The First Nova I See Tonight

by Jason Kilgore

  This was a drug operation on a massive scale — the sort of illicit activity that the Eridani Mafia was most noted for. It was what had made them rich and powerful beyond measure.

  Dirken didn't want to end up like the slaves. His mind raced with possible escape plans. He considered fighting the guards, but there were too many of them, and they were armed. He had at least one asset, but he needed a distraction to put his plan in motion. He leaned toward his partner's ear. "Yiorgos," Dirken whispered. "If I yell 'eyes', close yours immediately."

  The cyborg looked at him quizzically but nodded in acknowledgment.

  "What's that?" Dimitri the Giant asked, the Martian poking Dirken in the back with the barrel of his weapon. "What are you whispering?"

  "I said, 'It smells like Mars in here. Go back immediately.'"

  Dimitri slapped Dirken hard across his right ear and shoved him against the tunnel wall.

  Dirken recovered, then stood there staring down Dimitri's pulse rifle at his large, dark eyes, so like other humans born and bred on Mars colonies. The rifle was so close to Dirken's nose that ions from the emitter made his nostrils tingle.

  "Boys," Eow cooed. "Cool your jets." She ran a hand over Dimitri's shoulders. "Let us deliver our guests to Grimmag in one piece."

  Dimitri didn't acknowledge her, but he slowly lowered his weapon. "Walk," he commanded, gesturing with the rifle.

  The hallway curved, lost its squared off appearance and became more tube-like, like a burrow carved through the ice. Lighting was embedded in the ice and cast a bluish tinge onto everything. Multiple tunnels split off, some sloping downward or upward, but they continued following the largest, which stayed more or less level. With the twisting directions of the tunnels, Dirken soon lost his sense of direction. The air freshened, thankfully.

  "Hands on your heads, boys," Eow said, "unless you want them cut off."

  "I think you might miss them," Dirken replied, raising his hands.

  Dimitri added, "And I suggest you shut your trap, too."

  The tunnel widened a bit as they passed a security checkpoint, cameras and remote-operated mini-cannons following them. A dozen armed guards, including four Oranchians outfitted in mirrored plate armor, watched them as they passed.

  The tunnel opened into a very large chamber lit by flickering, smokeless torches with red flames, giving the icy walls and ceiling an ironically lava-like appearance. Individuals of many species and genders stood in pairs or sat on ornate benches, whispering to each other, their mutterings and movements echoing off the black-and-white tiled floor. All were dressed in formal clothes of their respective worlds. Among them was a rotund human male with Indian features, wearing a dark blue business suit; a female Pleiadean in a cloth-of-gold dress, her face half-hidden by a silver gossamer veil; a double-chinned Jen'torian clothed in a purple trench coat surrounded by spinning, multi-colored holograms and a platinum-plated atmospheric mask on his face; a Corthian with palladium foil-tipped feathers and a vest that shifted colors depending on the angle, her feet wrapped in gold ribbon and talons coated in gold.

  Only a few of the drug lords looked toward Dirken and Yiorgos, turning away again with a mild disgust as if they couldn't be troubled to be around such commoners.

  "That's Arjun Mukherjee," Yiorgos whispered to Dirken, nodding toward the human in the suit. Dirken already knew. Mukherjee was the most powerful drug lord in Asia.

  "And the Jen'torian is Mindol the Undertaker," Dirken replied. "His minions control two planetary systems."

  Dimitri's rifle barrel poked Dirken in the back. "Last warning, fool. Pipe down or I'll shut you up for good. I don't give a damn where we are, either."

  A dozen guards stood around the room, outfitted in glossy orange plate armor and helmets that also covered their eyes, dual-pulse rifles raised and ready. Their helmets and armor were festooned with various sensors, but there were no eye slits. He knew from their reputation that this was the "Saffron Guard," an elite cyborg bodyguard unit that protected all high-ranking Eridani, and their eyes had been replaced by implants that hardwired their brains into the sensors of the armor. The armor would have numerous weapons, including hidden mini-missiles, besides what they had in their hands. Their limbs were mechanically enhanced. Such facts weren't hidden. The Eridani openly advertised it, boasting about the extreme pain that the Saffron Guard had endured to become "perfect," the powerful weapons they wielded, and the specialized drug cocktails they took to enhance their strength and reaction time — drugs that you (or your bodyguards) could receive as well… for the right price. Sometimes they even gifted one or two of the Saffron Guard to a general or politician. Or, just to show off, they entered one of them into the gladiator pits of Orgross, the bi-annual Battle Royale on Esak'tenorbro, or the vaunted Death Olympics of Rigel, where they typically won.

