The First Nova I See Tonight

by Jason Kilgore

  In among the dust were snowballs — literally — palm-sized globs of ice that hit the canopy and splattered into tiny ice crystals that momentarily covered that patch of the canopy. But they came faster and faster as Yiorgos piloted the craft toward the middle of the tail.

  Dirken fired the prow gun, and then again, and then again. The two second recharge wasn't fast enough to keep up with all the debris. The front sensors were pelted so much that it blinded them to some extent, challenging his aim.

  Another, much larger boulder appeared, but just as he aimed, Yiorgos lurched the ship to one side and away from the boulder's trajectory. Dirken fell to his side like a marionette, his mag boots still attached to the floor.

  Then an even larger boulder appeared, nearly the size of a hovcar.

  "Shit!" Dirken shouted, then targeted it with the missiles. He fired a thermion warhead. The missile shot forth with a spray of exhaust and contacted the boulder. The explosion lit like daybreak and sent dust and boulders flying away from it, destroying the target. For a moment the view cleared.

  "Lining up with the hangar!" Yiorgos called. "Dirk! We've got a mass to the left!"

  "I see it!" An aggregate of boulders flew forward with breathtaking speed.

  Dirken fired a graviton burst to the left of the mass and manually detonated it. The missile exploded in a blue-green light, then imploded on itself in a graviton burst that pulled everything toward it. The aggregated mass was pulled out of the flightpath and out of danger.

  "Hangar in two minutes!" Yiorgos shouted as he pulled the ship into a steep bank, then up again. "Losing sensors due to ionization."

  Dirken fired the prow gun, gutting through a row of icy ejecta.

  The view was clearing. They were entering the shadow of the comet and out of the cone of the tail.

  But then Dirken saw one last, large boulder hurtling toward them. He targeted and went to fire a missile.

  "No!" Eow said, putting her hand on his arm. "We are too close. If you miss, the cannons will fire back!"

  "Yiorgos?" Dirk yelled. "Do you see it?"

  "I can't steer around it!" his partner replied. "I'm lined up with the hangar!"

  Dirken fired the prow gun, and hit, but the plasma charge just cut a gouge in the boulder without stopping it. "Fuck!"

  "DIRK!" Yiorgos yelled.

  Gritting his teeth, Dirken fired a missile.

  The missile launched and immediately hit, exploding in a blinding blast that rocked the ship. Pieces clobbered the fighter. The sensors went dead. One large rock hit the canopy so hard that Dirken was sure it would crack and they'd all go flying out into the vacuum of space. But it held.

  "Exhilarating!" Eow declared. "Bravo!"

  The dust cleared, and ahead of them they saw the yawning mouth of a hangar large enough for a cruiser to enter. Two huge cannons, the sort found on military battleships, sat on either side. Both were aimed at their little fighter and tracking it.

  Dirken held his breath, watching the plasma emitters at the tip of those cannons. And then the fighter passed them.

  Yiorgos rotated the fighter to match the angle of the hangar floor as indicated by a row of landing lights guiding them in, then the fighter coasted straight through the middle of the hangar and downward. There were no hangar doors. Rather, as they passed through a short entry lined with mechanical towers and vents, the vacuum of space around them tinted to a dim blue as they entered an artificial atmosphere — an atmosphere held in place by a highly advanced ion border.

  The light brightened and they entered the gargantuan hangar. Parts of the walls and ceiling looked natural, others clearly carved out by industrial laser drills and reinforced with carbon fiber ribs, so the chamber was likely already a large hollow in the comet which had been modified. In all, the cavity was so wide that a cruiser could probably do flips in the center without endangering any of the parked craft. Curiously, the hangar wasn't a flat plane upon entering, but rather sloped down and away from the hangar entrance, the floor curving slightly to fit the curvature of the comet. It dawned on Dirken that this odd architecture was to account for and utilize the gravity of the comet as it spun. Even for a spacer like himself, it was a little disorienting, but Yiorgos seemed to have no problem adapting to it as he maneuvered the fighter.

  As many as four dozen small ships and several larger ones, representing craft designs from all over that region of the galaxy, were docked in neat rows to either side. One very large cruiser was also docked ahead of them, its prow facing the entrance and painted with brown and red patterns that slithered over the zeppelin-shaped fuselage, shifting colors and forming a mesmerizing display.

