On Galaxy's Edge: Ascendance

by Alex T. Kolter

  Looking down on the body for a moment, Nero bent over to wipe the blade on the alien’s clothes, carefully removing the thick black liquid until the carbon blade was pristine again. It then retracted into Nero’s arm, as if it had never even existed.

  Knowing that someone else might try to come into the restroom, and find the door locked, he didn’t waste any time in getting rid of the body. Towards the back of the restroom, on the far wall, was an air vent mounted near the ceiling. Opening this up, it looked as if the alien might just be able to fit inside, at a squeeze. It was worth a shot.

  Nero went back to the body. With his enhanced arms, it was virtually no effort to pick up the large body, albeit slightly unwieldy. He carried it over to the vent, and with a bit of effort, managed to squeeze the sticky, wet body into the hole. It left a few black smears around the edge of the air vent, but with the cover back in place, it was pretty well hidden.

  The blood on the floor only took a moment to wipe away with one of the complimentary towels in the fancy restroom, and the room was back to its pristine initial state. With a final glance at his handiwork, Nero went to the door, hacking back into the control panel to unlock it, and stepped back out into the main hall.

  “Drink, signore?” came the query from a nearby waiter.

  “Certainly,” Nero said, giving the small alien a large smile as he picked up a glass.

  ****

  Sat at the Mondo Club’s bar an hour later, the music had improved, and the lights had been dimmed. The ambience was a bit like the clubs Nero was used to attending, though with a noticeably different class of customer. For the past ten minutes he had been watching a rather large man sat in a wingback chair a short distance from the bar. A stream of attractive young men kept coming up to him with various bits of food or drink, who the man would then talk to for a minute or so, and then they’d leave. Nero couldn’t quite understand what was going on, since the men coming up to him weren’t waiters, and he was curious.

  Meanwhile, sat at the bar itself, there was a startlingly attractive woman a few seats along from Nero. She had sat down a couple of minutes ago, shot an intriguing glance at Nero, and had then steadfastly ignored him. Not knowing the social niceties in these Scrapers, he had no clue what this meant. That said, he was hoping it meant what he thought, since he intended to buy her a drink.

  “One of these, please,” Nero said to the waiter behind the bar, holding up his drink, “for her,” he said, gesturing to the woman. The barman poured out one of the smoking dark green drinks - Nero had discovered the Nostra alien’s choice in drinks had been rather good - and delivered it to the woman. She graciously accepted it from the barman, and inclined her head to Nero. This was an alien world for Nero, who was used to the directness of the places in which he grew up.

  Deciding that he’d waited long enough, he slid off of his bar stool, and moved over to the woman. She was perched on her stool, back ramrod-straight, with a dignified expression on her face. Dressed in an elegant orange and purple dress, which had artfully-cut holes that didn’t leave much to the imagination, she was one of the most striking women Nero had seen.

  “You know, I haven’t seen you at one of these parties before,” she said as Nero approached. “And I know most of the people who attend these things.” There was a slight sparkle in her eyes as she spoke, hinting at a sense of humour not far from the surface.

  Nero smiled. “I’m from another part of the city. You probably wouldn’t know it.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, giving him the once-over, focusing briefly on his augmented arms. “I must thank you for the drink. You have good taste.”

  “Well, thank you. Though I must admit, I only discovered it tonight. We don’t have these drinks where I’m from.”

  “No? You’ll have to tell me more about where you’re from sometime.”

  “Sometime,” Nero said with a trace of a smile. “In the meantime, perhaps you’ll tell me where you’re from.”

  “Me? Oh, nowhere interesting. I have an apartment in this building. 27-73. It’s a modest place, but it’s home, you know?” Nero nodded in agreement. She took a sip of her drink, the smoky vapour brushing over her face as she did so.

  “I’m Ami,” she informed him.

  “Nero. Nero Leydon,” he replied.

