Nova: A Scifi Alien Romance (Rebel Lords)

C
opyright
© 2016 by Kylie Gold

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L
ess than excited
, that was putting it lightly. I was far less than excited to be on Shaviro. Unexcited, unamused, perhaps even a little annoyed. No, very annoyed. I know it was my job to oversee important mining expeditions, but I had been away from home for months and was growing rather ill in disposition. So, Shaviro was one of the last places I wanted to be. While most of the planets we oversaw drilling on seemed to blur together, I certainly had heard the rumors of the violent war raging between the natives of the planet and the colony. Being caught in a warzone between savage aliens and the humans was the absolute last place I wanted to be.

But, I suppose there were worse places I could have been on that planet, considering I was riding on one of the most heavily guarded convoys I had ever seen. The large hovercraft was completely filled with people, and all of them but myself and my secretary, Ryan, were guards. All of them were carrying large plasma blasters and dressed head to toe in tactical gear. And Ryan being there certainly helped me keep my mind off the reality of the situation we were thrown into, so I wore a brave face and didn’t show off my disdain for the planet.

“We should be arriving at the mining site in about fifteen minutes, Miss Administrator,” one of the guards notified me, his tone completely flat. Miss Administrator? They were really into titles there on Shaviro, weren’t they? When we had first landed and I met with the local government, I heard a few civilians address them as ‘Councilman’ followed by their name. It seemed to be a rather authoritarian-like colony—but I suppose I could understand their need for it when anything beyond city limits was considered a warzone. Strong authority gave people the mindset of keeping in line. Realizing I was getting too far gone in thought, I gave the guard a simple nod and turned to Ryan.

“When will we be meeting with Burn and Grain?” I asked Ryan, wanting to make sure we stayed on schedule. Mason Burn was the head of the Shaviro branch of the Intergalactic Mining Corporation, we were meeting him to go over the new mining site and then bringing him back to town where we would have a meeting with Lyle Grain, the local leader, at some point. Dremalite was a precious and valuable material, but there had to be enough of it within the mining site to determine whether or not IMC would fund the project. And if they had enough, I had to meet with the local government to go over the contracts needed for our men’s housing, along with waivers and discussion of profits. Nothing could officially start without my go ahead.

Ryan looked at the time before scrolling through his wristlet to find the appointment time. “It isn’t until 5:30, and it’s only 1:12 local time,” he informed me.

I let out a heavy sigh, it was going to be a long afternoon. “Well, at least the meeting will be done at a decent time so that we can go find the local bar,” I sighed to him. Ryan was my secretary, but also my closest friend. We worked together all day, every day for months at a time; it only made sense for us to be close. I adored his wife and daughter as well, often spending even our downtime together.

Ryan gave a nod and a smile. While he normally kept a better disposition about the job compared to me, I could tell it was starting to get to him as well. He smiled, but his pale face had a worn-out expression. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if I had a spouse and child at home and was away for so long. It was probably extremely selfish of me, but I always worried that he would quit to find something that didn’t have such a terrible schedule. I know he needed to spend time with his family, and I wanted him to—but at the same time, I loved working with him and would miss him so dearly if he did ever leave.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the convoy reached its destination. The guards exited the craft in order, Ryan and myself falling in the middle of the line. I looked around as we walked, my eyes widening a bit. We had just ridden through a hot, sticky, humid jungle that was almost suffocating, and just off in the distance was an icy mountain range. This planet was so strange…

We were escorted to the edge of a chasm, the thing running on forever in both directions. Oh, this was just
fun
. Nothing like having to work and inspect inside an abyss. We walked down the intricate stair system, my eyes glued to whatever was in front of me, completely terrified to look down. Gotta say, everyone here should be getting paid more for the occupational hazard. So much could already go wrong when mining, but there? One wrong move and you were falling to your death in a pitch black chasm.

Approaching the site, I looked around to see just how it was all laid out. So they wanted to drill into the middle of the wall of the chasm? That wouldn’t work too well… they would need to blow the top off of the side to ensure that the drilling didn’t cause a major collapse and loss of lives and material. It would also expose any Dremalite that could be lingering within the top layers of the chasm. Several crew members were walking about the new site, preparing for the pending mining expedition. Walking through the crowd, a man turned on his heel and gave a charming smile in my direction, “Julia Spear, just the woman I wanted to see,” the man beamed. He was rather handsome, I had to admit. He appeared to be around my age, perhaps a little older; tall with a thick, muscular frame. Short wavy black hair and piercing blue eyes—this man was definitely a looker, but something about him definitely screamed pretentious prick. He held a hand out for me to shake, “Mason Burn. My, I wasn’t expecting such a fine, young woman to be an administrator.”

