Super Secret Space Mission - a sci fi comedy adventure

CHAPTER ONE

The Nevada Sky stretched like a turquoise tent over the scrub covered Wasteland that look like it belonged on another world. The horizon was distant made surreal by shimmering heat lines playing like ghosts on the edge.

Through this harsh landscape a battered pickup truck puttered along a sand gritty Road. A battered pickup truck puttered along a sand covered Road through the harsh landscape. Washington Carver held one lanky arm out of the open driver's side window and tried to drive and read a folded-out map with one hand. The map bucked and whipped in the wind through the window.

“Man, where the hell am I?” he asked the steering wheel.

He peered over the edge of the map to watch the road and it caught in the Wind attacking his face and making a dash out of the open window. Carver made a grab for the map but missed as it Escaped and raced across the Hardy scrub land.

“Son of a bitch.”

He watched the map race away and thought about stopping. After a moment, he shrugged It off and kept driving.

Jake Dawes peered out from underneath his straw cowboy hat and watched the empty road. He had his thumb stuck out in a classic hitchhiker’s pose as the sputtering rumble of an engine echoed over the top of a rise. A smile creased his weathered young face as he spied Carver's truck.

Carver noticed the hitchhiker on the side of the road and perked up.

“What we got going on here? What? You want a ride? Hell no. I saw Deliverance. All you rednecks want to do is kill a brother. I ain't stopping.”

He waved as he passed Dawes.

“Hello Mr. Redneck. No you don't get to kill me today,” he muttered through a forced grin.

He made it one hundred yards further down the road before the back tire blew out on his truck. He hauled the wheel and pulled over to the side of the road still muttering.

“God damn it. What kind of luck is this?” He began searching the truck bed to pull out the jack and spare in the back. “He's going to come up here and offer to help and want me to give him a ride. Well I tell you what I ain't givin nobody a ride. I'm just gonna have to tell him to get the fuck-”

“You need any help?” asked Dawes as he strutted up with his backpack.

Carver glanced up with a fake grin plastered on his face.

“Hey man, how's it going?”

“You got a flat?”

Carver dragged the spare out of the truck bed and dropped the jack beside it on the asphalt.

“No way man. I'm just tired of driving on that tire. I thought I'd get out here in the heat and change it.”

“That's funny,” chuckled Dawes.

He grabbed the jack out of the dust without asking and began to set it up underneath the bumper.

“I can get it,” said Carver.

“I don't mind.”

Carver nudged him off the jack handle and begin doing it himself.

“Well I do. I can handle it all by myself thank you.”

He adjusted the jack to a different spot and began to crank. The metal ripped half the bumper off the truck with a horrible screech.

“Son of a bitch.”

“It doesn't go there,” said Dawes.

“I can see that, Carver shot back. Don't you think I can see that?”

Dawes took the jack from him and moved it back to a new place. He began to work the handle up and down and the truck lifted off the ground. Carver slapped his hands away from the handle.

“Man, give me that. You act like I don't know what I'm doing. I know how to change a tire. I know work. I am work.”

The sound of tires on sand cut through their conversation. They both looked up and watched as a flatbed truck top the rise and coasted beside them.

The back of the truck bed was full of redneck types. A bunch of bearded boys in overalls and straw hats glaring at Carver as they rolled past.

“Damn man, look like ya'll ain't never seen a brother before,” he called out. “Friends of yours?”

Dawes pushed his hat back from his head.

“I haven't had time to make friends.”

“Well send out some sort of redneck vibe or psychic code or something and tell them to get the fuck on.”

Dawes put a hand on his forehead and reached out with the other aimed at the departing truck. He creased his brow in concentration.

“What the fuck's wrong with you?”

“I'm telling them you're a friend and leave us alone.”

“Man pick up that tire. Come on now, you want to help?”

The truck full of rednecks slid around the bend and out of sight.

The desert sun was hot and relentless. Heat waves shimmered off the asphalt and the two men beside the truck were soon bathed in sweat. They worked in quick efficient silence, removing the lug nuts, wrestling the tire off the truck, and replacing it with the spare. Dawes screwed the lug nuts on with his thick fingers and Carver tightened them down with the tire iron.

