The Reaper Diaries: Supernova, Part 10
08 Feb 2016Michael Wolfe
“Look, I know we’ve had a hell of a trip. I know you’ve lost a ship. I know you’re still really banged up. And I’m pretty sure that we trust each other…”Nova was looking around the cockpit as the mail slot to Shajin Market swallowed us up. An expression of fear and wonder spreading across her face.
“… but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous as hell about being in the middle of a whole station of goddamn Inquisitors!”
I chuckled and deployed the landing gear as I centered the Cobra above the pad. “It isn’t a whole station of Inquisitors. It’s just administered by the Chapterhouse- a regional HQ of sorts. Since Arissa ascended the throne, the real center of Inquistition activity moved with her to Achenar. Kamadhenu is just her old stompin’ grounds from when she was a senator.”
Nova’s eyes narrowed. “So why not head there?”
I shrugged as we both unbuckled and got up. “Because this is where my contact is based out of. A guy named Hathaway. Gideon Hathaway. We turn the info over to him, and wait to see if he thinks it’s worth any effort.”
Heading back into the crew cabin, I changed into jeans, a t-shirt, and my leather jacket. I turned around, and Nova was just pulling a black sweater over her head, wearing her least-torn-up jeans. I raised my eyebrows.
“Cold?”
My partner shook her head. “I just don’t go to many Imperial stations. I especially don’t talk to Inquisitors. Not really sure how I should be dressed.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Well, there ain’t any kind of dress code for either. Achenar, yeah- but Gideon’s more focused on results than he is on appearances.”
Nova raised an eyebrow. “Let’s hope so, Mr. Scruffy face.”
“So, what am I supposed to do while you two are talking?”
We were in Shajin’s Inquisition wing. All around us, stern, serious people hustled about, some in uniform, some out. I had confirmed that Gideon was on the station, and was even in his office. That was a lucky break- if he had been away on assignment, I wasn’t sure who I could trust with the information I had sitting in my jacket pocket.
“Sit and look pretty. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Be polite.”
Nova’s face screwed up. “This is the kind of shit that reminds me of why I’m indy in the first place. I’m not one for taking orders and being all ladylike.”
I glanced down at her. “Don’t I know it.”
We arrived at a large sliding door. I looked down at my wrist computer and keyed in the security code. The door slid open, revealing a luxurious courtyard with plentiful fauna against immaculate, flowing architecture. Transparent glass walkways were suspended over a gently sloping water streams of water.
Nova’s eyes bulged as she looked around us like a little kid. “This is where your friend works?”
I smiled, remembering the first time I had seen the Inquisition’s luxurious wing. “Sure is. Quite a place, huh?”
My partner’s head continued to swivel, taking in the beauty. “Ships, architecture, goddamn offices- does the Empire do anything plain?”
“Sure doesn’t- especially when there are people to be impressed or overwhelmed.”
Nova walked a little closer to me, grabbing my arm. “Just- don’t go anywhere, ok? A place this beautiful has got to be hiding something ugly.”
Looking up at me, her eyes narrowed. “And just how deep are you with these people?”
I chuckled and patted her hand around my arm. “Not as deep as you might think. I haven’t been here since I was fired.”
“Fired?”
Smiling, I walked up to the sub-section where Gideon’s office was located. “Yeah. I was an inquisitor once, for a short time. Then I, uh, kind of used that as leverage to take care of some personal business.”
“Oh. But you still feel ok coming back?”
I sighed and found Gideon’s door. “The firing was… not as final as you’d think. I still get bounty hunting bonuses, and I’ve done a handful of jobs for them since then.” Gesturing to the door, I turned to my partner. “This is him.”
Nova screwed up her face, released my arm, and straightened her sweater. “I swear you owe me a drink for this.”
“Relax, darlin’. It ain’t like we’re in any sort of trouble.”
“If what you’re telling me is true, then you’re in serious trouble.”
Nova and I looked at each other. The barest hint of I-told-you-so crossed her eyes.
