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  POWER DOWN

  ZULU UNIVERSE:BOOK 2

  by

  Sam Renner

  +++++

  PUBLISHED BY:

  SIX to ONE Books & Media

  Copyright © 2019

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  ZERO

  Jason Maldonado sits at the counter of the noodle bar on the third level of the Manhattan and looks out into the wide open middle of the Civilization Class ship.

  Go over the rail a couple dozen feet away and he falls three stories, winding up a broken pile of skin and bones. Fall from any of the five stories above that and he ends up a puddle of human goo.

  Broth dribbles down Maldonado's chin, and he catches it with a napkin before it falls into his lap. This is the third straight meal he's eaten here, and he decides it was the best yet--green chicken curry in a broth that he's asked them to make extra spicy.

  He watches down the counter as the young woman who works the noodle bar chats with a customer. The food isn’t the only thing that has brought him back. She giggles and smiles and touches the arm of the young man sitting across from her. He smiles back, and Maldonado eats his curry.

  They talk more. She laughs more. He smiles and brushes a stray hair from her face. Maldonado swallows his building anger with each bite.

  Their conversation continues. Maldonado scrapes the last bit of curry from his bowl and listens as he turns to stare out over the rail and into the empty space beyond it.

  He sees her put up a finger and hears her tell her friend “Hold on.” She gestures toward Maldonado with her head. The kid nods, and the girl makes her way down the counter.

  She smiles at Maldonado, and he gives a half smile back.

  “Is there something else I can get you,” she asks, wiping her hands on a towel that hangs from the waist of her apron.

  Maldonado points at the empty bowl on the counter in front of him and says “Another one of these to go would be great.”

  “Sure thing.”

  She turns from the counter and puts Maldonado's order in at the window behind her. She then walks back to her friend. Maldonado listens and waits and his blood begins to boil. Looking at this other guy, he isn't much. Small. Hair is kind of thin. Not overly impressive as a physical specimen. And isn't that what was most important?

  The wait for his food is only a few minutes, but it feels longer. It’s excruciating. He sees them flirt. She laughs again. He touches her.

  A bell rings, and the woman turns and looks toward the window. Maldonado's curry is waiting. She grabs it and sets it in front of him. She gives him a smile, tells him "thanks for coming” then returns to her conversation.

  It’s not but a couple of more minutes and Maldonado hears them say their goodbyes. The man gets up from his stool and heads down the long corridor that runs along the outside of the noodle bar. Maldonado waits for a moment then grabs his curry and follows.

  The man who Maldonado thought was a kid doesn’t look so young from this angle. His hair is balding in the back, and he walks with a limp on the right side. He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, exposing his ID tattoo. It isn’t a bright black. It has started to fade, and is surrounded by a collection of tattoos that it likely took years to collect.

  The man stops at a bank of vending machines and scans his tattoo then makes a selection. Maldonado joins him at the machine and scans his tat as well.

  “She's nice, huh?” Maldonado asks.

  The man turns and looks at Maldonado. “Who? Marlena?”

  “Is that her name? The lady at the noodle bar?”

  A heavy-bottomed bottle clunks into the bottom of the man's machine. “Yeah. She's Marlena. And she's all right, I guess.”

  “All right?” Maldonado steps back from the vending machine, the lights on the front blinking, waiting for him to make his selection. He sets his curry on top of the machine and turns to the man. “She's all right, you guess?”

  “Yeah, she’s all right. Why do you care?”

  “Just looked to me like you two thought more of each other than just ‘She’s all right.’ “

  “Look, friend,” the guy says, letting the bottle slide through his fingers until he can get a tight grip on the neck, “I don’t know what your problem is or why you care, but what I think of her…”

  Maldonado catches the man in the nose with a right jab. He feels the bones crunch under his knuckles.

  The man drops the bottle as he crumples to the floor. He lands on his knees with a thud and puts his hands to his face. Blood runs down the front of his shirt.

  Maldonado drops to a knee and looks the man in eyes that are full of tears.

  “When a woman like that stoops to look at you, much less talk to you, you respect her. You appreciate her.” Maldonado is on the verge of yelling over the man’s warbled cries. “You don’t say ‘She’s all right. I guess.’ ”

  Maldonado puts a hand on the man’s forehead and gives him a push. He falls over on his back then rolls to his side. Maldonado stands and grabs his curry then heads for the stairs that will take him up to level six and the room he’d begun renting a week earlier.

  +++++

  Maldonado runs his ID tattoo in front of the handle on the door to his unit. He waits for the lock to click open.

  The hall is quiet; this whole floor was quiet. Maldonado has only seen one other person walking around the sixth floor since he'd arrived with Malvaughn.

