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  LOST

  ZULU UNIVERSE:BOOK 1

  by

  Sam Renner

  +++++

  PUBLISHED BY:

  SIX to ONE Books & Media

  Copyright © 2019

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  ZERO

  Captain Glory looked at the bank of buttons and switches in front of her. The lights that back-lit the panel had long ago faded, so she was operating mostly blind. But it was OK. She’d sat at the controls of the Mercybringer long enough that she could fly her big empty bird if she is half asleep.

  The Mercybringer didn’t fly easy. Her thrusters took a long time to get to a full burn. She drank fuel like a dehydrated camel. And she never held as much cargo as Glory waned her to, but the Mercybringer was home. It was Glory’s ship, bought with money earned doing hours of back-breaking work on the ships of other captains who were looking to make their own fortunes.

  Glory knew as soon as she saw the Mercybringer gathering dust at the back of the used shipyard that her fortune would be made in the back of this old hospital ship.

  The salesman had been pushing her to look at something newer, something with more juice left in its thrusters and bigger, wider open insides.

  “You're going to want the extra space,” he'd told Glory. “Bigger loads. Bigger paydays. Get this thing paid off quicker so you can start making real money.”

  He was rubbing his hand along the side of a Corwall BP810 and looking up at the glass that surrounded the bridge.

  “Sleeps a crew of seven comfortably. Get uncomfortable and you could get it to 10. If you wanted a permanent crew, that is. No crew and we can open up some of those rooms meant for quarters and get you a bit more space.”

  Glory let the man talk, but she wasn't going to be sold on the BP810. She was already mentally piloting that old hospital ship to her dad's place and gutting her.

  She’d gladly broken her own back doing the work necessary to make the interior of the Mercybringer a big void. She’d only kept the bridge--if you could call it that, it was so small--and three small rooms intact. Everything else that was a reminder of the Mercybringer’s old life was cut apart and pulled out the wide doors on her side until all that was left was open space. It wasn’t as much space as she was hoping for, but if she kept her crew small she could still clear plenty of credits to keep herself and her team flying. And for the last five years that’s exactly what she’s been able to do.

  She’d had the sides of the ship sandblasted to remove any identifying markings, with the intention of a custom paint job to make the Mercybringer hers. But good intentions don’t pay for custom paint, and neither do loads that only fill half a hold. And half loads were all she’d been able to find. But, if her latest bit of intel proved true, her next load would be a hold-filler and this latest run could be a one-and-done, and she and her crew could get back home to luxuriate in their riches.

  Glory started pushing buttons and setting coordinates. She half listened to the commotion coming from the cargo hold behind her. Heavy and James arguing. Again. The near constant arguing should bother her, but it didn’t. These guys were her brothers, even if they didn’t share parents. She’d be back there soon enough sparring along with them.

  Three more buttons. A final flip of a switch with an extra flourish and the course was set. She stood from her seat and unzipped the front of her flight suit. She pulled off the top and laid it across her captain’s seat. She untucked the t-shirt she wore underneath and waited to feel the ship rock under her. It would be the thrusters firing and a sign that everything was set. A moment. Then another. And a third that felt too long. Then. There. The ship rocked and Glory heard the thrusters start to light brighter and burn harder. The ship was moving out, pushing deeper into space and nearer to opportunity.

  She ran her fingers through her short-cropped hair. It felt new and unfamiliar. She still wasn’t used to the drastic change in her look, but it always took a few days for the short hair of a new mission to feel natural. She’d have it cut tight to her head—just an inch or two long—the day before she left out on another dance among the stars. By the time they returned she’d be able to pull it into a tight knot behind her head.

  It always took Heavy and James a few days to get used to the look as well. They’d given her a hard time when she met them at the ship before they took off three days ago. She’s sure she’d hear it again when she joined them in the hold in a minute.

  She punched a four number code into a keypad next to the door that led her out to the cargo hold, and the door wooshed open.

  “Damn if you two aren’t loud,” she said to Heavy and James, but neither of them even acknowledged her.

  “Stop it!” James shouted.

  Heavy danced some kind of knees-high jig and asked a drawn-out “Whaaaaat? I’m just enjoying all this space that we have for activities since there’s nothing in the hold.” He danced solo for a second more then extended a hand out to Glory.

  “Care to join me, captain?”

  Glory smiled then took his hand. He spun her to him and wrapped a loose arm around her before spinning her back out again. She smiled, and he laughed. They danced to inaudible music for a moment before James interrupted.

  “OK, Twinkletoes.” He pushed himself from the wall and moved to the middle of the empty cargo hold.

  Glory put a hand into Heavy’s broad chest and let it rest there a moment before gently pushing herself away.

