“I noticed,” First said. “Well, thank you for your help, Bilge. Happy hunting.”
“You, too, and let me know if you’re coming this way again. I have a first molding of Welsbar of Del’s Pouk Night Concert in piezo-electric that is just to die for.”
“I’ll do that,” First lied as they continued down the tunnel. Once they’d made a couple of turns, First turned and looked at Jrill. “That was the strangest damned thing I have ever seen.”
“Maybe not the strangest,” Jrill said among the buzzing timeflies. “But for sure top five.”
CHAPTER 10
“Which is when local Junktion residents Jrill and”—the news reader glanced down at their notes—“Firstname Lastname, is that right? I’m being told it’s right. Jrill and Firstname sprang into action and tracked the dangerous Gomeltic into the reclamation tunnels and valiantly wrestled the creature back to the surface, where it was safely taken into quarantine by station personnel.”
The feed switched from the studio set to stock footage of First looking uncomfortably past the camera. “It was just the right thing to do,” she said unsteadily. “I’m sure anyone would have done it. We were just in the right place at the right time to see where Guin … the creature escaped into the sewers.”
Loritt paused the recording with a flex of his fingers and glanced at Jrill wearily. “Care to explain this one?”
Jrill stood at parade-ground attention. “I think the news segment covered the basics very well, for once.”
“I notice it left off the part where First was the one to let it loose on the station in the first place,” Loritt said. “Causing a loss of limb to one customs agent and slashing wounds to several bystanders not quite fleet-footed enough to get out of the way?”
“I’m sure I don’t know anything about that, boss.”
“So the beast just muscled its way out of a locked counter-grav crate while First looked on innocently, then?”
“Gomeltics are famous across the Assembly for their strength, boss.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Loritt laced his fingers. “I still have a peephole on her hacking deck she missed. Did a damned fine job getting the rest of them, I’ll give her credit there. But I know she popped the lock on that crate. The only reason she’s not on her way to a holding cell right now is she managed, somehow, to recognize and correct her mistake. Don’t suppose you had anything to do with that?”
“May have nudged her a bit. Still can’t figure out what she saw in that monster, though.”
Loritt considered his resident Turemok for several rakims. “There’s only one thing you need to know to understand humans. For millions of cycles of their evolution, predators called lions, and tigers, and panthers shredded untold thousands of their ancestors alive.”
“And the surviving humans hunted them to extinction,” Jrill said.
“No, that’s just it. Humans venerated them. Worshiped them as gods. Built monuments to them. And finally shrank them down, called them ‘kitties,’ invited them into their homes, and then invented the internet so they could share cute videos of them with each other. They’re complete lunatics.” Loritt shook his head in exasperation.
“Anyway, First is on probation,” he said finally. “If she so much as sneezes in an unapproved direction, she’s getting turned over to station security with evidence of her stealing my aircar and popping the lock on that crate. Am I clear?”
“I’ll make sure she understands the gravity of the situation.”
“No, you won’t.”
Jrill cocked her head. “Boss?”
“I don’t want her to know how thin the ice under her is. I want to see what choices she makes based on her own conscience. I want to see if she’s actually learned anything. So you’re not going to tell her she’s on probation as you give her a briefing on her first individual assignment.”
Jrill’s posture broke, just for a moment. “I’m sorry, but you’re putting her on secret probation, then sending her out on a contract by herself, and that doesn’t strike you as particularly reckless?”
“Finally, some unprompted candor,” Loritt said. “Fear not. This is a decidedly low-stakes job and one that, as fate would have it, our young human is uniquely suited for.”
* * *
“This is complete bullshit,” First said as the briefing concluded.
“I’ll assume that’s a curse meant to convey dissatisfaction,” Jrill responded.
“A safe assumption.”
“I don’t entirely understand,” Jrill said. “You are being awarded greater independence and responsibility. Neither of which, if we’re both being honest, you’ve actually earned in the last week.”
“Please, spare me the pep talk,” First said. “Loritt’s giving me this job because I’m the only human on the team and I happen to be the right gender.”
“You’re the only human on any team, as far as I’m aware,” Jrill replied. “And that’s an advantage, just as my Turemok military experience was an advantage on the Pay to Prey job. We all bring not only unique talents but unique openings for the team.”
“Well, I’d prefer to keep control over my ‘openings,’ if you don’t mind,” First said. “Have you met any early-twenties human males? They are the worst creatures in the entire universe. Not the most dangerous or the most cunning. Just. The. Worst. They’re half the reason I’m out here, because aside from a handful of fetish weirdos, nobody is staring at me like I’m a piece of meat.”
“There are plenty of carnivorous species on Junktion that, given the chance—” Jrill started, but First stopped her.
“Not that kind of meat. That I can handle.”
“This is the job,” Jrill said with finality. “You are the only one who can do it. Are you doing your job or not?”
First sighed her surrender. “But I don’t even like hair metal…”
* * *
The trip from Junktion to catch up with the Wolverines’ next appearance meant two full days locked up in yet another transport. Fortunately, First was an old pro and knew all the tricks to keep from getting too stiff or going stir-crazy.