  "That large one there," Eow said, pointing at the cruiser, "belongs to Grimmag Ruby-Eye."

  But Dirken's eye had instead been drawn to a mid-sized vessel, a cyan blue blockade runner that looked like a row of silver cubes with a massive engine at the back of it and gravwell panels arching over the sides like wings. A Jen'torian clipper. He knew this ship and its captain. He didn't even need to see the blue eagle painted on the front to know this was the Raptores.

  "'TakTrak," Dirken said as Yiorgos guided the fighter toward a landing bay three times larger than it needed to be for such a small ship. The landing struts extending with a mechanical whir.

  "What is a tack track?" Eow asked.

  "Not a what — a who." Dirken sniffed and shut off the weapons console. "An old friend is here, that's all."

  "Huh," Eow said, pulling the duffel bag with the Heart out from under the couch. "Do all your old friends give you a murderous gleam in your eye?"

  The fighter landed, rocking as it settled onto the landing struts. Then the main engines cut out and all went silent.

  She stood and looked him up and down. "It has been a… memorable… ride, space jockey." She ran a hand down his chest. "We must do it again some time."

  He certainly hoped so, though maybe without the comet tail.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE RUBY LOUNGE

  "How long til we can fly out of here?" Dirken asked Yiorgos.

  Yiorgos had attached a cable from his right wrist to a port in the console and the ship's computer. "It'll be a while. For one thing, unless you want to fly through that dust tail again, it'll be just under three hours until this side of the comet nucleus rotates out of it."

  He detached the cable as he continued, "The other problem is that the last explosion damaged the prow gun and forward sensor array, thanks to your… stellar… marksmanship."

  "Hey, you're lucky I got it at all! Maybe you should have flown us around it."

  "Mmm. And we would have landed on the comet instead of in it. Anyhow, we'll be flying blind and unarmed until we get those sensors fixed. Assuming we can get a repair team right away, I figure it'll take at least three hours to repair, if they have the parts. We also need to get an engineer to change the voice commands to Terran so we can both fly this rig, and I need repairs to my leg."

  "Leave the repair team and engineers to me," Eow said. "Consider it a favor."

  She winked at Dirken then opened the canopy with a push of a button. A rush of chilly, fresh air replaced the stale, sweaty atmosphere of the cockpit. The noise of the hangar quickly overcame their senses, with the powerful roar of engines, the clanking of machinery, workers calling out to each other, and echoes of all of these sounds reverberating around them. There was a constant, random sprinkling of melting comet ice falling all around them.

  With the noise also came the smells. Mixed in the frosty atmosphere was the ozone of ionized air from the various engines, the odor of engine grease, and an underlying musty, spicy scent that can only come from a diverse mix of interstellar species in an enclosed space — a not unpleasant aroma that seasoned spacers called "space tang" — common on stations and starships with an interspecies crew and passengers. Quite a few spacers even preferred space tang over that of fresh planetary air.

  A ramp had already been pushed up to the fighter. "I need a drink,
" Eow said, picking up her pulse rifle. "You coming, space jockey?"

  Dirken smiled and adjusted his gun belt. "After all we've been through in the last few hours, I could use one too."

  "Oh no you don't," Yiorgos said. "You need to stay with the ship. I know how this will go. You're going to get wrapped up gambling away our meager money in some game of chemisi or goron'oc, or wind up drunk in a bar and slipping away with some…" He narrowed his eyes at Eow. "…floozy. We still have a job to do, remember?"

  Eow narrowed her eyes back at him, whiskers twitching. "What is a 'floozy?'"

  "Nevermind," Dirken said, urging her toward the ramp, then looked over to Yiorgos. "Don't be such a grandmother, Yiorgos."

  The cyborg pointed a metallic finger at him. "Heh! You've obviously never met my grandmother. My yia-yia would slap you silly for back-talk, push you into that seat, and make you sit still for the entire time we're waiting here. You don't mess with old Greek women!"