Turning back to Gideon, I raised an eyebrow. “Say what now?”
A look of suppressed anger crossed Gideon’s face. “You had the plans for some mysterious superweapon in your grasp, and instead of going directly to us, you dallied in a Federation system and let them have the data core?”
I gulped and tried to not show any concern. It had been a long time since I’d spoken to Gideon, and had almost forgotten about what a hard-ass he could be.
“Well, I brought you a copy, didn’t I?” I gestured to the disk on his desk.
Glancing down at it, Gideon shrugged. “Yes. A disk from the only surviving repository of information available concerning this weapon. A disk that should never have been made. A disk, which is a copy of information that you handed over to enemies of the Empire.”
Shit. I held up my hands. “Ok, ok- I get that you aren’t happy that the Feds have the stuff, too. My mistake. Can we just move on and talk about what we can do to make this right?”
Gideon’s face hardened as he took the disk, holding it up in his hands. “Normal procedure would be to send this in for analysis, assign a competent agent to handle things from here, and throw you out of the Chapterhouse.”
He looked down, scowling. “But since we’ve done that already, I suppose that I have no choice but to involve you further. The fewer people know about this, the better. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll contact you when we have an assignment.”
Done. Get me the hell out of this office.
As I stood up to leave, Nova piped up. “Would this assignment have a credit value attached to it?”
Gideon stared hard at her. “Indeed it would. For those authorized to perform Inquisition business- not the latest dyed-hair tart they’ve brought in with them.”
Despite her previous timidity, Nova narrowed her eyes at Gideon. “Tart? Who the hell are you to talk down to me like some-“
I seized Nova by the arm, leading her out of Gideon’s office. When the door slid closed behind us, I leaned in and whispered hard. “I know you don’t take shit from anyone, darlin’- but remember that we’re in a goddamn lion’s den of people who make other people disappear for a living. Now let’s just-“
Nova cut me off, her eyes flashing. “And you work for this guy?”
I rolled my eyes and led her further away. “Used to. I still take jobs from him sometimes. He’s… you didn’t get the best first impression today.”
My partner’s eyes narrowed as she glanced back at Gideon’s office. “Well, I don’t care for a second one. Cold, arrogant, condescending- he’s like the counterbalance to the rest of this damn place-“ Nova looked around, regarding the beautiful surroundings with a hardened glance- “Everything wrong with the Empire, surrounded by everything it gets right.”
Seeing that she was following me, I released her arm. “That was almost poetical, darlin’. Want to grab a drink?”
Nova’s eyes softened somewhat at the suggestion, but her face remained in a scowl. “Sure. It ain’t like there’s anything else to do here.”
The bar we chose was a little more ritzy than Nova was used to- but then, damn near anything run by an Imperial faction was going to be. We were sat at a table, Nova sipping on a mimosa and myself nursing a beer. I’m not normally one for small talk, but my partner hadn’t said a word since we had ordered, just staring out the giant viewport window over Kamadhenu. It was a beautiful view, but not cease-conversation beautiful. Something had been on Nova’s mind, and I was fixing on finding out what exactly that thing was.
“How’s your drink?”
Nova held up the orange-yellow substance in her glass and shrugged. “Not bad. Mine are better. But not bad.”
I nodded. “Still sore over earlier?”
My partner resumed looking out the gigantic glass wall of the station. Outside, we could see a Cutter gracefully fly past us, flanked by a pair of Imperial Eagles. Nova followed them with her eyes for a moment, and then shook her head.
“Not really. I’m just going crazy from all this sitting around. It ain’t how I like to work. I didn’t as a bartender, and I don’t as a pilot. Get the job, do it, get paid, move on to something else. That’s how it’s been for about three years.”
I shrugged and took a sip of my beer. “So?”
She turned back to me. “So- waiting on geriatrics and bureaucrats ain’t exactly my cup of tea.” I smirked, noting her use of the same expression I had said when I flubbed what had possibly been Nova’s one and only flirty moment in our time together. Instead of agreeing that an exploration tour with someone sounded nice, I had instead dismissed it without it even occurring to me that Nova might have been referring to us.
