Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel George Ellis (book series for 12 year olds .TXT) 📖

funeral was small, like most funerals. With family and friends spread out across the verse, it was usually pretty hard to get a lot of people together in one place without waiting months or years. Beaming funerals to far-off loved ones was common, but Uncle Erwin and I decided my mom wouldn’t have wanted that. She was a private person, and the idea of people tuning in just to watch the proceedings didn’t sit well with us.

My mom’s will specified that she be cremated, and so there was no discussion of where to bury her, either on Earth or its moon (she had spent roughly the same amount of her life on each). Instead, we held a gathering of neighbors and friends aboard the Mustang, which was docked on Earth’s moon near the settlement in which my mother had lived. Eleven people showed up to pay their respects, and many nice things were said about her generosity and zest for life. She loved to laugh, everybody recalled.

Uncle Erwin gave a touching speech and I said a few words, but for the most part the funeral seemed odd, as everyone present had already had two months to grieve my mother’s passing, and so the mood had more of a detached feeling to it.

I didn’t cry. I had done that months earlier. Uncle E shed a few tears, but he too had already come to terms with the loss of his big sister.

Uncle E and I decided to scatter her ashes as the Stang passed over the Sea of Tranquility when we left to head back out for our next job. We had debated whether to keep the urn on the ship, but in the end we assumed she didn’t want to be “cooped up with us boys” as she often said about our trips around the verse.

“It was nice of her neighbors to come,” said Uncle E, once we were on our way to pick up a craft that was meant to be one of the final pieces of a new station being Voltron’d together out of ships and other, smaller stations.

“Yeah,” I said, not really wanting to talk any more about it.

My uncle looked over and knew what I was feeling.

“We still have each other,” he reminded me. I’d been so focused on my own grief that I hadn’t considered my uncle was in the same position. Aside from me, my mother was all the family he’d had. Uncle E had never married or had kids. His work and his ship were his life. And me, of course.

“Your mom would like that,” he said. “Us flying around the verse together like real compadres.”

“She would,” I agreed. “She might have some things to say about our diet though.”

Uncle E snorted, nearly choking on his candy bar. A piece of nougat flew out of his mouth and landed on the console. It just stuck there between a few other blips on the radar scan. I laughed. It was the first good laugh I’d had in a long, long time.

* * *

My first impression of the ship was that it looked like a giant donut. It had the proper shape, right down to the hole in the middle. And the red flashing lights that dotted the top of it could have passed for sprinkles.

“Looks kind of like a donut,” Uncle E said. “I’m hungry again.”

I nodded.

“I miss donuts,” Gary wistfully replied. “But I prefer a good black and white cookie.”

“You’ve never had either of those,” I told him.

As Gary argued that he had theoretically eaten many donuts and cookies, and therefore could be nostalgic about them, I focused on the ship. It was named The Yunan. A quick reference check told us that was one of the provinces of China, back when China had provinces.

“The captain’s name is Jiang,” Uncle E said. “Seems like a straight shooter to me.”

“Straight shooter?” I asked.

“Remind me to have you watch some Bonanza when we get the chance. Or Unforgiven. That’s a great one, too.”

I made a mental note of both the titles. “Crazy that he’s selling his ship to become part of a station. Pretty cool,” I said.

“Agreed. Can’t wait to see the station when it’s done.”

A few moments later, The Yunan hailed us. My uncle accepted the transmission and the captain’s face filled the screen.

Jiang was a thin man with a full head of straight black hair he kept in a ponytail. He wore a flannel shirt. I’d later learn he was of Chinese ancestry, but he’d never set foot on Earth, let alone any other planet. He was a true man of space, as he often joked. And he joked a lot.

“Hello there!” he said with a genuine smile. “Made it just in time!”

“That so?” my uncle asked.

Jiang explained that he had been unsure of whether to accept the offer to add his ship to the new station they were building, but when The Yunan stalled for the third time in the past year, he knew the ship would be better off as part of something larger.

The only problem was that between the time we’d been contracted to tow The Yunan to the station site and the time we arrived, the life support system had gone down. In fact, the 400 crew and residents of the ship had been evacuated about a week earlier.

“Wait, are you telling me you’re the only one on that ship?” I asked, leaning into the peripheral of the camera.

“Oh, didn’t see you there. Hey!”

My uncle introduced me as his co-captain, and Jiang confirmed he was the only person left on The Yunan. “Unless I’ve got a stowaway. Fingers crossed on that front.”

I pulled up the ship’s specs on the Stang’s computer system. It was half a million square feet. And there was one person on it. One. Talk about being alone in the world. Although you wouldn’t know it from Jiang’s upbeat attitude.

When we stepped onto The Yunan, he greeted us with a smile and a plastic container.

“What’s this?”