Nova
#1 of Nova
The first in a series, hopefully. Let me know what you think!
Nova - pronounced n-oh-vah
Noun (astronomy) - A star showing a sudden large increase of brightness and then slowly returning to its original state over a few months.
See also - Nova (colony) - A moderately-sized snowy planet containing a new colony situated approximately 10 lightyears away from Earth. It is our Homeworld's first colony, with two main cities. The newest, still being built, has a population of 5000 and is mostly focused towards resource extraction and research. Population is, unlike Earth's, mostly consisted of Anthropomorphic creatures, as they are able to cope better under extreme cold conditions.
It was too bloody cold, too bloody snowy, and the days were too bloody short. Indeed, even for a Husky like himself, whom usually had a very strong resistance to the cold, Alex found this unusual, even 'alien' (literally) environment to be hostile. He was completely covered in thick, winter clothes - even the face was covered by a thick hood complete with faux-fur. All of it was a greyish white - either by colour or the snow being blasted across him by way of the thick wind. The roads were in no condition to drive in - and Alex had presumably made quite the mistake leaving his house to go and get supplies. It seemed like a constant sea of whiteness in one direction and in another - thankfully, the General HUD on the glasses he was wearing told him that just a few more meters and he'd be at the edges of the nearby 'city' - safe. Warm. At least, until he got his supplies and had to head back. He'd have to go again in a few days, of course, as the rucksack he had on him didn't have that much room. It was insulated, though, and had quite thick lining. It appeared larger than it really was, due to all the insulation, but its contents would be safe from the elements.
Running out of food now was just his luck. Then again, he had been busy getting things set up back at home. He had to be ready for his 'team' to arrive, after all. Didn't know exactly how large his 'team' would be.
He was just a technician, see, for a research outpost. 'Team' was perhaps the wrong word to use, as he'd be essentially under the command of anywhere between one to three scientists. He lived in a small block of flats connected to the lab, which was conveniently situated out of the way of the hustle and bustle of the nearby town, "Second City", which mostly concerned itself with industrial efforts and expanding outwards and upwards. It looked much like your conventional town, albiet very centralized, in the sense that it wasn't as spread out as a normal town; almost all of its buildings were at least three storeys tall, but none that could be classified as skyscrapers. As Alex approached the town, he could see a few bright lights situated high up on one of the tallest buildings in town, which was an apartment block. Ordinarily, seeing such a thing in a small town (Well, population-wise it would have been classed as a town, anyway) would have been surprising, Consolidated spaces made for a more efficent use of resources, and when it came to Nova policy on the Second City for the time being, efficiency was the name of the game. Well, that, and... surviving.
Of course, science and research were important when it came to efficiency, too. Alex's work was mostly around weather monitoring - seeing if it would be feasible and safe to manipulate it.
It took a few moments, but eventually Alex found his way to the nearby store. He had to pass one or two featureless buildings before finally arriving at his goal. Shelves were stacked to the brim with food, and it was almost empty inside. Lights flickered at one corner of the store, and on the opposite corner, near the entrance, lay the checkout. Staffed by a preoccupied hyena girl - trying to switch her attention between staring at her phone, her laptop, and being distracted by the flickering light. She raised her ears slightly at the noise of the store's bell going off to indicate a new potential customer, and she glanced across to the new arrival to ensure he wasn't some variety of criminal. It was pretty late - perhaps around eleven at night, so most honest people would be asleep by now. Crime was rare here, though, due to almost draconian laws against crime. Alex didn't know what happened to the criminals.
Alex took his hood off - revealing his only slightly damp headfur. He had a soft array of white fluff, perfectly suited for the Novan cold, and yet he still shivered slightly. He wasn't much of a cook - he merely picked up a few ready meals and some snacks and walked over the till to pay for them. The hyena manning the checkout seemed inconvenienced by this - as if doing her job was second to checking Novabook or texting someone. It only costed a few Credits - Alex had quite a few to spare, seeing as his remote location and working hours didn't really let him get out that much. And there he stood, backpack loaded with food, putting the hood up that Alex stood just before the door. He nerved himself for a shock and went through.
Immediately, it seemed that the weather had gotten worse than before. His glasses were covered in snow, although he could still see ahead. He had all this heavy stuff in his backpack - it wasn't like he could just go down to the local bar until all this blew over. Dog sighed slightly before turning homewards, leaving the warm lights of the town in the snowy distance behind him. Despite his thick fluff and thicker clothing, the cold still cut into him. Luckily, there was a road leading from the outskirts of the town to the lab building, so there he followed, relying on the GPS to guide his way. Thankfully, this was quite a flat area surrounded by large hills, so unless something was in his way he needn't worry about falling over. The canine continued down this pavement, which he'd probably need to keep on doing for a few more minutes. Still, he was approaching exhaustion.