  “Leydon? I’ve never heard that name before. It sounds like an old--”

  “It was my mother’s name. I don’t know where she got it from, I’m afraid,” Nero said, cutting her off. She raised an eyebrow in response, but didn’t say any more on the topic.

  “So if you’re not from around here, Nero Leydon, what do you do for a living? Most of the guys I know either own a factory out in the wastelands, or live off their parents who own a factory in the wastelands. Which category do you fall into, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “There are just the two categories are there?” Nero asked, interested in the goings-on in the Scrapers in spite of who he was talking to.

  “Indeed.”

  “Well, I don’t fit into either one. I, ah, have a few operations that I run. Trade businesses, really. Nothing too exciting, but they make a tidy profit.”

  “Quite. Enough to get you into places like this,” she said, looking up at the grand hall they were both sat in. Nero glanced up too, noting that the place had finally begun to quiet down, the time evidently having come when most of the guests started to go home.

  They sat at the bar talking for another few minutes, covering a number of subjects that Nero felt he could freely talk about, before he glanced over Ami’s shoulder. A short way across the hall were the other members of the Nostra that had accompanied the one now inserted into an air vent. Nero watched them as they talked to each other, their body language - though alien - managing to convey a worried sense of urgency. Nero smirked to himself as he watched.

  “Something funny?” Ami asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  “What? Oh, nothing. I just thought I saw someone I knew. Turned out not to be them, though.”

  “Of course,” she said, a strange expression on her face. “Well, I think it is about time I was leaving, Nero.” She stood up from the stool, with Nero following suit. “Are you coming with me?”

  Taken aback by her directness, Nero took a moment to process her question. She raised an eyebrow as she was waiting. “Come on, are you really going to refuse?” she teased.

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh?”

  “Okay, no, I’m not.” He held out his arm for her.

  “Quite the gentleman tonight, are we? Well, let’s go with that,” she said, as she took his carbon arm in hers. “Huh, it’s warm,” she commented.

  “Of course,” Nero said, as they walked out of the grand hall.

  ****

  Nero awoke to a loud beeping inside his skull, and a bright flashing green light in front of his eyes. Sitting bolt upright, the sleep haze took a moment to clear from his mind. The soft bed he was on didn’t quite make sense to his slightly addled brain, and the hangover from the night before didn’t help matters.

  It was a few seconds before the sound stopped and the green light disappeared, the alarm he had set finally deciding he was alert enough. Nero groaned. He’d have to change the type of wake-up call. With the chip implanted in his brain, there had to be a gentler alarm he could set. He made a mental note to try something else the next time.

  Glancing at the clock in the corner of his vision, displayed on the holographic overlay, he saw that it was 6:01 in the morning. He groaned again. What time had he gone to sleep the night before? It must have been after 2:00 in the morning. He’d only managed less than four hours sleep. Finally realising where it was that he’d gone to sleep, he looked over at the other side of the bed. It was still dark, but he could see the peaceful form of Ami curled up on the bed, her chest slowly rising and falling as she breathed in and out.

  Watching her for a moment, Nero briefly considered waking her, but then decided against it. It was too early,
and besides, he had to be off. Carefully climbing out of the bed, seeing in the dark with the help of his holographic vision overlay, he found his clothes. He slipped back into the rugged black material, and took one final look around Ami’s apartment. It was still astonishingly big to Nero’s eyes. The house he grew up in would have fitted into the bedroom alone a few times over. In addition to that, there was a huge living area, as well as a food prep place and an exercise room. All with an astonishing view over the city from the panoramic windows.

  As he turned to leave, he took a final look at Ami, still sleeping on the bed. Then he went to the door, and emerged into a large, sweeping corridor outside. The walls lit up automatically when he stepped out, providing a clean, uniform light along the length of the corridor. Nero set off to the roof, where his shuttle was still parked.

