Courier's War

Chapter One: Benny's Order

“298, 299, 300,” Nevada breathed the last number out with a sigh as she finished counting the oranges for the third time. 300 oranges, 450 tomatoes, 700 potatoes, and 500 cucumbers. It was all there. The repeated counting was tedious and slightly unnecessary, especially considering the crates had built-in counters, but she had to be precise. She wasn’t going to let this order with Benny go under like the last one had. The man adamantly refused to take the last shipment of oranges, claiming that she was 50 short, even though the order clearly called for 250. She had no idea why he would refuse the entire crate though, not when fresh food had become so difficult to come by. Nevada was forced to take shipment all the way back to the Scorpius Space Station, but by then most of the peels were shriveled and brown and the fruit underneath had grown soft. She had never quite stopped feeling guilty for wasting that much food. For most, fruit of that quality would be acceptable, considering the rarity of any kind of real fruit on Earth these days, but Scorpius was all about quality. After all, how terrible would it be to have a soiled reputation as an underground smuggling business?

Nevada huffed, remembering how annoyed she’d been when Novac, her supervisor, had harshly reprimanded her for “abashing the Scorpius name.” Who even used the word “abashing”? And besides that, Scorpius was a criminal organization anyway. Why should they care so much about keeping up appearances? Even as she thought this though, she could still see the reason behind it. The underground market was larger than any planetary government would care to admit -- or maybe they weren’t even aware -- and it was only growing larger as time went on. With the community already so large and continuously growing, it would be best for business to have customers that could speak a good word about Scorpius. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder who they thought they were fooling.

Her eyes shifted to the viewport above the ships dashboard, noticing that the black of space was beginning to shift to the light blue of Earthen atmosphere. She hadn’t realized how close she already was, but was glad for it. She missed Earth. Nevada smiled dreamily as she watched the glowing silver stars fade in her descent to Earth. Her eyes traversed the rest of the tiny cockpit with admiration, remembering the first time her grandfather had let her ride in here. She had been eight years old, and only slightly terrified of space. The fear didn’t stop her, however, from being endlessly fascinated with Abuelo Rosario’s tiny ship. Abuelo had been reluctant to let Nevada and her sister into the spacecraft when they were younger, but on Nevada’s eighth birthday she came to him with pleading eyes and a mopey pout that he couldn’t say no to.

“Only for an hour or two. We’ll go up and then straight back down.” That didn’t matter, she’d take what she could get. She stared giddily out the window as they ascended from the small docking bay, eyes gleaming with delight as she watched their desert settlement shrink smaller and smaller. With little Vivi attached to her hip, she pointed out the gorgeous mountains and trees of the landscape, attempting to teach her their names. When they finally broke free of the planet’s atmosphere, Nevada’s excitement began to wane, turning to fear instead. It had been marvelous to gaze at the world below from Earth’s blue sky, but being in the sucking vacuum of space gave her pause. Her grip tightened on her little sister as she took a half-step away from the window. It was only after much prodding from Abuelo that she could be convinced she was safe. She even found herself enjoying the view of the glittering stars and the sapphire planet below. Although the fear may have faded though, it did not completely subside, and she was grateful when they made their descent back to Earth. Even now as an adult, there were still remnants of that fear. Nevada loved travelling in her ship, but she was always thankful to land, feeling much more comfortable when she was surrounded completely by oxygen.

As Nevada and Vivi grew older, their grandfather became more lenient in how often he let the girls into the ship, eventually even teaching Nevada how to fly. Nevada had been nineteen when Abuelo passed away, and had wept in both sorrow and gratitude when she learned he left the ship to her. It had been out of commission for quite some time before then, Abuelo having retired about six years before his death. It was in considerably poor condition when she found it in the age-worn, out-of-use docking bay. Nevada put every gala she had ever saved, and every bit of her heart into fixing up the sorry excuse for a spacecraft. It was still shabby and worn down, but the ship had come a long way from what it once was. Swelling with pride at her finished (or at least functional) work, Nevada had lovingly named the ship Rosario, after Abuelo.