Chapter 6
As we descended toward The Crossed Swords, the city became easier to see, and we were able to make out more of the architecture of the place. The city seemed to be arranged in a circular shape, with the high-rise and larger buildings in the center and smaller structures around the edges.
The outer circle resembled a shanty town, but one that had access to some advanced technology. All of the huts glowed with different colored lights, and it was obvious that the people who owned the buildings cared more about the tech inside them than the appearance of their structures. Narrow passages wormed their way in between the crude structures in seemingly random directions, and there didn’t seem to be any kind of main roads or straight streets.
The houses and stalls had been put up wherever there was room, and there didn’t seem to be any kind of governing body to tell them otherwise, although, from what Francine had said about the sorts of people that came to The Crossed Swords, I couldn’t imagine anyone on the planet would be willing to follow or enforce any kind of laws. This place was a No Man’s Land where anything was possible and there were no repercussions, and the people who came here liked it that way.
“So, do you think people actually live here?” I tossed out.
“I think so,” Rayne said. “The bigger buildings in the middle of the city look like homes and apartments. Although, I don’t know if this is the kind of place I’d want to live.”
“You and me, both,” I replied.
“I mean, we had all that yellow cloud on Wildern, but even so, we still got a glimpse of sky and sunlight every so often,” she said. “All the people here have is darkness and all that dust.”
“I guess some of them stayed if they’re considered criminals on their homeworlds,” I suggested. “Francine said a lot of fugitives come here, so maybe some of them just decide to stay. It’s a trading post, so they can make money, and I can’t imagine rent or mortgages are a thing here. I’d reckon it’s probably first come, first served with those apartments, or maybe it’s whoever survives the fight that gets the property.”
“Wow, you’re really selling this place to me,” Rayne chuckled.
“I would not recommend a career in real estate, Will,” Francine added.
“God, would you two stop ganging up on me, please?” I laughed.
“No,” Francine and Rayne said unanimously, and I knew that if Francine had a face, that the AI would have exactly the same mischievous smirk that Rayne had on her lips at that moment.
I turned back to the city, which we were now a lot closer to, and I was able to see the hovercraft that trundled around above the city. That seemed to be the main mode of transport, aside from traveling on foot, from what I could see, although there did appear to be a kind of monorail that circled the city in a spiral pattern from the outer edge to the dense interior. I couldn’t imagine that any of The Crossed Swords’ inhabitants had opted to drive the monorail around all day, so it wasn’t an insane assumption that there would be no drivers on board the train, and that it worked all on its own, probably thanks to some AI that someone had stolen and installed inside it.
There wasn’t a spare space in the city that didn’t have some kind of building on it, and I wondered how many people came here frequently. The airspace around it wasn’t too busy, and I was only able to see a few other ships heading for different sectors of the city. But as Francine had said, the city was almost impossible to find, even if one had been there before, and I thought about all of the abandoned and crushed ships we had passed on the way here. Those pilots had probably been a mixture of people who had flown into the dust cloud by mistake, and those who were headed for The Crossed Swords, but never made it.
I looked around at the city below and tried to work out where the hell I was supposed to land. It didn’t make sense that I could just park the ship anywhere. This city was lawless, but surely not stupid. There had to be a hangar or a docking area of some kind somewhere, and I couldn’t just hover over the city for ages, or else I would start to attract more attention than I wanted.
After all, the whole point of coming to The Crossed Swords was to lay low for the twelve hours it took for my folding engine to recharge, and until then, I wanted us to remain incognito, not the center of attention. So, I slowly drifted lower and followed the circumference of the city as I kept an eye out for a landing pad.
The ship hummed happily despite the dust that swirled in front of the front window, but at least it wasn’t as impenetrable as the cloud we’d come through. Landing would certainly be a lot easier as well, if we ever found a spot.
“Keep your eyes peeled for a good place to park,” I said.