  Yiorgos and Dirken were paraded through the room until they were about three meters from a massive, circular dais at the far end, so large that it might be called a "stage." Behind the dais emerged another tunnel that led to a wide, red, reinforced metal blast door. The ceiling over the dais had a metal iris that matched the dais in size and shape.

  Dimitri kicked Dirken in the back of his knee. "On your knees, fool!"

  Dirken lowered himself down, eyeing Dimitri with resentment.

  A Reptiloc guard followed suit and slammed the butt of his pulse rifle into Yiorgos's back. It hissed in its language, and the translator necklace barked, "Down!" Yiorgos knelt as told, flashing Dirken a look of concern as both Dimitri and the Reptiloc lowered the barrels of their pulse rifles to the back of his and Yiorgos's heads, execution-style.

  Eow set the sphere off to the side of the dais with a heavy clank. It rolled slightly to one side, the little green lights pulsing through a dusty crevice in the metal plates, and came to rest with the ancient English words upside down. Dirken figured that one good lunge would be enough to reach it, but as long as a pulse rifle was pointed at him, he'd be dead before he could take another step.

  Yiorgos's plasma saber arm was set down next to the sphere along with Dirken's blaster and Yiorgos's mini-blaster.

  As Dirken looked around the room, the rich drug lords turned to watch, a mix of bemusement and boredom on their faces. Just two more rubes to be punished or humiliated. Dirken wanted very much to walk up to the nearest ones and wring their snobby necks. Yes-men who enabled the Eradini empire and its expansion into drug dens around this sector of the galaxy and all of the vice, violence, and decrepitude that came with it.

  Dirken looked back to the dais and sighed. He was hardly innocent of all that. He had run his share of drugs for bastards like these — first on Tesla as a teen and young adult, then across the galaxy in his ship. Or paying others to run it for him, like 'TakTrak and the load of Cygnus hash. Maybe he should be thankful it burned. In his mind's eye, he saw the state of the slaves in Grimmag's drug labs. Dirken came to a decision, right there on his knees with his hands on his head, that if he survived the next few hours he'd never run drugs again.

  The red, reinforced door slid open and two figures emerged from the tunnel behind the dais, marching side-by-side in formal fashion before it closed again behind them. One was a squat, bat-like species called a Gogonoian, his gray, naked body covered in bright yellow tattoos in swirl patterns. He waddled on short, bent legs, his spiral-shaped penis swinging between them with each step. His batwings and arms were outstretched in a display of pride, beady eyes shifting back and forth and squinting against what Dirken considered low light.

  The other was an albino human woman wearing a tight-fitting, mottled gray suit and carrying a lyrophone, a musical instrument that the performer blows into while manipulating keys with one hand, like a saxophone, and strumming metal strings with the other hand, like a lyre. Her frost blue eyes shifted from under a mop of bright white hair to stare at Dirken and Yiorgos with an intensity that Dirken interpreted as recognition. Yet he was certain he'd never seen her before.

  As the Gogonoian and
human woman moved to stand at opposite sides of the dais, the woman looked at the corner of the dais where Dirken and Yiorgos's blasters had been laid, along with the Heart and Yiorgos's saber arm. Her eyes instantly grew wide. She faltered a moment, seeming to forget to step and almost falling before catching herself. She then looked away as she took her position, composing herself. She blew into the mouthpiece and started to strum.

  Her eyes kept moving toward their weapons and the Heart.

  The sound of the lyrophone was a two-part harmony between the resonance of the strings and the tenor notes of the brass, easily filling the chamber with an eerie reverberation.

  As she played, Dirken noted a letter "A" branded on her wrist, the scar standing out red and angry from her ivory white skin. Again. What the hell does it mean? he thought.

