DusktoDust_Final3

DUSK TO DUST

By Adrian Felder

Text copyright
©
2015 Adrian W Felder

All Rights Reserved

Cover Art by RLSather

SelfPubBookCovers.com/RLSather

David Carpenter was in a cell.

Or at least it felt like a cell. He had been imprisoned by its walls for over a week and the worst part about it was time. Time ticked by at a snail
’
s pace. In relation to the galaxy, he was moving faster than the speed of light, but relative to his own standards, this was the slowest he had moved in months.

David was, in fact, not a prisoner but a passenger. His cabin on the starship
Gold Rush
, an ore hauler, was slightly larger than his body. There was no personal bathroom. The head was located halfway to the other end of the ship, and he shared it with two dozen other passengers and crew members. Food was served three times a day from vending machines. It was so bland that David craved hospital chow after just six days.

Aesthetically, the
Rush
didn
’
t disappoint either. The exterior was about as rusty as the remnants of the Eiffel Tower. At one time it probably had elegant lines defining its shape, but now decades of space junk battering its hull had taken a toll. And the inside hadn
’
t seen a cleaning crew in years. The corridors and ladder wells were full of garbage, dust, and rat droppings.

And all of this was all standard. No one cared about starship passengers in this day and age. The United Nations did little to regulate space travel. The real money for starship captains was in freight, not passengers. Thus, the decrepit state found on the
Rush
tended to be the norm.

Gold Rush
kept Earth Standard Time onboard, and according to the clock on the wall it was almost six in the morning. David lay on his bunk. He
’
d been awake for almost half an hour but had no real motivation to get up. This was the last day. The last day he would be cooped up on this filthy trash can of a ship. The past six days had felt like a month. He was no stranger to space travel, but he preferred to be in the pilot
’
s seat. He liked to have control. And if he didn
’
t have control he liked to have faith in the person who did have control.

David had met Captain Hurst briefly, and that was all the time he needed to conclude that the man was a complete imbecile. He gave the ship a fifty percent chance of reaching Prospect in one piece with that man at the helm. The other fifty percent of outcomes ranged from Hurst navigating the
Rush
into a black hole to the disgruntled crew revolting and flushing the man out the airlock.
Here
’s to the possibilities
, David mused.

There was a slight knock on the door and a second later it opened.
“
I can
’
t believe your lazy ass is still in bed.
”

“
Good morning to you too, Alana,
”
David said in reply.

In walked Alana Ramirez drenched in sweat. She stood six feet tall with braided dark brown hair. In her gym clothes David couldn
’
t help noticing her long, tanned legs. If he didn
’
t know her any better he might consider her attractive.

“
Nothing like thirty minutes of wind sprints to start your day,
”
she said as she wiped her face off with a towel.

“
I take it that was you thundering down the corridor.
”
Alana had been out of the military two years now, but unlike David, she couldn
’
t adjust to the leisurely life of a civilian.
“
You know you could sleep in like us normal mortals. I use the term
sleep in
very lightly.
”

“
You know I can
’
t stand this damn cabin,
”
she said as she stripped off her soiled shirt.

“
You
’
re in the wrong line of work to be claustrophobic.
”

“
You know what I mean. If I
’
m gonna travel space it
’
s gonna be in my own ship.
”
She began doing stretches against the bulkhead.

“
My
own ship,
”
David corrected.
“
And you read the contract. The employer is providing the ship for this run. I don
’
t like it any more than you, but it made no sense to take
Katana
to Prospect just to leave her there.
”
He paused.
“
Any chance you stopped by the bridge for an update on our arrival?
”

“
Nope,
”
Alana said as she hopped up onto the top bunk.
“
Guess you
’
re gonna have to get up and find out yourself.
”
She threw her used towel at him.

David recoiled in disgust.
“
Ok, I
’
ll get up but you better take a shower before we hit port. I
’
m not sure customs will let you in otherwise.
”

Alana laughed.
“
I
’
ll think about it.
”

David went to the miniaturized wardrobe that the two of them shared and started getting dressed. Alana didn
’
t bat an eye as he changed his skivvies. This was their relationship. She was more of a sister to him than anything else, but that still didn
’
t describe their relationship accurately. They
’
d been in more tight situations together than he cared to count. He would gladly take a bullet for her, and her for him.

When David had met Alana she had been Corporal Ramirez. Even after five hundred years, the United States Marine Corps did not easily allow women into the ranks of the infantry. Alana had been one of the few to make the cut. In the service David had seen Corporal Ramirez take down grunts twice her size in the blink of an eye. Out of the service he had seen her accomplish more impressive feats. She was one of the best warriors he knew. They had served in multiple combat zones together, done dozens of orbital drops. He had been her squad leader at first, and then her platoon sergeant.

When David got out, he wasn't able to shake now Sergeant Ramirez. When he had gone to earn his pilot
’
s license she had been right there with him. There was nothing romantic about it. She was used to the military lifestyle, far more than he was. She stayed with her platoon sergeant because she needed that order in her life. When he bought his ship, the
Katana
, she became his copilot and gunner. Now, two years later, she was still his backup. While theirs
’
may not be the noblest of trades, the two of them were an unstoppable team.

David put on the only outfit he had, blue jeans, a black t-shirt, a tattered leather jacket, and his old combat boots. Lastly, he stuck his pistol with skeleton holster into the small of his back. That was the best part about getting off of Earth. Nearly everyone carried a weapon once you left the orbital grid and entered the greater vastness of space. He no longer had to travel naked.

He shot a farewell grunt in Alana
’
s direction and stepped out of the cabin. In the corridor he turned aft.
Gold Rush
was a long and slender ore hauler. The cargo hold ran the length of the ship. The bridge and crew and passenger quarters sat atop it. The whole ship was about a kilometer long, leaving plenty of room for shipping containers in the cargo hold but making navigating the ship a work out.

Few people passed David as he made his way down the central corridor to the bridge. The
Rush
was running a skeleton crew and there were not many passengers other than himself and Alana. Prospect wasn
’
t the destination it used to be. Many of he ores were drying up and the Chinese planet of Baoshi was drawing most of the workers now, and, unlike Prospect, Baoshi actually attracted tourists. David had been to Prospect plenty of times before and understood why few people wanted to go there. If it hadn
’
t been for the planet
’
s resources he was sure the United Nations Exploration Council would have passed it over a century before. But currency was a powerful motivator, and as long as people paid for the ores and minerals harvested on the rock that was Prospect, human beings would continue to expose themselves to death defying conditions to provide them.

The bridge of
Gold Rush
was far different from the starship bridges David was accustomed to. He was comfortable in those of military star cruisers and interdictors, bridges nestled deep within the ship with screens showing outside camera feeds. Instead, he now stood on a bridge like that of naval vessels of old, where the only thing that separated you from the outside world, which in this case was the vacuum of space, was a thin sheet of tempered glass. The whole concept put David on edge.

The bridge was empty except for the first mate, an Australian man named Carl something- David couldn
’
t remember the man
’
s last name and didn
’
t really care. Theoretically these ships could be piloted by one person, but he
’
d rarely seen that done. This captain was either really lazy or liked pushing the limits of his men.

“
What
’
s up?,
”
Carl asked as David approached.
“
You know you aren
’
t supposed to be here.
”
He voice showed indifference. The bridge was off limits to passengers, but security on the
Gold Rush
was about as common as virtue in a whore house.

“
Just wanted to check our ETA.
”

Carl checked the helm console.
“
About five minutes. I was just about to make the announcement.
”

“
Well then I
’
ll get out of your hair.
”
He turned for the door but Carl stopped him.

“
You
’
re welcome to stay. It
’
s quite a show dropping out of hyperspace.
”

David accepted the invitation and made himself comfortable in one of the crewman
’
s chairs. Carl picked up the intercom handset.
“
Attention, ladies and gentlemen. This is the first mate. We are coming up on our drop point for Prospect. Please make your way to the closest restraining chair and prepare for deceleration. That is all.
”
He replaced the handset.

Hyperspace was a funny thing. Discovered back in the twenty-second century, ships now used controlled Klyston detonations to propel themselves forward at speeds of over forty times the speed of light. With no friction to slow it, a ship in hyperspace kept cruising until some other force acted upon it. If the hyperspace route was plotted correctly this was the force of the ship
’
s inertial dampeners. If it was plotted incorrectly it was a planet, an asteroid, or any other piece of random junk floating in space. Either way, the problem with this rapid deceleration was that the human body wasn
’
t built for these forces. That
’
s where the retraining chairs came in.

David reached up and grabbed his chair
’
s body netting, lifted it over his head, and strapped it in under his feet. Carl did the same thing in the helmsman
’
s chair. The netting was uncomfortable but a necessary evil for space travel. At least it left their arms free.

“
So what
’
s waiting for you at Prospect,
”
Carl inquired.

David took a second to decide how to answer this delicate question.
“
Would you believe me if I said I was on vacation?
”
he said trying to change the subject.

Carl gave him a sideways glance.
“
Right
…
I know there were resorts planetside back in the day, but from what I hear they went down the toilet.
”

“
Yeah. It
’
s hard to see what people saw in the place to begin with.
”

“
My parents took me on a holiday there back when I was a kid, but the place was already drying up. The skies were always gray. It wasn
’
t much to look at.
”
David had no experience with the tourism industry on Prospect so he kept his mouth shut. A few awkward seconds passed by.
“
So what are you really getting into there,
”
Carl finally said. He wasn
’
t letting up.

David hesitated.
“
My partner and I are looking for work,
”
he said and then added without thinking,
“
Got a lead on a job.
”

“
Oh yeah, with who.
”

David could have answered with anything. He could have lied. He could have made up some fictional company. But for some reason the truth came out.
“
Windcorp.
”
When the words escaped his mouth he already knew he had said too much.

Carl looked intrigued, if not a little uneasy.
“
Windcorp, huh.
”
He paused.
“
They actually offered me a job a while back. They were gonna give me my own ship. Good money too. I turned them down.
”
He paused.
“
You must need work pretty badly to take a job with them.
”
Windham Corporation, or Windcorp, had its hands in just about everything on Prospect, from legitimate mining and shipping to
less
legitimate mining and shipping, as well as other things.