Sample Chapter from “The Phantom Flyers”

THE PHANTOM FLYERS - CHAPTER 8

Reckless prepared to pick his way down the massive debris pile, his mind still replaying the high-speed pass of the Flyer. The faint smell of the powerful afterburners lingered in the still night air, but other than that, there was no trace of the blazing passage. In the moonless night, the dramatic blue ring that encircled Zalas now stood out against the distant bands of stars, casting the wastelands in its pale light. Most scavengers couldn’t navigate the fields by ringlight alone, but this had never been a problem for Reckless. He took a few extra moments for his eyes to adjust, then bounded down the invisible path, barely making a sound.

Dropping the last few feet to the ground, landing softly, he took a moment to assess his surroundings. One never could be too wary in the fields, especially at night. Satisfied that the silence was complete and that he was alone, he checked the small datapad at his wrist, careful to cover its illuminated screen with his hand to avoid detection. No movement detected. Excellent. He made his way through the mountains of twisted metal toward Maizor’s workshop and his waiting bed – and likely an angry Maize, but he would deal with that in its time.

Rounding the enormous tail fin of an ill-fated cargo freighter, Reckless checked the horizon and was happy to see the familiar glow of the security lights that marked the location of the workshop. It would not be long now before he was back inside, safe. Despite the fact that Maizor had lowered and locked the security doors against the night, Reckless knew more than one way to slip back in, and then up to the bunkroom unnoticed. He knew the shop even better than he knew the debris fields, and could navigate the entire building, even the most densely-packed supply rooms and work bays, in complete darkness. Practice allowed such skills.

   He set off at a run, but was stopped in his tracks after just a few strides. His datapad beeped once, twice, then gave a loud double-beep, glowing brightly. The screen stood out like a flashlight in the darkness. He quickly covered it to conceal the luminescence and to silence the high-pitched beeping. Carefully peering at the screen beneath his hand, his eyes widened. He tapped the screen and shook the datapad to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. He scanned the debris fields, but in the darkness he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The screen showed a map – a schematic of the debris fields around him painted in various shades of blues and greens to delineate elevation as well as debris density. It was the oblong shape standing out in glowing red that caught his attention. His initial skepticism that the device must have been malfunctioning was replaced by the rising excitement and pure glee that consumes every adventurous young man when a new discovery is at hand. He took one last look at the screen, memorized it, then switched off the device, casting him back into the blue-hued darkness. He hoped the loud beeps and his brief glimpses of the brightly illuminated screen had not been noticed.

He headed off in a different direction now, practically skipping. And he had been noticed.

#

Dropping into a small valley – no more than a long, straight crevasse, actually – Reckless made his way toward the treasure. To a watchful eye, he may have appeared to simply vanish from the flat plain above, as he did not break stride, dropping a few meters down the sharp sidewall to the soft, sandy path that ran along the valley floor, descending sharply. Although the plains that made up the base of the debris fields were largely flat to the horizon, these crevasses were not uncommon, but also not natural; the impact of large, crippled starships ripped these valleys out of the land like the claw of some giant monster. No doubt, if Reckless continued down this narrow chute, he would find the ruins of some old hulk down there, but that was not his target. His datapad had registered something far more interesting.

There was less large debris here, but as with everything in this part of Zalas, there were small scraps and shards everywhere. He could feel them under his boots as he squished various rivets and metal couplings into the soft sand. In the darkness ahead, Rex saw the faint outline of a downed starship – not all that unusual in the debris fields, of course – but this one was different. This one was special. And this one was intact. Maybe, he thought, the scavs never found it because it crashed out of sight. Could he be that lucky?  Possibly, but not likely.

He slowed as he approached. The ship was as black as the night around him, a small single-seater, the smooth glass of the cockpit canopy just slightly higher than his line of sight. It sat upright on its gear, and before he even touched the fuselage, he knew that this ship had not crashed here. It had landed, intentionally and recently. Running his hands along the sleek exterior verified that. The heat shields were still warm.