He couldn't wait to get back to the lab building. Well, it was his home as well - the two buildings were attached to one another. The apartment complex had around four apartments and it was two storeys tall. The lab was four storeys however most of the bottom two floors were taken up by maintenance equipment and general storage of supplies, mostly monitoring equipment that hadn't been set up properly; as it required precise calibration by an expert. The weather on this planet was similar to Earth's, but it seemed more extreme, especially here. Still, the Second City was built here because even though the weather was quite heavy snow, it phased in and out incredibly predictably; this only happened in a few locations accross the planet so naturally it would make sense to study it up-close. The lab itself didn't exactly have any scientists in it, or, for that matter, anyone except him. They said he should expect some people coming at 'some point', but, understandably, more resources were being focused on building more homes and businesses, and that took a lot of manpower.
Well, robot-power. Most construction work was done by robots remotely 'piloted' by people due to the outside environment making manual labour exceedingly difficult. It was more efficient, too, which explains its speedy adoption both on the Homeworld and here on Nova. Alex cut his thought process short as he began to approach the lab - seeing its entrance ahead of him. It was a nondescript metal wall with a door situated roughly in the middle, with a large-sized keypad to the right of it. He stood close to the door and punched in a code - 0451 - into the door, and after a short delay the keypad lit up green and the door whirred open. Of course, it wasn't the actual door, this was just an 'airlock', so to speak, to ensure that it didn't get too cold inside. He stood inside for a few moments before the door behind him shut and the door in front opened, leading into a hallway.
To the left of him, there was Apartment 101 and 102. Directly ahead of him in the right corner of the rectangular hallway was a staircase up, which led to Apartment 201 and 202. Just to his right was an entrance into the lab area, which had a elevator to go up to the third and fourth floors, which is where the actual.. 'science' was to take place. While Alex certainly wasn't stupid, he wasn't so intelligent as to be a scientist.
A few moments after he started to take his jacket off and hang it up on the coat rack which was to the right, two things hit him. First, it was really warm. He didn't usually set it this high. And, second, there was this.. scent on the air. Scent of coffee. Sounds of.. fabric moving.
"Hello?" Alex called out. He had been told to expect someone new, but he hadn't really been told anything about them and he didn't really have a time they'd arrive. Well, it seemed they were here.
"Hello?" Alex called out again, walking up the stairs. His apartment was 201, and it seemed that whoever the new guy was decided to move into 202. He put his backpack down beside the entrance to his apartment and moved over to the new apartment, peeking inside. He could see the shadow of someone in the corner moving around. He called out 'Hello?' once again, and then the figure seemed to jump in his skin for a moment and then turned away from whatever he was doing and approached the source of the noise.
Eventually, he moved into Alex's view. He was a grey-furred wolf, around 6 foot 2 - 2 inches or so taller than Alex - and the first impression Alex got of him was that he looked pretty strong, but had a thin frame. He looked.. good. Perhaps Alex looked for a second or two longer than was normal and then semi-awkwardly stammered out a greeting.
"I guess you're the first guy for the lab, then?" Alex asked, trying to keep it casual. It seemed that the wolf looked him over in the same way and liked what he saw, but much like the other canine didn't act on it.
"Yeah. They.. They sent me on one of the shuttles a few days ago, only managed to get over here just now. Name's Aiden. You?" The wolf spoke, gesturing towards the sodden coat he had taken off and left to dry. He seemed.. oddly reserved. Perhaps it was just different cultures - Homeworld was different to Nova, after all, although Alex didn't know how much, exactly - "Alex," the Husky mumbled, "Alex Rax."
"Oh, so you're the tech guy they were telling me about. Fair enough." Huh. 'Tech guy'? Well, it was a fitting description. The wolf looked smart, but, a little.. frazzled. Alex took a guess and chanced a question:
"Here from the Homeworld, right?" Alex asked, knowing it was a rhetorical question. He gathered it was his 'first time' on Nova judging by the wolf's relatively light clothing and paradoxically rested-but-tired expression. Wolf simply nodded. "Well, welcome to Nova, uh, they weren't kidding when they said it was always like this." Alex spoke, glancing outside, where the bad weather continued against the hexa-glaze glass. Nothing short of a .50 would get through there! Or, at least, that's what the marketing brochure would say. Very 'frontier'.