Rayne had already leaned forward in her seat and had begun to search for somewhere to put the ship, while Francine remained silent as she scanned the city.
“Will,” Francine said eventually. “I have detected a section at the edge of the city with a high quantity of parked ships. One of the other ships that arrived around the time we did has just touched down there.”
“Sounds like our best bet,” I said. “Take us down there.”
I took my hands off the joysticks and allowed Francine to fly us down, and a few minutes later, we touched down in the spaceship parking lot.
Despite it just being a barren, rocky patch of land, all of the ships were lined up fairly neatly and with a good amount of room around them. At least the drivers had some consideration. That, or they were just making sure that no one touched their own precious spacecraft, and I had a feeling that the latter was probably the case.
The low hum of the thrusters subsided the moment we touched the ground, and the engines powered down a moment later. All of a sudden, I became aware of just how clearly I could hear every movement that Rayne and I made through the silence, and I couldn’t believe that, while we were in the ship, I was so unaware of the sound of the engines and thrusters that were working at all times.
Bob trotted in from the living area, where he had been asleep, most likely. He beeped to announce his presence and then made a bee-line for Rayne, who gave him a nice pat on his little yellow robot behind. Then, he walked over to me and I did the same.
“Hey, Bob,” I said.
Bob beeped to return the greeting.
Rayne and I stared out of the front window at the fairly large parking lot before us. There weren’t many aliens around, and I assumed most of them were probably inside the city, but the ships themselves were exactly how I imagined they would be. They were all a little beaten up, but they were fitted out with some of the best tech, and their owners kept them as spotlessly clean as they could.
Of course, all of the ships on The Crossed Swords were covered with a thin layer of dust, thanks to the cloud that surrounded the planet, but beneath the particles, the ships gleamed in the artificial light from the city. Most of the ships reminded me of old homes, with different sections that had been clearly added at different times. There was also a faint shimmer around the ships, and I realized that in the crime capital of the galaxy, it was a necessity to leave the shields on if the ship was left unattended.
I could also see the edge of the city beyond the parking lot. There were no specific walls or borderlines, but instead, the city just sort of started. Small little shanty structures were dotted around the edges of the town, and it swiftly got denser as it moved in closer to the city center itself.
I turned to Rayne, and in the lights from the city, her green eyes were luminous. I smiled at the way her face was lit so softly, at the gentle parting of her lips and her wide eyes as she took in the sight of a new planet, and the way she leaned forward in her seat to get a good look. I knew that my reaction every time I arrived on a new planet was roughly the same, but it was nice to be able to share the excitement and curiosity with someone else who felt the same way.
Eventually, I think Rayne sensed my eyes on her, and she turned to look at me.
“Well, we’re here,” I said, and I cleared my throat awkwardly.
“Yeah,” she said. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, I don’t think we can just sit here and wait the time out, can we?” I said. “I mean, that would be…”
“Silly,” she said with a smirk. “We’ve come all this way to The Crossed Swords, where not many people have been, so we may as well take a look, right?”
“Right,” I said with a nod. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
“We certainly are,” she replied.
“You two are very strange,” Francine said. “Is this how all humans flirt, Will?”
Rayne didn’t reply, but her cheeks blushed a bit.
“Shh,” I said under my breath. “How about we have a cup of coffee before we go? I could use an energy boost.”
“I will never say no to coffee,” Rayne said eagerly, since she hadn’t been able to get enough of the stuff after her first taste just a day or so ago. “If I ever say no to coffee, it’s not me, it’s some other alien in a Rayne suit.”
“Noted,” I laughed as I stood up and rambled over to the coffee machine in the living compartment.
It was quite funny that, of all the luxury items I could have chosen, I had brought a coffee machine into space, but as strange as that sounded, I couldn’t have imagined life without it. Though with the very little sleep I got these days, I needed all of the caffeine I could get.