  James continued: “While this makes a wonderful dance floor, unless we are charging admission it’s not making us any money.”

  Glory straightened her T-shirt and put her hands into the pockets of her flight suit pants. “Nope,” she said, “an empty hold does us no good.”

  “So what’s the plan, chief? Because as much as I like spinning around the galaxy with the two of you, I have a family back home that expects me to put credits into an account, and I haven’t been doing enough of that lately.”

  Glory nodded as James spoke.

  “Yeah, boss.” It was Heavy’s turn. “As much as I enjoyed our dance, it’s easy to do when your pockets are a little light.”

  Glory climbed up onto a crate that held tools and other maintenance gear.

  “I know guys. It’s been light lately…”

  James: “Light?”

  Glory: “Worse than light. Non-existent. You know that a couple of times we just missed out on a job. Other times they just disappeared. But I was talking to someone …”

  Heavy: “Oh, boy …”

  Glory: “No, listen. I was talking to someone and he made a lot of sense.”

  “He?”

  “Yes, he. Now shut it. He said that we need to push out deeper, and I agree.

  James started opening the lockers and absently going through the equipment that was inside each. “Deeper?” he asked without ever looking away from the oversized pipe wrench in his hand.

  “It’s supply and demand. There’s a whole lot of supply here for the demand we are trying to meet -- a million pilots. Out farther, though, going deeper we’ll have more luck finding spare loads to haul.”

  “You’re talking about a mining camp, aren’t you?” Heavy asked. “Something intergalactic.”

  Glory jumped down from the crate and could feel the ship shaking under her feet. The engines had reached full thrust, their bright red glow pushing this crew of three deeper into space toward the chance to make some real money.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I am talking about something intergalactic. It’s an actual payday, and it’s available now. We just have to have the patience to get there.”

  James closed the door to the last locker and stepped back toward Heavy and Glory. “You aren’t asking, are you? We are already headed that direction.”
<
br />   “We are. I’ve got us pointed to a place called Zulu. Be there in a couple of days. We’ll rest, restock and refuel. Then we’ll head out deeper and check with the Blue Star Mining about work. They’ll have something to offer. I feel--”

  Glory never finished her sentence.

  A crash rocked the Mercybringer to one side. Glory fell to the ground, knocked off her feet by the impact. James went down too. Heavy cracked the back of his head on the edge of a locker then went to the floor.

  “What was that?” James asked.

  Glory stumbled over to a communications panel on the wall and activated the screen there. A couple of taps and the feed from an external security camera appeared. It was another ship, equal size to the Mercybringer latched to its side.

  The Mercybringer moved sideways, its thrusters fighting in vain to keep it on course. But the fight was pointless; this new ship was now in control.

  Heavy stood, and his knees went soft under him. Blood rolled down the side of his cheek and stained the front of his shirt. He dropped back to the ground and lifted a weak arm to the wall across from him.

  Glory and James turned to look. The wall was pink. That pink grew to red, and the metal of the ship began to get glossy, a shine that Glory hadn’t seen since she’d initially cleaned out the Mercybringer’s hold and polished all of its surfaces until they sparkled.

  “Holy--,” James shouted but never finished the thought.

  The glossy walls began to melt, the metal running like water into a pool on the floor of the hold.

  Glory scrambled for the crate she’d been sitting on earlier. She popped the locks that held the crate closed and pulled out three guns. She slid one to Heavy and tossed another to James.

  She raised the blaster she kept for herself and began to fire. James stopped her.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Shake us free from this thing.”

  Out of the new opening came one armored leg. Then an arm. Then a full armored body. The metal beast struggled to stand up straight, the low ceilings of the Mercybringer’s hold forcing it into a stoop. James started smacking Glory quickly on the knee.

  “Go!” he shouted again. “Shake us free!”

  “But if I shake us free and that hole opens up to …”

  James looked Glory in the eye. “I know,” he said, his voice calm and resolved. “But one of us needs to try and survive this. And you're the only one who can fly this thing. Maybe we’ll get a miracle.”

  There was noise from inside the invader ship then another metal leg emerged from the dark. Next an arm. Then a whole other armored body.

  “Would you go already?”

  Glory looked to James then to Heavy. He was on a knee, blood still covering the side of his face. He looked her in the eyes and nodded his head.

  The metal beasts moved into the middle of the hold. James sood and tried to draw their attention.

  “Go, Glory! Go!”.

  She scrambled to her feet and ran to the door of the cockpit. James screamed behind her, and blaster fire echoed through the empty hold. She punched her code into the pad next to the door. It blinked red.

  More blaster fire behind her. The code again. Another red light.

  She screamed in frustration.

