Angry Jasper-Four

Jasper stepped into the dusty Texas sunlight with his hard fought prize and a few busted ribs. The heat hit him like a blast furnace. The stale dry desert air choked his throat. With the abuse to his body each breath came haltingly and with blazing waves of pain. Biting his lip, Jazz climbed down to the street as gingerly as he could and limped away from the bar just as quickly as he could. Not that Jazz feared the bartender might change his mind and shoot him in the back, but rather he was eager to be rid of Crawford and the rest of the scarred and dust-choked planet as soon as possible.

He’d left the engines on the ship running. Last he’d seen it the ship was hovering a foot or so above an old terrestrial road. It was too much to expect that it would still be running. Sometime between the time he climbed down and the time he took an apocalyptic pummeling the engines had quit. The ship had skidded part way down an embankment and the port fin was half submerged in some foul smelling waste pooled there.

Jasper swore as he climbed onto the oblong hull gray. The bubble canopy was already coated with thick yellow dust. He had to kick at side of the canopy once or twice before it finally opened. Jazz climbed inside and pushed the head into a storage compartment that was just a shade too small. A good swift kick closed the metal door. Something cracked as he did. Likely the fugitive’s great flat nose, Jazz figured. He chuckled, but it was cut short by a white hot stab of pain in his side.
“Still kickin’ my ass,” he grumbled at the locker.

The ship was in need of a good cleaning, inside and out, Jazz observed. It was an observation he made fairly regularly, while never quite getting to the actual doing part of that thought. He strode across the cargo bay to the console. There was an old hammock to one side. A yellow foam mattress pad pressed through the lengths of rope. A blue gray military blanket hung off the side and small stained red pillow lay in the pit of the hammock. There were papers, a couple plastic coffee cups and old clothes strewn about.

A collection of ancient paperback books he'd come upon in a Triton junk shop overflowed from a plastic crate beneath the hammock. They were all stories of hard-lovin’, hard drinkin’ gunslingers by writers like Paul Ledd, Luke Short, Cort Martin, Lois Lamour and Zeke Masters, with titles like Devil’s Jackpot, naked Outpost, Six Gun Outcast and Badman’s Bordello. He come across them in rummage sales and little junk shops all across the Solar System. They were about the only things he ever read. In those long lost empty hours between planets Jazz read himself into each story. He’d read them so many times he almost knew them by heart.

The cockpit closed and sealed with a hiss as he climbed behind the controls. He popped a square tape into the ancient eight-track tape player installed under the control panel. A Tom Jones song came on.

It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone.
It’s not unusual to have fun witb anyone,
But when I see you hanging around with anyone,
It’s not unusual to see me cry. I wanna die.

The song always made him long for her. It made him a little melancholic, and longing for what might have been. But then life was never about what might have beens, but rather what was. And that was true in spades when it came to Jazz.

The twin ion engines came to life an instant later with a deep resonant hum. It stuttered a bit but then settled into a perfect Rhythm. The ship might have looked like it had been to hell and back, but the engines were top notch, and worth every credit he’d paid. As for the rest of the ship…not so much. Jasper whacked the air compressor with the side of his hand. It rattled and shuddered before coughing out clean cool air. That filtered air quickly chased away the dusty dry Texas heat.

There was a message on the computer screen. It was an urgent message from a Misses  on the space wheel. Jazz didn’t recognize the lady right off, and the quality of the transmission didn’t help. He could tell from her tone that she was obviously distraught. More than that, she was transmitting from a private residence on the space wheel, out near the moon. No doubt the old bat was loaded, and that made her message urgent for Jazz as well.

First things first, Jazz thought, pulling the seat harness around him where it clasped near each hip and shoulder. He rapped a hand around the joy stick between his legs, pulled back slightly and played it back and forth a bit. The ship rocked from side to side as the stabilizers pulled free of the ditch then lurched, throwing him hard against the harness.

“Ho, Christ!” he howled in pain.

Jazz intended to get his bounty to an Assessor’s office on the Space wheel before it turned and strted to stink. Well, before it began to stink worse than when it was attached to the fugitive’s body. He’d collect his bounty and get his ribs patched up before going up to see the good-and rich- Madame .

The ship tilted skyward and climbed steadily until the curve of the planet came into view. Far below a tortured world, burned barren by waste and war and neglect, shrank quickly. Off to the east plumes of thick black smoke rose along the long dried basins of the Great Lakes. Rebels units and Corporation ships were locked in fierce combat on the outskirts of old Chicago, now little more than a ruined war-scape. Glimmering like fireflies in low earth orbit a dozen or so Corporation ships waited their turn to rush in and pummel the beleaguered rebel army. Jasper steered well clear of them. He’d had enough excitement for one day. He angled the ship towards the moon and activated the overdrive with the flip of a toggle switch. There was a tugging sensation until at last he pulled free of Earth’s gravity. Jasper groaned at the brief pressure to his wounded chest.

Just beyond the crescent moon, like a ghostly apparition to a once fertile earth, the space wheel shimmered in the sunlight. It was massive, turning slowly like a giant pinwheel. Frail gleaming filaments connected the wheel to a pearl-like control module at the center. Four long thin wings angled away from the module ready to throw up dense ion shields that could steer and maneuver the wheel. Jasper gave the planet one last look and flipped the bird to Corporation forces and rebels alike.