It was difficult to tell the ship’s origin in the darkness. It didn’t have any markings that Reckless could make out and its hatches were sealed tight. It did not appear to have any mods, its surface plates perfectly fitted and matched, assembled with precision. Reckless was perplexed, to say the least, and thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, this was a Flyer’s craft. That made little sense, of course. Their vehicles were priceless, and from everything he had ever heard about the legendary Flyers, their ships were under constant guard. It certainly wasn’t the Spectre, his favorite Phantom Flyer that he had seen racing through the debris fields earlier in that evening. This craft was much smaller. Then he chuckled to himself for even considering it. The thought of a Flyer craft abandoned in the wasteland was indeed laughable.

He dared a quick peek at his datapad, which constantly, and automatically, scanned the debris fields and every bit of scrap in range. The device had a comprehensive glossary of the known ship types in the system, a glossary that nearly rivaled his own knowledge of anything that could fly, and it could generally identify a ship by scanning just the smallest piece of scrap left behind. This little ship had both the datapad and Reckless stumped, yet here it was, just sitting there seemingly intact and without a scratch.

Reckless sighed, frustration mixed with disappointment. Unlike most of those who scavenged the debris fields of Zalas, Maizor had instilled in all who lived beneath his roof a code of honor and proper conduct. Salvage was one thing, but salvaging an intact ship was stealing. Perhaps he could come back in the light and get a better look, talk to the pilot. Reckless devoured information; he loved to learn. Then he chuckled again to himself, this time at his own naiveté. The pilot of this ship did not want it to be found, and no doubt it would be gone without a trace by morning.

A sudden tumble of pebbles down the wall of the crevasse brought Reckless back to his senses. He froze, listening. I slight breeze whistled through the debris piles above the small valley, but otherwise there was silence. Or was there?  His sharp ears caught the sound of barely audible clicks and scratches, telltale communication techniques of the scavenger bands that roamed the area. That was not good. The sounds were coming from where he had entered the valley. The walls to either side offered no handholds and only loose dirt and were by no means climbable. The main path led either back to the ship, or dropped down sharply into the darkness, neither of which were great options. He crouched low and waited.    

The sound of slow and careful footsteps reached his ears. Scavs had the ability to melt into the darkness and move in complete silence, but Reckless knew their tricks. He also knew their reputation for using deadly force without a second thought, killing first and asking questions never. For a prize like this little starship, Reckless had no doubt there would be no pleasant greeting when they arrived.

Their footsteps moved in rhythm, making it difficult to determine how many were coming his way. Listening closely, Reckless matched their cadence and stepped carefully and quietly backwards away from the ship and down the valley. With each measured step, he felt a rising hope that perhaps the scavs would find the ship far more interesting than him, allowing him time to dash away. Then his foot hit something small and metal and he fell hard to the sand.

With a hiss, the valley was suddenly flooded with a dull green light, nowhere to hide. Reckless saw the ship clearly now and for a moment he was stunned by its sleek lines, its gleaming, flawless surface, the dark glass of the canopy, but a more pressing matter quickly grabbed his attention. Five bright orbs shone like spotlights, clutched in the long, talon-like gloves of the black-clad scavengers. Reckless could not see their faces, but he didn’t need to. He heard the agitated hiss of their breath and the unmistakable sound of their sidearms powering up. He knew he was in big trouble.

Stumbling back, his hands scrabbled and groped in the loose sand as he tried to get to his feet. The object that had tripped him caught between his feet and he reached down and wrenched the half-submerged object out of the ground. It was some sort of datapad, large, but its contours fit nicely into his hands. Its construction was similar in appearance to the sleek ship, unadorned and made from some sort of light-weight, mirror-polished alloy. His eyes widened as it powered up in his hands, the screen shining brightly.

Reckless would have loved to study the device more closely, but now was not the time. He turned and ran just as one of the scavs fired the first pulse beam in his direction. The waves shook the valley and threw him forward. The weapon obviously had not heated up to full power, so the pulse was not deadly, still it was enough to send Reckless rolling down the steep trail. He landed hard on the strange device that he still carried and it beeped and chimed in a soft, pleasant tone. He took a moment to look down and saw that the screen read simply: “Confirm Action?” 

