On Galaxy's Edge: Ascendance

by Alex T. Kolter

  “Nero Leydon?” the man asked, his voice low and gravelly. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re expecting ten containers, right?” the pilot asked in his bored tone of voice. His body language, and the slack expression on his face, suggested that this was something he’d done a thousand times already this year. And by the look of him, it was something he’d been doing for decades previously.

  “That’s right. I’ll load them into my shuttles,” Nero said, jerking his head towards the gleaming black ships slumbering behind him.

  “Uh huh,” the man said. “Well, yours are right near the entrance. You got an h-board, or do ya need to use mine?”

  “I’ll use yours, if that’s alright,” Nero responded. This elicited a grunt as the man turned and headed towards the back of his cumbersome-looking transporter ship. Hitting a disguised button, there was a slight screeching sound as the heavy ramp at the rear of the transporter vessel started to descend.

  “Nice planet,” the pilot commented as the ramp descended, eyeing the rainy sky above him.

  Nero glanced at the pilot, not bothering to respond to his sarcastic remark. He knew that his home planet could be a miserable place. With the ramp finally down, he could see into the cargo hold of the transporter. Lit by a few lighting strips in the ceiling, the hold was crammed full of metal containers stacked two-high. There were about a hundred in total, the remainder after Nero’s presumably destined for other planets.

  The pilot extracted two hover-boards from the side of the hold, and turned them on once they were on the level. A faint hum accompanied this, as the boards hovered steadily a few centimetres above the ground. Pushing one over to Nero, the pilot slid his hover-board into the slot in the bottom of a container.

  “These are yours,” the man said as he pointed at the nearest containers, waiting for Nero to slide his hover-board into a crate. Obliging the man, Nero inserted his board into the slot, and flipped the switch to raise the board and container further off the ground.

  The humming sound increased as the board struggled briefly with the weight of two heavy containers, taking a moment to settle. Then the pilot and Nero pulled the containers down the ramp, the hover-boards remaining level, and headed over to Nero’s shuttles, pushing their way through the driving rain. Jerad and Talyah, he thought, were presumably still waiting in their shuttles, keeping dry for as long as they could. That won’t be lasting long, he silently added.

  “Which ship you want these in?” the pilot demanded as they approached.

  “That one,” Nero said, referring to his ship with the ramp already down. He saw the ramps of the other two shuttles begin to descend as they drew closer, Jerad and Talyah each looking miserably at the overcast sky as they made their way out into the rain.

  Nero followed the pilot up the ramp to his own ship, and just managed to squeeze the four containers into the small confines of the shuttle. Jerad and Talyah quickly loaded up their own shuttles, working quickly so as to get out of the driving rain, and soon the three black shuttles took off, leaving the lumbering transporter ship alone in the spaceport.

  ****

  Half an hour later, Nero received a message on his holographic display unit. With Jerad and Talyah, he was in the abandoned warehouse that they’d found after returning from Kaza'ona, and was in the process of removing the great lumps of metal ore from the containers.

  The video message played in the corner of Nero’s vision. It was from one of his men.

  “Nero. We’ve been tracking the Nostra’s movements as best we can, as you know, after what happened with Col. We haven’t found any sort of base yet, but they do seem to visit the Mondo club a lot. You know the one? The fancy club inside the Scraper. No idea why the fuck they’d be going inside a Scraper, but there you go. Anyway, you might wanna check the place out. Catch you later mate.” The video stopped playing.

  “I’m gonna have to leave you guys,” Nero said to Jerad and Talyah, after the video had disappeared from his display. They glanced up at him, in the process of opening up more containers.

  “We’ve got a lead on the Nostra. I’m gonna head to this club they’ve been seen in.”

  “Okay Nero. Please be careful, though,” Talyah said.

  “I’m always careful,” he replied, with a faint grin.

  “You do not want to underestimate them,” she continued, ignoring his comment. “I could come with you...?”

  “I need you here, Tal. We need to get the qiameth out, to the distributors.”

