The First Nova I See Tonight

by Jason Kilgore

"My trust in you has nearly gotten me killed more times than I can count."

  "True." Dirken flashed his partner a smile. "But you're still alive!"

  "Half of me is!"

  "Fine! We're coming out!" Dirken yelled out the hatch, then he and Yiorgos threw their blasters out the hatch. They fell to the grav plating of the ramp. "Don't shoot!" Dirken yelled.

  The two stepped into view, careful to step onto the grav plates of the ramp, hands up except for the one carrying the safebox.

  "Right," said the pirate who had been speaking — a human who had a badly-healed scar that ran from under his heavily-stained red cap down the middle of his face and across his neck. Half of his nose was gone, and part of his lips. Dirken wondered how the man had survived a laser burn like that. The pirate stepped forward, kicked the blasters back to the others, and took the safebox, almost dropping it in surprise at the weight, and stripped him of his pack.

  The two were placed with pirates in front and behind and escorted down a series of narrow corridors. Just as they passed a viewing window, though, they saw two shining United Worlds warships appear out of gravity wells.

  Those damned chrome bastards never looked so sweet! he thought.

  The corvette bucked into a tight turn and acceleration. Everyone lost their footing, including Dirken and Yiorgos, and lurched right into the hull. Dirken took advantage of this and hit the human pirate square in the jaw, then lunged for his Gree-tech blaster, which was being carried by a Rigellian in one of his long, flap-like hands.

  No sooner had Dirken's hand wrapped around the handle than his head exploded in pain, hit from behind. The last thing he saw as he passed out and rolled over was the Rigellian and the human pirate leaning over him. "Night, night, sweetheart!" the pirate said, giving a wave, and the Rigellian laughed with a weird "lulululululu!" cry emitting from the tentacled mouth at the top of its head, its row of tiny black eyes sparkling.

  Then the human hit him again, and everything went black.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HOW THE GIG BEGAN

  The last thought running through Dirken's mind as he blacked out wasn't his blaster or the laughing Rigellian. It was, How the fuck did I get in this situation?

  The whole thing had been hush-hush from the beginning, only a couple Earth days before. A contracted middleman had found them in a seedy alien bar on Mars called the Gamma Ray Gramma.

  Half of the bar catered to aquatic species, with the entire lower level composed of a pool of cold, briny water. Eel-like Argulans milled around with Ursan "space octopuses" and a school of hundreds of Shan-toth-min, a species of silvery fish with bulging, transparent skulls and human-like arms projecting from an otherwise cod-like body. In the middle of the aquatic level was a massive Procyonese bartender with its hulking yellow body covered in eyes and mouths and at least a dozen thin tentacles that reached out with servings of specially-formulated liquor globes. All of this was visible through the transparent aluminum floor under Dirken.

  Up top, though, the bar was less distinguished and definitely dingier, the walls streaked with stains, including traces of blood from dozens of species. The smoke of half a dozen illegal drugs hanging in the air in a haze of skunky-smelling marijuana from Earth and floral jojona petals grown on Corthos. Smugglers from across the sector gathered here to relax, free of the hassles of law enforcement thanks to the Craters, the gang that ran Mars Colony 1 (or "Crater City," nicknamed due to the old part of the colony having been built in the massive Hellas Crater).

  The bar was named after Gramma Jones, a self-described "Old Martian Bitch" who used to rule over a smuggler route to Rigel, but she was the nicest old lady Dirken had ever met… until you failed to pay your tab, at which point you became the plaything of her five genetically mutated mastiffs — double the size and musculature of a normal dog — and your remains were fed as "chum" to the bartender.

  The middleman, a human with long, greasy black hair, Asian features, and a poor attempt at a mustache, had been seated in the smoky corner of the bar watching the crowd. His gaze came to rest on Dirken and Yiorgos and lingered on them a little too long, making eye contact. In a place like Gamma Ray Gramma's, you don't look someone in the eye for long or it may be the last thing you see.

  Just as Dirken had been ready to put his blaster on the table, the man got up and walked over, brazenly inviting himself to take a seat, holding his hands away from his trench coat to show he wasn't going to reach for a weapon.