But, as I turned on the machine, I wondered what all of the scientists back home would think about the fact that I had brought a coffee machine into space. That I, the first human being to ever leave our solar system in search of something more, wasn’t living off of ration packets and recycled water, but rather freshly made coffee and ham and cheese sandwiches.
I chuckled to myself at the thought of all the people I had left behind on Earth. I thought about Agent Adeogun, one of the feds that had been trying to arrest me on the very day I shot off into space for the first time. I remembered the look on his face when he saw the walls of the barn where I had been building the ship fall away and my spaceship lift off the ground. I wondered if what I had done had been kept out of the public’s knowledge, or if the media had gotten hold of the story and had told the world that I, a retired truck driver from Kansas, had built a fully functional spaceship and had made it out of the solar system, while even the world’s best scientists couldn’t create a ship that could move as fast as mine, let alone a folding engine.
I thought about the little farmhouse that I had left behind. That was probably my only regret about leaving Earth, if I was honest with myself. Everything else I had left behind was just materialistic, and I knew that any friends I had left on the planet had other friends, so it wasn’t like I had left anyone alone. But my farmhouse had been my dream home for retirement in the quiet countryside, and I’d had to give it all up to go on this adventure with Francine. However, I would have been insane if I had said no leaving my house and jetting around space instead.
Once the cups of coffee were filled, I picked up both of them and took them back to the cockpit.
“Thank you,” Rayne said as she took her mug from me.
“No worries,” I said as I sat back down in my wonderfully comfy chair.
Rayne blew eagerly on the surface of the coffee to get it to cool quicker, but in the end, she was far too eager and took a sip of the hot liquid before it was safe. Still, she seemed to have a less sensitive mouth than I did, and she was always able to drink it while I waited for it to cool down some more.
“Do you think they’ll notice that we’re new here?” she asked between mouthfuls.
“I think if we keep our heads down, we’ll be fine,” I replied. “As long as we don’t cause any scenes or piss anyone off, then I imagine it’ll be pretty smooth sailing. They must have newcomers sometimes, so I figure they won’t mind.”
“That’s true,” Rayne said. “I’m just a bit nervous. I know we’ve been to another planet before, Lilacron, but there weren’t any people, or aliens, I guess, on it, because they were all…”
She caught herself before she finished the sentence, but I heard Francine huff inside my head.
I gave Rayne a look that said Francine wasn’t very pleased.
“Sorry, Francine,” Rayne said.
“It is fine,” the AI said. “She is not wrong.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry,” I told Rayne, who had gone red from embarrassment, and then I tried to move the conversation on before the awkwardness could continue. “I know what you were getting at, though. You’ve never met any other species, other than me, of course, but we kinda look like the same species anyway, more or less.”
“I still can’t get over how similar our biology is,” she said.
“It is surprising,” Francine said.
“There are small differences,” I said. “Like your eyes and how you can see in the dark, and I’m sure there are some other things, too. But yeah, for the most part, it’s the same, which I think is cool.”
“Same,” she replied with a smile. “And I think it’s very lucky, too.”
We held one another’s gaze for a moment, and there was an electric, flirtatious energy between us. But, then Rayne blushed and turned away, as did I, and we refocused on The Crossed Swords, which glowed across the lot beyond us.
“So, should we get going?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Rayne said eagerly as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
We both got out of our seats and made our way into the living compartment. I grabbed my rucksack and loaded some water into it, and then I made sure that I had my gun holstered around my waist as well. Rayne also collected her gun from her bag under my bed and put that on her belt as well.
“Will, I have something for Rayne that she may find useful,” Francine said.
Rayne and I made our way back into the cockpit, and I watched as one section of the control panel opened up to reveal the compartment that Francine used to make or upgrade things for me, such as my suit and some other pieces of technology. Inside the compartment was a small device, which I instantly realized was an earpiece that was identical to the one I had been given on the Aghoan Intergalactic Space Station, which allowed me to understand nearly every alien language, within reason. I picked the device up and handed it to Rayne, and showed her that I also had one in my ear as well.
