(Sample) Rising From the Sand - Quicksand, Book One

Chapter 3

Plutonia fell asleep about an hour into the trip to Tioria, and Wynette and Laris kept quiet in an attempt to not disturb her. Both the floater and the truck eventually needed to stop for fuel, though, and they parked at a run-down fueling station outside another small mining town.

Laris hopped out of the floater to refuel, and Plutonia's eyes opened a moment later. "Are we there already?" she asked, stretching.

"Not quite." Wynette poked at her compad for a moment. "Another hour and a half."

Plutonia looked around. "We're getting gas? Already?"

"Not the most fuel-efficient floater out there," Wynette said. "And the tank's pretty small to maximize room for supplies."

"Oh. Does the Protectorate have other kinds of floaters?"

"Yeah, a handful. Largest is eight passengers, though, at least on this planet."

Seeming revitalized, Plutonia began examining the dashboard and the control wheel. "I have a lot of questions right now," she said excitedly.

Wynette laughed. "Fire away."

"Does this floater have guns?"

"It does, but they're small, and they're hidden beneath panels. I've never had to actually use them."

Plutonia's eyes widened. "So you press a button and they come out?"

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna tell you which button," Wynette said.

"That's fine. So is most of this titanium?"

"Mostly titanium alloys, I think. Pure titanium isn't great for everything."

"Why not?"

Wynette sighed as Laris climbed back in the floater. "Laris, we got some technical questions for ya. Put that college degree to work."

Plutonia peppered Laris with questions as they finished the final leg of their desert trip, and he tried to answer all of them, pulling up information on his compad as needed. Wynette wanted to ask about Plutonia's time in Saint Adrian and Notre Dame, but decided against it. As the desert sand began to give way to concrete and small houses, Plutonia began to stare out the window again.

"Is that a maglev train?" she asked, pointing at a long, metal snake running on tracks parallel to the road.

"Sure is," Wynette said. "Runs the length of the city, and there's tracks running other directions, too. All the way north to my parents' house, even. Tioria has some surprisingly good infrastructure."

"Is it free, or do you have to pay?"

"You have to pay, but last I checked it was pretty cheap..."

Plutonia turned to Laris. "You've been here before, right?"

"Yeah, but it's been a while."

The truck turned off the main road onto a narrow bridge going over the maglev, and the floater turned to follow. "We're about ten minutes away, now," Wynette said, "Laris, can you let HQ know?"

"Yup." He pulled out his compad and started typing on it for a moment.

"So what are you guys doing after you drop this truck off?" Plutonia asked.

"It sounds like our original trip for today already got handed off to another crew, 'cause of how delayed we got last night," Wynette said, sighing. "So we can spend the day pretty leisurely. We probably won't get reassigned to anything until first thing tomorrow morning..."