Well, you blew that one pretty good. Now she’s flinging your words right back in your face.
“I know what you mean, darlin’. I’d just as soon see Gideon assign someone else to this. But you heard him- it’s a damn sensitive batch of info that we delivered, and the first rule of secret ops is to keep shit as simple as possible. That means not involving more people than you have to. And since you and I have had our feet in the mud since the beginning, well-“
I held out my hands and shrugged. Nova sighed and took another drink. “Yeah. I know. I just hate waiting around.”
Finishing my beer, I nodded. “I hear you. But sometimes it’s nice to have some down-time.” I yawned, feeling some now-familiar aches and pains in my side returning. “And to have a bunk waiting after a long day and a cold beer.”
Nova’s eyebrow raised. “And a partner to change your damn bandages?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Is it already that time?”
“Well, you're at least healing nicely. This isn’t even gross anymore.”
I felt Nova’s hands smoothing the tape holding my bandages in place. “That’s good news, I guess. Still hurts like hell without the pain meds, though. And my dreams are still pretty freaky. Like I’m reliving things that happened years ago.”
Nova handed me my shirt and stood up. “That’s why stasis drugs are so regulated. People use them to do exactly that. There’s a lot of money to be made selling them on the black market.”
I turned to my partner, an eyebrow raised. “And just how would you know all this?”
“Oh, a girl just hears about these things if she’s been at enough ports.”
I cocked my head to the side. “An Explorer-model Asp is an awfully nice rig to be flying three years out of academy. You sure you don’t know anything about black market drug smuggling?”
My partner smirked and dragged her finger across her chest. “Cross my heart.”
I shook my head and laid down on my back, already feeling tired. “Well, I guess I’m the envy of a lot of junkies then. These drugs stay in your system for a long damn time without the antidotes.”
Nova patted my shoulder and made her way toward the ship's shower, stripping her shirt off along the way. From within, I could hear the water turn on. “Well, they’re stasis drugs, right? They’re designed to be long-lasting. That’s how they can fetch eight grand a ton if you’re at the right port. You just have to get good at extracting the leftover drugs from derelict space wreckage.”
I sat up, eyes narrowing. “Darlin’, I’m beginning to think that you ain’t told me everything about your motives.”
My partner’s head stuck out from the shower, wet blue hair pressed against her scalp and bare shoulder. Her lips were curled up in the slyest of smiles. “No one ever does in this business, partner.”
“I'm beginning to think you ain't told me everything about yourself, Lehman.”
I was sitting at the bar, dizzy from the Old Sol coursing through my system. As new-jack as it was to be walking around in your flight suit, I had really needed the drink once the reality of what I’d done sunk in. Rax and his friends had crowded around me, slapping my back and being their usual convivial selves. It should have been a great day. I’d officially broken into bounty hunting, collecting nineteen separate criminal bounties in The Green Salsa Avenger.
For the entire afternoon, I had waited like an assassin in the asteroid belts for pirates to attempt to hijack the local miners. It was rinse, wash, repeat: sit in my Eagle, powered-down and scanning passing ships in the less- busy parts of the asteroid ring. If someone came up as wanted or opened fire on a miner, I pounced, opening up on them like an avatar of vengeance. Usually, the pirates didn’t know what was happening until their shields were already down and their hulls were melting away in red-hot glowing chunks.
Thanks to me, a lot of miners were safe. I hadn’t paid for a drink the entire time I’d been at the bar. Hands had been shaken, thanks had been extended, and glasses raised. Now, the miners had mostly gone home to their families, the atmosphere had died down, and there was no one around except the regulars. It was almost inevitable that Rax would hear about my exploits. Now, here he was to congratulate me in his own smartass manner.
I turned to my black market contact, unsteadily raising a glass. “I guess even a glorified data-handler gets lucky sometimes, huh?”