  "Hey," he'd said. "Name's Weed."

  "Weed, huh?" Dirken replied. "As in something everyone wants to get rid of? Beat it."

  Weed ignored the command. "I hear you need a gig."

  "Yeah?" Dirken said. "From who?"

  "High level people. They pay good, and the job's easy."

  Dirken leaned over the table toward Weed. "No job that pays good is easy."

  "What 'high level people' are these?" Yiorgos asked.

  Dirken flashed his partner a quick look as if to say, You're really going to listen to this moron?

  Weed looked around to check if anyone was listening. "Top government officials on Earth."

  Dirken and Yiorgos had looked at each other, not bothering to hide their incredulity.

  "Really," Weed had said. "They heard about a gig you did off Proxima Centauri."

  Dirken kept a poker face, but inwardly he was wincing. They had transported a missile array from the planet of Proxima Centuri B to a moon of Proxima Centuri C for the Proximan Dawn, a crime syndicate. It was a closely held secret. How the hell did they learn this? he thought. What else do they know?

  "I don't know what gig you're talking about," Dirken said.

  "Uh huh," Weed said. "Look, all you gotta do is escort a package from Earth to Nüwa."

  "The Feds have their own people for shit like that." Dirken put his blaster on the table — the universal signal that the conversation was over. But Weed didn't relent.

  "All I know is," Weed said, "they sent me to find you and give you the offer. It's a shitload of money, too. They need to keep it off the books, so it has to be an outside job. I don't know anything more about it."

  Yiorgos gave a subtle nod to Dirken that said, Give him a chance. It wouldn't have been the first time they've done dirty work for a planetary government, but never for Earth. Earth governments were notorious for political backstabbing and poor ability to keep anything secret for long. Dirken kept his blaster on the table, his hand on the handle.

  "Yeah? Exactly how much is a shitload?" Dirken asked.

  "Enough to buy a ship and still get a blowjob every day of your life." He leaned forward and whispered, "Seven hundred thousand."

  Warning bells were going off in Dirken's mind. That was indeed a "shitload." It would be the best-paying gig they ever had for the least amount of work. There was a hint of desperation in that oily middleman's eyes, like his own life was maybe on the line if he didn't succeed in hiring them.

  "Bullshit," Dirken said. "It's too good to be true."

  Weed tensed. "Look, fuckface, I'm just the messenger. But I can tell you it's for real. You know these government types. They rob everyone blind with taxes, then they turn around and waste it on, well, this."

  Dirken gestured toward the bar. "Give us some space. I'll talk with my partner and decide if it's worth it. Frankly, I think you're full of shit."

  "Whatever," Weed mumbled, "but I'll sweeten the deal. A thousand UW chits if you just show up, even if you don't accept the mission." Then he went over to the bar, shooting the pair one last look before he signaled the bartender for a liquor globe.

  Dirken and Yiorgos leaned toward each other. "Well?" Dirken said. "A thousand just for showing up. Sounds good to me. I say we take the gig."

  Yiorgos scowled. "You were the one who said he's full of shit."

  Dirken cocked a smile. "And you were the one who seemed willing to give him a chance. I think he's sincere. I think he's afraid we'll say no. The stakes are high, and so is the pot, but we hardly have t
o do anything." When Yiorgos shrugged, Dirken gave a playful punch against his partner's arm. "Come on, if anyone's got smuggling in his blood it's you!" Yiorgos smiled back. Feeling encouraged, Dirken continued, "You had ancient relatives trafficking contraband from the free nations to the Concubists!"

  "Communists," Yiorgos corrected. "During the Cold War era, in Europe — at least that's the family legend. And then there was my great-great-great grandfather, who got rich stealing satellites from Earth and selling them to the early Mars colonies."

  "And your father, running ice through blockades during the Fringe Worlds siege."

  Yiorgos huffed. "And he eventually died from his injuries." The cyborg looked Dirken his eyes. "What's your gut tell you?"

  Dirken grew serious a moment. "That there's more than Weed's telling us. That it's more dangerous than he's letting on. But… if we come out alive, we'll finally be able to get a ship of our own again."

