“Nova!” I shouted, my voice trembling with panic. ‘What has happened to her? Who did this?’
I got no answer. She always gave me a meow when I called her name. I kept shouting her name as I went into the cabin. Everything of value was gone. However, that did not matter. All that mattered was Nova. I spent five minutes calling her name and checking every nook and cranny, but I could not find her.
‘Did someone take her? Did she run out after being injured?’ I thought as my panic became more and more frantic. “Nova!”
“Oi, shut up already, Nova this, Nova that!” a voice shouted from outside. It took me a full two seconds to realise it had been in Etrish. The SynC automatically fed me some information about Etrimarians.
With a few steps, I was outside the cabin and saw two people. One was the fucking Leprechaun, the other was a man I had not seen before. He looked like a fairly standard Earther build wise, however, his ears were those of a cat. At the same time, his skin had a greenish hue.
Cobbled together with the fact that he spoke Etrish, it all led to one conclusion: He was from the Etrimarian Sanctuary. Which meant I had to be very careful. He was mercurial. I knew this without even knowing the person.
The Gaia classified world that became Etrimari Prime had a serious flaw. All its plants released spores that were highly addictive and made people exposed to it for long docile. However, if you left, you went into withdrawals and you became extremely volatile.
The fact that he did not have a tail, signified he was exiled by his people.
Another thing that immediately stood out to me was the fresh set of claw marks on his cheek.
My eyes narrowed and I became angry, totally ignoring the Leprechaun, I shouted at the Etrimarian, “What the fuck did you do to Nova? If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Easy now, Beanpole,” Leprechaun said with a sneer. “We’re just here to propose a trade.”
“You fucking kidnapped my cat?” I screamed at them.
“You watch your fucking piehole or I’ll rip the skin of your face and skull fuck you while you’re still alive!” the Etrimarian screamed back, advancing towards me.
“Calm down, Clem,” Leprechaun said with a sigh. “Remember why you are here.”
“Right,” the man called Clem mumbled, visibly deflating. “I know the whereabouts of your stupid cat. It’s going to cost you though.”
I was seething with anger. Clenching my fists, I asked through equally clenched teeth, “How much?”
“Everything on your credstick,” Clem replied with a big toothy smile, revealing blackened teeth just like Cobalt had.
My eyes narrowed. “Is she still alive?”
“Last I saw her,” he replied with a shrug. “You want the information or not?”
My heart was pounding, I was angry and scared at the same time. I had a hard time thinking straight. Nevertheless, without hesitation, I took out my credstick. “Fine, asshole. You win.”
“Call me an asshole again and I’ll fucking kill—” he started screaming, but Leprechaun put a hand on his back and he started calming down. He pulled out his credstick. “In return for all the credits on your stick, I will tell you where I last saw your cat, Nova.”
My SynC lit up with the proposed agreement. I confirmed it and touched his credstick with my own. The credits were drained from my stick, but they were not on his just yet. First, he had to uphold his end of the bargain.
“Well, where is she?” I demanded.
“Last time I saw her, she was running down that corridor,” he said, pointing down in the opposite direction of where I had come from. The SynC informed me the agreement had been upheld.
I almost exploded, at being cheated like that. It had been in the wording of the agreement, but I had been too angry and anxious to pay any attention. I had also believed that Clem had Nova. It turned out he did not.
He must have attempted to kidnap her because he heard of my big windfall. She had probably scratched his face, wiggled out of his grasp, and run away.
I looked at him. “Did you hurt her?”
“Fuck you,” he grumbled and walked away.
“If you hurt her, I’ll find you and kill you!” I screamed after him.
Clem started to turn around when Liam gruffly ordered, “Clem, keep walking. Your business here is done.”
The man looked like he wanted to argue, but turned back around and kept walking.
I snorted and turned around and was about to head off to find Nova, when Liam said, “And where do you think you’re going, Beanpole? We’re not done here!”
I turned back around, almost snarling at him. With forced pleasantness and a smile, I asked, “What can I help you with?”
“I’m here as a representative of Hoggart’s Homes. We got a report of the damage done to your cabin, and are here to assess the damages,” he said with a slimy smile.
“Take it up with Clem, it was obviously him, who trashed my cabin!” I said frustratedly.
Liam tsked. “Rejecting to take responsibility for your own actions, and being rude to a duly officiated representative of the station, I fine you two thousand credits.”
I almost opened my mouth to argue but thought better of it. Liam almost looked disappointed. He continued, “Because of not maintaining the cabin, your rental agreement has been cancelled. Forfeiting the deposit and all paid rent. Furthermore, you have to pay the damages, which amount to five thousand credits.”
