The scrapyard sat where the ice forgot to move.
Beyond it, the frozen sheet stretched flat and endless, pale as bone beneath a low, colorless sky. Behind it, jagged hills broke the wind just enough for wreckage to collect—frames, hull plates, engines stripped of purpose and half-buried where storms had dropped them and never come back.
Time didn’t visit often here. When it did, it came slowly.
That’s why we worked there.
The speeder rested on a patch of cleared ice between two skeletal transport frames, its mismatched body catching the light in uneven flashes. Nothing about it matched anything else. The front was sharp and narrow, scavenged from something built for speed. The stabilizers were wider, older, their edges scarred and patched. Power lines ran where they shouldn’t, reinforced by hand-cut brackets and stubborn hope.
Kess lay on their back beneath the engine housing, hands deep in the machine, breath fogging the air. Every few seconds, they tapped twice on the hull.
“Again,” Kess said.
Rin flipped the switch.
The engine coughed, whined, then surged—clean this time, strong enough to send a vibration through the ice. Snow skittered away from the runners in little bursts.
Kess grinned from under the machine. “Told you it’d hold.”
“Hold doesn’t mean fly,” Rin said.
Kess slid out, sat up, and wiped their gloves on their jacket. “It will.”
They’d been building it for weeks, pulling parts from wrecks no one remembered the names of. Old patrol craft. Cargo sleds. A racer that had clearly lost a fight with a mountain. Kess remembered where every piece came from. Not because they wrote it down—but because they listened to machines the way some people listened to stories.
This one wanted to move.
The others knew it too. You could feel it in the way the speeder leaned forward slightly even at rest, like it was impatient with being still.
“We shouldn’t test it today,” Vale said, scanning the horizon. “Weather’s wrong.”
The sky was clear, but the wind had a sharper edge to it. The kind that carried sound farther than it should.
Kess stood and looked out across the ice sheet. Nothing moved. No tracks. No shadows. Just the quiet that came when the world thought it was alone.
“That’s why we do it today,” Kess said. “Before anyone remembers this place exists.”
Rin hesitated, then nodded. “Short run.”
They didn’t know how far “short” would last.
Kess climbed into the cockpit, settling into the seat like it had been shaped around them. Controls lit up unevenly—some new, some ancient, some repurposed from systems that had never meant to work together. Kess ran a hand across them once, almost gently.
“Keep eyes on the ridge,” they said.
The engine rose to a clean, eager hum.
The speeder lifted.
Not smoothly—never smoothly—but decisively, runners clearing the ice as the machine surged forward. Kess angled it out across the sheet, acceleration stacking fast, the wind tearing sound away behind them.
For the first few seconds, it was perfect.
The ice blurred. The speeder responded like it understood intent, banking when Kess leaned, correcting before commands finished forming. The patched stabilizers held. The engine sang.
Kess laughed into the wind.
Then the ice ahead fractured—not physically, but visually—as movement cut across it.
Dark shapes crested the far ridge, kicking up plumes of snow. Not wreckage. Not wildlife.
Vehicles.
Too clean. Too organized.
Rin’s voice cracked through the comm. “Kess—pull up. Now.”
Kess pulled.
A streak of light cut through the air where the speeder had been a second before, burning a line into the ice. Another followed. Then another.
They were being fired on.
Kess rolled the speeder hard, diving low, skimming so close to the surface that ice shards rattled against the hull. The machine screamed in protest, then adapted, power redistributing through pathways Kess had hoped would never be tested this way.
The shapes behind them fanned out.
An enemy force—not named, not announced—just present, deliberate, and very real.
Vale shouted something over the channel, but it was lost under the rising roar of pursuit.
Kess didn’t think.
They flew.
The speeder cut sideways between two ice ridges barely wide enough to pass through. Fire scorched the walls behind them. Kess dumped power to the rear stabilizers, then surged forward again, the machine responding like it was alive—unbalanced, dangerous, brilliant.
“Left!” Rin yelled.
Kess was already there.
They skimmed low, then climbed hard, pulling into a steep arc that sent the speeder flipping end over end before leveling out again. The engine howled. Warning lights flashed. Kess ignored them all.
A shot grazed the stabilizer. The speeder shuddered.
“Hold together,” Kess muttered. “Just a little longer.”
Ahead, the ice sheet opened into nothing—flat, exposed, deadly.
Behind them, the enemy closed in.
Then the sky changed.
A distant rumble rolled across the ice, deeper than engines, layered and heavy. Shapes appeared high above—larger craft, moving fast, their silhouettes unmistakably coordinated.
Reinforcements.
The enemy force hesitated.
That was all Kess needed.
They cut power sharply, dropping low and sliding across the ice, then punched the engine again at an angle no one sensible would choose. The speeder veered, then surged forward, threading a line through chaos and light as the sky erupted behind them.
Explosions bloomed—controlled, precise. The enemy scattered.
Kess didn’t look back.
They pushed the speeder until the world narrowed to speed and control and the thin line of survival carved by instinct and skill. The machine held—not because it was perfect, but because it was understood.
The scrapyard came back into view like a memory snapping into place.
Kess brought the speeder down hard, skidding across ice and debris, finally sliding to a stop between the wrecks where it belonged.
Silence fell in waves.
Rin and Vale were already running toward them when the cockpit opened. Kess climbed out, hands shaking now that the danger had passed, breath coming fast and bright.
“That wasn’t a test run,” Vale said.
“No,” Kess replied. “It wasn’t.”
Footsteps followed—heavier, measured.
Figures emerged from the edge of the yard, their presence calm and unmistakable. Not enemies. Not quite allies yet. They looked at the speeder first, then at Kess.
One of them nodded slowly.
“You built that?” they asked.
Kess swallowed. “Yes.”
“And you flew it like that,” the figure continued, “under pressure.”
Kess nodded again.
The figure glanced back toward the sky, where distant lights still moved, holding the line. “You’re young,” they said. “You’re not supposed to be ready.”
They looked back at Kess.
“But you are.”
The wind swept across the scrapyard, carrying snow and the distant echo of engines fading into patrol patterns.
Kess looked at the speeder—patched, imperfect, brilliant.
They looked at their friends.
Then they looked back at the figures waiting at the edge of the forgotten place.
The ice sheet stretched on, unchanged.
But the quiet was gone.
And Kess stepped forward, leaving the scrapyard behind.
This is an original work of fiction created by Brick Crossing, inspired by the design themes of LEGO® set 75414.
LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse Brick Crossing.