  “If you’re sure, Nero. Just look after yourself, okay?”

  Nero smiled, and headed towards his shuttle, just outside the warehouse doors, the lights at the front of it glowing in a menacing way. He boarded it. The familiar interior greeted him, complete with slightly tattered seats in the small living area. He remembered the last time he’d been sat on them, playing a game with Talyah. How long had it been since he’d had time to relax? Too long, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it now. He had a job to do.

  Moving over to the console at the front of the ship, he activated the ship, causing a slight vibration as the engines powered up. Within the ship itself, a few holodisplays turned on, displaying numerous pieces of information. Nero couldn’t see the use in knowing things like air speed, but the fact that the ship knew these things was good, he thought.

  He gently massaged the flight sticks, and raised the ship up off the ground. With a glance out of the window at the dark, rainy sky, the raindrops just in front of the window flashing in the ship’s lights as they fell, he pushed the metal sticks forward. The ship accelerated quickly as the ion engines flared, sending the sleek metal vehicle out and up into the night sky.

  He reached the central Scrapers in very little time, but it took a little longer to find the Mondo club. He’d never been there himself, but he had heard talk about the place. It was said to be the height of fashion for residents of the Scrapers, and was a very difficult place to get into. The fact that the Nostra was using the place was worrisome, and slightly strange.

  Eventually he found the Scraper that housed the club. It was one of the largest in the city, piercing the night sky like a cold, glistening blade, but though the building narrowed as it rose, there were still enough landing pads on the roof to accommodate many shuttles. That said, there were only a couple of free pads left by the time Nero arrived.

  He spotted a vacant one near the centre of the roof, and angled the ship towards it, passing below a much larger shuttle hovering over the building, evidently too large to fit in any of the remaining spaces. Nero carefully brought his shuttle down, squeezing in between a couple of medium-sized shuttles that were obviously much more expensive than his own. The engines on them were much larger, and they were adorned with decorative styling touches that could serve no practical purpose, as far as he could tell. They were just there to look good.

  As the ramp at the rear of Nero’s shuttle descended, a man in a sharp suit approached the ship, waiting at the bottom of the ramp. The rain hadn’t let up yet, but the man’s clothes were managing to repel all of the water. It looking like he was stood in a water-free bubble of air.

  “Are you here for the gala, signore?” the man asked as Nero walked down the ramp.

  “I am,” Nero answered, without hesitation. The other man appeared to accept Nero’s answer.

  “If you would follow me...”

  He turned on his heel, and briskly led Nero to the rooftop entrance of the Scraper. They entered the building to see a bank of lifts opposite, and took one down a couple of floors to a large entrance hall. Overhead was a large glowing sign proclaiming this to be the Mondo Club. Here, the man left Nero to return to the building’s roof, leaving Nero to gaze at the opulence of the scene in front of him.

  He was relatively used to the Scrapers by now, having been in a few over the years. But he’d never seen anywhere like this. There were grand chandeliers, hovering a few metres above the guests’
heads. There were tables almost groaning under the weight of food. And everyone was dressed in the most outrageous style, some wearing the most elaborate clothes Nero had ever seen, and some wearing hardly anything at all. Nero’s eyes lingered on some of the women dressed the in latter style.

  Not wanting to be too obvious, he headed over to one of the tables of food, and, helping himself to a few strange purple cubes, he watched the guests in the room. There seemed to be distinct groups of people deep in conversation, with a few individuals stood by the bar, though that didn’t really help identify any who might be with the Nostra.

  Putting the rest of the soft purple cube into his mouth - it was actually surprisingly good - Nero set off to have a walk around the room. Before he’d gone no more than a few metres, though, he was accosted by a rather elderly woman. She looked as if she had passed sixty years of age a good while ago, yet still dressed as if she thought she was twenty.

  “Hi there, I don’t think I recognise you,” she said, her words coming out slightly slurred.

  “No, you probably don’t,” Nero replied, not wanting to talk to her. Considering the state she was in, he didn’t think he’d get away that easily, though.