  And then the Gogonoian began to sing. His mouth opened wider than any human's could and emitted an incredibly long, trilling note that started at mid-range and then went higher and higher until it passed beyond Dirken's hearing, the Gogonoian's throat still moving with notes Dirken could no longer perceive. Then he spiraled down again, back into Dirken's audial range, and moved in tune with the lyrophone music.

  The audience of drug lords burst into applause in the various fashions of their worlds, clapping, snapping, or tapping. The Corthian flapped her palladium-tipped wings. The Gogonoian gave a quick bow and continued singing his thoroughly alien song with lyrics that Dirken couldn't hope to understand, whatever language it was, while a number of other species in the room gave him their rapt attention.

  As the song seemed to wind down, the red reinforced door opened again and a gray-robed Morlani administrator walked out of the tunnel carrying a data pad. He stepped to the side of the opening, his long, fleshy "mustache" swaying with his movements.

  When the Morlani stepped aside, Dirken saw a bulky figure emerging from the shadows in the tunnel. It was absolutely huge, filling the tunnel, undulating as it came.

  All eyes turned to the tunnel. The music grew quiet.

  The Morlani stood straight, the red torchlight making his bald head seem inflamed, and announced in its species' monotonal way, "Beware the coming of don Grimmag Ruby-Eye!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  GRIMMAG RUBY-EYE

  Grimmag Ruby-Eye was the largest Eridani Dirken had ever seen. Like others of his species, he was basically a giant maggot with a wide, tubular body that wobbled as if filled with jelly, but he was taller than a human and as long as four people laying head-to-toe. Grimmag moved up to the dais with a caterpillar-like series of movements, his rolls of semi-transparent white skin rolling and undulating. Green and blue organs and bluish vessels were half-visible beneath, moving on their own and pumping. A line of breathing orifices as wide as a fist dotted each side of his body every half-meter or so, opening and closing independent of one another.

  But his face was the most striking. Eridani don't have heads, per se, but rather a flattened front with four black, faceted eyes in a semicircle over a round mouth the size of a dinner platter that opened and closed like a sphincter. One of Grimmag's eyes had been replaced with a gigantic red, cut ruby. A jagged, gray scar ran through the eye around it. Arranged around his mouth were four white, octopus-like tentacles that waved in front of him. Dirken had heard they weren't just for touch, but also acted to "smell" the air or "taste" surfaces like the antennae of insects. On each side of his massive head were two bulbous, black ear pads.

  Dirken gulped and made a conscious effort to steady himself instead of bolting.

  Behind Grimmag marched a line of four servants with slave collars. The don stopped in the middle of the dais, then the Morlani stepped up next to him as the lyrophone music and singing came to an end. Their part finished, the Gogonoian and the albino human woman stepped down from the dais and took up positions on either side of the entrance to the back tunnel.

  Grimmag spoke. It was like nothing Dirken had ever heard. From Grimmag's mouth came a wet sloshing and grumbling, which was joined by high-pitched punctuations — farts and whistles — that came from the breathing orifices on his sides.

  The Morlani translated. "I am impressed with the returns from your hard work, my noble lords. Profits are up. Sales of Black Hole and Eros's Finger have increased nearly 10-fold in three systems. And our control over the Rigellian moons has been consolidated. Applaud yourselves."

  The drug lords in the room clapped as ordered.

  How the Morlani could possibly translate such a weird menagerie of sounds was beyond Dirken.

  Grimmag continued, via his interpreter, "We must also celebrate recent in-roads for our trade on Corthos and the surrounding systems. 'Torac'mik'ac, step forward."

  The Corthian with the palladium foil-tipped feathers strutted forward on her long, stork-like legs decorated with gold talons and ribbons. She gave an elaborate bow, then clacked in her language. A filigreed translator necklace translated her speech to say, "It is my pleasure to serve my don."

