By David C. Daoust
Craiden had walked these sands since he was a very young boy, he remembered very little of any kind of life before Twin Crown. Nothing beyond vague memories of being huddled in a corner of the starship, that brought the first wavers to their new home. First wavers intended to live off the land. There were about twelve families with them, most with their own Sand Crawler.
The life they’d chosen was hard, though to Craiden, who never knew anything different, it seemed like paradise. He relished his childhood inside his family’s Sand Crawler.
That was long before the next wave’s arrival. The colonists with this wave turned the moon’s star-port into a shanty-town that rapidly grew into a full blown port-town. Anything anyone wanted suddenly had a price tag, even entry into the port. This corporate invasion called the attention of governments, which put the sand moon on the map, which meant taxes went up.
Many first wavers took to trading with Grady, though resources were few on the sand moon, and first wavers had to work quite a bit just to feed their own. This is where the Sand Crawlers started to dwindle, and join ranks with Grady; Something Craiden swore he’d never do.
That was before the sickness set in. That was before he watched most of his family and crew die, slowly and painfully inside their roving home. Their lungs infected with what was commonly called ‘Black Lung’. Craiden wasn’t spared. Black Lung couldn’t be cured, only treated. Something he did not find out until he put in to Grady.
For the most part, medical droids still took care of humans, as they had long ago when mankind was still crammed in the Ark Ships. Medical Droids were stationed on the starports, set up by the terraforming crews, when they processed the moon. A broken bone or gashed skin could be treated easily enough, healed almost immediately thanks to technology. Medication though was not something droids dealt with. Corporations controlled medications and corporations only cared about money.
First wavers had no care for money.
This is how Craiden finally fell in line with Grady. He couldn’t survive without the meds, and he couldn’t buy meds without money. He had to find a way to generate income. He turned his home into a scavenging business. Combing the desert for anything; wrecked speeders, abandoned crawlers, what junk was left behind from the terraforming crews… anything he thought might get him and his crew enough money for their next dose of meds.
Craiden fell in line, though he hated everything about his new life, everything about Grady. And he could not help but blame so many losses on the fact they could not reach medical care in time. Thanks, in Craiden’s mind, to Grady’s steep taxes. Some part of him knew this was irrational, for despite the fact they had to pay for entry, it was actually that they took to roving so far from the star port, that it took them so long to get treatment.
Not to mention, forty percent of the moon was now infected and paying for the meds as well.
Craiden couldn’t hear reason on the matter though; it was Grady’s fault that they didn’t want to be anywhere near the port town. The irrational hate boiled in Craiden’s blood whenever he coughed up that black mucus associated with his infection.
Craiden coughed under the cloth covering his face, as his torch did its work on the abandoned ship. He’d finally cut through the final band of metal that held the cargo bay doors clamped shut and raised the protective goggles to get a good look at his handy work. He lowered his shoulder and gave it a good shove. Mechanisms inside the doors suddenly began to move, doing the work for him. He almost fell back with the speed the doors rushed open.
This was about the sweetest cargo ship Craiden had ever seen, he’d wager the sweetest in the Onion. It was a rare find, a rare find even in a star-port. It was a top of the line starship. He knew he couldn’t fly it. The ship was a specially designed Mech, which meant major implants into specially trained pilots, major implants that cost more than the ship itself.
A Mech like this was more of an extension of the pilot than a vehicle. Like a cybernetic limb, it answered directly to the jacked in mind. The implants involved in flying a ship like this, were usually only funded by military, and usually only in fighters.
Whoever abandoned this ship- was rich, and knew their business, which was why Craiden and his crew had circled it for so many days before they dared approach. Despite Craiden’s confidence that it was, in fact, empty of crew, he still left his crawler a good distance away, as he ‘investigated’ further, aka breaking and entering.
Craiden liked what he found within. While the ship itself would have to be stripped down for the mere fact that no one without implants could fly it, the cargo load within, looked more expensive than the ship itself, and easier to move.
Craiden weighed the risk, and called in his crew with a wave of his hand. The Crawler in the distance immediately began to approach. The ship itself would take days to strip, and he would have to return with more equipment for the job. The cargo within though, that, could be loaded into the Crawler now.
Craiden re-entered the hold as the Crawler approached. He immediately began cutting into one of the sealed crates, interested in finding out what lie within.