I shook his hand and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. It was typical of excited branch leaders to try and sweet talk the administrator in any way in hopes of it improving their chances for their dig to be approved. Every single one, without fail, always mentioned my age. I had to give it to them, it was weird for an administrator to only be twenty-eight; but I had graduated the top of my class and completed all of the training and testing needed to become an administrator with flying colors. I just gave a polite smile and dropped his hand, “Pleasure to meet you.”

Mason gave a grin and then waved for us to follow him, “Let’s get started, shall we?” He walked us along the progress they had already made. Branch heads could approve small digs on their own, but when it needed to be expanded was when administrators were called in for consultation. “One of our men discovered a large chunk of Dremalite right over here,” he said, motioning towards a large chunk of the wall already missing. “They removed it and drilled a little more, but didn’t find anything else. We started performing spot checks throughout this crevice in the chasm, and found that it seems to hold
a lot
of Dremalite. Chunks bigger than I have ever seen. The only problem is, the chunks are so spaced out up here. So it’s taking a lot of time and money to retrieve the pieces we find. We need approval to even continue digging at all, I pushed the limits as far as I could with the amount I’m allowed to approve. But I believe that if we got deeper into the planet here, we’ll find giant clusters of the ore.”

He guided us through the wide tunnel they had been working in. I took notice of every chunk of earth missing, each one signifying a piece of Dremalite found. No wonder Shaviro had exploded in population like it had. That Dremalite was bringing in crazy amounts of money. Mason was right though, the spots where the Dremalite had been found had quite some space between them. But, it looked consistent and I was pretty positive that he was right in thinking drilling deeper could find even more. The three of us walked the length of the site, Ryan typing notes on his wristlet as fast as he could.

Once the tour was complete, we all exited the tunnel and then made our way out of the chasm all together. I looked to Mason as we neared the hovercraft, “I really don’t see there being any problems at all approving this dig. It looks like you were right, it certainly does have a lot of Dremalite and the potential for holding even more than we think. We just need to sort the paperwork out with the local government, and you should be able to get started within the next couple of days.”

He gave a rather smug smirk, “Excellent.” When I went to step onto the hovercraft, Mason stopped me. “I forgot to tell you, I will not be riding to Harp with you at this time; I have just a few things to wrap up here. However, I assure you I will be on time for our meeting.” Something about his tone… it sounded almost like he was planning something sinister or at the least illegal. Whatever it was, it gave me a weird feeling, but I tried to let it go.

I just gave him a nod, “Alright then. I’ll see you in town hall at 5:30. It was nice meeting you.” Giving another pressed smile, I boarded the hovercraft and sat down next to Ryan. Mason better be on time like he said, I didn’t want to have to wait around for him to get there to start the meeting. I let out a heavy sigh and tried to relax the best I could as the hovercraft took off towards the jungle.

“With the way that dig was looking, maybe we should move to Shaviro,” Ryan chuckled. Shaviro was about to go from being one of the smallest, least populated colonies, to the biggest. If they found the amount of Dremalite they were estimating to find, they were going to be hundreds of times richer than they were then.

“I think I’ll pass,” I mumbled, “It’s a little too dangerous here for my taste.” It was a planet at war, and even the humans were turning on each other out of greed. Where there was money, there was crime. Harp had attracted life from all over the colonies, bringing in con artists, thieves, and other greedy types. I didn’t have to know Harp very well to know that it was exactly what was going on there, it happened just about everywhere they found Dremalite.

The ride back towards Harp was rather quiet, both of us keeping to our own thoughts. I just couldn’t wait for the work day to come to an end so that I could indulge in alcohol before passing out, only to wake up and do it all again. Luckily if the drilling went smoothly, Ryan and I wouldn’t have to be there much longer.

I apparently had been too far gone in my thoughts. The next thing I knew, the hovercraft was crashing to a stop. I looked up to see a large red man lifting his large war-hammer from the front of the convoy—he had completely smashed the front of the motor. “
Get down!
” a guard yelled at us. There was no hesitation as Ryan and I both hit the deck as the sound of gun fire, battle cries, and screams sounded just over our heads. Fear coursed through me, my eyes shut tightly; I had never been under attack before like this. All I could keep thinking was how I just wish I was home.