Chapter 2: Shooting Stars

Saturn Space Station 02 was almost like a real planet, in that it had all the basic functions such as cities and environments and its own ecology. It was old enough to be self-sufficient, which was pretty impressive considering how expensive it was to actually make the things. Saturn had exactly five Space Stations orbiting it, but only because it was so large; Jupiter had seven, while Pluto only had one. It was not an incredibly large piece of construction; it was roughly the size of a small European country or a New England state, and it was populated by roughly the same number of people.

Dana and Gregory, partners since seven months ago, quietly left their apartment complex while most of their neighborhood was still asleep. It was around nine in the morning, but they had to get an early start if they wanted to arrange a “meeting” with the criminal that Dana’s symbiotic aviaptile Naja sensed.

Most of Dana’s quirkiness sprang forth from her partner-snake Naja. She had been empathetically bonded to the reptilian bird ever since the creature hatched, and the two had been together ever since. Naja was an extremely intelligent creature, even for an aviaptile, and was often capable of extrasensory perception (hence the theory about the murders, and the ability to communicate with its mistress). He was venomous and quick, so during missions he would usually speak for himself, but if things got especially hairy, he was more of a hindrance than a help.

Dana claimed that the snakes were part of her people’s culture, and that every other member had them as companions, too. Some had much smaller reptiles, or other species entirely, and a few had some that made earthworms look lethal. She claimed that they were all some kind of reptile or another, but the well-learned Gregory had never heard of such a culture. He would have remembered hearing about something like that.

The two people stood side-by-side as they walked through the quiet streets of their neighborhood. Naja, the snake that was linked to Dana Withers, had informed her of a semi-infamous criminal that had been lurking around a few back alleys. According to him, this was a murder case, which probably meant that there would be a bounty on the killer’s head. Personally, Gregory couldn’t care less what the matter was or who did it. If it paid, or if it was “the right thing to do”, he was in.

Now the streets where Gregory and Dana lived weren’t the best place to call home, but then again, they could have gotten far worse digs than this. The place was neither filthy nor spotless; it was not rich, nor poor, nor dark nor light, but there emitted a definite gray dullness from the tall housing complexes and the steam-filled alleys. Since it was early, there weren’t many people milling around, so the two adventurers had the place to themselves.

Their step was a casual one. They literally had all day to look for the offending killer and drag his (or her) hide into a Justice Center, so there really was no hurry. Naja mostly led the way, but sometimes his mostly-reliable ESP got Dana stuck in a dead-end street, or worse still, a place where she would be ambushed. Naja wasn’t perfect.

And speaking of ambushes...

“Fools,” muttered Dana, letting her eyes scan over the small gang of punks surrounding them. “You creeps must really be desperate. Robbing two people at such an early hour, in the middle of broad daylight? I can’t think of anything more sad.”

“Try your performance,” muttered Gregory, standing in a firm fighting position. He always talked about “how far he had to go” in the ways of hand-to-hand fighting (he inherited those skills from his father), but truth be told, Gregory was exceptionally skilled. He preferred using his mouth or his feet to fight his battles; Dana preferred using her stun-baton.

The desperate ones silently circled the two adventurers, wielding weapons in their hands and sinister grins on their faces. Both Dana and Gregory sighed in annoyance at the amateurish thieves, and almost didn’t even bother to psyche themselves up like normal. They still tapped their wrists together, though with such weak enthusiasm that they barely even felt it.

“Let’s get this over with,” said Gregory emptily. “We’ve got better things to do than teach a few crooks how to dance.”

“So get crackin’,” replied Dana in her usual savvy style. Before the thieves could even widen their grins, both adventurers leaped forward, slamming their individual weapons into their ranks. Dana slammed both ends of her baton into the abdomen of one crook, then span around and swung it hard against the head of another. She twirled it around in one hand, and used the momentum to shatter the guts out of an approaching attacker.

Gregory felt tempted to sleep as he fought the sluggish crooks. He easily weaved out of their jabbing knives and lashing chains, and kicked their hands away before they could strike again. With his eyes closed, he slammed his fist into the face of one, chopped at another, then ducked down and tackled a third, just like the football players did on the TV.

Gregory stood up to examine his handiwork, and stood back-to-back with his partner. It had only taken a few measly minutes to clear this insignificant obstacle, and without so much as a sigh of relief, they left the alley and continued on their way.

“How inconsiderate,” muttered Gregory. “I think they made us fall behind. Ah, well, it’s not like the killer’s going anywhere.”

“Ira ‘Bronze Wolf’ Wae...”

“What’s that?” Dana showed Gregory the morning paper she had spotted. After clearing through another attempted thug attack, they had kept to the sidewalk and followed their noses, up to the point of running into a newspaper stand. It was here where a headline caught Dana’s eye, and in turn, their ambiguous quest to find said murderer just got a little clearer.

“Look here,” she said, pointing at the paper. “‘“Bronze Wolf” strikes again! Local police suspect Ira “Bronze Wolf” Wae of another double-homicide.’” Dana shrugged, reading the rest of the article to herself as Gregory peered over her shoulder.

“ ... You think that’s our guy?” he asked. Naja appeared from his coiled position and stuck his forked tongue at the article; Dana shrugged and folded the paper up.

“If he’s not, somebody should stop him anyway.”

“Well, we really don’t know where to look,” said Gregory cautiously. “I mean, papers don’t exactly give the location of a known murderer.”

“No,” sighed Dana. She paused, and smiled as she conjured up yet another one of her infamous and unreliable plans. “No,” she repeated, “but Naja should. If Naja gets a good vibe from that article, maybe he can lead us to the culprit!!!”

Dead silence.