Well, any action would be better than no action, he thought. Reckless punched the affirmative indicator as he resumed his headlong scramble down the valley. He did not slow down as another sound filled the air. It was not unlike the powering up of the scavs’ small sidearms, but this sound rose quickly in pitch and intensity, mixed with the now frantic hissing chatter of the scavs. Reckless thought he heard the sound of mechanical whirs and the opening of a hatch of some sort, but he did not stop to look. Suddenly the night was lit up by cannon fire as the sides of the valley were turned into thick clouds of pulsing smoke and flying sheets of dirt and sand. Diving forward and covering his head, Reckless stole a quick glance over his shoulder. The little ship was now armed with deadly sphere cannons, their barrels spinning and showering the valley with their fire. He had no idea if the scavs had escaped, and frankly didn’t much care. As quickly as it started, the volley of fire stopped and the cannons spun down. All that was left was silence and the gentle slither of sand shifting and spilling down the valley walls, covering the little ship.

Shaken, but he had to admit exhilarated, Reckless jumped up and continued his retreat down the path into the darkness. Looking down with awe at the device he still carried, he had so many questions. Clearly he was not dealing with a Flyer vessel. They were designed for maximum speed and agility, and would never add the weight of weaponry and munitions. For that matter, in this era of The Peace, weaponry onboard a personal craft of any kind was highly unusual, not illegal in most places, but that display was certainly not for some pilot’s own protection. That was serious, military grade firepower designed to inflict damage, not just simple defense. Reckless was not certain he was witnessing terrestrial technology at all, although if he was, it was of the highest quality imaginable. Quite a mystery, indeed.

For now, however, his questions would have to wait. The walls of the little valley were steadily collapsing and crumbling his way. He looked for a path or some means to climb out before the crevasse collapsed entirely. As he ran, he also listened for pursuers, but heard nothing, and silently he thanked the datapad and the little craft for saving his hide. Just a few more steps down the valley, he found just the path of hardened dirt he was hoping for. He quickly scrambled up and out of the valley, sprinting now for the workshop and its welcoming glow.  

He only hoped that Maize would believe his stories, of the little starship, the hissing scavs, and even the nighttime passage of the Phantom Flyer, all of which might, just might, allow him to avoid one of Maize’s legendary scolding lectures.    

#

It wasn’t the first time that Reckless returned to the shop to find the security doors closed for the night. The metal doors were thick and strong, truly a deterrent to any scavs slinking in from the debris fields with a thought of robbing Maizor’s shop, but Reckless did not intend to use them anyway. Perhaps he could just walk up and knock, and surely Maize would open them, but it was infinitely better to avoid the tongue-lashing that would inevitably follow. Besides, there were at least three concealed ladders that Reckless knew of, part of an elaborate system devised by the crew for just such emergencies. He kept to the shadows, skirting the perimeter of the security sensors that would throw out brighter rings of light, until he was safely at the back of the shop. Within moments he was at the upper level building, through a cleverly camouflaged door, and had disappeared inside.

After-hours, it was customary in Maize’s shop to go full black, all lights out. There was no part of the shop, however, even the most cluttered workspaces, that Reckless could not navigate, silently, even in complete darkness. On the bunk floor, not even clutter was an issue, since this part of the shop was kept clean seemingly to military standards. He made his way down the hall, not bothering to sneak like a thief who might be trying to be quiet; rather, he casually strolled into his room as if he were returning from a nightly call of nature, closing the door quietly behind him.

From the darkness at the end of the hall, Maizor Gent let out a relieved sigh as heard Reckless slip into his room. He lit the end of his steam pipe, drawing a few long puffs, before casually walking back down to the workfloor, finally able to put aside his worries – at least until the next day. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head. He was constantly amused, as the years went by, and as the names and faces changed, how each generation thought they alone knew of the concealed entrances and kept them a secret from him.

#

Reckless dreamed. There were many holes in the tapestry that made up the young man’s past, and in his hours of restless sleep, his mind often tried to patch and fill the gaps. He remembered his early childhood years with vivid clarity, but of the transition from son to orphan, he had no memory.

His loving parents had raised him in the open plains of Zalas, far from the ominous heaps of wreckage of the debris fields, yet in his dreams he heard the constant din of warfare in the skies above, and watched in horror as ship after ship fell in flames and the mounds of wreckage grew, advancing on the simple structures of the nomadic village he and his parents called home.