  "Okay, okay," he raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'll be back in a jiffy. I need to get some power packs for my blaster. Besides, I'm damned hungry. You stay here, guard the Heart, and keep an eye on that repair crew. It's the mafia, after all. I'll relieve you soon."

  Yiorgos waved him off.

  Eow had jumped out and stepped quickly down the ramp, her tail swishing for balance. At the bottom stood a Morlani dockmaster in white robes with a tablet in his hands. His small eyes followed her as she approached, and he reached up to stroke one of the thin, fleshy "mustaches" that drooped from either side of his thin mouth. The overlarge, bald head and pasty gray skin always reminded Dirken of the ancient alien sightings that Terrans used to have in the days before they discovered they weren't alone in the galaxy. Chances are it was this species ancient Terrans had called the "Grays" since the Morlani were known as administrators and scientists and had been studying Terran societies. They were also slavers of Oranchians like Grendel.

  Eow approached the dockmaster and started talking to him. At least, Dirken assumed the Morlani was a male. There was no way to tell unless they took off their clothes since there were no other indications of gender in that species. They even sounded the same.

  By the time Dirken got down the ramp Eow had already finished speaking with the dockmaster. The Morlani gave Dirken the same expressionless look that all Morlani had at all times and then turned to walk toward a hangar office. They'd be great at poker, he thought, if they liked games at all.

  "It is all settled," Eow said. "The repair team and engineer will arrive soon."

  "Great. Lead the way to that drink."

  They walked through the cavernous hangar and between the various spacecraft until they entered a tunnel at the far end, hewn from the porous rock and ice of the comet's nucleus. The crisp air left goosebumps on his arms. "As cold as a witch's tit," he muttered, seeing his breath. "Apt name for this place."

  All at once the floor shook and a low rumble joined the noise of the hangar. Dirken stopped and crouched, not sure what was the matter, but nothing seemed amiss. Others in the hangar seemed to notice and then brush it off. The trembler lasted only a moment.

  Eow watched him with a bemused smile. "Just a comet quake."

  Dirken stood. "That doesn't sound like a good thing. Are we in danger?"

  She shrugged it off. "Yes, but these mini-quakes are normal. When the heat of the distant star hits the surface, sometimes it sets off little quakes. You get used to them. When you have been here long enough, you can even start to expect them as this part of the comet rotates toward the star."

  Dirken chuckled nervously and continued onward. Comets weren't known for being all that stable. Though this one looked to be more rock than ice, he doubted it would be inhabitable for very long. Everyone else here seemed to feel comfortable enough with the risk, at least, but he figured the sooner he could fly out of there the better.

  Inside the tunnel, another Morlani sat behind a tall desk with two hulking Oranchians on either side of him and a Pleiadean cyborg standing off to the side armed with a duel-emitter pulse rifle. A holo camera was mounted over them, its wide eye aimed at Eow and Dirken, and two heavy repeater phase mini-cannons mounted on the walls were also aimed at them. The Pleiadean still had the mass of little horns on his head, but his arms and legs had been replaced with military-style titanium-iridium alloy structures capable of tripling his strength and speed.

  Dirken expected the Morlani to demand they turn in their weapons. But all it did was say, "State your name and business with Grimmag Ruby-Eye," its voice high-pitched but monotone.

  "I just gave her a ride," Dirken responded, pointing at Eow, "and I need a drink."

  "I can vouch for him," she added.

  The Morlani turned to the Ananak and said without a hint of emotion, "Welcome back, Eow. Grimmag Ruby-Eye is expecting you to give your report."

  Eow nodded, and they continued past the checkpoint. Dirken raised an eyebrow. She reports directly to Grimmag? She was no low-level messenger or foot soldier.

  The wide corridor had irregular walls and ceiling, and everywhere were drips and rivulets of melting cometary ice, running down to dampen the floor and drain into gratings along the walls.

  The noise of the hangar faded away as they walked down the passage. They passed a very wide blast door to the left guarded by three heavily-armed Reptiloc guards and a human who was so muscular that he surely had been pumped up with steroids. He nodded at Dirken in a "greetings fellow human" sort of way, but his face was grim and had a melted look from a horrible burn.

  "What's in there?" Dirken asked Eow, rubbing his arms for warmth.