  "You have distinguished yourself as a resourceful associate," Grimmag said, citing the title of a trusted mafia member. "You created a range of legitimate businesses in mining, freight transport, and compost by-products that are networked to cooperate with each other off-the-books to transport our wares and launder our money, none of which have roused suspicion by an authoritative body. You also fostered cooperation with local authorities through payoffs. You have built me a significant branch of our empire by transporting our products into the populations there." Grimmag gesticulated with his tentacles toward the Corthian. "It is my pleasure to reward you with my palace on the Corthian moon of Matataksi, a forty percent increase in your take, and to declare you a 'made man.'"

  The drug lords clapped heartily at the granting of this esteemed title, with a "Well deserved!" shouted by the human, Mukherjee, along with other exultant exclamations in a variety of other languages. A "made man" was the highest ranking in the organization for anyone other than an Eridani lord.

  'Torac'mik'ac bowed again. "I am humbled by the honor, don Grimmag. Thank you." She then gave a quick bow to her fellow lords.

  The don gave a nod-like shrug then added, "I expect you to double your profits in the next Corthian year. You may return to your place."

  The Corthian stood up sharply, her eyes going wide, then turned and stepped back to her place in obvious shock.

  Grimmag's sloshing speech seemed to take a deeper tone. The Morlani translated, "But despite all of this good news, I am disturbed." Grimmag waved a tentacle. "There is a government crackdown on Tantalus III. Fifty of our drug labs have been raided on that planet and shut down. Profits have fallen. Our supply chain to neighboring systems is collapsing."

  Grimmag motioned with one of his tentacles toward the onlookers. "Mindol, approach."

  Eow gave a look toward Dirken that he couldn't quite interpret — expectation, perhaps? — then watched as Mindol walked past her.

  The double-chinned Jen'torian, Mindol the Undertaker, stepped forward, his steps confident. But he was followed by two of the Saffron Guard, their weapons at the ready. Mindol took up a position between Dirken and the dais.

  "Salutations, don Grimmag," Mindol said, his words muffled by the platinum-coated breathing apparatus covering his face. "Iwishonly toserve." Like other Jen'torians, his words were run together and drunken-sounding, with gasps in between phrases, but Mindol was more coherent in his common speech than the vast majority of his species. Nonetheless, he adjusted a translator device built into his breathing apparatus, then repeated. "I wish only to serve." No device could adequately translate to the Eridani language.

  The Morlani translated Mindol's words to Grimmag. Grimmag responded, "Tantalus III is your system, correct?"

  "Yes, don Grimmag. But the crackdown there started with the assassination of my lieutenants. I…."

  Grimmag broke him off. "Excuses are not my problem, Mindol. The problems are yours. You must own them."

  "Yes, of course, but…."

&nbs
p; "And your ruthlessness caused the crackdown."

  "I respectfully disagree, don Grimmag. Conservatives in the Tantalus legislature…."

  "You murdered an entire plaza full of protesters," Grimmag continued. He shifted and pointed a tentacle at Mindol. "While tough measures must on occasion be taken, you took the lives of hundreds of Tantalians, including juveniles."

  "A statement needed to be made."

  "And you made that statement. Now we all pay for it." Grimmag waved a tentacle toward the Saffron Guardsmen. "Strip off his clothing."

  Mindol turned to the guards and backed away. "Do not touch me!"

  One guard slammed the butt of his dual pulse rifle into Mindol's face, knocking the man backward. Mindol tried to grab the weapon, but the other guard swung with an armored arm and contacted Mindol's left wrist. An audible crack issued as his cartilage-like bones broke. Mindol wailed in pain.

  As one guard held the Jen'torian, the other ripped off the purple trench coat. The holograms that had orbited the man fell away and flickered off. Then the guard ripped off the teal shirt and pants, leaving Mindol standing on his four, thin, wobbly legs with only his white undergarments and the mask connected by a tube to a series of air purification pouches and control packs around his midsection.

  The other drug lords shifted nervously, muttering to each other, but not daring to interfere.

  "Now the rest of it!" Grimmag commanded.

  "No please, my don! I will not be able to breathe!"

  The guards didn't pay any heed to Mindol's words. He struggled, but they held him down on the floor and punched his face with their gauntlets as he screamed in pain. They ripped off the mask and pulling the undergarments off in tatters, leaving him nude, exposing his multi-branching penis, his gray skin, and the floret-like bunches of fleshy skin across his back which help his species breathe.