Rex Durran was born amongst a simple people, mostly freethinkers who preferred a life without complication – living off the land, sleeping under the stars, moving frequently, content to just enjoy living. In his dreams, however, the entire planet of Zalas was still a battlefield, trapped between warring powers that were unknown to everyone on the ground. The issues that fueled the conflict were lost on the simple people who were the ones who felt the impact the most. There seemed to be no part of the planet that was safe from the conflict above.

In his waking hours, his memories of those times was fragmented, hidden from his consciousness to protect him from… well, from what he was not sure. Although his family and his community seemed completely disconnected from the raging conflict, in his dreams, there was a constant feeling that somehow, some way, his mother and father were part of the fight, and significantly, not at the fringes. As the dreams devolved into darker and darker nightmares, fleeting images flashed before him – feelings of love and protection, mixed with fear and uncertainty, pulsing in lights and darks and shades of deep red. The faces of his parents were fading from his memory now, but in his dreams he could see them clearly. He reached for them, enjoying the warmth that encircled him when the three of them were together as one entity. That warm feeling was never allowed to last long. The screams of war, the roaring explosions and falling fighters, and one last, desperate sacrifice by his mother as their village was torn and burned. Stumbling from the destruction, alone, into an endless field of debris, young Rex Durran remembered little else.

His eyes snapped open. It was still dark, and as he so often did, Reckless cursed the dreams for not allowing him any meaningful sleep. The darkness in the bunkroom, however, was not complete. A soft blue glow now pulsed from the mysterious datapad he had picked up while scavenging the debris fields near the strange black ship. Lying on his back in his bunk, he turned the device over in his hands. The screen was dark and only a small blue indicator light along the top edge, brightening and dimming in a slow rhythm, showed that it was active at all. He tapped the screen. No response. He looked for switches or input jacks, but there were none. He shook it, not actually expecting that to do anything, and, as it turned out, he was mostly correct. The only thing that happened was that the small light faded once more, and then stayed dark.

Reckless knew that any attempt at sleep would be a wasted effort, so he slipped out of his bunk and made his way down to the shop floor in silence.

#

In his personal crafting bay, Reckless was in the one place he could truly relax his troubled mind. He switched on his small work lamp, illuminating his tidy workspace, but it did not throw enough light to push back the darkness of the shop beyond the cramped space. Revealed in the pool of light, his latest project rested atop a well-worn workbench. It was made of a dull grey metal, hammered and worked into a long and narrow u-shaped collar, about the length of his arm. He scooped it up along with set of tools wrapped in a simple burlap roll, and switched the light off again. The darkness in his workspace was again complete.

Reckless made his way deeper into the shop, heading for the long alcoves in the back where few, if any, of his colleagues ever ventured, let alone worked. He preferred it that way. Reckless was near to completing a special project and doing so out of sight of the others was how he preferred to work on it.

The original purpose of the alcoves had long-since been forgotten. Reckless guessed that they were made, perhaps, as cells for criminals or maybe pens for some exotic animals, long before the building was used as a workshop. He thought the latter was most likely, since each narrow alcove had a roll-top door at the end, which presumably led to the outside, except now each was welded shut and as good as a wall. Whatever the original purpose of the spaces, they were now primarily used for piling discarded hardware or half-finished projects from workers who had moved on, their creations abandoned. Reckless stepped into one of the alcoves and flipped on a dim overhead light, revealing a long, cloth-draped project that filled nearly the entire ten meter depth of the space. He lifted the cover and drew it back, rolling it carefully and smiling as his creation was revealed.

It was a swiftlet-class starfighter, or at least it was long ago. The ship was not much larger than a single-seat land racer, with a snug, single cockpit and small wings swept back to form a tight crescent. And it was clearly a work-in-progress. The primary pieces were mismatched, of varying colors and quality, and at the rear of the craft, it was missing its primary vertical stabilizer entirely. A jagged hole was torn along the top near the rear single-engine, likely the reason this particular starfighter was brought down into the debris fields so long ago. The ship’s landing gear, such as it was, was cobbled together from a mix of alien, human, and who-knows-what make of components. Weapons had been removed and care had been taken to buff and smooth the bodywork of any hint of the ship’s former military past. Overall, despite the patchwork of components, the disparate pieces of the ship all seemed to fit with machined precision.

