Chapter 5

  The Boars

  Kangu lifted Tegan to her feet like she weighed no more than a mud turtle. He was a big man, with shaggy brown locks and wrinkles around his eyes. Tegan thought he must grin often, and that his current somber look was out of place. He turned her down the path to the white house, keeping a heavy arm around her shoulders. It occurred to Tegan that she probably should have an issue with three hoppers showing themselves into her house, but even if her head hadn’t been so cloudy, she wasn’t sure she would.

  Lumi pushed the front door open and held it for the group. She stared at Tegan as she passed. Was that guilt on her face? Or embarrassment? Was she embarrassed of Tegan?

  Kangu sat her in a dining room chair, and Lumi appeared with the kitchen’s first aid kit. With quick hands, she flipped the lid of an opioid dispenser and decompressed it behind Tegan’s ear. It pinched, but the discomfort, along with the screaming pain of her ear, melted in seconds.

  Then, Lumi pulled the electric current cauterizer from the kit and, without warning, began sparking the device on Tegan’s ear and scalp. She pressed her hand to Tegan’s cheek to steady the device as she worked.

  Tegan felt no pain, only the weight of Lumi’s hand. The smell of burning flesh pushed some of the shock from her system, and she spoke. “Who are you? What are you doing here? Who were they?”

  Kangur and Cypher had settled into dining chairs and looked up at her. Then, they looked at Lumi.

  Cypher spoke. “Lumi, we bribed the holdings attorney to send the message.” She glanced at Tegan, but still addressed the hopper. “You said no one would be here.”

  Lumi’s voice was soft against Tegan’s ear as she replied. “I didn’t say no one would be here, I only said that this place would work. Obviously, that’s no longer the case.”

  Kangur sniffed and settled further into his seat. He spoke, “Well. We did not intend to bring the strike team, but when we spotted them on control panels, we knew dealing with them here would be a better option than off-planet.”

  Lumi blew out through her nose, and Tegan felt it slide down her neck. Lumi spoke again, this time to Tegan, “I thought Helix would be here. I was just going to lock him in the machining shed for a while, if he even cared that we… used the farm for the month.”

  Tegan was trying to catch up. She tried to hold still, which put Cypher in her view. The hopper was built like Lee, but where her partner was blonde and fair-skinned, Cypher was a rich espresso with sharp angles. Tegan averted her eyes and asked, “What could hoppers possibly want with a mat farm?”

  Lumi shifted into her and replied. “BR125 is a great sling distance from LVG19. Have you heard of it?

  “Yes. The trading cityship. The Osh’tal barge works them into their merchant line.” She expected an immediate reply from Lumi, but the hopper got distracted by her work.

  After several moments, she leaned back to examine the wound. Satisfied, she capped the cauterizer to let its UV light sterilize the arc tip. She placed it back in the first aid kit, closed the lid, but did not bring her eyes to meet Tegan’s when she finally spoke again. “Your planet is outside of communication range, tracking range, and only receives one trading barge a month. It suited our purposes.”

  “And, what are your purposes?” Tegan asked.

  Lumi replied, “We need a base of operations that is a convenient sling from LVG19. We’ve got a job that requires collecting some equipment, and we need to do it without other hoppers in our business.”

  Lumi paused and turned to glare at Kangu. “After all of that,” Lumi waved an arm back towards the docking pad. “We’ll have to figure out something else. If we stay here, the Grullas will be back, and we don’t have time to deal with them.”

  Tegan’s voice started to find its footing as she replied. “Won’t they be back either way? You’re fucking us.”

  Lumi shook her head. “If they don’t scan us here, they’ll pass by. We’ll rig the autopilot on the schooner and send it through the mat farm belt. It’s a trick we’ve used before. They’ll be able to see its course, but won’t know this is where it stopped… tracking is too spotty.”

  Tegan was processing their conversation in bits. She looked up, shocked. “You’re the reason Lee left. There is no inheritance. You wanted as many of us gone as possible.” Emotion charged through her as she connected the pieces. Tears were brimming in Tegan’s eyes, and her throat was tight. “She sold Carl for nothing, and she won’t have enough credits by the time she returns to keep the dome running.”

  She tried to get out the last words, but stumbled on them. “She’ll lose the farm.”

  Lumi looked strange, almost angry. Tegan registered guilt on Kangu as he replied, “We’re going to compensate her as soon as we pass through LVG19. It’ll be just as many credits, if not more. We’re not criminals.”

  “I think you are,” Tegan said with as much venom as she could muster.

  The room was silent, and Kangu shifted uncomfortably. Cypher, seemingly unfazed, spoke. “Well, unless you intend on stopping us, which I suggest you don’t, we need to get our shit together and find somewhere new to sling to. Get as far as we can off the path of the Grulla schooner. No offense…”

  “Tegan.”

  “No offense, Tegan, but we don’t have time to sit here and argue the finer points of our operation with you.”

  Cypher stood, and Kangu followed. Lumi stayed, looking like she wanted to say something, until she too finally stood. When the three turned to leave the room, Tegan took in the backs of their debris jackets. Though sewn in their own unique, bright colors, the creatures embroidered on the backs were matching. Three shaggy beasts with white tusks and yellow eyes. The hoppers were family, bound together, and Tegan was the outsider here.