“Awesome,” she said excitedly as she put the device into her ear. “Thank you, Francine!”
“Tell her she is most welcome,” Francine said.
“She says you’re welcome,” I said.
Rayne smiled, placed her breathing mask over her mouth and nose, and then we turned to the door at the side of the cockpit as it slid open. A rush of cool air flooded into the ship, and a few grains of the dust cloud blew across the metal floor and nestled themselves into the grooves. Despite our breathing tubes, the fumes from the city still filled our noses, and dust prickled at our skin.
I stepped down out of the cockpit, offered Rayne a hand and helped her down, and then picked Bob up and placed him down on the ground. Bob beeped excitedly as he pottered around in all of the dust, and Rayne and I looked around the parking lot eagerly.
There was a lamppost right beside the ship that had a bright bulb on top of it. The light glowed bright yellow and spread a warm light over part of the lot, like a layer of butter that coated a slice of bread. Similar lights were scattered around the lot, and also provided a path to the city, which we started to walk toward.
“Will, the air here is safe for both you and Rayne to breathe,” Francine said.
“You can take off your mask,” I said to my Wildern-born partner, who nodded and took off her mask as I removed the tube from my neck.
We walked quickly through the almost-abandoned parking lot, and a few moments later, we found ourselves on the edge of the city. We came to the first few shanty huts, which were boarded-up shops that were either abandoned, or just closed. But, the city quickly became more built up with every step we took into it.
We advanced into the heart of the city fairly quickly, and soon, the street we were on became a hub of activity. We pushed through the crowd and looked around at the impressive metropolis that surrounded us.
The lights transitioned from emitting a yellow, warm glow to a deep, blue hue, for the most part, although there were a number of LEDs around a lot of the various stalls along each of the roads, which were various different, bright colors. I was able to see the high-rise buildings in the distance over the roofs of some of the stalls, and the shops themselves were incredibly interesting, to say the least.
Each of them sold wildly different products, and there were crowds of people around all of them clamoring and haggling over products and prices. I saw that one of the shops had shelves that were packed with different ship parts, which had no doubt been stolen. A few aliens were eyeing up various pieces inside the shop, and I watched with a sense of amusement as one of them slipped a spacecraft part into their pocket without the owner of the shop seeing.
Apparently, there was no honor amongst thieves. Not here, anyway.
The monorail screeched and rumbled along the tracks over the city, and a few hovercraft whizzed around in various directions. Dark and dingy alleyways were crawling with shadowed figures that I did not want to meet, and of course, there was dust everywhere. It was piled up in corners, trapped in nooks and crannies, and had even come to rest on the clothes and hair of the aliens around us, which were all fairly similar-looking life forms. Most were bipedal and had similar biology to me, which made sense as only certain types of creatures would be able to survive in the atmosphere and with this type of environment. An alien from a water planet wouldn’t have stood a chance on The Crossed Swords.
All of the aliens were also tattooed, scarred, and mean-looking. They all walked around with puffed-up chests, a cocky swagger, and balled fists. They had scowls on their faces and snarls on their lips, and none of them looked nice at all.
It was fairly easy to tell who was a visitor to the hidden planet and who was a resident. I was sure that Rayne, Bob, and I stuck out just as obviously as the other newcomers to the city. We had wide eyes, slightly agape mouths, and looked very lost as we navigated our way through the city and guessed which streets were the least dangerous for us to walk down. A few of the locals eyed us up as we passed them on our way toward the center of town, but no one bothered us. Everyone had their own tasks to get done, and Rayne and my presence didn’t appear to interest many people at all. At least we didn’t stick out of the group as clearly as another alien we passed, who nervously asked someone for directions every few seconds.
To my surprise, there were even a couple of children running around picking pockets. I couldn’t imagine raising a child on this sunless planet, but I supposed that moving planets was a lot more stressful than just moving to a larger, child-friendly home, as people did back at home on Earth.
