Flash Fiction Friday: Among the Dunes

A couple of weeks ago I offered my seniors' writing class a selection of wonky characters to work with, and nabbed a pair for myself. The following is the result, though I could see making some changes and turning it into a full-length short story (is that an oxymoron?)

Among the Dunes

“Damn!” Bargo let the air-cruiser coast toward the surface of the planet he’d come to pillage. Once again the blasted impulsion motor had cut out and he was about to be stranded… where?

He pulled up his map and tried to figure that out. Somewhere in the middle of something called the “Mojave Desert.” His home planet had only one biome, the one inside the domes, so he wasn’t sure what that meant, but based on what he was seeing below him, it meant nothing good. He shifted to concentrate on landing in one piece, for all the good it might do him.

The air-cruiser landed gently in one of the clear spaces, where he was pretty sure he’d not rip the belly out on the sharp rocks or pointy plants that seemed to be the only occupants of the biome. There was definitely not going to be any QwikCruiser repair station handy. Not for the first time Bargo regretted having failed the mechanics course at the Academy.

Of course, if he’d passed that course, he’d probably be a Federation pilot now, and have mechanics to fix whatever damage he did to his cruiser in the defense of the government, so it wouldn’t matter. Ironic that the lack that forced him to go solo was the thing that a lone pirate—er, pilot—most needed.

The sensors said that he could breathe the air out there, so Bargo cautiously pushed open the cruiser’s door. Heat hit him like a fist, pushing him back inside. He slammed the door and listened with some satisfaction as the life-support system hummed, cooling the interior. For how long?

#

Ragna Songbird sat atop of the highest dune in the Mojave National Preserve. She’d reached the summit a half hour before sunup and it had gone from cold to hot, but she’d be damned if she’d give up and go back down. The others had gone to bed at four a.m., exhausted from partying and full up on whatever they’d been eating, drinking, or smoking. Ragna Songbird hadn’t joined them. She’d been out away from camp most of the night, talking to a kangaroo rat about the end of winter and the beginning of the starving time.

Funny, where her people came from, winter was the starving time. When the kangaroo rat went off in search of breakfast, Ragna wandered up the dune. Moonbeam Sunborn said the dune was 700 feet high. That didn’t sound like much, but it was steep, and in the loose sand Ragna slid back a step for every two she took upward, but she kept on. She sat down in the cool sand on the summit and began to meditate.

Now the growing heat threatened to suck every bit of moisture from her body. Might’ve been good to have brought some water with her, but she’d been distracted by the kangaroo rat. They didn’t need water.

She was definitely getting dehydrated. Hallucinating, even. Maybe Moonbeam had managed to slip her something after all, though she’d been pretty careful, because she couldn’t talk to animals when under the influence. So why was she seeing a big shiny object landing gently in the dune field between her and the railroad tracks? Some satellite that had failed to burn up on re-entry? She squinted against the rising sun. Curiosity won. She stood up and plunged down the dune, away from the camp.

#

Bargo was still sitting inside his cruiser when he heard someone shouting outside. His embedded translator repeated the question: “Anyone in there?”

“I’m having mechanical issues!” He let the vox translate and project his response, still unwilling to open that door again.

“Well, you’re in luck,” the person outside said. “I’m a mechanic. And you need to move, because three lizards and a kangaroo rat say you’re sitting on their dens.”

Bargo ignored the latter part of that sentence, which mostly came out as untranslated gibberish anyway, and focused on the promise in the first part.

“I’ll pop the hood.”

That was how Ragna heard it. What he’d actually said was that he’d open the impulsion drive protective bonnet. He pushed the right buttons, and, with a deep sigh, opened the door to go show the local mechanic whatever he could.

The local mechanic was dressed in colorful and drapey clothes that didn’t look at all practical for crawling into an engine compartment, and she—the ship’s AI said it was a local female, genus Homo, species Sapiens—didn’t even seem to care. She was already lifting the cover and propping it open with the born mechanic’s instinct for how things worked.

#

Ragna looked around when the pilot stepped up beside her. Definitely hallucinating. He was bi-pedal, and vaguely humanoid, but purple. Definitely purple. She shrugged.

“Looks like a feed hose has sprung a leak. Got any duct tape?”

The crucial words were again untranslated, and Bargo stamped in frustration. “I don’t know what you are seeking. I have repair supplies.”

Ragna waited for the translator device to repeat that in a form she could understand, and smiled. “Get whatever you have.” The little purple alien—really, this was a fantastic hallucination—disappeared back into the strange craft, emerging a minute later with a tool kit. That checked—the tool kit looked so much like her own, back in the van at the campsite on the other side of the dunes, that it had to be a product of her own hallucination.

The tools inside weren’t quite what she was used to, but they matched the stuff under the hood. Dang, nothing that looked like tape. Didn’t these aliens know about duct tape and WD40?

Well, she might have an answer for that.

“Just a minute.” Silly, really, but she went behind the spaceship out of sight of the alien she’d hallucinated before stripping off her undies. Good thing she’d worn the ones with a wide band. That might hold the hose.

Fifteen minutes later, a combination of alien clamps, bubblegum, and Jockey shorts had the fuel pouring through the feed line once more, instead of out a crack. Ragna stood back and closed the hood as though she’d been servicing alien space cruisers all her life. Really, whatever Moonbeam had given her, she’d not mind having some more.

“I think you’re good to go.”

“What do I owe you?” The alien asked the standard question. He was looking sort of pale, like the heat and sun was even harder on him than her, but he’d stood by while she worked and watched closely.

At that moment Ragna wanted nothing more than a drink. She’d hydrate and the purple alien would vanish, and she could walk back to camp. “Got a soda? Beer? Water?”

The alien invited her inside.

It was cool in there, and there was water. She took a long drink and waited to recover.

The purple guy was still there. And the space ship. This was too good to pass up.

“Mind if I ride along?”

###

 

The setting for this story is real--I borrowed the Kelso Dunes in the East Mojave Preserve, a favorite spot.

The high dune where Ragna Birdsong meditates.

The dunefield where Bargo landed his cruiser. The dark line is the railroad.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2025   
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

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