I swallowed audibly, unclenching my teeth, I said, “I don’t have any credits. Just paid Clem everything I have.”
“Well, then you’ll have to take a loan with Hoggart’s Bank,” Liam said with a big smile. He took out a datapad and went through a great production of entering my information. “Oh dear, you have already loaned credits from us three times. All paid of course, but you know that we don’t like fiscally irresponsible people here. So the interest has gone up. I’ll send over the agreement for a seven thousand credit loan.”
My SynC notified me that I had gotten another agreement to look over. I almost exploded when I read the terms. A daily interest rate of 100% and then on top of that a 10% Handling Fee that went to Liam himself. Also added to daily.
I swallowed. There was only one thing to do and that was to sign this agreement and become their slaves for life. I also knew that if they felt I did not work hard enough to pay off the loan, I would be killed.
With a heavy heart, I signed off on the agreement.
“Good choice, Beanpole,” Liam said. I just nodded slightly. He stepped forward. I did not see the punch coming, but I certainly felt it. It connected hard with my stomach, doubling me over the air rushing out of me. Liam leaned in and whispered, “That’ll teach you to fucking treat me with respect!”
My legs gave out and I fell to my knees. Liam started walking away, shouting over his shoulder, “Stop lazing about, you got a debt to repay.”
“Asshole,” I mumbled under my breath, which I still had a hard time doing. After he was gone, I slowly got to my feet and hurried as much as possible down the corridor. I had an idea of where she might have gone.
The corridor led to the garbage room where I had found her.
As soon as I entered the giant room, I started calling her name. “Nova! Nova, where are you?”
After a minute of shouting her name, I finally got a shaky meow in return. She had to meow a few more times before I found her in a small shute. She was shaking like a leaf, starting meowing pitifully as soon as she saw me.
Gently I picked her up. She dug her claws deep in my arm, clearly not wanting to leave my embrace. I hugged her tightly to my chest, petting her as much as she wanted.
At the same time, I talked soothingly to her. “I’m so sorry this happened to you Nova, I’ll make sure nothing like it can ever happen again. Don’t worry, the bad man is gone.”
‘And I’ll make him fucking pay for this,’ I thought angrily. As carefully as possible, I checked her over. She hissed when I gently prodded her right hindleg. I had to make sure it was not broken, but she did not enjoy it when I carefully felt along her leg. It clearly hurt her, since she bit my hand and would not let go. It hurt like hell. However, for her, I would endure anything.
“You’re such a brave girl, scratching the bad man. I’m so proud of you,” I whispered soothingly.
As far as I could tell it was not broken. I sincerely hoped that was the case because I would never be able to convince Liam to loan me creds for a vet. As soon as I stopped prodding her leg, Nova retracted her claws. She meowed apologetically.
“It’s okay, sweetie. I’m sorry that I hurt you,” I whispered, scratching her ears. “Come, let’s see if we can salvage anything.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
When I got back to my apartment, the bag of food I had dropped was long gone. There was also someone standing outside my door. As soon as he saw me, he let out a cry of warning and bolted down the corridor away from me. A couple of seconds later, two people dashed out of my apartment and followed the first person. Their hands were full.
I sighed. Even more of my stuff had vanished.
Inside, I saw that they had gone off with the ruined NutriMaker and bed. Nova hissed angrily. Scratching her ear, I soothed her, “I know. Damn vultures. Stay here, while I see if they left anything behind.”
I put her on the shelf where I had kept a holoframe showing pictures of my parents. Bastards had even taken that. The only reason they had not taken the shelf was that it was welded to the wall.
It took me five minutes to search and find everything that had been left behind. Which was not a lot. There were two bottles of water that had fallen to the floor and rolled under the shelf that the NutriMaker had stood on. No one had wanted the half-full small bag of kitten litter that was in the cupboard. The catnip ball I had bought Nova had rolled underneath the shelf of the holoscreen. That was it.
Even the SanU had been ransacked. All my clothes had been stolen.
I put the bottles and the ball in the bag, carrying it on my right arm. I held out my left arm out for Nova to curl up in. She mewled in pain as she had to stand up and get in position.
With everything that I had left from the apartment in my arms, I made my way deeper into the station. Into the old area where my parents used to live. The old corridor and cabins were used for storage of old broken stuff.
The heat did not work, nor did the light. The air filtration in the section was a joke, the air quality was so bad that you only had a fifty-fifty chance of waking up if you fell asleep. All in all, a shitty place.
Nova meowed with uncertainty, her ears lying down flat. Soothingly I said, “I know Nova, don’t worry. It’ll only be for a few minutes.”