  Yiorgos nodded. "Okay. Then let's go with it." He raised a finger at Dirken, "But promise me, this time I won't have to bail you out of jail for screwing someone's wife… again!"

  Dirken raised his hands. "Oh come on! That was one time!" Then he added, "And besides, the Commandant of Lanus Station had sixteen wives! Who knew he'd even miss one for a few hours?"

  Yiorgos just shook his head and waved to Weed to come back over.

  "Fine," Dirken said to Weed. "My partner talked me into it. We'll take the job, but only if you give us five hundred chits right now. We have to pay for transportation to Earth, after all."

  Weed growled and handed them five hundred-chit notes. "Here are your instructions." Weed then slipped them a piece of paper with instructions on when and where to meet, then he disappeared into the crowd, relief washing over his face.

  The instructions were to meet at a landing pad in an industrial area in New Miami, North America (over three hundred kilometers north of Old Miami, now a cluster of crumbling skyscrapers poking out of the ocean) at noon, local time. It took a few hours to arrange an interplanetary transport, then a few hours more to fly there.

  When Dirken and Yiorgos showed up in New Miami, government security whisked them away in a luxury hovcar to a nondescript warehouse near the spaceport. Standing amid rusting hulks of industrial machinery and the smell of grease so strong that Dirken had checked the soles of his leather boots to see if he'd stepped in it, they were surrounded by more security officers, all conspicuously armed. Thinking again that this was a trap, Dirken was about to pull his blaster when in walked one of those "top government officials" Weed had mentioned. In fact, it didn't get much more "top" than the Governor of the Americas himself.

  Governor Juarez was a tall man with a bushy black beard peppered with gray. His dark eyes flashed with conviviality, crow's feet showing as he smiled. Dressed in a dark blue, formal business suit, he was every bit the suave Latino businessman when he spoke. But with every pause in the brief dialog there was a hint of conspiracy. Dirken expected no less. He had seen this in the eyes of so many of their clients over the years.

  "Gentlemen," Juarez said, "no doubt you recognize me. No need to seem so surprised. I felt I should come here myself for such an important task."

  Dirken blinked. He hadn't ever talked with such a powerful politician before, much less under secretive conditions. They would never personally appear. Always they sent some low-level representative for the sake of plausible deniability. The fact that the Governor didn't care about deniability meant that this gig was personal for him — and you don't deny a top official something personal. "And what is the task?"

  Juarez called forth one of his bodyguards, a tall, bald man with a cybernetic implant covering his right ear and right eye. The bodyguard held a safebox by a handle at the top and gingerly placed it on the concrete floor in front of Dirken.

  "Deliver this safebox to the Earth consulate on Nüwa," Juarez said. "The Ambassador's men will meet you and will pay you handsomely. Until then, do not leave its side. You are required to travel aboard a United Worlds starship and will be escorted the entire way."

  Dirken and Yiorgos exchanged glances.

  "I'm having trouble understanding something, your… um… governorship," Dirken said. "If you're just going to have us travel aboard a UW ship with an escort, why not just have a military porter the whole way instead of paying us seven hundred thousand chits?" Dirken knew he was treading uneasy territory. Smugglers don't ask questions like that. "One of your black ops teams, for instance?"

  Juarez paused, leveling his eyes at Dirken's. "I would think you could guess the answer, amigo. There is no government action that isn't recorded in some official way. On paper — if you appear at all — it will be as civilian consultants traveling between planetary offices. Beyond that, any information is classified. I have already told you as much as you need to know to do the job. But of you, dear smugglers, we know everything. We have researched you very thoroughly. And I can assure you, amigo, with the money you earn from this mission, you will be able to replace that rattletrap clipper you crashed on Rorgos."

  Dirken gasped in surprise then tried, too late, to hide it. The mention of the Brilliant's demise was a not-so-subtle threat. If they knew about the crash, then they probably knew about the illegal load they were hauling at the time, and probably so many more illegal activities they'd been involved in. If they declined this mission, the Feds might very well arrest them in retaliation. Such things didn't need to be said when you were in control of half a world.

