Harry Yumel, rebellious teen, is stuck driving a space taxi for the inhabitants of the universe. Saddled with a huge debt, hating his life on the spaceport where he lives, he is offered a chance to smuggle items by Shayala—call me Shay—the beautiful leader of a black market ring. Knowing that the sentence for getting caught is death, he nevertheless takes a chance, and soon finds himself top dog in the space taxi business. However, things are never what they seem. Harry finds out that Shay is secretly a government operative trying to find out the real leader who is behind the black market. He also learns that this mystery man is building a weapon of unimaginable power that could rip the fabric of the universe apart. When Shay goes missing, Harry has to journey to the end of the galaxy and face off against a fearsome foe that holds the power of life and death in the palm of his hand.
“Hey, anyone want a taxi?” I yelled out. “C’mon, I’m free!”
My voice carried over the distance of the waiting line. It had probably carried beyond, but with all the noise coming from the machinery, crafts and people there, doubtful anyone heard it or bothered listening. The Departure Bay buzzed about in a constant state of activity full of various forms of life, vehicles being moved into position, techs and shuttle drivers barking orders. It was just another busy day on Star Port One.
My call for a customer went out again and that earned me a lot of dirty looks. “Wait your turn, Earthman,” someone said.
The speaker turned away, a sneer forming on his face as he did so. Being called an Earthman didn’t bother me anymore although it used to, but that was three months and two weeks ago. Picking me out of a lineup was easy. Outside of my dispatcher, Rhody Masterson, I was the only other human on this star port. Let’s face it, someone who was tall, slender, with green eyes, brown hair and fair skin would always be marked as different.
Okay, we all looked different, but according to them I looked more different than most. “Anyone want a cab?” I asked once more and tried very hard to keep the desperation out of my voice.
“Shut your mouth, Earthman,” one of the other cabbies said. “We don’t want to hear your braying all the time.”
You’d think they’d have learned who I was by now... but no. “I have a name. It’s Harry, Harry Yumel.”
“We don’t care,” another driver piped up, his voice raw and angry, probably from talking all day. Actually, all night, as we worked in space and here it was perpetually dark. “Shut your mouth and wait your turn.”
Okay, they didn’t like my attitude. We all knew the code. A star-driver never called for service. He had to wait until the dispatcher called his name. Screw waiting, I need a fare now! Okay, one more time for good luck. “Anyone need a cab?” I called out in the cheeriest voice imaginable.
A chorus of voices answered me. “Wait your turn!”
With a sigh, I turned my gaze to the invisible energy barrier that separated the human and inhuman elements from the cold depths of space, and looked at the uninhabited mini-moon of Endau. Everyone used Endau as a guidepost to find their way back here. The orb and I had become close buddies my first few weeks here. In fact, outside of Rhody, it became my only friend.
What could I say? Three months-plus ago I’d been leading my usual run-of-the-mill and oh-so-boring life in Tacoma, working at a part-time job and wondering where I’d go from there. In the year 2054, jobs on Earth were hard to come by. After my stepfather left home to work here as a driver, and after the accident which claimed his life, I’d been requested—actually forced—to take his place here on Star Port One in order to work off a debt he’d run up.
Star Port One—time for your mind to be blown—happened to be in a galaxy far, far away. Okay, call it a cliché, but it happened to be true. I did live in a galaxy far, far away and I did interact with a number of other life forms.
The downside of it all was that while driving remained my passion, my job as a taxi driver ranked somewhere between picking up garbage and disposing of said garbage. However, there was that debt thing to consider, and that’s what kept me here, that and the fact that I wasn’t educated to do much else.
At times, it still amazed me aliens existed, that they’d come to Earth not so long ago, and that they’d asked us to join their Alliance, the Galactic Alliance, as they called themselves. Once everyone heard about the visitors from far away, they waited for the aliens to either take them away or enlighten them as to the secrets of existence. Reality check—the aliens did neither of those things. They only asked us to wait while they prepared the rest of the cosmos for our arrival.
In the meantime, I had to work for the almighty coin. I didn’t want to think about the money thing even though it became the central focus of my life. For an eighteen-year-old guy who wanted to go on dates and meet people, it was a huge culture shock.