  The quiet click of the lock disengaging echoes and Maldonado opens the door. Malvaughn is sitting in a chair across from the big screen mounted to the wall. It’s turned off, and Malvaugn’s head is buried in the computer sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

  Maldonado steps over to the sofa that sits perpendicular to the chair and takes a seat. He pushes take-out boxes off the coffee table and sits his curry down in front of him. He grabs a plastic spoon that has somehow maintained its place on the table. He takes the lid off his curry and takes a big bite.

  His palate burns, and he takes and a big gaped-mouth breath to try and cool it. Malvaughan looks over and shakes his head.

  ”Want me to get you a bowl?” Maldonado asks.

  “You know I don't like that shit,” Malvaughn says.

  “You're loss. It's delicious.”

  “All you've done since we got here is eat.”

  Maldonado pulls a spoonful of the curry out of the bowl. He lifts the spoon high and tips it just slightly so the curry broth runs over the edge in a slow stream back into the bowl.

  “This is real food. I didn't have to reconstitute it. I didn't have to heat it up in some machine. This was made by somebody. Someone with two hands and a nose and taste buds who can tell if something is going wrong, or, better, when something is going right. It didn't come from some package. How can you not want to eat when you're here and have the opportunity?

  Maldonado takes another big bite of curry and smiles as it burns the inside of his mouth. “You can be the good soldier and focus on nothing but the mission. I'm gonna enjoy this while I can.”

  Malvaughn watches Maldonado eat. He points to Maldonado's hand. “What's that?” he asks.

  Maldonado drops the spoon and turns his hand over. A smear of blood covers his knuckles.

  “Get into some trouble?”

  “Not as much as the other guy.”

  “That attitude’s gonna bite us."

  “We’re fine.”

  “We need to keep quiet, keep a low profile.”

  Maldonado takes another bite of curry, ignoring the chastising he’s getting.

  Malvaughn continues. “But here you are, hitting up every restaurant. Getting into fights. You’re gonna get us caught by dragging the spotlight to us. We're here for a job, not for fun.”


  “OK, dad.” Maldonado mocks. “That's enough.”

  “Don't call me that.”

  Maldonado scrapes the bottom of the cardboard bowl to catch the last drops of his curry. His mouth is almost numb from the heat, but he savors the flavor. He pushes the empty bowl and spice-slicked spoon to the middle of the coffee table.

  “Have fun keeping watch,” he told Malvaughn. “I'm going to get some rest.”

  It isn't just the food that was better on the Manhattan, so are the accommodations. Malvaughn and Maldonado each have their own queen-sized bed. And after sleeping for months in a rack that is barely wider than himself, these beds feel obnoxiously large. That doesn't mean he won't make sure he uses every inch each time he lays down.

  Maldonado flops onto the mattress and bounces just slightly. He scoots himself up so his head is on the pillow then rolls from side to side, enjoying the softness of the mattress and the freshness of the sheets.

  He can hear Malvaughn typing out in the living room, and he expects to be interrupted from his rest soon.

  Until then, he allows himself to get caught up in his own thoughts. About the girl at the noodle bar. About what it would be like to be the guy she chatted with. About what it would be like to work that counter, what it would be like to live on the Manhattan. He can see calling this place home.

  He'd find some easy-to-accomplish job and build a little life, living out of an apartment like this one. A small kitchen with a comfortable bed. Something nondescript. Something safe.

  Then Malvaughn calls, and it reminds him that as much as he may want this simple, safe life, it’s too late for him to have it. The deal he’s made. The things he’s done. Those don’t necessarily come with a do-over.

  “Hey, kid. Here we go,” Malvaughn yells from the other room.

  Maldonado rolls up to a sitting position and shouts back "Give me a second.”

  His body isn’t as young as it used to be. He can’t stop like this and hope to be able to pop right back up. Even one as short as that one he had earlier doesn’t help. He reminds himself that he didn’t need to do those kind of things anymore. Not without some kind of bigger payoff to come anyway.

  He walks back to the main room where Malvaughn is still typing on the screen.

  “Did you get the message?” he asks.

  “I did,” Malvaughn says. “She's on board.”

  ONE

  A station like Zulu is all routines. Ships come in. Ships go out. Travelers check in. Travelers check out. This place can run like a machine, and when Caroline Grey is on top of her game, it does. It hadn’t lately, but it can.

  And it will again. I run a tight ship. A tight station? Yes, a tight station. A precise operation, like I was trained. Just get back to those fundamentals.

  Grey pulls the day’s manifest up on the data pad she carried in her right arm. She scrolls through the list of arrivals and makes sure everything is in order

  This feels good. It's normal. It's my routine.

  After the last few days she could use some normal. With all the excitement of Zulu's unknown visitor, she'd lost her routine. Walking the floor of the ship. Tracking a manifest. Making sure that everything is where it's supposed to be.

