Smuggler's Valor
Ariel 6 Colony
Monday, August 1
Earth Year 2140
A wise person warned me. “You keep trying to catch that tiger by the tail and you’re going to get bit.” I didn’t listen.
“Come on baby!” I pulled on my ship’s controls, desperate to level my descent. Every alarm on my console sounded, except the one I needed. The moon’s icy blue and gray horizon filled my view port, a rocky ridge in the distance. Uncertain of my altitude, I did a quick calculation in my head, counted to three and triggered the emergency landing thrusters.
Rapid deceleration propelled me into my harness, straps tightening in places I wish they hadn’t and drove breath from my lungs. My ship buckled with the strain, her nose drifting to port. Focusing through the discomfort, I adjusted the thruster controls.
A decompression alarm sounded. I froze, panic gripping my heart in a vise. In the orbital firefight, I didn’t have time to secure my environment suit’s helmet. I glanced at the console. Only the cargo bay flashed red, and I choked down some relief.
Heavy thumps rattled the bay. Pieces of secured cargo had broken free, tossed against the hull by escaping atmosphere. Each blow threatened to throw the ship further off-line. The nose returned to center as the ground met my ship’s underbelly. Crackling ice grated her hull. She rose in a deflection glide, her engines no longer providing thrust.
My easing panic escalated to terror in a microsecond, triggering my mind with a host of hideous death images. I had no breath to scream.
The horizon tilted and a flash of impact filled the cockpit. Arms quaking, my hands held the controls in a white knuckled grip, willing the ship not to tumble. Metal tore in the frightening skid as I prayed to whoever might listen for this ordeal to end. I lost track of the seconds until she came to rest.
Sparks flittered in the cockpit. Smoke puffed, but no fire. “Yes!” I pumped my fists. “I knew you could do it, girl!”
Dangling in my harness, I wiped my stinging eyes and unbuckled my restraints, crashing to the cockpit’s floor. I struggled to hands and knees. “Any landing you can crawl away from,” I groaned. I found my helmet. It took a few tugs, but I freed it from its prison under the co-pilot seat. I stood and secured it to my environment suit.
Fingerling cracks in the view port drew my attention, but didn’t hold it; however, the mountainous ridge filled with long shards of ice and rock less than thirty meters away did. I shivered, “That was too close.”
A gentle vibration hummed in the floor, building slowly and expanding to the seats and console.
Not good!
I snatched an emergency supply pack and sidearm from the wall and knelt behind my seat. My precious cargo, a hardened metallic cylinder magnetically coupled to the floor, had survived the crash. I pressed a button to release the moorings, grabbed its tether and hustled to the airlock.
Above the airlock door, the stenciled words ‘Adventure and Glory’ stood bold—my grandfather’s stories raved about them. “The sky’s the limit,” his favorite catch phrase fell from my lips as I triggered the inner door and stepped inside.
As a kid, I left his home knowing one day I could make the score of a lifetime, punch my last ticket at the dirty job’s office and all my cares in the world would fade away. Yeah, pretty sweet isn’t it. Damn right it is! Today was that day for me. Well, right until I tried to land on this godforsaken moon…then it all went to hell. The airlock cycled, the outer door opened to a field of ice, and I sprinted to the ridge like a madman.
The name’s Reese Daniels. I’ve held lots of titles over the years: smuggler, illicit man of acquisition, a handful of people might have called me a criminal, but that was a harsh label. I’m an entrepreneur—often many of my customers’ last resort, but every one of them knew I got the job done.