“Aye, but luck didn’t have anything to do with it. Just ask those nineteen chunks of floating space gibs.”
I turned back to my drink. “Whatever you say.”
Rax and his friends settled down around me on stools of their own. He signaled the barkeep, not for individual drinks, for an entire damn bottle to share between themselves. “Here you are, sitting on top of the biggest pile of bounty vouchers this bar has seen in awhile- and you headed straight here for a drink instead of getting them redeemed.”
His face twisted into a look of sarcastic faux-concern. “I think that somebody is nursing a moral crisis.”
I felt my own face harden despite myself. “Just leave me alone, Rax.”
He had been right though. Despite my successes, the whispering, persistent voice at the edge of my conscience wouldn’t go away: you just killed nineteen people. I finished my drink, but I couldn’t drown it out.
You just killed nineteen people.
You just killed nineteen people.
The alcohol wasn’t working. Worse, my discomfort was so obvious that even a roughneck like Rax had been able to pick up on it.
Or maybe he’s more perceptive than I give him credit for, I thought.
Rax waved his buddies away and refilled my glass with his bottle. His face settled into something resembling earnestness, and took a swig of his own.
“Some people are born into a way of life. It’s all they know, and so it’s all they do.” He stared down at the bottle in his hand. “Others have to search a little while for their calling. But when they find it, they know it.”
Watching me silently sip my drink, he subtly glanced my way. “And liking it ain’t always part of the deal.”
I swirled the Old Sol in my glass, watching the ice make little circular motions. “So what is this, your new bounty hunter pep-talk?”
Rax turned to face me, a hard look on his face. “Worse. It’s what you need the most right now, lad: the cold, hard truth. You’re better at reaping than anything else you’ve ever done as a pilot- probably better than anything you’ve done, period.”
He tapped the pocket of my jacket. “Pretty soon, you’re going to be loaded down with more credits than you’ve ever seen- enough to make that first big score a couple years back seem piddlin’ in comparison. And you’re going to have to make a decision.”
I looked up, head spinning a little more from the alcohol. Slurring a little, I shook my head.“A decision to be a goddamn killer?”
Rax stood up, straightening his jacket. “A decision to either embrace what you are, or to live a lie. And if you’ve got qualms, well- it happens.”
I looked back down to my drink. “Good to hear that not all bounty hunters are sociopaths.”
Rax spun my stool around and pointed to a cluster of miners at one of the booths. “Don’t think about the ones you kill. Think about the ones you save.”
I sighed, drunkenly nodding my head. Rax stood over me, tucking a holo disk in my jacket pocket. “Now get some sleep and sober up. I’ve got a job for you….”
“Matt, I think Gideon’s finally got a job for us.”
Nova was leaning over me in her boxers and tank top, shaking my shoulder. I blinked hard a few times, the sudden sight of her bra-less, feminine curves juxtaposing themselves awkwardly against the leftover image of Rax’s face. Nova reached down and cupped my chin, bringing my gaze up to her eyes.
“Up here, partner. Your wrist computer just chimed, and I swear I saw the words ‘Hathaway, G.’ on the display.”
I took a deep breath, trying to will the sleepiness away. “You always hover over a sleeping partner like this in case something might happen?”
She got and walked to the kitchenette area, pouring a cup of coffee. Handing it to me, she shrugged. “I do when I’m stuck in some place for too damn long and I’m going stir-crazy from boredom.
I sat up, raising the cup in a gesture of thanks. “Get any sleep?”
Nova leaned against a wall. “Some. Not as much as you.”
I nodded, taking my fist sip of coffee. Goddamn, it was nice to wake up to a cup of joe ready to go. I haven’t had that happen since- I looked up at Nova’s brilliant blue hair- since the last job I did with Kyndi. I looked down at my wrist display, still displaying the unread message notification.
Well, let’s not stand on ceremony. Taking another sip of coffee, I accessed Gideon’s message, browsing it carefully. Nova walked over to me, pursing her lips impatiently.
“Well… what did he send over?”