"You look like you've just been through it too, right?" Wolf spoke again, perhaps in a lighter tone this time. The weather was, essentially, always this bad or just slightly better, during the day at least, so it was a common source of frustration and frequent topic of conversation.
These apartments featured their own kitchens, however small.
"Why don't you come in?" The wolf spoke in a friendly tone; "Have some coffee.." - it was pretty late, and seeing as both of them now had a lot of work to do tonight with regards to getting lab equipment set up, Alex decided he might as well come in. The room, although bare, already had a vaguely wolflike scent to it. It smelt.. good, familiar. You couldn't really detect your own scent, not /really/ so, it was reassuredly canine. There were one or two boxes laying in a corner of the room, and the wardrobe just beside it was open, clothes inside.
The room itself was rectangular, with a self-contained kitchen. Immediately to the right to the door was a pretty small kitchen, with a electric hob, small sink, and a fridge-freezer combo. It was enough to store food for perhaps a week or so before a trip to the store was needed. To the left, right against the wall was a sofa, and opposite the sofa a TV set to some Homeworld news channel. Alex wasn't entirely sure how Live TV was able to be transmitted from Homeworld, literally a celestial distance away. Something to do with quantum entanglement of particles or something. A lot of downward graphs. The canine sat down and leaned back onto the sofa; relaxing. Nice to sit down. Alex's train of thought was interrupted by the kettle finishing; the smell of coffee intensifying a little.
"How do you like it?" Aiden queried, to which Alex glanced over. "Oh, uh.. Strong, with a bit of milk? No sugar." Wolf just nodded, somehow just knowing that the Husky would be looking at him, unbeknownst to Alex a quietly worried expression on his face. Was this too far? How.. Mm... Just don't be awkward. Don't.. be weird.
Eventually, the grey-furred wolf joined Alex on the sofa, a cup of coffee in each of their paws.
"It's not the proper stuff, just instant. I hope that's alright.." Wolf spoke, perhaps a bit nervous that 'just' instant coffee would maybe make a bad impression, but Alex didn't mind. It's all they had out here, at least for now. Some who had come to Nova often felt wistful about home; however, Alex was a 'on-worlder', having been born in the First City and then moving to the Second City for its much-advertised job opportunities in this completely different landscape. He hadn't seen the Homeworld and didn't feel that much of a connection to it. Most of their supplies came from the First City, now, although that wasn't expected to last for long, as the Second City was slowly becoming self-sufficient. The news switched from an anchor walking around a room covered in special effect-graphics to a reporter standing by the side of a road - the most unusual thing about it was that the sky was clear, and you could see for more than 10 meters ahead! Unusual. Peculiar.
"And now we cut back to our main story," The news-caster, a white female, continues: "The Grand Council convened today for the first time in months, reportedly, from a source who wished to remain anonymous, to formulate a response to the significant resistance within the Iberian Peninsula. It has been summarized that-" Alex stopped listening. He didn't particularly like listening to newscasts from the Homeworld; they all felt a bit too.. strident for his tastes. Scary, even. Too controlling.
Dog glanced over to the grey-furred Aiden and noticed he had a bit of an... unusual expression. Alex couldn't place it. Almost as if he missed Homeworld, but... no, it was something else. Alex couldn't put his finger on it; just tha Aiden was acting weird. They all did, at least for the first few weeks. It always felt like they were looking over their shoulder, so to speak. Carefully controlling their expressions.
"So, uh.." Alex spoke without thinking, trying to make conversation. The white-fluffed Husky, unfortunately, failed. It was slightly awkward between the two as Aiden stared towards the TV some more before he broke himself out of his trance and looked back at Alex. They shared a gaze for a moment before the wolf looked back down at his coffee, frowning a little. Alex, needless to say, was getting mixed signals. Probably good to just maybe, uh, not to be so friendly.
"The, uh, systems are going to need to be set up, the monitoring equipment ready to install, um.." Wolf spoke, awkwardly.
Alex responded; "Well, I got the comms room set up, mostly. It's just going to need all that specialised stuff you set up connected, and then you'll have to do, uh.." Alex spoke, stopping at the end, trying to think of a word.
"Calibrations", the wolf responded. "Got to set up the atmospheric monitoring equipment, get the uplinks online. Gonna mean some work on the outside." Alex was semi-aware of this, as some of the things laying in the storage area of the lab looked like they'd been made to be outside for an extended period of time.
"Okay, that.. that should be fine. When do we need to be up and running, again?" Alex inquired, uncertain if he'd want to hear the answer.
"Um... Tomorrow...... Morning."
Alex huffed a little. He wasn't that tired yet; neither was Aiden, by the looks of him.
"I guess we'd better get started."