The Devil In My Arms: A Science Fiction Romance

Chapter 1

Olivia

“Attention passengers, this is the captain speaking.”

Yeah, right. Captain my ass. The Kiphian piloting the superluminal luxury class starship isn’t in the military. He’s more like a pilot.

“Our craft will be dropping out of our Superluminal jump shortly. Please return to your seats and secure crash webbing for atmospheric entry to the beautiful world of New Verdan.”

More bullshit from the bogus captain. Does he have any idea how many failsafes there are to keep us from turning into paste on the inside of the cabin? I do, because I’ve traveled all over this galaxy in myriad different craft. Still, I don’t want to cause a fuss and therefore leave the observation deck and head back to my seat. There’s not much to see while in a superluminal jump anyway. The stars streaking by gets old after a while.

I settle into my seat, glad I sprang for first class even though it meant I had to delay visiting my friend Elena and her new husband for a week. The EC doesn’t send a whole lot of luxury ships out this way, and for good reason.

New Verdan is a frontier planet. By that I don’t just mean that it’s on the Frontier, that region of the galaxy still being mapped and charted and colonized by sapient species from the hundreds of worlds that make up the United Star Alliance. I mean it’s really a frontier planet, barely colonized and still lacking the numerous population centers you’ll find on a place like Novaria.

I pull my crash webbing over my shoulder as the alien in the seat next to me continues to snore. Loudly. His furry little form only stands a little over three feet tall, but he makes more noise than an Odex. I don’t hate Fratvoyans as a species, but this particular one has been getting on my nerves ever since we left Earth four days ago.

“Hey,” I say, shoving his furred shoulder. “It’s time to wake up and put on your crash webbing.”

He snorts, and looks up with bleary eyes over his long, wart covered snout.

“Yes, that’s right, get all the marmalade, Mr. Shorcu.”

I have no idea what he was dreaming. In fact, I don’t want to know.

His eyes focus on me and then comprehension dawns in his gaze. He fumbles with his crash webbing, pulling it across his furry body. Fratvoyans eschew clothing, but fortunately they keep their private parts hidden, like birds from Earth.

The long limbed Alzhon stewardess walks by, her fine red scales sparkling in the overhead light. She favors me with a smile and then goes to help the Fratvoyan with his straps.

“There you go, sir,” she says in galactic standard without a trace of an accent. “How’s that?”

“It’s a little tight around the crotch,” he says. “Why don’t you check it for me?”

I catch her eyes and shake my head. Don’t fall for it, sister.

She smiles gently at him and straightens up.

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to bear it for now, sir, but don’t worry. We’ll be in Touchdown soon.”

Touchdown is the name of what laughably passes as New Verdan’s capital city. The Erebus Collective used parts from their colony ship to create it. The power plant used to be the sub light engine drive for the original ship, or at least that’s what the holo brochure told me on the first day of travel.

I fee lthe familiar belly twisting as the ship dropped out of superluminal speed. The stars cease to be long streaks of light and resume their normal pinprick configuration. I’m well used to the sensation, but some of the less traveled among the cabin passengers vomit. Right now it really sucks for the cabin crew.

“I think I’m gonna hurl,” groans the Fratvoyan at my side.

“Please, don’t,” I say hastily. Fratvoyans have explosive vomit. I don’t mean they vomit explosively…I mean the vomit itself is highly volatile and can tear holes in battle cruisers. It’s one of the reasons why their planet was never conquered by the Ataxians or annexed by the Alliance during the Centuries War.

“Attention, passengers, this is your captain speaking.”

No it isn’t, he’s a pilot. A PILOT. I hate the way they put on airs about this sort of thing.

“If you look out of our starboard portholes, you will see the glory of New Verdan.”

I turn and smile when I see the glowing blue, white, and brown ball. I do so love visiting new planets. I’ve been to hundreds of them over my lifetime. My family liked to travel a lot, and since my father is an executive of Advanced  Technical Dynamics, we were never hurting for money. I rarely spent more than a few months anywhere, and usually it was only a few weeks.

The shuttle changes its attitude for a landing vector. This is the part that kind of sometimes gets bumpy, though with inertial dampeners we barely feel a thing as we cut through the atmosphere. The familiar amber glow forms around the nose of our craft as we descend from the heavens.

I wonder which of the numerous farms surrounding Touchdown belongs to Elena and her Vakutan husband? It’s primarily a goat ranch, or whatever passes for a goat on Verdan. Not the most glamorous of locales for my vacation, but then again, I’m pretty much always on vacation. I can slum it for a while.

Besides, Elena is one of the few friends I had growing up. I only went to the primary grades with her, because as soon as I was old enough my parents dragged me along with them on their travels. But we've stayed in contact ever since and remain good friends.

The ship makes it through the upper layers of the atmosphere and the skies around us change from dark blue to light blue. Verdan has a very close atmosphere to Earth. It’s considered an S class planet, suitable for habitation by the vast majority of sapient beings in the galaxy, who either breathe oxygen, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide. Three gasses the planet has in just the right amounts.

Landing is so much less dramatic than the actual flight. The antigrav drive kicks in, the thrusters die out, and we just gently float down to the spaceport’s tarmac.

I unbuckle my crash webbing and join the other passengers as we filter toward the exit. My first gulp of fresh air is a welcome reward for lungs that have been breathing the tinny recycled atmosphere of the luxury liner for days.

“Well, New Verdan,” I said as I made my way into the starport terminal. “Let’s find out what kind of excitement you can offer me.”