It was only thanks to the light enhancement of my SynC that I was able to navigate the hazardous corridor, where some of the floor panels had rusted from neglect. More than once, my foot broke through a panel and into the crawl space beneath. Luckily, my boots were thick and durable, preventing my ankles from being cut by the jagged edges.
Finally, I had made my way to what used to be our old apartment. The door was broken, it was filled with old machinery parts. I did not go in. Instead, I went to the turn in the corridor. Facing the wall, I looked around. No sign of anyone trying to break in. Looking up and down each of the two corridors I saw no one.
I put down the bag of our belongings and fished for something beneath my shirt. I pulled out two chains I carried around my neck. The links of each were just stainless steel, not worth more than a handful of credits.
The chain looped through what looked like two rings of a black polished stone. It was not stone, it was an unknown metal. The same as the credsticks were made from. Like the credstick, the first time an individual came close to a hyperlane gate, the Caretakers would grant the individual a credstick and implement a SynC.
The two rings on the chains were my parents' SynCs. They contained all of my parents’ personal files.
There was a huge black market for used SynCs. Simheads would easily pay upwards of ten thousand credits, depending on the experiences recorded on them. Never in my life would I sell them, no matter how bad things got. Especially not for strangers to relive the moments recorded on them. Violent deaths were a favourite amongst the simheads.
I shook my head in irritation and took off the SynC with the yellow string tied to it. It was my mother’s SynC. Yellow had been her favourite colour. The green string was my father’s.
I placed the SynC first on the seam to the left of the wall panel, then on the right. A slight click resounded in the empty corridor. The wall panel had retracted a bit and started to move to the right. It creaked horribly from lack of maintenance as the hidden door opened.
My mother used to have to place her forehead on the two spots to open the emergency workstation. The inside lit up with a bright fluorescent light, making me blink rapidly and Nova hissed in annoyance.
The door had revealed a room I had lived in for almost a year. It was a small room. Very small. One point five by one point five metres. Most of that room was taken up by the work console.
The room was meant for my mother to be able to work in case of catastrophic failures while she was off-duty. It was not meant to be used as a shelter. Nevertheless, it was where I lived when I found Nova.
It was also where I kept my hidden stash. Not that it amounted to much.
My old spacesuit, six bags of hydras, a week’s worth of food and water for Nova, her space-carrier, and my dad’s old blaster. Weapons were forbidden on the station, except for Hoggart’s men. The room was shielded so their weapons scans would not find it.
For a few seconds, while staring at it, I fantasized about using it to kill Clem, Hoggart, and most importantly, Liam.
I stepped inside, the door closing behind me. The difference in atmosphere and temperature was huge. While the rest of the section’s systems were ill-maintained, it was not the case for the emergency room. It ran on the same filtration system as the escape pods. Not even Hoggart’s lazy bastards were stupid enough to neglect to maintain that system.
So the air inside was warm and clean. Or it would be after a few minutes when the last of the bad air that had entered when the door opened had been circulated out.
I placed the bag on the floor and opened the front of the carrier. Carefully I placed Nova inside but did not close it. I put some water and food into the hoppers on the carrier.
Drained after the day’s events I sat down on the floor. I was unable to stretch my legs completely, So I hugged my knees with my arms, and rested my back against the bulkhead.
“Don’t worry, Nova, we’ll get through this,” I mumbled as I faded into sleep.
----------------------------------------
“Xandros Weaver. Renter rating is Atrocious,” Clarence had informed me when I rented the thirty cuber shortly after midnight. The rating meant that I was limited to renting thirty cubers and the price was double the normal fee for renting them.
Since I had little to lose, I had chosen the mysterious asteroid. Right beside my seat, Nova was meowing angrily at the circumstances. She did not like being locked up in her space-carrier.
However, I did not dare to leave her on the station alone any longer, nor could I let her roam around freely inside the cockpit. If a hull breach happened, I would not be able to get her into the carrier in time. The carrier was all that could protect her.
We were on final approach to the crater on the mysterious asteroid.
I put us down slowly, not knowing what to find there. Turning on external projectors, the darkness retreated enough for me to see the entrance to the cave. It was definitely manmade. It was square, almost like a shaft.
Carefully I timed it so that by the time I reached the entrance to the cave, shaft, or whatever it was, my craft was almost dead in space. It only had enough drift to be synced up with the movement of the asteroid.
For ten minutes I just sat staring at the entrance, willing it to reveal its mysteries to me, to no avail.
“Here we go,” I whispered to Nova and myself, as I used the manoeuvring thrusters to slowly guide us inside.
Our speed was less than ten kilometres per hour, and I had to take several deep breaths calming myself as we moved down the shaft. A shaft that was barely large enough for the mining craft to pass through, so I had to turn off the deflector shields.
After two hundred metres, there was a sharp turn to the left.