The sound of wheels on gravel made them look up.

“Man, I ain't seen no one on this road all damn day and that's three of you in five minutes.”

“Yeah,” agreed Dawes. “Not the best road to hitch a ride.”

The blue pickup truck rolled into view. Dawes waved at two clean cut military men in the front seat. The passenger nodded back.

“Friends of yours?” Dawes asked Carver.

“Hell no.”

“You want to use your psychic code and tell them to move the fuck on?” Dawes smiled.

“Fuck you man,” Carver grinned back.

The Soldier's truck rolled out of view and the two men went back to work.

They didn't notice it disappear around a bend in the desert wash or roll between a set of rocks that jutted on both sides of the road, casting shadows that stretched to the west.

As the truck moved between the two rocks, the hillbillies from earlier popped up around the crags and crannies and opened fire with hunting rifles and shotguns. The soldiers danced and twitched as bullets ripped through the cab and punched into their bodies. The truck kept on rolling off the side of the road and through the desert scrub as the driver's foot became wedged in the accelerator.

Dawes glanced up at Carver as they heard the shots echo through the air.

"Think they had a blow out too?" he asked.

"Twenty blow outs?" Carver scoffed.

He rushed through the last of the lug nuts, giving each one a quick tight snug before he tossed the tire tool back into the truck bed and slung the flat in after it. Dawes watched him for a moment and when they locked eyes, the silence was almost a solid thing.

"You going to give me a ride now?” Dawes broke it.

"Damn," Carver sighed. "Hell, now I guess I have to."

He climbed into the driver's side door and leaned over to unlock the other for Dawes. At least he waited for the hitchhiker to settle in before he pulled out in a cloud of dust.

Carver's truck eased around the bend and passed the gaggle of hillbillies perched on the edge of the asphalt peering after a cloud of dust that stained the horizon. They stopped watching the dust and turned as one to stare with open mouths as Carver slowed down. He stuck his head out of the window.

"Hey ya'll, where all the white women at?!" he screamed.

He stood on the accelerator and flew past them and ducked back in the truck laughing.

"Think that was wise?" Dawes deadpanned.

"Them? Nah man, I'm just playing. They know that."

Dawes settled into the passenger seat and tipped his hat low, a man used to a thousand different seats in a thousand different cars. He put one dusty boot up on the dash so he could rest his arm across his leg.

"Why don't you just make yourself at home," Carver said.

"Don't mind if I do."

"Just don't go get them damn redneck cooties all over my fine leather," Carver continued as he dusted imaginary motes off the well-worn cloth seats covered with holes so the cushion showed through in several spots.

"You're the boss."

They drove in silence. It began to stretch and take on a life of its own, the noise of the wheels on the road and the wind roaring through the windows. The silence was too much for Carver. If he was alone, he'd sing to the radio but he wasn't about to sing with this cowboy in the car. The damn fool probably only liked country music, and while Carver did too he wasn't about to give the man some pleasure for his ears, not on the radio and not with his golden voice. Besides, he liked R&B too, the classics not any of that new shit where the guys were whining for the booty all the time. No sir, Carver liked it old school where a man pretty much told the woman how it was going to be. Baby, I'm gonna give it to you good, and you're gonna like it, cause when I get that feeling I need some healing.

He stopped as he started to hum the song.

Damn it he had to watch it. Next thing you know he'd be belting out some Otis and this damn redneck cracker probably never heard a word from Otis.

"You from around here?" he asked aloud.

"Just passing through," the cowboy muttered.

Trying to be tough, thought Carver. Seen too many damn Clint Eastwood movies and here this fool was in his truck accepting a ride from him and Carver just trying to be a good neighbor and the guy won't even talk.

"You don't say much."

"Are you from around here?" the passenger asked.

"Do I look like I'm from around here? Do I look like I got a red neck? Am I missing my teeth?"

Dawes lifted the brim of his hat and took a good look.

"What the hell you looking at?" Carver sniffed.

"What do people around here look like?"

"Shit man, I don't know. People. Your people. What else they gonna look like?"