3 Nebraska

                  Nova stood at the edge of the endless sea of grain, next to the patched together, modular collection of nodes that they’d built their tractor out of. It was the third time this month that the thresher’s reactor cores had just up and quit. Faulty wiring and failing vents made it a miracle if they could even complete one pass through the fields. But hey, these were gen-1 tech and, as Pa was fond of saying, they were lucky to even have that.

                  “Come on, start,” Nova said, offering a swift kick to the tread.

                  Sun was going to set again in a little over an hour and he hadn’t finished half of the chores Pa had set him to.

                  The roaring scream of SDU-14 jump engines tore the sky apart. Nova turned just in time to see the Sabre Interceptor, its engines wreathed in flames and black smoke, hurtle overhead, shearing tree tops. The concussive  sonic boom threw him to the ground, nearly knocking the breath out of him. He turned in time to watch the ship smash into the fields, carving a channel a hundred yards long.

                  He was on his feet and running towards the wreckage before he knew what he was doing. He heard Pa behind him, yelling, but he couldn’t understand a thing he was saying. His ears rang and his head pounded.

                  The Sabre lay in a small crater - twisted, burning, smoking. Weapon barrels bent and one wing snapped clean off and laying outside the rest of the wreckage.

                  Nova slid down the side of the crater and stumbled towards the shattered cockpit. The intensity of the flames hadn’t yet crept too close to the front of the ship yet.

                  “He alive?” Pa hollered down.

                  “What?”

                  “The pilot!” Pa shouted. “Is he alive?”

                  Nova peered through a jagged hole in the cockpit glass. The pilot, what was left of him, sprawled in his flight seat, one arm dangling by tendons, half his face missing. Blood and gore covered the instrument panel.

                  Nova turned and shook his head.

                  Pa licked his lips and nodded.

                  “We best be quick about it,” he said. “See what we can salvage!”

                  Something blasted by overhead, banking towards the system’s binary stars. Something dark and insectoid in appearance, bristling with weapons and hooked, razor-edged wings.  The type of ship Nova had never seen in his life.

                  Nova turned back to the destroyed Sabre. These military cores were a hell of a lot more advanced than what he’d worked on before, but he knew his way around a wrench and a wiring diagram. With any luck, he could replace the thresher’s reactor and the rest?

                  Well…these parts might just be his opportunity to get off planet.

                  And never look back.