Chapter 5

Inside the Dissert Wrockshep

Stars align beyond the sky. ‘But this light is lying, Marta. They are a blind spectacle of things that will never came to exist. Just like me’.

‘Mother?’ Marta wakes up inside a rather comfortable sack. She is in a tall bedroom, careful decorated, with some daylight percolating through a bow eye window somewhere over her head. The walls show a careful decoration in cheerful tones, with shelves filled with happy souvenirs from outer space, evoking a cozy nostalgia of times they never lived, where the adventurous astronaut could cross space without a worry, just complaining about docking taxes. Some memory far away from the time where the Indirian Monarchy has decided to play billiards with planets.

‘I am not your mother’ says a voice on the doorway, ‘but I can be if you want, sweetheart’.

She —because she probably is a she— is a tall and broad figure with cream-colored skin and a kind, smooth voice that fills one’s ears.

‘Calim told me he found you’, she continues. ‘Late bird, he still sleeps. I am Noke, Noke from Meituna’s Dreamin’. Former Captain of this beauty’ she points at the floor, meaning the spaceship, ‘now just a lousy novelist in the Desert Wreckship’, meaning the Dissert Wrockshep she read about, which could actually be best referred to as the Shipwreck.

Marta looks through the window. Blackness prevails across the desert.

‘Yeah…’ Noke points, ‘That’s one hell of a mess. Not that I care about sand. But you sure drew attention to yourself. They must’ve gone crazy up there in the Station’.

‘Sorry about that…’, Marta says, with some shyness in her voice. ‘Thank you for helping me. I intend to arrive to the Free Counties. Do you have any idea how far I must walk to cross the desert?’.

‘You have some good time ahead of you. But I wouldn’t say. My only assessment comes from the day we crashed. God that was horrible. We are on the top of the ship. Thing’s massive. Half of it is sunk under the sand, and the rest is nearly covered by dust. A great disguise to avoid the Indirian, though. We spent half a year down here already, and I wouldn’t dream to show ourselves. We might be illegal contrabandists in their eyes.’

‘Then what do you plan to do?’

‘We have plenty of resources still. We were a crew of seven people when we crashed. Only me and Calim survived. We do our best to fix this ship and get the hell out of here, but we are missing some key components, but…’

Noke produces a steel bolt from a shelf. Then smiles and points at it with his eyes. The bolt levitates some inches above in the air and a rare glow emerges around its surface, which melts unto a uniform-looking sphere of steel. She moves a finger around it and it takes the shape of gyroscope.

‘That’s so cool!’ says Marta, astounded.

‘That’s a Meitunan’s hability 101’ Noke smiles. ‘That’s why we can’t afford being catched by the Indirian Monarchy. They force us to slavery and make us reproduce just to have the most effective workhand in the universal market. Its not as efficient as it is, though’ grinning, ‘we eat a lot’.

Marta looks her with bright wide eyes.

‘If you repair the ship, could I come with you?’

‘We could get you closer to the Free Counties at least. Calim took a liking to you, I can see why. In two months or so we could get going if we get to it. A wizard can come in handy in the engine room’.

I doubt so very much, Marta is thinking, but instead she says:

‘But I don’t think I have two months. Is there any way I could help to speed things up?’

‘Well, it would be nice if you could learn more magic theory, but all in all the main issue is-

A big wild brrRRROOOoom! interrupts her. They look through the window the best they can. A white trail across the sky, towards the military base where Cornelos is working.

Marta expects Noke to panic, but instead, she is laughing hysterically.

‘What!’

‘This’ Noke replies, ‘the main issue is this. A relic-based inductor for the engine. The issue is not having one. And this, this is a high-tech Indirian military aircraft, and I assure you this thing has one. There must be something heavy going on there for this to come here. Big fish carriers, you know. If you want to really speed things up…’ she points towards where she came from ‘this is the way to go. Just follow me.’

Noke leads her to an iron ladder on the wall just outside the bedroom. Going up, they go through a round hatch to found themselves in a little circular roof with a red riling. Noke shows her a seat with binoculars hanging from it.

Marta looks through the lenses, trying to dismiss the far reach of the desert turned black. Next to Cornelos’ base, one heavy aircraft has landed, and some well-dressed military people are leaving from it.

‘They don’t make these things very comfortable, you know’ Noke says. ‘It gets hot in there. No speakers, little things to do. Typical down-to-business Indirian attitude. You don’t need Hi-Fi to fly. So those things get empty as soon as they touch ground.’

‘Are you saying we can get in there without them noticing?’

‘At least I assure we can get out of here two hours tops after they notice it.’

Marta stares her with a blank face for a moment.

‘Well… I missed home anyway.’