy taxicab, and it sat close to the back wall of the small room. There was just enough walkway around the sides to circle the unit, allowing access to all the panels and hatches screwed tight over the unit’s innards. Walter approached the machine, his skin tingling at the sight of it. It was so… purposeful . So whole and complete. Nothing seemed out of place or tacked on over years and years of intermittent operation. Pipes led where they were bent to lead, as if molded for their foreseen purpose. Wires were trimmed to the proper length, routed neatly in parallel lines, and even—floods take him— labeled .

Walter reached out and ran his hands along one of the riveted panels. It felt cool to the touch. He had somehow expected it to be warm, or thrumming with contained energy. Instead, he saw it as a perfectly engineered marvel—a thing with frightful and awesome potential. A means of escape, to take him anywhere he chose.

Walter strolled around the side, looking for model and serial numbers. He found both on a silver plate screwed to the back of the unit. It had the place and year of manufacture, the requisite numbers, and all kinds of cautions and warnings.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Walter said to the plate.

Pewder stuck his head around the rear corner of the drive. “Tell you what?” he asked.

Walter waved him off. “Go check the bunk rooms, you bolthead.”

Pewder sniffed, then padded away without a word.

Walter pulled out his multi-tool and his card reader. He hoped to hyperspace he knew what he was doing. Or undoing , as it were.

Over a hundred pirate ships from all the clans were gathered at the first rendezvous point when they arrived, with more of them streaking their way over from the Orbital Station and up from Palan. Each pirate clan tended to cobble together as many functioning craft as they could for the annual promotion ceremonies. The size of their fleet said much about the potential ranking of the clan and the power they would wield that year, resulting in some absolute clunkers puttering through space.

Kinda like ours , Walter thought to himself as he looked around the cockpit of their own jalopy.

“Looks like the Smiths’ve been boozing it up on the Station.”

Walter’s uncle pointed from the navigator’s seat toward a sizable fleet heading their way.

“How long before we jump out?” Walter asked the pilot impatiently; he wasn’t sure if he’d overridden the Earth coordinates properly, but he was anxious to hurry up and find out.

“They’re already queuing up for the jump,” the pilot said. He pointed to a display on the dash where each ship stood out as a bright blip. It made it easy to see how the dozens of craft had formed a straight line with more forming up at the rear.

“See? That’s the Palan system’s L1 they’re heading toward.” The pilot tapped a finger at a blank spot near the end of the line. The lead blip moved under the pad of his silvery digit. When the pilot pulled his hand away, the ship was gone.

Walter lifted his eyes and searched through the windshield, but whatever had just happened was already over and done with, obscured and pulled off with the timing and mystery of a magic trick.

“Ell what? ” Pewder asked. The smaller boy tried to squeeze in past Walter, but Walter stood firm, keeping the kid out.

“A Lagrange point,” the pilot said.

“I wanna see!”

Walter ignored Pewder and leaned closer to his uncle. He wasn’t sure what the Lagrange business was all about and he didn’t care. He tapped his uncle on the shoulder. “Hey Uncle, do you think we could do our promotions right here while we wait our turn?”