"Denouement"

Vignette: "Denouement," originally written December 2nd, 2016.

"Denouement"
A figure on an alien-looking camel, staring at a small town in the far distance of a darkening desert.

Image: "Oasis" by WojtekFus

Talitha gave a weary sigh of relief as her banak scrambled over the ridge and the lights of Veritas came into view. Scavenging had been particularly difficult today, she conceded, and it was only due to the increasing risk of being caught out in a bladestorm that she gave up and brought her meagre haul back to the city — indeed, in the last half hour of her trek home, the ambient temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees and her respiration was increasingly strained. The neutron star her planet orbited would whip over the horizon behind her soon and with it would come the dead star's unusual impact on the planetary atmosphere: localised pockets of vacuum, gravitational fluctuations, and miniature hurricanes whipping up sand at such velocities that it could strip away skin and muscle in minutes if someone was caught outside unprotected.

Of course, calling it a neutron star was more than a little disingenuous. The sphere of cold blue energy was a mostly-inert weapon left over from the Eclipse a century earlier; then, the old gods of industry had converted planets and celestial bodies alike into their engines of destruction and obliterated three-quarters of the galaxy before an armistice was declared. Nowadays, civilisation couldn't be very picky and inhabited whatever passable worlds were left — sometimes those worlds just happened to rotate thirty kilometres a second around a barely-stable bomb.

Once she was under Veritas' bubble shield the weather outside would be irrelevant. She cast a backwards glance at the webbing attached to the banak's saddle; junk, all of it, but there was always a market for the rare metals that could be extracted from the derelict spacecraft and buildings abandoned in the Far Wastes. She'd gone exploring in a region much further afield than foragers like her tended to search, but she'd stumbled onto the carcass of an old passenger freightship a few days earlier and it held the promise of valuable electronics like transponders, computer gear, and maybe even an AI core. Sadly, just working out a way to get inside the derelict had taken up most of her day — leaving her with both a pathetic haul and barely any time to get safe before the storm. Still, the effort meant that the ship was unlikely to be combed-over by her rival scavengers and she could return with more time in the morning.

If Talitha managed to get inside the city, that was — already her ride was starting to tremble and complain at the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions and the creature made its unhappiness known through low warbles and huffs. "Calm, Jotna," she soothed, using the creature's name as she reached forward to scratch her fingers in the fur otherwise covered by the saddle. The beast shook its head back and forth gently but dutifully trotted towards the bright lights of the city. Around her, eddies of wind began kicking up miniature tornadoes of dust and sand. She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, quickly calculating the distance remaining on her trip.

She sighed and swore aloud, realising there was nothing else to be done — the banak wouldn't be able to reach Veritas in time with the net of cluttered metal trailing behind it. She twisted herself around in the seat and pulled her plasma blade from its sheath. The creature whined at the smell of ozone, but continued its pace as she wriggled around to reach the ropes that held the creature captive to the webbing. In one quick motion she severed each cable, trying to console herself with the fact that she wasn't losing much income when compared to her safety. And, there was always the remote hope that she mind find her haul untouched after the storm abated.

She jabbed her heels into the beast's side, giving its flank a confident smack as she drove it to its top speed in the direction of the city itself — neon brilliance and tall columns of concrete that stood in defiance to the gathering black clouds that shadowed her approach.

Only a few metres stood before her and safety. She threw her own willpower into that of the mount's, and drove both onward to salvation.

  Comments: