CHAPTER TWO

Nova smashed the wrench down onto the metal desk and cursed under her breath. She dove under the control board, tightening bolts and rearranging wires. The small room filled with smoke that hissed out from between the cracks in the control panel.

Nova's black hair was pulled away from her face with a simple band and glowed in the flashing orange light that filled the command centre. Her legs poked out from underneath the command desk, wrapped in their customary black jeans and knee-high black boots.

"Argh! Why can't you work for just five minutes?" Nova shouted as an alarm sounded and she worked even more furiously through the steam.

"If you had replaced the wires a month ago when I informed you that their condition was poor, we would not be having this problem," said an exasperated voice.

Nova pushed herself out from under the metal desk for enough time to cast a glare at the metallic orb that hovered a little way back from the dashboard. C4L, or 'Cal' as Nova liked to call him, was round, about the size of a football, with a camera lens that swivelled down to stare back at her.

Nova sighed and returned to her work. She was desperately tightening valves as they came lose at the same time as trying to find the source of the original leak.

"The ship's maintenance log says the fifth input fuse has blown," Cal announced from his position, now even further away from the rattling, hissing, set of controls which was the command unit.

"Got it!" Nova yelled as she pulled out the offending fuse and replaced it.

The control board gave a final shake and burst of steam as the alarms stopped. She breathed a sigh of relief and let her head fall to the metal floor of the ship. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and pushed herself out from under the control board.

Nova pulled herself up and sat into the command chair, bringing her feet up to rest on the control board. The flashing orange lights were gone, leaving the many buttons and levers that guided her ship, Crusader. In the very centre of the control panel was an old-style wheel which she could use to control the ship's movements instead of the ever-present autopilot.

The front screen looked out over the black panorama of space. Distant stars twinkled through the night but surrounding them was quiet.

With her legs still on the control panel Nova turned and called over her shoulder, "Cal! You can stop hiding. It's fixed."

The robot hovered into view and came to a stop just in front of Nova.

"I wasn't hiding," he said. "I was taking inventory in the storage room."

"Really?" Nova asked, raising an eyebrow. "How many boxes of parts do we have in there?"

"I didn't get up to counting the parts yet," Cal responded, his voice flustered.

Nova grunted and turned back to her controls.

"Okay, so we've come all the way to the damned Pleasure District. Check the Cloud; are there any jobs on the boards?" she asked the robot.

Cal's eye turned to the front window where the display changed to show multiple boxes of text. Jobs had been posted onto the boards from all over the universe for bounty hunters such as Nova.

It was said the Cloud contained all the information there was to know, but sometimes someone would discover something new and had the great honour of adding the information to the Cloud. There used to be new things to add all the time, as new planets and alien races were discovered, but for the last fifty years additions had slowed down. There was less and less to discover as more of the universe became 'known'.

"There's a military coup over on Mildura," Cal said, taking data from the board.

"Ugh. I am not getting into one of those again," said Nova, waving her hand.

"There's a job transporting beans from Sello to Fastoon."

"Beans? Ha! Who would believe that? I'm not risking my freedom by transporting Sellovian drugs."

Nova closed her eyes and rested back against the familiar chair. Here in Crusader was one of the few places she felt she could relax, and no-where more so than her pilot's seat.

"Escaped convict?" Cal asked.

"Oooh, a convict! Where is it?"

"Milky Way Quadrant," Cal replied.

Nova narrowed her eyes at Cal. "The heart of the Human Confederacy? I don't think so."

"Someone wants help catching a casino thief, there's a couple of lost dogs, and everything else I told you about yesterday."

"What happened to all the good jobs?" Nova asked with her eyes still closed. "Where's the casino job?"

"Right here on Tabryn," Cal replied.

Nova's eyes flew open briefly to stare at the robot but Cal seemed not to notice. She sighed heavily, pulled her legs off of the control panel, and returned them to the floor, her chair creaking all the while.

"How much?" she asked.

"Two thousand credits," Cal replied, turning from the screen to Nova. "With that we could replace all the fuses." His tone was curt and Nova rolled her eyes.

"Why did it have to be Tabryn?" she asked. "I suppose I did say I wanted a job near here."

Cal didn't bother to respond.

Nova leant with her head in her hands as she went over her options. The control room was quiet except for the rumbling of her ship's engine and the whirring of Cal's cooling fan.

"Okay, make a course for Tabryn, but keep an eye on the boards. If another job comes up, I want to know about it straight away; preferably somewhere nice. This is the Pleasure District; there has to be somewhere that I'd like to be."

"Received," Cal said.

Nova nodded and sauntered away from the command pod as Crusader went into autopilot and prepared for a space jump. The command pod was small, taken up mostly by the controls. A narrow corridor led through the ship to the other compartments.

Past the dining pod, Nova took the right hand door and stepped into the largest room on Crusader: the storage bay. The engine took up most of the room, and panels and drawers lined the walls, leading into storage pods.

Nova surveyed the storage area and satisfied herself that everything was in order before returning to the eating area and the small alcove that lead off it. She used the side of her fist to punch a white button on the wall and a metal bunk dropped down with a squeak.

The sheets were still tangled from when Nova had last got up; it was a wonder that it had fit back into its wall space at all. She climbed onto the bunk and lay on her back with her eyes closed. The lull of Crusader soothed her into semi-consciousness. She was about to drop off when her thoughts returned to Tabryn.