She was on her own for this one. It was hardly the first time, but she’d just been getting used to the feeling of having some backup if things went south and found she already missed it. Jrill had said the rest of the team was splitting off to handle another time-sensitive job and it was the only practical way to do both simultaneously, but First harbored doubts. This was another one of Loritt’s tests.
Testing her for what was the question.
The transport’s captain broke through over the intercom to announce they were on terminal approach to Mulos Minor. From there, First still had a four-hour real-space shuttle ride from the planet’s orbit out to the large shepherd moon near the edge of its ring system where the concert venue was actually located.
First endured the last leg of the trip preparing her deck. Despite their meteoric rise and smashing tour success, the Wolverines had a cash flow problem. Whether due to truly rock-star spending habits or to criminally negligent levels of mismanagement, they were selling out hundred thousand–seat venues and walking away with little or nothing to show for it, week after week.
The star liner company they’d leased their tour bus from had finally had enough and called in a repo contract. It was a paltry score as Loritt’s usual paydays went, scarcely worth more than his Proteus by the time all the expenses were tabulated.
But it was also a dead-easy job. The leasing company had turned over all of the tour bus’s access codes and system protocols. All she had to do was get past whatever security personnel the band had, and she could fly it out without so much as breaking a sweat or muttering a curse.
Unfortunately, the easiest way to do that was also by far the least appealing to First’s sensibilities and pride.
First comforted herself with the knowledge that any temporary indignities she experienced would be offset almost immediately by the satisfaction of stealing their ride.
The shuttle settled in for a landing at the spaceport that pulled double duty, servicing both the small mining concern that employed a few thousand people per year and the concert venue that had a few million visitors annually.
Other shuttles followed, disgorging their passengers in waves of a thousand or more at a time. The growing crowd of fans trended into two camps that First had already noticed on her own transport: about 80 percent young music obsessives from across dozens of species, and about 20 percent older, wealthier attendees whose hungry glances betrayed their desire to prey on the rest.
The youth among the crowd were decked out in Wolverines gear, furry gloves with plastic claws, torn T-shirts, and red bandannas. Some of them carried homemade replica AK-47s on slings. Two of them ran around together in a Russian attack helicopter costume, making fake gun runs on small groups.
It was all in good fun. The weapons scanners at the entrances would pick out any energy packs or chemical propellants a terrorist might try to sneak in among the harmless props. First, who hadn’t even brought her manual lock-picking set, passed through without incident.
She angled for the nearest bathroom where she could enjoy a little privacy to change into her “uniform” for the evening. First passed by a three-headed T-shirt vendor hawking their wares at a simply superhuman volume while seemingly arguing with … themself? Themselves?
For a moment, First considered buying a tour shirt to blend in, but thought better of it. There was nothing more worthless from a fandom legitimacy standpoint than a freshly bought shirt. Concert memorabilia cred, like wine, accumulated with vintage.
Instead, she found an open stall and dug into her carry-on for the platform heels, neon-green fishnet stockings, vinyl miniskirt, and Whitesnake halter top she’d paid a fashion boutique a pretty penny to screen print before leaving Junktion.
Looking around at the rest of the ladies in the crowd, or their equivalents, First made a few small adjustments to her outfit. She adjusted her halter top to hang off one shoulder, tied her hair up in a messy ponytail near the top of her head, and tore some holes in her fishnets, which, ironically, reduced the total number of holes they had.
First followed the flow of the crowd through the turnstiles, presented her ticket, smiled pleasantly as the overworked gate attendant failed to spot the forgery, then entered the venue, looked up, and experienced a moment of unbridled terror.
Mulos Minor was something of a minor miracle. Several hundred thousand years earlier, as the native sentients were still figuring out how to smelt copper, the planet trapped a small planetoid ejected by a nearby gas giant in its gravity well. For a few thousand years, all was well, and the inhabitants welcomed a new god to their pantheon. But then, gravitational stresses between the planet, its moon, and the newcomer took their toll, disintegrating the planetoid and throwing billions of fragments into eccentric orbits and causing a devastating period of bombardment on Mulos Minor’s surface, centered on its equatorial region. The band of craters was still clearly visible even from orbit.
But in the aftermath of the tragedy, rings formed. The few native survivors restarted their civilization and grew to flourish, making Mulos Minor one of only a handful of inhabited worlds with a naturally occurring ring system.
From the surface, looking up through the planet’s atmosphere, the rings were quite a sight. But from the airless surface of the tidally locked moon, looking down the glimmering rings and onto the sapphire jewel of Mulos Minor itself, that was said to be one of the most stunning vistas in the quadrant.
Which is why an enterprising group of nouveau riche had dumped some money into carving an amphitheater into an old lava tube just north of the moon’s equator and glassing in the ceiling with one of the largest single unsupported panes ever laid down.
The glass was of such pristine quality and kept so thoroughly clean that for a fleeting moment, First’s eyes thought they looked out into open space. Her breath caught in her chest, and she was sure it was about to be scoured from her lungs by hungry vacuum. She wasn’t alone. Quite a fraction of the crowd paused in fear as soon as they entered the venue space.