  She smirked. "That is the Sanctum. No one goes there unless they are mafia or have business to conduct directly with Grimmag Ruby-Eye."

  Walking away from the Sanctum doors, they soon heard the heavy beat of music and lively voices from down the corridor. As they walked closer to the music, they met small groups of people of different races milling about and talking. A Pleiadean prostitute winked at him as he passed, the corners of her mouth turning up in a naughty smile on her short muzzle. "Hi, there," she said, winking, then turned on hoofed feet and lifted her short skirt, flashing her fuzzy white posterior, pink anus, and vaginal lips beneath an upraised, deer-like tail.

  He smiled back at her but kept walking. He'd had the pleasure of sleeping with twenty-one different species, including now an Ananak. He'd had Pleiadeans many times. I'd gladly do so again, he thought. The great thing about having sex with aliens was that it was very rare for diseases to jump species, and getting them pregnant was almost unheard of.

  The corridor branched, and to the right a small crowd of people spilled out of a club. Neon lights spelled out "Ruby Lounge," with a ruby-colored gemstone for the O in "lounge." Rigellian synth-metal music poured out of the wide, open doorway, along with a thin cloud of blue-gray smoke that smelled of musk.

  Thankfully, it was warmer in the lounge. The scene inside brought a smile to Dirken's face. This was his kind of joint. It came with its own set of unwritten rules shared by every other smuggler's den in the galaxy: Assume everyone is armed. Don't ask anyone's business unless you think both of you can profit from it. And most of all, nothing you see or hear should be repeated outside. There were two-bit hustlers on every block in every city in the galaxy, but the community of professional smugglers was surprisingly small. Even though Dirken didn't normally do business with the Eridani mafia, he still recognized many of the characters in the lounge by sight or reputation.

  To his right were circular couches, each centered around an enormous hookah. By the look and smell of the smoke he knew they were smoking jocentooc, made from the dried petals of horac flowers from Tau Ceti f. The sensation it gave, when inhaled, relaxed the mind and body and gave a sense of euphoria that lasted for hours without withdrawal — for most species, at least; it was poisonous to Reptilocs, and Oranchians who smoked it went on killing sprees.

  A short but beefy human emerged from the couches and approach
ed them, his eyes drooping from the jocentooc. He was clearly from Mars, as he had the dark hair, larger eyes, and orange-tinted skin of a native Martian, the product of generations of Mars colonists adapting to higher radiation, lower light, and lower gravity. "Eow. I see you're not dead yet. Charm your way off the pirate's plank again?"

  She smirked and ran her hand along his jaw, finishing with a playful flip to his chin. "If by 'charm' you mean I killed a bunch of them, then yes."

  "I'd expect no less." He ran his own hand along the fur of her forearm.

  Despite his best rational efforts, seeing such an intimate display with the woman he'd just slept with was too much.

  "Who are you?" Dirken asked. It was a breach of smuggler's etiquette.

  The man flashed a look of annoyance but didn't answer, turning his eyes back to Eow. "I've missed those eyes," he added.

  Eow smiled back at him, then turned to Dirken. "This is Dimitri the Giant."

  Dirken sized up the man. Dimitri was at least half a head shorter than him. "Giant?"

  "Not in height," Eow said, mischief sparking in her eyes.

  "Ha!" Dimitri said to her, grabbing his bulging crotch. "You'd know, wouldn't you?" Eow laughed.

  Dirken batted away the thought of comparing penis sizes. What the hell's wrong with me? She's just a piece of pussy. He needed to get away from her… and this new guy. "How about that drink, Eow. What'll you have?"

  Laughter erupted from the hookah couches, and Eow's right ear pivoted toward it as she turned her attention to him. "I'll take a glass of Terran rum. No ice." She looked back to Dimitri and smiled again.

  Dirken nodded. With a last irritated glance at Dimitri, he pushed through the crowd of aliens and leaned against the bar.

  A gorgeous, human bartender saw him and immediately came over, ignoring a pale, lanky Tau Cetian with a cybernetic ear implant who was trying to get her attention to place an order.

  She swept a lock of blond hair out of her face. "Don't get many humans in this joint," she said to Dirken with an Australian accent. "What'll you have?"