  Twenty minutes later, he slowed his ship down as he approached a seemingly-abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. From a distance, it looked just like the many other abandoned factories and warehouses in the area, but up close, in the pre-dawn haze, lights could be seen in some of the windows.

  Nero brought the ship around to the front of the building, slowing down as he approached. When the shuttle was just a short distance from the building, a double beep sounded in the cockpit. Moments later, there was a loud rumbling sound from the factory, and the large metal doors at the front began to open. Grating slightly, having not been used much for a long time, they slowly opened to reveal the cavernous interior of the factory.

  Flying the ship forwards slowly, Nero entered the factory, aiming for an area to the side that had been cleared to act as a landing pad. The ship’s ion engines emitted a deep bassy note as he was maneuvering the vehicle, causing a few small items to vibrate nearby. As the ship touched down, the engines flared, lighting up the factory an electric blue colour, before the ship finally settled on its landing gear. Nero cut the engines, plunging the factory back into comparative darkness.

  Waiting at the bottom of the boarding ramp as he got out was Talyah, looking up at him with an unashamedly concerned expression on her face.

  “You didn’t call us last night Nero. We were concerned,” she said, cutting straight to the chase.

  “You didn’t need to be. I’m perfectly well equipped to take care of myself, you know,” Nero replied, holding up his carbon-metal arm, and clenching his fist.

  Talyah rolled her eyes. “I am well aware of that Nero. What worried me was the fact that you were going in search of the Nostra. They generally have weapons, and you may have fancy limbs, but your chest is still meat.”

  “Well, I appreciate your concern, Tal, but it was fine. There were only three of them. And now there’s only two. Besides, I did get some useful intel from them. You remember Zyras? The druggy guy we took out?” Talyah nodded. “Well, he was working for the Nostra. And they’re getting annoyed.”

  “That does not sound good.”

  “Well, we can deal with them. But they’re ‘working on other leads’ within our organisation, Tal. So we do have to be careful.”

  “Shit, Nero. That--”

  “We’ll be fine, Tal. If they find another mole, we’ll find that mole. And we’ll kill them.” Talyah didn’t look convinced, but there wasn’t much that could be done yet. “Anyway,” Nero continued, “how are things going here?”

  He looked around at the factory. It wasn’t the largest of buildings, and they were only using a relatively small part of it, but there were still a good number of humans around, working at the machines. In front of each of these large pieces of machinery were the large cubes of metal ore. Valuable material, Dimora was lacking in metal resources of its own. Instead, these resources had to be shipped in from external sources, one of which was Kaza'ona. It could be a lucrative trade, but it wasn’t why Nero was interested in shipping over metal ore.

  “Fine Nero,” Talyah replied, accepting the change in subject. “The process is a lot smoother now that we're accustomed to it.”

  They walked over to the nearest machine, past empty boxes and discarded tools, strewn over the floor. “Not very tidy in here,” Nero commented.

  “No, it is not,” Talyah said with a distasteful expression on her smooth features. Her large, golden eyes still fascinated Nero, not that he ever let on to her.

  The machines themselves were about the height of a man, and were relatively featureless metal constructions, except for a large conveyor that ran through the centre. Onto one end of this, the cubes of metal ore were loaded, which were then transported into the middle of the machine. There, the machine’s operator could see the cube thanks to a large holodisplay, and he or she was able to use a high-powered cutting laser to break through the metal casing of the cube.

  Inside the nearly hollow cube were the drugs. A potential small fortune’s worth inside each one, the drugs could then be collected by a grabber arm, and fed out of the machine through another conveyor belt. The empty metal cube could then be melted down into a smaller, solid, cube.

  “Have you found a buyer for the metal yet?” Nero asked Talyah, as they stood watching one cube being dealt with. He glanced at the large pile of solid metal cubes that were building up.

  “I believe so, Nero. I’m going to meet with him later today.”

  “Good. And the drugs?”