Despite it feeling more and more like a giant airshaft, the sides of the shaft were made of stone, not metal or any other man-made material. Nevertheless, I had little doubt that it was manmade. Especially after the fourth turn in a row. Right, up, down. It was weird flying inside.
Less than ten metres after the last turn, there was another turn to the right. A much softer one, with an actual curve instead of a hard turn.
The shaft must have been faulty, because as soon as I started up the thrusters, the walls started cracking a bit, rocks falling down, crashing against the craft. Each hit shook the craft.
“Shit,” I cursed, as Nova meowed at me, communicating her fear. I saw no other choice but to use even more thrust. I could do that since the shaft ahead curved.
The craft picked up speed as I sent us around the gentle curve, racing ahead of the crack forming in the walls. Suddenly ahead, I saw something that filled me with dread. I tried to break, but we had gained too much speed.
“Nova!” I shouted, closing my eyes, as we flew into what looked like a deflector shield. A massive jerk stopped our forward movement.
Confused, I opened my eyes. I should have become paste when I slammed into the deflector shield, however, I was very much alive.
Looking around I saw I was inside some kind of cavern, lit up by a powerful light source below the mining craft. That was all I could see, despite how bright it was.
Looking down at my displays I saw that the thrusters were still on, but I did not move anywhere. It took me almost a minute to figure out we had to be in some kind of gravitational tractor beam.
Weirded out by everything, I turned off our thrust.
As soon as I did, the craft started turning around. Soon up became down, back became front, and the craft was gently put down. I could now see the shaft I had come from, and what had looked like a deflector shield. The shield was still there, but somehow we had passed through it.
“What the hell is going on?” I mumbled to Nova. She just gave me a blank stare and an inquisitive meow.
My eyes were drawn to a green lamp. It was the one that signalled that there was an atmosphere and breathable air outside. I repeated myself. “What the hell is going on?”
This time I did not gain a reply. “Fuck this shit, let’s get out of here. Potential treasure be damned.”
I tried starting up the thrusters again, but suddenly the entire craft turned off. No matter what I tried, I could not turn it on again.
“Fuck!” I shouted, starting to hyperventilate. ‘What the hell is going on?’
Suddenly the canopy opened on its own. I reached for my helmet but was stopped by Nova’s carrier. I had placed it so it blocked me from getting to my helmet.
I silently cursed my stupidity but took solace in the fact that at least I knew Nova would be safe inside her carrier for a day or two. Maybe someone would come to investigate when I did not return.
“Goodbye Nova, thank you for being my friend,” I whispered, wasting some of the precious air I had left. When I could not hold my breath any longer, I gasped for air, which I knew would be my last act in this universe.
Again, what I expected to happen did not happen.
Instead of the cold vacuum of space, crisp, clean air filled my lungs. I coughed. I had never experienced such clean air. Not even when the station had been under the previous administration.
“What the hell?” I mumbled.
I looked around some more. The cavern was not large. Large enough for two thirty cubers to land next to each other, nothing more.
What I had failed to notice before, because the colour almost matched the rock around it, was a door opening on one side of the cavern. The wall on my right to be exact.
For the next five minutes, I tried to get the mining craft to follow my orders. However, I failed to even close the canopy, much less start it up again.
“Okay, I guess I’ll have to go exploring,” I said. “Hang tight, Nova.”
As I started climbing out the seat, Nova started meowing in a whining and demanding tone. I sighed. “Fine, but you’ll be on your leash.”
I took her out of the carrier, receiving a grateful meow, which turned into a hiss when I attached the leash to her collar. It was not something I used often. Only when I took her to the vet. She hated it.
“I’m sorry, I don’t want you to run off on your own. Who knows what’s going on here?” I said as I carried her down the ladder. I wished I had my father’s blaster. A weapon would be nice, in this unknown situation I found myself in.
Carefully I approached the door. When I was twenty metres from it, it opened. I had nowhere to hide, so I crouched down.
Beyond the door, it was pretty damn dark, no light at all. I could only see a humanoid figure. I called out like a moron, “We come in peace.”
The figure stepped forward, and I gasped. It was a sleek android of some kind, more advanced than I had ever seen. It also seemed to be made from the same material as the credsticks, SynCs, and hyperlane gates.
It looked at me—no at Nova—and said something in a language that my SynC did not translate. Nova hid behind me.
“We’re sorry that we intruded, if you just let us leave, we’ll tell no one about this place. I swear,” I said, panic clear in my voice.
I raised its hand as if out of nowhere, a blaster-like thing appeared in its hand.
“No, please—” I shouted, putting my hands up in front of my face as if it could shield me from whatever it was pointing at me.
A bright flash of light was the last thing I saw.