  A blaster shot banged off the wall a few feet from her, and she instinctively dropped to the floor. She pushed back up to a knee and entered the code again. The pad went green this time and the door slid open.

  She pushed herself through--still on a knee and close to the ground. The door closed behind her. She set the locks and hesitated a moment before turning off the outer keypad.

  “I’m sorry, boys” she whispered to the empty room.

  Fighting continued in the hold behind her. She could hear James and Heavy. She could also hear voices she didn’t recognize and blaster fire that wasn’t familiar.

  She stumbled into her pilot’s seat and mashed buttons, hoping to get more fire into the Mercybringer’s maxed out engines. She tried to figure out a way to use the drive from this other ship to her advantage. To turn into the skid, like her dad used to tell her.

  She was struggling with the controls when her world went quiet. The fighting behind her was over. The hold was calm. She turned to look at the door. She strained to hear familiar voices.

  Something banged on the door to the bridge, and a female voice shouted from the other side something Glory didn’t understand.

  Another bang on the door. Then two more, but these weren’t knocks for attention. This thing was beating down the door. It began to buckle in the middle, but the old steel and rugged hands that built this ship were strong. Whoever is on the other side spoke again, but Glory only stared out the front of the ship into the dark.

  There was a moment of peace then the door began to glow red. Its metal got glossy.

  ONE

  Lebbe drums his fingers on the countertop at the Quickstop and leans back in his seat.

  "Have you seen this?" He asks Carole as she passes. She gives him a finger to say "Wait a minute," and Lebbe pokes at eggs that have gone cold. Carole passes again with three plates of food, one precariously balanced on her forearm. She sets them down in front of customers a couple seats down the counter from Lebbe.

  "Have I seen what, Jim?"

  "The news from home." Lebbe points to one of the screens hanging from the Quickstop’s low ceilings.

  "I don't watch those things," she says and puts more coffee into Lebbe's cup. Steam pushes over the top, and Lebbe adds enough sugar and cream to turn the deep brown coffee into a light tan. He takes a long drink, grabs a slice of rye toast, and keeps staring at the screen.

  People shout. There's shoving and fighting. It all feels weird. Lebbe recognizes those streets. It's Dallas, but not one that he knows anything about beyond the surface. That's not how he remembers home. Why would it be, though? He hasn't seen Earth in three years, hasn't seen Dallas in five.

  Still, he watches the screen and the scene playing out there, looking past the violence and the police in riot gear. He looks at places and faces, hoping to see someone he recognizes. He's hoping to see one of the girls.

  He raised them to be passionate, right? They'd be at an event like this, getting involved. And even if he didn't support the reasons they were there, he'd like that they had a fire in their gut for things bigger than them.

  Frank comes out from the back and gives Lebbe a small wave.

  "You miss it?" Frank asks. He leans on the counter opposite Lebbe and turns his attention to the screen.

  "Miss what?"

  "Home."

  "That's not home." Lebbe puts a broken piece of bacon into his mouth.

  "Sure it is."

  "Not the one I remember."

  "You been staring at the screen for half an hour. There's something there you remember."

  "Just the name of the city.”

  Frank watches the screen for a few more seconds. "I don’t miss it," he says a moment later. "Life out here is better than anything I ever had there. I have this shop. I've got my girls working the counter. My boys are working the grill. My wife works the register. They can have their earthbound life."

  Lebbe starts shaking his head before Frank finishes. "To each his own, I suppose."

  Lebbe would give up everything to get back, but that's the problem when you don't have anything. You don't have a position to start negotiating from.

  Life on Zulu had started to wear. A transfer station at the far edges of the galaxy is no one's first choice. Well, maybe Frank's. But he was here to make his fortune. Most everyone else was here to survive. You come out to Zulu because you don’t have anywhere else to go or anyone who will take you in. Lebbe was in the latter camp. Alienate too many people and upset too many family members and you can suddenly find yourself on the outside looking in. That's where he was. Spend enough holidays alone and you're pushed to choose. You go back with hat in hand and apologize or you let your pride board a cargo hauler and you don't get off until you're at a pl
ace called Transfer Station:Zulu and spend your days staring out into the blackness. You find yourself becoming jealous of the young travelers who only stop at Zulu for a night, maybe two, like the trio of diners to Lebbe's right.

  Their knees bounce on the bar that rings the bottom of each of the stools. They make anxious conversation about what the next few weeks holds.

  "How much did they say again?" one of them asks.

  "Could be as much as five figures is what I was told. If we hit a good vein and bring back a full ship then maybe six."

  There are two types of passengers that come to Zulu: seasoned pilots with experienced crew hauling whatever they can be hired to haul and then kids like these. Wanna-be miners who head to far-off asteroids with their common sense confused by promises of riches.