  ***

  It was decided that Lumi, Cypher, and Kangu would spend a night on BR125 before slinging out. Cypher had charted a course for them that had no stops for a full fifteen hours, and they needed to sleep before they pulled it off. When they told Tegan, she was not sure why they bothered.

  Tegan stayed out of their way. She tried several times to busy herself with field work, but often found herself circling the gravbikes, inspecting their mag pads and propulsion jets.

  A confident, rich voice spoke from behind her. “I’m sorry about the farm. About Lee. I intend to pay her everything she expects and will forward the credits to be carried on the next Osh’tal barge.” She had not heard Lumi approach, and it made her uncomfortable.

  “Ok,” Tegan replied. She didn’t turn from the bike.

  The hopper stepped into view. She seemed to loosen some, pushing past Tegan’s short response. After a moment, she smiled and asked, “Do you want to look under the side panel? Let me pop it.”

  Tegan didn’t reply, but she let Lumi slide past her and open the hatch to her gravbike’s engine. Once it was open, Tegan crouched to get a better look.

  It was a complicated setup, but Tegan understood it. She liked OMBs. They were a creative solution–a vessel that traveled mostly on inertia. They used minimal amounts of fuel, instead relying on planet and artificial gravity to move them short distances between destinations. The hoppers that rode them were extremely skilled. Not much on them could be automated.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “It’s a beautiful gravbike,” Tegan said. She was talking about the engine, not the painted designs on its exterior, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “Thank you. She’s the first thing I ever owned. First real thing anyway.” Lumi said and leaned against Kangu’s larger OMB.

  The dome was ticking over to dusk, and Tegan clicked on her suit light, letting it illuminate the engine compartment. She worked her way around the leg shields and positioned herself behind the seat. From this angle, she would have a better view of the heart, the microgravity coil assembly.

  Tegan snorted out a laugh. She knew it came from a cruel place, but why should she care? She immediately recognized what she was looking at, plain as day. The housing around the MCA was covered in blue and grey organic mat. The very same junk that kept her generator clogged all to shit.

  Lumi walked closer behind her. “What?”

  “Look for yourself,” Tegan said, standing and stretching.

  The hopper squatted next to her gravbike and leaned so that she could look where Tegan had been looking.

  “Is that what I...” Lumi growled and punched the dirt. “Shit, fuck, all-damned bog ass,” She cursed and spat, with many expletives that Tegan had never heard.

  When she stood, Tegan squared her shoulders, expecting the woman to spread some of the blame or her irritation to her.

  Instead, Lumi sighed, rolled her shoulders, looked up at her, and asked, “Can you help me?”

  Tegan tried not to let the shock register on her features. After it passed, she thought about the question. Why should she help the hopper? Hadn’t she caused her pain? Hadn’t she put her life at risk? Lee’s farm?

  But what did it matter? She couldn’t bring herself to work the farm, and she was incredibly intrigued by the bike. With a shrug, Tegan replied, “Yeah, I mean, it’s going to take me a while. I’ve never taken apart a gravbike before, much less an MCA.” She rubbed her hand on the back of her neck, thinking.

  She sucked in a breath and said, “I can probably get it done overnight, if I don’t run into any issues.”

  Lumi’s look was odd again, but then she grinned.

  “Ok, well, I have to go set the schooner on course with Cypher. We’ll take her bike. Then I’ll be back if you need anything. I can fetch things.”

  Tegan thought she started to look a little embarrassed. “I really should know more about the engine anyway. Other hoppers are way more self-sufficient when their shit breaks. But, I bet Kangu will be helpful, he’s always messing with his.”

  Tegan nodded. It was probably the longest she had heard Lumi talk in one go, and it made her chest tight. She tried not to think about what her life would be like after the three hoppers left in the morning. Instead, she left Lumi on the docking pad and headed to the machine shed for her tools.

  When she returned, Lumi was gone, along with Cypher’s sleek copper OMB. She laid out an old synthetic pad and her tools and got to work pulling the engine. It all made sense to her, as most engines did. She had gotten that from her mother. But whatever genetic makeup that made Sela good with machines had also driven her to drink, and so Tegan wasn’t overly proud that she had inherited it.

  She had managed to pull the whole bike apart by the time she heard Cypher’s OMB descending to the docking pad, but deconstructing it was the easy part.

  Kangu had been using the mat lift to haul the dead bodies of the strike team to the incinerator. All three of the hoppers joined Tegan at the same time.

  “You’ve switched the night cycle off,” Cypher said, her braided locks falling from her helmet as she pulled it off and hung it on her bike.

  Tegan didn’t look up from her work. “It won’t hurt the fields for a night, and I figured we’d all like to see what we’re doing.”

  Kangu spoke, “I certainly appreciated it. That was a disgusting job.” He pulled a flask from his vac-suit and took a long drag.

  Tegan caught the movement and watched him. When he lowered it, she said, “There’s rice wine in the fridge. I don’t drink often… you’re welcome to it.”

