Taylore Brightstar and the Galaxy Way

I crouch behind a barrel, trying not to get shot by my own stupidity. 

“Howard!” The Grishi man screams. 

I’m not Howard. He probably thinks that’s my name because I told him it was. 

The way station door hisses open as more Grishi enter. Kreech, the screaming man, waves his blaster and fires in my general direction. “Where are they?” 

An elbow jabs my side. Kit scowls at me, also behind the barrel. With blonde hair framing her face in a wild array and a deep blue jumpsuit framing her figure, even scowling she looks gorgeous. “Did you disable the security beacon?” 

“Security beacon?” A white-hot bolt of energy hits a shelf behind us, shattering several bottles of green ooze that begin melting the shelf.

Lozak – the other member of my crew, dressed in a similar jumpsuit – pokes his bald head around the drooping shelf. Light reflects oddly on the ridges of his scalp, where hair would’ve been if he were human. “I told you when we docked with the transport,” he ducks behind cover as another bolt collides with the shelf. “disable the beacons on the fruit.”  

“You never told me that.”

“You never listen!” Kit cries, poking her head out to return blaster fire. 

“We got the fruit, didn’t we?” I say.

Kit ducks back under cover. “Now we have company, genius.” 

Thudding boots grow closer as Kreech’s men advance further into the way station, the big man himself keeping close to the entrance. Countless shelves packed with oddly glowing wares and barrels stuffed with exotic snacks fill the space. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to an Earth gas station in a long time. Except all the snacks are squirming and I wouldn’t touch a bottle of green ooze if you paid me. 

Another bottle of ooze bursts under fire. 

“Enough.” Kreech says. His men cease firing. “Reveal the location of the gormidian rhath-fruit, or I will activate the security measure and detonate them.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me they were armed?” I hiss at Lozak. “Maybe I would’ve remembered if I knew we might explode.” 

“I didn’t know!” The closeness of his voice makes me jump. Lozak joins Kit and I behind the barrel. 

“But you’re from Gormidia.”

“Not all Gormidians are farmers.”

“I will count to three.” Kreech hoists a grey detonator fob in the air. “One.”

“Captain,” a gruff voice says to my right. Galaxy Way’s owner, a little Tuk man, crouches behind a nearby counter. The equivalent to a hairless Earth monkey with pale grey skin sporting lumpy yellow overalls, Ikbor is an odd sight to behold. 

“Two.” 

 Ikbor’s usually beady eyes stare wide at me in fear. “Keep your promise.”

“Thr-”

I stand up. Several blasters aim at my chest. 

“Howard.” Kreech sneers – a rather unpleasant look for his already unpleasant face; something between that of a lizard’s and a boar’s. The Grishi race weren’t blessed with inherent good looks. 

“Captain Taylore, actually,” I say, discreetly dipping my hand into the open barrel as I move past it. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” Writhing around inside are Koli beetles, a mildly luminescent orange in color. Grabbing a small handful, I raise my hands in surrender. 

“You’re the rat who stole my shipment.” Thinly slitted eyes track my movement as I approach.

“And you’re the rat who sells it for the skin off people’s backs.” I grin. “We’re both vermin.”

“We tracked the fruit to this location, and your ship is being searched as we speak,” Kreech says. “If you don’t tell us where they are, we’ll find them the hard way. And if we can’t find them, we’ll destroy them.” His bulging thumb hovers dangerously close to the detonator’s button. “Do you really want to lose your ship?”

I glance at Ikbor out of the corner of my eye. 

My gaze turns back to Kreech. Staring him dead in the eye, say,“Push that, and we’re all dead.” 

“Lies.”

“They’re not in my ship.” Moving the fingers of my free hand in a small pattern, I pray my crew can see them. “This is a fueling station, isn’t it? You should knew better than anyone what gormidian rhath-fruit are used for.”

“Why would you sell them to this dump? We’re in the middle of nowhere. They’re on your ship and we will find them.” 

Stopping just in front of him, the barrel of Kreech’s blaster is uncomfortably close to my chest. I can feel the heat of it through my jumpsuit. “Wanna bet?”

His face twitches. I’d laugh if I were’t so worried about dying. 

Kreech’s eyes swivel rapidly, as though confused by all the thinking going on in his tiny brain. “Search the processing center,” he finally says to his men. The twitching stops as he stares at me. “As Trades-Marshal of the outer Sectors, by the authority of the Galactic Congress, you and your crew are to be detained until further notice.”

I throw beetles in his face. 

Kreech screeches in alarm, staggering back. Knocking his blaster aside, I yell, “Now!” Behind me, the barrel crashes to the floor. A wave of glowing Koli beetles skitter past me, Kreech’s men jumping back as the orange insects scuttle up their boots. 

I wrench the detonator fob from his meaty fingers and charge out of the building. Wind nips at my clothing as I race across the steel reinforced platform.

A growl sounds behind me. 

Without looking back, I leap from the platform. 

Thrusters on my boots kick in just before gravity does and I shoot into the sky. A second pair of thrusters scream to life behind me, and I roll to the side. An energy bolt shoots past my shoulder. With blaster fire ringing in my ears, I dip and bob and weave in the air, keeping ahead of Kreech. It reminds me of the Earth game dodgeball. 

Duck here. Swing to the side there. Suck in your stomach and twist – 

My side burns. I pat the singed material of my jumpsuit, wincing. 

I always sucked at dodgeball.     

