Rust, Wrenches, and an Invitation

Posted on Wed Jun 5th, 2019 @ 9:07am by Jan Valentine
Edited on on Thu Jun 6th, 2019 @ 10:27am

632 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Set 3: Session 1- Sold!
Location: Thirdport, Farius Prime
Timeline: Current

The sun hung low in the sky over Thirdport, a rusty shithole of a town on Farius Prime. All around the town, crackling neon and flashing lights were flaring into life, signalling another evening of less-than-legal trade and commerce. Far from the bustling main drag of this town sat a rusty shack, a single dimly glowing bulb illuminating a weather worn and sunbleached sign that simply read "Valentines' Shop".

"God damn this engine!" Jan shouted, and tossed his hyperspanner across the shop, the tool making a loud clang against the metal walls. He stepped back from his current job, a clapped out deathtrap of a dune skimmer, pockmarked with rust and plasma burns, propped up with cinderblocks and a dirty axle stand.

"The ion distributor is shot to hell, in more ways than one!" Jan exclaimed loudly, to no one in particular.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge, popping the cap off against the edge of a work table, and took a long swig. He had landed here 5 years earlier, but it felt like 10 years had already gone by. An endless stream of garbage had been pouring through the door of his repair shop ever since he set himself up in this out of the way corner of the quadrant.

A radio propped up in a corner of the workshop was blaring away, a jumbled cacaphony of radio stations playing, constantly drifting between stations. The channel discriminator was broken, but Jan didn't particularly care, the mixtures of familiar and alien music served as background noise in his shop, keeping customers out of the work area and setting a vaporwave soaked tone to pound out the work to. Between a hideously slowed down and distorted pop song and local commercials, a slightly echo-y advertisement belted out of the speakers.

"--Auction firm of Curios and Galaxian offers a once in an eon opportunity. Several works of art, sculpture, trinket and ships from the four quadrants and beyond will be auctioned off on June the 10th, 2389.
A Twenty Percent Buyers premium will apply to all purchases. Ships especially are cash and carry. Curios and Galaxian offers no guarantee on the condition of any ship. Full list of ships available for auction are as follows.
SS. Quar – Izhma class freighter
SS. Laroo – Posiden class hydrogen carrier
SS. Warden – Groumall class freighter
IKS. Qu’tl! – Bird of Pr--"

The advert was cut off mid sentence as the radio wandered off the station and onto a badly distorted Klingon talk show.

"Wait what?" Jan nearly spit out his beer at the mention of the Warden.

"S-shit what was that company?" Jan queued up the last few seconds of audio in his eyepiece, accessing a multitude of data streams and details simultaneously.

"Hmm, well, if that man hasn't managed to get himself killed after all these years, he'll be needin' an engineer, and if not..." Jan tossed the now empty beer bottle over his shoulder, the bottle smashing to pieces against the street behind him.

"It'll be nice to own the ol' bucket." Jan said to himself, grinning.

He packed the few things worth taking along into the dune skimmer, and jammed a jury-rigged ion distributor into the exposed engine practically hanging off the front of the obviously bent frame. Locking the entrances and tool cabinets, he climbed behind the wheel of the deathtrap, and flipped the few working switches on the dash.

The crusty vehicle roared into life, blasting the cinderblocks to dust with the antigrav generator, and tore outta the shop like a firey bat out of hell, the doors of the shop slamming shut behind it. He skimmed right over the head of a now enraged local, shouting expletives in an alien language. But Jan wasn't going to stop, he had a ship to catch.

 

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