Salvagers

Chapter 12 Eiffel Tower

After touring the world for a while, Clyde got a better grasp of the controls, making it easier to show Lucas things without crashing into them.

Clyde checked the time and as it was getting late, they'd need to head out to pick up Ma again soon.

So, Clyde brought them to Paris.

"Did the UFE remove all this too?" Lucas asked after Clyde showed him the Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triumph, and Notre Dame.

Clyde nodded. "Replaced the Eiffel Tower with their headquarters," he said.

Lucas shook his head. "The UFE's buildings are always ugly. They should've kept the old ones," he said.

Clyde nodded. "That's not the worst part. The leader of the UFE is French," he said.

Lucas stared at him blankly.

"The place I just showed you was France," Clyde explained, "the people who lived there were called French."

"Oh," Lucas said, "so he did it to his own people?"

Clyde nodded.

"Why did people let this happen?" Lucas asked. Not for the first time.

"I don't know," Clyde admitted.

"Maybe they were scared," Lucas said, "It's hard to think when I'm scared."

***

They picked Ma up from Novasteak and Clyde drove again, letting her sleep in the compartment he'd made the whole way back.

As he drove down the long, dark country road with Lucas passed out and drooling beside him and Ma sleeping behind him, Clyde felt his heart ache with love for his family and the need to look out for them.

He couldn't see the stars tonight.

No doubt the pollution was blocking them out again, making the sky seem like black canvas... but he knew they were up there.

As was more of the space debris that had nearly killed them... debris that would be worth an incredible amount of money...

This had better work... he thought as beads of cold sweat ran down his skin and he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

***

The next day, after driving Ma to work and returning home with Lucas, Clyde spent almost the entire day practicing in his simulator.

He even built special racetracks in space, underwater at various depths, and at different heights and pollution levels in atmosphere to practice and truly hone his skills.

Space flight felt like it was going to take the most practice as the lack of atmosphere to create drag made it extremely counter-intuitive.

Clyde also worked on using the ship's arms to construct and deconstruct objects so he'd hopefully be more effective at using them when doing a real salvage run.

He was sure that there would be some things he'd only learn when doing it for real, but being as prepared as possible seemed like the best way to improve his odds of success.

It was fun but frustrating work as he crashed over and over again and each time he did, he reminded himself that he would be dead and his family would follow him shortly thereafter if he failed like that in reality.

The practice courses were far harder than anything he expected he'd have to deal with in reality but things always went wrong in unexpected ways in the real world and he hoped that by training with something more challenging, he'd be better able to deal with the inevitable disasters that would befall him.