“This place is very overwhelming,” Rayne whispered into my ear as we walked.
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s also kinda--”
“Awesome,” Rayne said with a bright glint in her eyes, and we both laughed.
Suddenly, a creature stepped into our path, and its shadow washed over us both. It had one large eye in the center of its red body, and its mouth opened to reveal a set of chipped teeth and a brown tongue. It smelled of body odor and dirt, and the clothes that covered its large body were threadbare and covered in sweat stains.
“Hello, travelers,” it said in a raspy voice, and we could understand its words thanks to our earpieces.
“Hi,” I replied.
“First time on The Crossed Swords?” it asked as it rubbed its hands together conspiratorially.
“Is it that obvious?” I chuckled, and the alien laughed as well.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place to trade,” it said. “How much for the robot?”
It locked its eyes on Bob, who stood at my feet.
“Oh, he’s not for sale,” I said.
“C’mon,” the alien said. “Everyone’s got a price. Go on. Name it.”
“Sorry, pal,” I replied. “Maybe another time.”
“Your loss,” the alien sighed, and then he sauntered off back to whichever shadow he had slunk out of.
“Damn, Bob,” I said to my little friend. “Apparently, you’re in high demand.”
Bob beeped arrogantly and continued to trot along beside me.
We passed a round building, inside of which we could hear a lot of shouting and cheering. Rayne and I glanced at one another, and then we hurried over to a gap in the dilapidated metal wall and peered into the building through the small slit in the facade.
We both gasped as we watched as a body was slammed down onto the floor, and a cloud of dust puffed up around it. There was blood all over the floor, and some of it was fresh from the alien who lay a bit dazed on the ground. Suddenly, another alien appeared and wrenched it back up onto its feet. The two aliens started to snarl at each other as they brawled, and the pair tore at one another like rabid animals.
I looked beyond the fighting floor, and I saw that there were rows upon rows of cheering aliens that looked murderously down at the fighting pit. I realized that the aliens had paid to watch the fight, and given that one of the aliens was practically a walking, bloody corpse at this point, the fight was probably to the death. It was barbaric and horrendous, and yet I struggled to look away.
Suddenly, the larger alien threw the dying one right at the wall where we stood, and Rayne and I jumped back as the alien slammed into the thin metal and covered the slot in the wall.
Rayne lost her balance and stumbled backward into someone passing by, completely by accident. The alien was massive and muscle-bound, with coarse, beige skin and wiry black hair all over its body. It looked like the personification of a wall, and it also didn’t look pleased with Rayne bumping into it.
“Sorry,” she chuckled as she quickly backed off from the alien she had clattered into.
“Watch where you’re going!” the alien snarled, and then he shoved Rayne away from him.
“Hey!” I shouted as I stepped up beside Rayne.
“Cute,” the alien hissed. “Is this your stupid pet?”
“Even if he was, he would still probably have more going on inside his brain than you do, blockhead,” Rayne snapped.
“What did you just say, weakling?” it said as it took an aggressive step forward.
“I was just wondering if the one brain cell you do have is working properly,” Rayne said. “Although, by the look of it, I severely doubt it. And I’m no weakling.”
“Really?” the alien scoffed. “You’re half my size. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Wanna bet?” Rayne snapped.
“Will…” Francine said, and at the same moment, I looked beyond the alien and realized a group of his buddies had formed around us.
“Shit,” I muttered.
The alien turned to its buddies and laughed patronizingly, and then it suddenly stepped forward and shoved Rayne backward again. Even though Rayne was strong and quick, her strength was no match for the literal mountain in front of us.
He took another menacing step forward, and that was enough for me. I’d let Rayne say her piece, but I wasn’t going to let any of this continue.
I stepped between Rayne and the oaf, who stopped in his tracks and glared down at me.
There was a moment of stillness as we glared at one another, and then we simultaneously drew both of our weapons and pointed them at one another.
This was a standoff.