First’s rational mind took control after a moment and forced her to breathe deeply. Once the shock passed, she stood there for a long time, letting the panorama above play out in her mind’s eye. She stared, openmouthed, at the gossamer rings laid out like the ridges of a platinum record glinting in the sun, and on down to the crescent pearl of Mulos Minor at the center. It was breathtaking in every sense of the word.
That’d make one hell of an album cover, First thought.
Something—no, First corrected herself, someone—bumped into her from behind.
“Oh. My. Lords!” the red, segmented being exclaimed at First’s face. “Your human cosplay is incredible!”
“Um, thanks?”
“The face, the skin tones, it must have taken forever!”
“About eighteen years, actually,” First said. “But my parents helped some.”
“Wow! Can I get a selfie?”
“I’d prefer if you—”
Flash!
“Right.”
“Thank you sooo much,” the red alien in the absurdly long Wolverines onesie said as they inch-wormed away. “My followers will love this. You’re amazing.”
“Great,” is all First could say as the crimson caterpillar disappeared into the surging throngs. The opening band began their sound checks. It would be showtime soon. For more than just the headliners.
First drifted over to the edge of the crowd where there was a little more wiggle room this early in the show, then began to excuse and elbow her way toward the stage where her trap was to be set. In the end, it was more elbowing than excusing. Sweating and swearing, First found herself pressed up against the barricades that separated the crowd from the stage. Right where she needed to be.
The opening band was made up of what looked like giant tardigrades in clown outfits playing Winger tunes. They were sufficient, but unmemorable, which is the sweet spot for any opener. You never wanted to upstage the main act. That was professional suicide. No matter where you were in the galaxy, there was etiquette to follow.
Then, the Wolverines took the stage. First, Beast Mode came out twirling his drumsticks. The crowd greeted him like a second cousin with three DUIs turning up at a family reunion. Polite, but reserved. Then Kip Burnheart walked out shooting a two-meter jet of flames out of his keytar, throwing the devil horns with his off hand. The crowd answered with a fresh wave of applause. Then Gordo took no notice of the crowd as he arranged himself onstage and began tuning up his bass guitar to a thunderous ovation.
Finally, the lead singer/guitarist, Eagle Independence, buoyed on gently flapping counter-grav wings, floated over the crowd and took the stage to a chorus of strobe lights and pyrotechnics.
On the strength of the greeting alone, he could’ve left the wings backstage. The crowd’s reaction would’ve held him aloft for twenty minutes at least. First just shook her head at the adoration.
“Heeeelloooo, Mulos Minor!” Eagle shouted into the old-fashioned microphone, complete with a cord and stand. The crowd shouted back, “Wolverines!” and the concert really got started. She had to admit, their human schtick was pretty good. First couldn’t see seams, zippers, or anything. Even the hair looked good. Then again, it would have to for a hair band, wouldn’t it?
For the next hour and a half, First endured Poison covers, being pushed, Aerosmith, shoved, Guns N’ Roses, an errant punch, and Twisted Sister. She wasn’t sure which type of assault was worse—the physical or the auditory.
At the end of KISS’s “Detroit Rock City,” the crowd was primed and ready for the grand finale. Eagle took a step back from the mic while the bassist strummed out a powerful bridging beat that slowly morphed into something familiar. The people around her noticed the shift as well and went totally off the rails as the base melody of “Pho Queue” took root. Eagle reappeared from backstage with what looked like a giant, s
houlder-mounted, belt-fed grenade launcher. But if the crowd were concerned by the prospect of being torn limb from limb by shrapnel, it didn’t show.
“Who’s hungry?!” Eagle shouted. The crowd assured him that, indeed, they were quite famished. He smiled and pulled the trigger. The triple barrels started spinning. “Okay, you asked for it. Incoming!”
A second later, a stream of instant noodle cups shot out of the gun at six hundred rounds per minute with such force Eagle had to brace himself against the recoil. The cups flew out at twenty-five or thirty meters per second, fast enough that anyone standing directly in front of them could get seriously bruised.
The ammo belt ran dry, and the tri-barrel noodle shooter spun to a stop even as pockets of aliens fought over the last of the starchy souvenirs to land among them. Eagle dropped the noodle gun and threw two hands of devil horns before picking up his Stratocaster and returning to the mic. Halfway through the song, First found herself singing along with the chorus.
Once the band ducked backstage and the crowd started shouting, “Encore!” First made her move. The bulk of the security personnel were busy trying to contain the masses surging toward the stage; they wouldn’t notice a solitary young groupie slipping away into the background.
First hopped over the barricade that had thus far maintained a thin neutral zone between the horde and the stage. Security reacted to the intrusion almost immediately, but the fans behind her reacted even faster. Thirty of them were over the wall before the first guard laid a hand on any of them. First, who was the only one not trying to charge the stage, moved to the far side unnoticed.
She made it almost fifty meters before being challenged.
“Hey, you. Stop there!” an earnest voice called out from behind her.
“I’m with the band,” she called back dismissively and kept walking.
“I said stop!”
First, exuding annoyance, ceased her gait, and turned around with as much disdain as she could muster, and faced the multihorned, pebble-skinned toughie. “What?”
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