  Kangu raised his overgrown eyebrows. “Well, if you’re offering…”

  Lumi interrupted, “Kan.”

  “What? She’s offering.” He turned and took long strides toward the white house, not bothering to meet Lumi’s glare. Cypher followed behind, grinning for the first time since Tegan had met her.

  “Why are you being so nice to us?” Lumi said, abruptly turning her glare on Tegan.

  Tegan thought for a moment and looked up as she replied, “I’m not sure.” She paused again, trying to find the words. “I’m not angry with the three of you. You’re just a symptom of a larger problem for me.”

  Lumi sat on the husk of her gravbike, laid over for easier access, and folded her legs. Tegan wondered how she balanced so easily on such an awkward object. After a moment, she continued, “It’s not my farm. It wasn’t my decision to risk everything on the trip to Cela Vega… shit, she didn’t even show me the message about the inheritance.” She pointed a pick at the hopper. “I didn’t even know about you until you landed.

  She let out a breath and stretched her shoulders. “I may have made all the same decisions as her, or I might not have, but the point is that I didn’t make them.

  “I guess I should be mad at the three of you for taking advantage of my partner, but I guess in your own way, you intend to get her the money, and it’s more than we could have made in a lifetime doing what we were doing. It’s shitty, but I guess not enough for me to hate you for it.”

  Lumi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then looked self-conscious. “How is your ear? If it is starting to hurt, I can grab another opie from the med kit.”

  “It’s fine.” Tegan had examined herself in the mirror in the barn’s bathroom. A wound ran from the top of her jaw, through what was left of her ear, and into her hairline. It was true that her ear didn’t hurt, but it was a lie that she was fine.

  Lumi unfolded her legs and stood in one fluid motion. “Look, I got you something from the strike schooner.” She walked to Cypher’s bike and toed open the storage under the saddle.

  After a little effort shuffling items around, she pulled out a white vac-suit and black debris jacket. The jacket had a black and tan creature embroidered on the back, the same as all the other Grulla jackets. She laid the gear on a crate next to Tegan.

  Lumi cleared her throat. “Whether it’s my business or not, I guess I don’t care if it is, but I think you should leave. Leave BR125.” She paused and took in a breath. “Leave Lee. It doesn’t matter what you feel like you owe her. Take it from someone who makes morally grey decisions for a living, life is too short to do what you’re doing.”

  Tegan had been staring at the gear, but turned to meet the hopper's eyes. She didn’t know what to say, so she defaulted to the obvious. “I don’t have an OMB. I don’t even know how to ride one.”

  Lee offered a lopsided grin and replied, “I’m offering you a lift. We might go a little off the map first, but we’ll make it to LVG19 in a little over a week. Big enough city.”

  “And what am I going to do on LVG19?” What could she possibly find there but a cold alley to sleep in?

  Lumi’s features tightened slightly as she replied, “How would I know? Take it or leave it. It’s your life.” Lumi brushed her hand along the debris jacket as she walked past, and Tegan watched her go.

  Tegan spent the next hour deep in thought, the repetitive nature of cleaning the engine soothing her mind. Each piece she completed gave her another win, another thing to feel good about. She was good at farm work and good with the equipment. She had a place on BR125. She belonged with Lee.

  It wasn’t long until the three returned, Kangu and Cypher out of their vac-suits. Kangu plopped down next to Tegan and started shuffling through the parts. He asked questions about the substance, and Tegan was pleased to show him what she had learned about it. It wasn’t long until he picked up a set of picks and got to work helping her clean.

  The three hoppers passed the bottle between them, eventually lighting taza rolls and lounging around the docking pad. If Kangu stepped away from helping Tegan, Lumi stepped in. She was not as skilled as he was, but Tegan appreciated that she learned quickly.

  Hours passed, and Kangu and Cypher fell asleep against the crates.

  Lumi had been quiet for some time, but spoke when she looked up. “I can wake him up. He’s faster than I am.”

  Tegan replied, “You all have a long trip tomorrow. You should sleep too. You know there are enough open beds in the house.”

  “They wouldn’t leave you out here working by yourself. I certainly won’t.” Lumi handed her coil over for Tegan to inspect and reinstall. She continued, “I’m going to pay you back for this. I know you don’t believe me, but I will.”

  “Actually, I know you will.” Tegan leaned towards the hopper and, without warning, took the new coil Lumi had been working on from her hands. Tegan’s was already clean, and she would be able to finish the piece much more quickly than the hopper could.

  Lumi’s eyes widened slightly, and she let her head tilt, her empty hand still propped on her knee. “Oh. How’s that?”

  Tegan liked the way she looked and paused to enjoy the moment of confusion before replying, “Because you’re giving me a ride off this planet.”

  Lumi’s sideways smile was more genuine than Tegan had seen it, and Tegan laughed.

  Tegan had been tired of her life on BR125 for a long time. Her relationship with Lee had been broken for longer. Carl was gone, and Helix could eat a waste block for all she cared. Looking at the confident woman in front of her, and the array of colorful gravbikes on the docking pad, Tegan thought this place would just have to get along without her.