  Juarez smiled broadly. "I will pay ten thousand chits up front. So do you accept this mission or not?"

  Dirken and Yiorgos looked at each other again. The cyborg gave a slight nod and a sigh. Dirken returned the nod.

  "Yes," Dirken replied in a flat voice to Juarez. "We accept."

  "Excelente!" the Governor replied. "I am so glad you did. Remember, I was never here, gentlemen, and when you have finished the mission, you will forget you ever took part." He raised a finger at them. "And trust me, we will be watching."

  Juarez had his bodyguard give them an advance of ten thousand chits each by typing the account numbers and amounts into an arm holodisplay bracelet. The money instantly transferred to Dirken's Shipper's Guild account on Tesla and siphoned into half a dozen untraceable accounts on other planets.

  Juarez nodded to his bodyguards. The men quickly ushered Dirken and Yiorgos to a shuttle that took them and their escorted "package" up to the Excellentia.

  The entire way up to the destroyer, Dirken and Yiorgos just sat across from one another in the shuttlecraft, the safebox sitting at their feet between them. They didn't say a word to each other. They didn't need to. It was clear they had been railroaded the moment they accepted the job from Weed. Now the only thing they could do was ride this train to the end of the line.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANANAK

  Dirken started to open his eyes, but the light was too intense. His head felt like it had been hit by a comet. He groaned as he rubbed his left temple.

  "Heh. You deserve it," Yiorgos said from somewhere to Dirken's left. "'Trust me,' you said."

  Dirken was lying on his back. He turned over to face Yiorgos and opened his eyes again, squinting. The cyborg was propped up on one arm on a metal bunk on the other side of the cell they shared.

  "Well," Dirken replied, "we ain't dead yet." He closed his eyes again. His right hand went to the breast pocket of his leather jacket. He was relieved to find his lucky Rigellian runestone at the bottom. Of course his blaster and gunbelt were missing, as was his pack — and his tablet with his porn collection. He wasn't sure which he'd miss more.

  "Are we still on the corvette?" Dirken asked.

  "No. They moved us to a brigantine after the gravjump. UW ships showed up about the time you were knocked unconscious. The pirates already had their gravwell engines spun up, so they jumped out of there right after you passed out. I overheard that the other brigantine was captured."

  "And the Excellentia?"


  "The Excellentia was temporarily out of commission, but if we'd stayed we surely would have been rescued by the UW ships." Yiorgos paused a tick, then added, "Therese wouldn't have let you make that decision. She wouldn't have let you leave the hangar in the first place."

  Dirken poked a finger at him. "Don't mention that name!"

  "Who? The love of your life? Now that was a woman."

  Dirken abruptly sat up. "She wasn't the love of my life!" He stumbled for words, then blurted, "We were just partners for eight years. And… and she made plenty of mistakes, too! Remember the time she led us right into those guards at Ferris Station, off Io? Remember?"

  "Yeah. I remember, Dirk. I remember eight years of love affair. And do you remember why our attack on Ferris Station failed?" Yiorgos pointed a finger back at Dirken. "You forgot to charge the rifle packs!"

  "Oh, here we go again!" Dirken threw up his hands. "I told you, the packs were compromised by electromagnetic interference from Jupiter."

  "Uh-huh. And my Grannie's wheelchair is a rocket." Yiorgos laid back down. "Next time you have a brilliant plan, maybe you should think about what Therese would do."

  Dirken gasped in exasperation. "You know, I have plenty of great ideas of my own! Thanks to my decisiveness, we didn't get torn to pieces by hunter droids!"

  Yiorgos waved him away and crossed his arms across his chest. "Well, while you were snoozing, these pirates wanted to tear me to pieces — to take the tech built into me!"

  Dirken massaged his head. All this arguing was inflaming his headache.

  He examined the cell. There were no other features besides a chemical toilet, a glaringly bright white LED array in the ceiling, and a host of unidentified stains of different colors dried on the floor. He was pretty sure from the wretched sulfur smell that at least some of the blue stains were Proximan blood. And he didn't want to think what the rust-red stains were.

  The safebox they were escorting was nowhere to be seen. "The safe?" he asked Yiorgos.