Garbage Star – Snippet #1

Eddie Finds a Mysterious Spaceship

Back in the rectangular, windowless airlock of the garbage ship, Eddie inspected the vessel. It was busted in every sense of the word, as if a hand had crumpled it up and tossed it among the stars.

Stepping around a pile of metal shards, he approached the ship carefully.

He’d only seen pioneer ships, never been aboard. Once, he’d seen one fly over the orange skies of Refugio, the lights on its stubby wings blinking as scientists studied the atmosphere.

It had been a PR debacle: the Macalestern Corporation had sent it without announcing, and several fearful families in a mountain village had fired coilshots at it, which would have been completely justified had it not been for a clause the company had inserted into Refugio’s planetary mortgage contract.

The Survey Clause. Page three-hundred and ten.

The Company, in exchange for a yearly credit built into Refugio’s mortgage payment, shall have the right to mount scientific expeditions at any time for any reason in order to learn more about Refugio’s terrestrial conditions.

Eddie himself had never seen the clause until recently. His grandfather had signed it generations ago, and even he, a shrewd man, could not have memorized the draconian contract outside of the payment terms. The payment terms alone were dozens of pages long, and it was a constant struggle to stay in compliance with them.

The coilshots had connected, causing minor damage to the ship’s hull. The company adjusted Refugio’s mortgage upward. There were riots everywhere, claiming breach of contract, racism and corporate slavery.

Eddie and his family sued and joined a class-action lawsuit against Macalestern. But they didn’t even make it to court.

A sleepy gringo attorney for the company showed up one day with a few pages of the contract highlighted. Eddie’s grandfather was waiting for him in his wheelchair, with a cowboy hat, string tie, and signature bushy mustache. He held a shotgun across his lap, told him to bring it on.

And then the attorney explained—in Spanish with perfect form—that the planet had violated the Survey clause, that the company had every right to countersue, and oh, by the way, here are seventeen other clauses that you’re violating, too, and we’ve known about this for the last few years but were nice enough not to say anything because we had empathy for your situation so why don’t you drop this little action while you’re ahead and we’ll pretend you’re not in breach of contract for those other things… but you better clean them up because we did you a favor in selling you this prime real estate that others would have paid double the money for, comprende?

It wasn’t the threat that had rubbed Eddie the wrong way. He expected those the moment the attorney walked off the ship. It was the comprende at the end, like a hammer coming down on a nail. Like he and his entire heritage didn’t mean a thing in the face of corporate profits.

It pissed him off. Made him want to punch that guy right in the face.

But his grandfather listened calmly, anger quietly boiling inside him. He cocked his shotgun, and then said “Get the fuck off my planet.”

The attorney went pale, returned to his ship, and flew away at full speed.

But the message was clear.

They had no standing to sue.

Eddie had never trusted Macalestern. But from then on, he really didn’t trust them.

And now a pioneer ship lay in front of him, a reminder of that not-so-distant memory.

Did it belong to Macalestern?

Probably not.

But he wanted to cash it in.

***

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