I looked up at her, holding up my wrist for her to read. “A list of targets. Lysenko execs, agents, and research personnel. They’ve all got Inquisition bounties slapped on ‘em. Damn good ones, too. ”
For the first time since setting down on Shajin Market, Nova’s expression was something that resembled contentment. She leaned over further, twisting my wrist so that she could see the screen. “I remember a lot of these names from all that data combing I did. It’s everyone connected to the device.”
I closed out the message and stood up, stretching. The pain was there to greet me, but it was tempered by a long-overdue sense of purpose. “Looks like we finally get to be dumb ‘ol bounty hunters again, huh?”
Nova grinned a slightly evil grin, looking up at me through her eyelashes. “After all the bullshit this job’s put us through?” Her hand involuntarily went down to the stolen pistol strapped to her thigh. “I’d say it’s about damn time.”
I smiled in return, nodding slowly. Shajin Market was my "home" port, where I kept my collection of ships. The thought of getting back into the Hand of Blue sent a shiver down my spine. “Yeah. Time to get our war paint on.”
“So, this is your baby, huh?”
I was stripped to the waste, changing into my flight suit. Nova and I were in the pilot’s cabin aboard the Hand of Blue. Though the stock cabin had sleeping space for two, I had remodeled so that it only had one bunk. I had also installed weapons lockers, more storage, and a really sweet holovision unit. I was essentially showing Nova around my home.
I looked up, pulling down a beat-up Pilot’s Federation T-shirt over my bandaged torso. “Sure is. The Hand of Blue and I go back a few years. She’s never let me down, and I only get her the best.” I patted the bulkhead wall affectionately.
My partner gestured towards the closed door that led to the canopy. "Never been inside a Vulture before. Mind if I take a look?"
I shrugged and pulled on my boots. "Go ahead."
Nova opened the accessway for the bridge and whistled. “This isn’t a cockpit- this is a damn mini-bridge.”
“Yeah. Hell of a view for dogfighting and sightseeing.”
I zipped up my flight suit and walked up behind her. Putting a hand on her shoulder, I softened my voice. “It’s got seating for two, you know.”
Nova briefly took my hand in hers, and then turned around to face me. “I appreciate it, but I’m feeling the need to cause a little mayhem of my own. Besides- two ships are better than one, right?”
I smiled and nodded. “And you’re ok flying by yourself out there?”
My partner grinned the same evil grin as before. “I cut my teeth in a Cobra, learning to blast criminals and clean up my home sector. It’ll be like old times.”
I chuckled. “You’re too young to have ‘old times’, darlin’.”
Nova’s eyes flashed as she looked up at me. “And you’re too old to coast off of youthful rougishness for much longer. What are you, thirty-six?”
“Thirty-four,” I corrected.
An amused look crossed Nova’s face. “Well, I guess you’ve got to have at least some skill to make it to such a ripe old age as a bounty hunter.”
I chuckled softly, releasing her hand. “Good luck out there, darlin’.”
Nova nodded, still looking up into my eyes. “I’ll see you in the black.”
In just about any action holovid, Nova and I at this point would have kissed passionately and swore each other’s safe return. But it wasn’t a holovod. Instead, my partner pursed her lips like she wanted to say something else, turned, and silently walked away towards the exit hatch, her flight suit hugging her features on the way out.
Sighing, I shook my head to clear my mind of unduly distracting thoughts about my comely young partner. Grabbing my helmet, I settled into the Hand of Blue’s command chair, relishing the familiar feeling of the leather seat gripping my body. The systems activated flawlessly, the blood-red custom instrument displays lit up, and I felt a wonderful, relaxed feeling in my chest as I heard the engines start to thrum.
I looked around, back in the saddle of my favorite ship. This is where I belong, I thought. This is what I do.
The Hand of Blue finished her final pre-flight diagnostics, and handed full control over to me. I grinned the same ferocious grin as Nova as I confidently gripped the joystick and throttle.
“Daddy’s home, baby. Daddy’s home.”