Reckless lifted the metal collar that he brought from his workbench, then inspected the jagged hole on the ship’s topside where the aft vertical stabilizer would be, if it hadn’t been torn off. The collar was a perfect match, and Rex took some pride in the fact that it covered up the fore section of the ugly metal tear. He wondered briefly about the ship’s original pilot, as he often did when he worked on refurbs. He hoped the pilot had managed to escape, returning to a family, or to a unit, or wherever there would be welcoming faces. The fact that the cockpit seat had not been blown when Rex found the wreckage, meant that the pilot had not ejected, which usually wasn’t good news, but there was also no trace of the occupant, so that was a somewhat positive sign, at least. He took pride in the thought that this job, indeed much of the jobs in Maize’s shop, involved finding old fighters like this one, getting them back into flying shape, and then selling them at auction to do some good in the world. Most were too old or battered to do more than serve as short hop delivery vehicles or recreational zoomers in their new existence, but Reckless had special plans for this one. No trivial jumps for this ship, he thought to himself, and smiled.

Reckless set his bundle on the floor and unrolled it, revealing a well-maintained set of tools each in their own custom pocket, some of the instruments exotic, some mundane, and all well-used. He selected a long-handled driver and clenched it in his teeth, then picked out another tool and set to work securing the collar in place, humming a simple tune as he worked.

His mind wandered to the Phantom Flyers, as it almost always did. He thought of the nights he spent watching them rocket through the canyons and wondered who they were, and why they took such enormous risks in their speed challenges under the cloak of darkness. Reckless was the best pilot in Maize’s shop – which wasn’t saying much, he knew – and while running the occasional delivery mission did have its risks, many of which he brought on himself just to see where his boundaries lay, there was not chance for glory to be found in that type of flying. As Reckless worked on his ship, he imagined himself joining the Flyers, racing alongside the mysterious girl and her night-black Spectre, accelerating off into the darkness to some wonderful place where the best pilots gathered and lived only for their craft, and speed, and glory.

  Approaching footsteps snapped Reckless from his thoughts. Maizor Gent was a lot of things, but stealthy was not one of them. Reckless had expected him to come eventually, of course – nothing happened in Maize’s shop with him knowing about it.   

 “You should work in proper conditions,” Maizor said, his stern voice breaking the silence. The bay was suddenly bathed in bright light as the bearded man switched on the overheads.  

“I like the dark,” Reckless said, tightening a final screw and inspecting his handiwork. “But you’re right, as always,” and he meant it. He had enormous respect for his mentor, not to mention that in the light he could see that his work was not perfectly aligned. He stopped working and turned toward Maize, head down and holding his breath, ready for whatever came his way.

“Bad dreams again?” Maize asked.

“Yes sir, couldn’t sleep.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t stay out so late,” the old man said, clasping him on both shoulders.  “Gets you all worked up, all that running around the junk piles. Best to have you coming in the front doors, rather than climbing like a squirpopper up the back ladders.”  Reckless let out a long, relieved breath. There would be no scolding tonight.

“Yeah, I guess so,” was all he could manage.

“Now what have we got here?” Maize asked, walking around the ship. “An old swiftlet-class, as a base, but…” his voice trailed off as he inspected the work. He looked at the various components, the precision fit. Maizor’s trained eyes knew that many of the components that Rex had blended had no business coming together as one, let alone matching with such perfection. It was hard enough to get two human-made components to function together, let alone human and alien. “You have a gift, Rex. You definitely have a gift.”  He let the words hang in the air, then he continued to admire the ship. “Pet project of yours?”

“It is,” Rex said, trying to conceal his pride. He wasn’t sure if he was in trouble or not. There was no rule against personal projects in the shop that Reckless knew of, but he had never heard of anyone working solo on something of this scale, either. “Been working on it for a while now.”

“I can see. I can see,” the old man said with a smile. “Just you?”

“Just me.”

The old man fixed him with a gaze, studying his face. With a grunt and satisfied nod, Maize continued around the ship, stopping at the collar that Rex had just installed and inspecting the jagged tear in the fuselage behind it. “Looks like one more piece to go,” he said. “And then what?”

“I’m not sure,” Reckless said, but he knew Maize could see right through the lie. He wondered if he should ask the old man about the Phantom Flyers. Maybe he had some answers, or at least clues, about who they were and why they raced which such determination. Reckless thought better of it. At this hour, there was no need to start spouting off about chasing some dream of flying with such elite pilots.      