  “So you’re new around here?” she continued, oblivious to Nero’s brusque tone. “What happened to your arms?” Evidently she had spotted the augmentations.

  Nero rolled his eyes. “I punched a nakalaa. It took my arms off.” A nakalaa was an almost legendary creature that few people had ever seen. Most people didn’t even believe they existed.

  “Oh...” the woman seemed at a loss for how to respond. “Well, that’s--”

  Nero cut her off. “Well, it was nice chatting to you.” He moved away, and headed towards the bar. Glancing around, he realised that most of the people attending this gala were of a similar age to the woman.

  The people standing around the bar, on the other hand, were generally closer to Nero’s young age. They were also the ones that seemed to prefer clothing that revealed rather more than Nero was used to. Well, them, and some of the older guests too, who weren’t so pleasant to look at. Stopping when he reached the bar, Nero ordered himself a drink.

  “What will it be, son?” the smartly-dressed man behind the counter asked. Nero didn’t know what sort of drinks they served at an event like this, so to cover his ignorance, he just asked for whatever the bartender recommended. A glowing red liquid came back, with bubbles that appeared to release flashes of light when they reached the surface of the drink. Nero had never seen anything like it before, but a drink was a drink. He downed it in one, immediately regretting the action. The fiery liquid burned his throat on the way down, and he only just managed to stifle a cough. The aftertaste was quite pleasant though, he thought.

  A few minutes stood surreptitiously listening in on the conversations around him didn’t, however, reveal anything about the Nostra. Either they weren’t at the party, which was entirely likely, or they were somewhere else in the vast hall. He decided to head towards a more secluded corner of the room, thinking that if he were with the Nostra, he’d probably want a bit more privacy. Finishing his second red drink, he slid the glass back to the bartender, and walked away.

  It turned out he was in luck. The first area he came to that wasn’t as crowded as the rest of the hall had a small group of aliens standing there. They each had a drink of some sort, but their behaviour struck Nero as slightly strange. They didn’t exude the impression of complete confidence and belonging that the other guests did, as if they knew they didn’t quite belong there. Nero knew the feeling well, and edged closer.

  “...getting nowhere. It is becoming quite an issue, I would say.” One of them was talking as Nero casually walked past, feigning interest in some humans a short way from the group of aliens.

  “Issue? You’re reading too much into this, I am thinking. They’ve done a couple of jobs. Yes, that’s unacceptable, and we will have to deal with them. But an issue...?”

  “They’re doing more jobs. They’re taking more of our business. I think that will become a bigger issue. If it was the same guys that killed Zyras, then they’re already becoming ballsier.”

  Nero’s ears pricked up when he heard mention of Zyras’ name. He hadn’t known that Zyras Greeta had been affiliated with the Nostra. Not that it was completely unexpected, now that he thought about it. The Nostra had their fingers in as many pies as they could manage, and the drug trade was a pretty big pie. Should have killed Zyras more slowly, he thought, before returning his attention to the conversation.

  “Do we have any leads?” the third alien asked, speaking for the first time.

  “Not on the drugs bust. But we got a bit on the organisation from our mole, before he went dark. And we’re working on more leads at the moment,” replied the first alien.

  “Who?”

  “Best not to talk about that here...” the alien replied, glancing around at the people nearby. Its gaze rested briefly on Nero, as he was pretending to be interested in a nearby sculpture. The alien’s eyes didn’t linger though, evidently not expecting eavesdroppers in a place like the Mondo Club.

  They soon moved on to discussing more mundane matters, in which Nero had no interest. His mind was whirling about what the aliens had been discussing, though. They had another informer? Perhaps it was just a low-level grunt who worked for him... He didn’t know, but he would have to find out. In the meantime, though...

  Nero sidled up to the aliens, clutching an empty glass in his hand, acting as if he had had a bit much to drink. As he reached them, he stumbled, knocking into one of them.