  “We have the last of our distributors set up now, so it’s just a matter of shipping this stuff,” she gestured to the qiameth that had just come out of the nearest machine, “to them.”

  “Great.”

  They carried on walking around the factory, pausing to check on some of the men operating the machines, before Nero was finally happy with how things were running. As he was about to suggest that they both leave, Talyah interrupted his thoughts.

  “Nero?” Talyah asked.

  “Yes, Tal?”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

  “Sure.”

  “I think we need to be more... discrete, in what we do,” she said, eliciting a quizzical expression from Nero. “We all know the Nostra are beginning to take an interest, and--”

  “Tal, I already told you not to worry about them.”

  “I’m not the only one, Nero. The rest of the men... They won’t say anything, but I can sense their thinking. And they’re worried. None of us want to kick the Yeb nest, and if the Nostra decides they’ve had enough of us... Well, I don’t want to find out how strong they are. Do you understand, Nero?”

  “Sure I understand, Tal. But we’re strong. If they decide they want to test us, we’ll be ready.” He flashed a smile at Talyah, but she only seemed more distressed at the gesture.

  “Look at last week, Nero. Two of ours, missing. Perhaps they deserted, or some street thugs got them, but they’re not the only example. It’s becoming too regular to be a coincidence.”

  “So what do you suggest we do, Tal?” Nero asked, finally getting annoyed with Talyah’s constant worrying. “Cancel this whole operation? Send the drugs back to Kaza'ona with an apology?”

  “No, Nero. I am just suggesting that we need to take things slowly. Watch our backs.”

  “I am already. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the mountain.” Nero turned, not waiting for Talyah’s response, and strode back to his shuttle. Talyah stood where Nero left her, watching him disappear, a concerned expression on her face. Finally, as Nero’s shuttle rose up into the air, accompanied by the grating of the hangar doors opening again, she glanced back at the factory, before making her way over to her own shuttle.

  ****

  The two aliens walked down the street, both casually holding heavy-duty laser rifles over their bony shoulders. Other people walking along the street took one glance at the aliens, dressed as they were in long black flowing clothes, and with such a confident attitude, and quickly melted into the background, waiting until the two had passed.

  It was very late at night, or perhaps it was early in the morning, and not many people were out on the
streets. A few homeless humans and aliens, and a few small-time gang members that never seemed to sleep. All of these immediately recognised the vacso aliens for what they were, though, and gave them the respect they demanded.

  “Look at that one!” one of the aliens remarked, seeing a human child run out onto the street, and freeze when it saw the aliens.

  “I love kids,” the other said, its eyes on the child. “More satisfying,” it continued.

  The first alien shouted out to the child. “Hey, kid. What you doin’ at this time of night? No parents, is it?” This seemed to startle the child into movement, and it turned and started to run away down the street.

  “Hey, I was talking at you, kid!” the first alien yelled. “Don’t you fuckin’ run away from me! Don’t you know who the fuck I am!? No respect for Nostra anymore,” it muttered as it lowered the laser rifle from its shoulder.

  “Hey, let me do this one,” the other alien interrupted. “You know I love kids. Great targets.”

  “Hurry up then.”

  The second alien looked through the holo-sight of its gun, lining up the small child’s back in the centre. “Stupid child,” the alien muttered. “Not ducking into an alley, are we...?” When the sight was locked on, the alien squeezed the trigger of the weapon. The characteristic whine accompanied the massive discharge of energy, as a blue bolt of light shot from the end of the weapon. In the sight, the alien watched as the bolt hit the child’s back dead-centre, the energy instantly piercing straight through the child, leaving a hole visible even at this distance. The now-lifeless body went flying forwards, its momentum carrying it forward a couple of metres on the ground, before it came to a halt.

  “Nice shot,” the other alien commented. “I would have gone for the head myself.”

  The second alien shrugged, its shoulders moving both upwards and outwards at the same time as it did so. It rested the rifle back on its shoulder.