HARD-FOILED: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SWORD SARGE SABRE

 

Sergeant Sabre was a craggy old space grunt who people avoided like the plague. Known simply as Sarge, he'd spent forty long grizzled years piloting rum-filled rust-buckets round the System to pay for his drink and skin.

 

 

 

During his sodden life he'd managed to hack-off all the top brass at the SWORD Academy and his few ancient friends had long given up on him as an oxygen thief. His crew hated his guts yet still held some grudging respect for his skill at the wheel. In truth, he was a total burn-out and the SWORD high hats wanted him gone and he knew it.

 

 

 

None of this mattered to Sarge though. They could all go hang. The only thing that bothered him was his Daughter. She hadn't spoken to him since she her Mother, beaten and spent, walked out taking her from his miserable life forever. That was ten years ago.

 

 

In Sarge's tiny midden of an apartment his morning alarm sounded like a smoker's dying cough and he cursed the thing's persistence. The old pilot rose from his sack slowly, one leg at a time over the edge. He felt like death. He groaned and rubbed his face like a boxer on the ropes. "Shit!". He lit a cig he'd cadged off a kid on the corner. Another feather in his cap. He didn't know it but this would be his last day on earth.

 

 

 

To be continued.