  “Oh, I’m sorry mate!” Nero exclaimed. “Here, let me brush that off for you,” He leaned over, and as he was reaching to unruffle the alien’s clothing, he skilfully managed to knock the drink the alien was holding. The glass tipped backwards, emptying almost all of its untouched contents onto the alien’s jacket. It leapt backwards, emitting a sort of high-pitched yell as it did so, its alien eyes managing to smoulder with anger.

  “Get away from me, you fucking retard!” it shouted, looking down at its clothing that was now covered in smoking dark liquid. Whatever the drink was, it appeared to be causing the clothing to bubble a bit where it came into contact.

  “Ah, I’m sorry man. I, uh... I didn’t...” Nero stuttered.

  “Leave!”

  Nero, happy to oblige, did, letting a small smirk play across his lips with his back turned. He kept up the drunken facade as he walked, and watched out of the corner of his eye as the alien went off to find a restroom. After letting a respectable time pass, Nero himself headed towards the same restroom.

  The alien was stood by a wall, attempting to use the water that cascaded in a waterfall from the ceiling to rinse its clothes off. So far, it appeared to have got the water over its entire body, except for the areas where the drink had come into contact. As the door slid shut behind Nero, the alien looked up, a dark look coming over its face.

  “You. I’ve already told you to get lost. You don’t want to mess with me.”

  Nero didn’t bother to keep up the drunken act now that he was alone with the alien. Turning to the door without saying anything, he touched the electronic control panel mounted in the wall. His augmented arm synced wirelessly with the panel, hacking through the weak security procedures to gain control of the door. Nero locked it, and withdrew his arm. Throughout this, the Nostra alien watched, a slightly confused expression appearing on its features for the first time.

  “Who are you?” it asked.

  Nero slowly turned back to meet the alien’s eyes, staring into them with no expression on his face. After a slight pause, he answered. “Me? No one. It doesn’t matter. What I’m interested in is you. Tell me about yourself, why don’t you? We’re not going to be disturbed.”

  “Why? What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with your line of work, shall we? I hear you work for the Nostra.” Nero watched the alien as he spoke, noting the shift of features that acco
mpanied his last statement.

  “I’m... I just run a small club. I don’t work for, er, for this Nostra group,” the alien replied, its eyes flicking down to Nero’s augmented arms a couple of times, and then to the locked door.

  “Now, I know that’s not true. I heard you talking out there,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the door. “Just come clean. This will be a lot easier on you.”

  The alien looked nervous, presumably regretting not bringing a weapon with it to the club. “Alright,” Nero said, rolling up his sleeves, as he extended a concealed blade from the back of his metal hand. “We can do it this way. It’s certainly more fun.”

  “Wait, wait,” the alien protested before Nero could move. “Okay, I work for the Nostra. But I don’t have any responsibility, I don’t know much. I really can’t tell you anything--”

  “Let’s see what you do know first,” Nero said, cutting the alien off. “Tell me about this new mole you were talking about out there. Who is it?”

  “Why do you...? Ah, so you’re...?”

  “That’s still irrelevant. The mole?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know who he is. I don’t get told those sorts of things - I mean, would you tell your guys that sort of stuff?”

  “See, it sounded to me like you did know. And it sounds like you know it’s a man, too.” The alien flinched when Nero pointed that out. Nero watched him, expectantly.

  “Look, maybe I do know who he is. But I can’t tell you. They won’t just kill me when they find out I told you. They’ll, they’ll do things...” Nero watched as the alien started to visibly shake “... things I... I can’t,” it finished. Nero shrugged, accepting that the alien was too scared to talk. “So you’re not going to say anything, then?” he asked. The alien shook his head.

  “Fine.”

  With the black blade still extended, Nero slashed his arm across the alien’s neck. The move was so quick, the alien didn’t even have time to react, not even managing to raise its arms to prevent the attack. Black liquid quickly began to gush from the wound, pouring onto the floor as the alien slowly crumpled. It fell to its knees first, and then crumpled on top of its legs, head and torso going backwards to hit the floor with a loud thud.