Flying around in a wide arc, the station comes back into view. 

Jutting from the moon’s pockmarked surface, a tall craggy rock tower splits the sky. Built into the sides of the tower are dozens of docking platforms – though only two ships are docked. At the top, accessible by an elevator within the craggy surface of the tower, is the way station. Dwarfing the building by comparison, a hideous neon sign lurches from its roof, casting a garish pink light over everything. Galaxy Way is scrawled in bold script. 

Heading straight for the station, I careen around the neon sign, stopping mid-air and doubling back, looping around the startled Trades-Marshal. I catch sight of several beetles who’ve held onto Kreech for the ride as I pass him and rocket back into open air. 

With a jolt, all of my momentum is gone. My right thruster is dead, one side of my boot melted. I waver awkwardly, arms flapping in an attempt to not tip over. My remaining thruster sputters. 

Below – far, far below – craters yawn menacingly up at me.

Kit’s voice cries through the comm in my ear, “Captain, we can’t hold them much longer!”

Kreech halts, hovering several yards away, and takes aim at my other boot. 

I plummet. 

Now, I wish I could say that I fell with the grace of a Gormidian water-moth descending into its nest. But no. I am not an elegant moth. I fall like a rock with four limps desperately flailing in an attempt to gain altitude, and when I hit the ground, it hurts. 

Consciousness eludes me. 

Static blaring through my comm wakes me. I sit up slowly in the middle of the crater I landed in, and groan. My hands search the ground feverishly and find the detonator fob, thankfully unharmed.

The static of my comm sharpens into speech. “Captain.” Kreech’s voice is tinged with malice. “Return my detonator to the processing center, or your crew will die.” Muffled yelling from Kit swells in the background. My comm goes silent. 

I stand slowly. A rock near my foot catches my eye. Something about this crater seems familiar. Grabbing the rock, I pull, and a hatch opens. Cleverly disguised. With grim resolve I descend into the heart of the moon.  I have to hunch to fit in the dark passage, a gentle downward slope, and faintly recall a time when I fit perfectly. 

That time seems like forever ago.  

Emerging into a massive room, more cavern than anything else, I squint at harsh yellow lights. 

The processing center. 

All around are assorted bits of machinery, conveyor belts, pipes, and vats that I’d be lying if I said I knew what they were, even after ten years. Descending from the center of the ceiling is a long tube-like structure – the main elevator shaft up to Galaxy Way. Two Grishi stand with blasters pointed at its door. And at the far side of the processing center sit the gormidian rhath-fruit. Tall as a Tuk, the rounded blue fruit glow with a dull radioactive luminescence – a key ingredient to the creation of lightspeed fuel and highly explosive in their natural state. Thick metal straps hold them down on pallets.

A group stands in front of the fruit. 

Appearing only half conscious, Lozak slumps in the iron grip of one of Kreech’s men. Four Grishi struggle to hold Kit still. She spits on one, and he returns the gesture with a quick blow to the stomach. Kit grunts. Huddled a short distance away by means of blaster-barrels, Ikbor and dozens of other Tuk workers stare warily at their captors. Standing before it all is Kreech, his posture smug. 

I step into view. 

“Kreech Varish,” I say with a smile. “You called?”

He snarls, pressing his blaster against Kit’s forehead. “The detonator.”

“Oh, this?” I hold it up where he can see it. 

Kreech stiffens. “Hand it over, or she dies.”

I look at Kit. She winks. 

“What makes you think I care?” I ask. 

“You humans are predictable.”

I push the button. 

A muffled explosion shakes the moon. Kreech’s men stagger. My crew is dropped as Grishi scatter throughout the processing center in a panic, racing for the elevator. Dumbfounded, Kreech stares at the gormidian rhath-fruit, still glowing gently, unharmed. Slitted pupils turn my direction. 

“You might want to get a new ship,” I say. 

His already grotesque face twists into a mask of disbelief and rage. “How?”

“I think the Galactic Congress would be very interested to know that an esteemed Trades-Marshal threatened an entire way station and the lives of those on it, wouldn’t you?”

“But you’re a criminal!”

“A criminal with standards. I don’t gouge people for the products I acquire. It’s simply fair redistribution, Mr. Varish.”

Sweat forms on Kreech’s brow, his blaster still trained on Kit. His swings his arm around and fires on the fruit. “If I can’t have them, no one can!” Energy bolts gouge the metal straps and one skims a fruit. It begins to steam. 

Before I can move, Kit is one him. 

Kicking and punching with a ferocity I consider myself privileged to witness, Kit knocks the blaster from his hand, cranks his arm behind his back, bends him forward and knees him hard in the sternum. Kreech lets out a high-pitched whine and slumps to the ground, clutching his torso. Kit punched me in the face the first time we met, and to be fair, I was trying to steal her shoe. I grimace in sympathy despite myself, approaching. 

Straightening, Kit wipes blood out from under her nose. “That’s for my tooth, asshole.”

Around me, Ikbor and his Tuk workers chase after the remainder of Kreech’s men. Ikbor rocket past me as a blur wielding a large wrench. He knocks the feet out from under one Grishi, turns my way, and nods. I nod in return. 

“Funny thing about Grishi anatomy,” Kit says. “The gonads are located high up in the body.” 

“The what?” I ask

Lozak chuckles quietly. 

Kit grins, a dark gap where one incisor should’ve been. “Balls, Captain.”