  Zulu's automated speaker clicked on and announce the arrival of a 6:00 a.m. ship coming from what they still called the Pluto sector.

  Grey checks the box next to the name of the ship: the Golden Orion.

  The first arrival. The day has started. The main floor of Zulu isn't busy yet. Looking down the list of arrivals--another expected at 6:30, one at 7 then another at 7:15--Zulu's locks will fill quickly and things on the station's main floor will get crowded fast. But crowded was good. Crowded meant that Zulu still had some usefulness.

  It didn't always feel that way especially on those mornings when she would walk the floor and have to intentionally bump into someone to make yourself feel like this place still had value. That she was in charge of a station that mattered.

  And it never felt that way when she was on calls with other station captains from the sector and she was being publicly reminded that her numbers were down.

  What do you want me to do about that? I can't make someone stop here. It's not like I can make some sort of space billboard. Or some flashing neon sign that advertised "Last hot meal for 50 light years."

  So, today, when Zulu's locks are full of ships and its floor is crowded, she's going to enjoy it, revel in the noisy chatter that will be rattling up to the top of Zulu's main dome and making it hard to think.

  She heads over to the Quick Stop. As much as she likes to see a crowd, she doesn't want to be part of it. Not today. She’s not ready for that much normalcy. Not yet.

  Eating at the counter often meant uncomfortable conversations with the kinds of Zulu regulars she tried her hardest not to associate with. She may like to see Zulu crowded, but she didn’t like that it was always with those detestable transients always looking for work. Too many of them coming in on a ship hoping to be able to catch on with some captain needing an extra set of hands behind the controls of a mech suit. They’d strike out then just hang around on here main floor. She didn’t have anywhere to send them once they’d out-stayed their welcome. It’s not like she could ask Lebbe to help. Even if he wanted to lock them up somehow he didn’t have enough space to put them anywhere, no point in sending one guy away to take up the space in Zulu’s single holding cell.

  Carole gave Grey a wave from behind the counter and a sharp nod that was meant to say “Just a minute.” Grey nodded back, her gesture more relaxed. She followed it with a smile. Then she turned her attention back to her tablet. Carole came over a few moments later and said hello.

  “Good morning,” Grey said back. “I hope you guys are ready for a rush.” She turned her pad tso Carole could see the crowded manifest.

  Carole smiles politely and takes Grey’s order. It’s the usual, because back to routines. Dry toast. Eggs over medium. Black coffee.

  She fiddles with her data pad while she waits for her food, and Lebbe comes up from behind her and pulls out a chair at the table.

  “Good morning Jim,” Grey says, never looking up from her work.

  “Caroline,” he says.

  She puts her data pad on the table and slides it toward the middle. “How are you feeling today?”

  “I'm fine.”

  “I suppose we have work we should be doing,” she says. “Going and taking a look at that ship.”

  Rogue pilot. Battered vessel. It’s all that Grey and Lebbe had been thinking about for the last few days, ever since Captain McKibbon and his crew of soldiers brought the pilot on board and Grey in Lebbe were able to talk to her. They had more questions than answers still. Looking at that ship would hopefully answer a few.

  Grey had instructed her crew, well, not her crew but the military team that helped protect a Zulu and had brought the ship back to the station, to store the ship in a safe place. They had. It was deep in the belly of a Zulu in and unused storage locker the size of a small airplane hangar.

  It was sitting in the cold in the quiet in a part of Zulu that Caroline had never been to. But, until now, she hadn’t had a reason. With Zulu not living up to its potential, there were large sections of it that just sat empty and unused.

  Zulu was supposed to be one of the last places you stop for you made your great adventure out of the unknown and into intergalactic space. But humans never got brave enough to push out that far. Not most humans anyway. That area of space out past the edges of our solar system was now left to the miners and the freelance captains who stopped at Zulu to get a quick shower and a fast meal before heading back out into the parts of space that hadn’t necessarily been charted yet.

  “I'm ready to get to work” Grey says. “I just have a few things I need to finish up here to make sure that the day runs smoothly. Now that things seem to be getting back to normal, I don't want to have any hiccups.”

  “I could probably use an extra few minutes too,” Le
vy says. “How about we meet …” Lebbe checks his watch, “...in a couple of hours. Let's call at 11 o'clock.”

  Grey nods. “Works for me, she says.”

  Lebbe stands and leaves Grey to her breakfast. “I'll see you then,” he says.

  TWO

  Lebbe gets to the middle of Zulu’s main floor, and he stops. He concentrates on the noises of Zulu. He listens to the hum, the notes made by all the systems that keep Zulu running and inhabitable. There was a beauty to it, one that Lebbe didn't appreciate when he first got to the station. Now, though, he finds comfort in this song that’s become familiar.