The old man fixed Reckless with that stare again. It had been a long time since Maizor Gent was Rex’s age, rooted to the ground, but dreaming of flight, and he could see that the young man was wrestling with the same dreams. He remembered the unbridled joy the first time he took a solo flight in a ship – his own ship – and the sense of limitless freedom that came from knowing he could aim the nose of his craft in any direction and hit the afterburners. There wasn’t a flyer in the system that forgot the feeling of that first time. He knew what was building inside young Rex Durran, and this ship was going to be his ticket.

Of every soul that had passed through the shop, there was something different about Rex from the first moment he had arrived. He was a special kid, what some might call an old soul, with innate wisdom far beyond his years. Rex had no enemies, but did not go out of his way to make friends, either. He was a fast learner, a good student, but never satisfied. He had been under Maize’s care for more than two thirds of his life now, from the day he stumbled out of the debris fields, lost and alone, with little more than his tattered clothes. Well, thought Maize, there was one other interesting detail. He pushed that to the back of his mind for later. Someday soon, Rex would be ready to fly out, maybe even be an elite pilot, but before that day, Maize was determined to find the meaning of the mysterious gold trinket Rex was clutching so hard when he had first arrived. The boy had held it so fiercely that it had cut into the palm of his hand, and it was not until the youngster had finally fallen asleep from exhaustion that Maizor had taken it from him, putting it away for safekeeping. One day he would tell him, before Rex made the decision to leave. He hoped that day was still far distant, but now he knew better.

Reckless waved his hand in front of Maizor Gent’s eyes. “Maize?” he asked. “You alright, sir?”

The old man returned from his thoughts. “Sorry,” he said. “Just thinking about how far you’ve come,” he said with a wink, slapping the ship. It rang like a bell in the silent workshop.   “Enough work for tonight. Back to the bunks with you. Plenty of work to do tomorrow, and I’ll take care of the lights.”  

Reckless smiled and shook his head. He often wondered where Maize disappeared to when his mind wandered like that. He put away his tools, and with a nod to his mentor, he disappeared into the darkness of the shop beyond, heading toward the bunkroom.

Maize watched him go, his mind drifting again. His eyes went back to the old fighter, and the longer he looked at it, the more he admired its remarkable craftsmanship. “I need to get to these back bays more often,” he said to himself, then hit the lights.

#

Not long after, back in his simple room, Maizor Gent sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his temples as he often did to relax his mind when it wandered too far into the past. Sleep would not come for the rest of that night, he knew. In that regard, he and Reckless were very similar. And, of course, he knew that they had much more in common than just their insomnia.

He opened a nearby drawer and withdrew a small, tattered book, turning it over in his hands. He had owned the little journal for years, decades even, but knew very little about it, save that it was obviously old. It was bound in weathered, dark leather and stuffed with all manner of hand-written notes and scraps of paper, some with images, some with maps, and even a few with symbols written in languages he did not recognize. He wondered if anyone alive in the system even remembered some of the languages and codes the old journal contained. He had found it while scavenging in the debris fields years ago, wedged in the cockpit of the rusted skeleton of a downed starfighter that had long-since been scavenged, abandoned, and forgotten. How the scavs had missed the journal, he had no idea, but he was glad they had left it for him to find. He often leafed through its pages with a quiet reverence, as if bringing to life the ghost of some fallen warrior from long ago.

He undid the worn strap that held the book together, carefully opening the inside cover and removing a tiny cloth sack wrapped in worn parchment. Tipping it, he let the delicate gold chain fall, catching the pendant it bore in the palm of his hand. A simple little treasure, two gold rings fused together. He examined the rings as he has done a thousand times before. They were not bound by the careful tooling of a jeweler, rather they had been crudely melted together, rough and haphazard. Despite their years, they remained brilliant, even in the dim light. He wondered about what secrets they held, what stories they had to tell, as he had done so often since taking the rings from Rex as he had stumbled into his shop, placing them in the old journal for safekeeping.

Maize wondered to himself about the right time to tell Rex about the rings, and what he had learned about them over the years. Fascinating tales, even if only a sliver of a percentage of them were true.

Next time, he told himself, as he always did. Next time.