Science Fiction Night.

       Last night was Science Fiction Night in my head. The first dream out of the chute was an exploration of a large space station. It was inhabited and the population was under some sort of crazy martial law. The laws determined who could stay in what sections of the station and who could move from section to section. I had taken one of the ships enhanced intelligence cats and wandered off to explore. Unfortunately, I had wandered out of the docking bay section into one of the restricted inhabitant sections. Plenty easy to get in to, there were no movement restrictions during the day time, but at night, that was a different story.
       I realized that I was in trouble as everyone packed up their little shops and raced to get back to their sleeping quarters. For some reason, I decided to try something that I'd had a character in one of my stories do. I found a white sheet and wound it around me like a shroud, doing the same for the ship's cat with a pillow case. I spotted an area where there were other shrouded bodies and let us in and found an empty spot on the floor.
       The inspectors opened up the room, scanned us, since neither the cat nor I had station ID, we didn't even scan. There were so many shrouded figures in the room that they didn't even bother to count to make sure the numbers matched.
       After the inspectors left the shrouds came off and everyone started chatting about Nova 11, and guessing what might be in Nova 12. I just happened to have my reader's copies of Nova 12 (two of them anyway.) It didn't take long for the people to put together that I was the creator of Stella Nova, the main character of the Nova series of books, 12 being the latest. I agreed to read from Nova 12 (Nova Surprise) for them, since they had kept me out of trouble. I pulled out the reader's copy, showed them the cover, Nova, chin length black hair with evenly spaced red and blue highlights, looked out of a porthole over the reflected explosions of a space battle, her almost anime style chocolate brown eyes reflecting a mixture of surprise and determination. On the back cover was a photo of me and the ship's cat, who, when they realized it was the same animal, was suddenly a minor celebrity. We were looking through a porthole at the reverse side of explosions (Thus setting us on the other side of the battle for anyone who was paying attention.) We also wore looks of surprise, not so much with the determination. Of course, the ship's cat almost always looked surprised, it was just the shape of his face and the size of his eyes. The cat looked remarkably like Little John.
       I began reading the book to the assembled 'fan club' signed their charter, took holo images with them and then after a couple of chapters of the adventures of Stella Nova everyone drifted off to sleep.
       In the morning the group helped smuggle us back to the docking station, leaving me copies of all of our photos and holographs. I had taken all of their names, and promised that they would appear in Nova 14 (as Nova 13 was almost ready to go to the editor.) I did get in a little trouble, but when I explained that I attended a fan club meeting, the port authority waived the fines (I did leave the other advanced readers copy with the inspector after I made sure she wouldn't consider it a bribe.)
       That night I scheduled a fan club meeting of a different sort, this time with all the proper travel permits filled out ahead of time. By the time the evening was finished I'd gotten a great deal of the plot of Nova 14 worked out, and was looking forward finishing my book tour and getting back aboard my ship and writing and drawing again. (The drawings weren't really for publication, they were a way of me keeping the stories and characters strait in my head. I may have to try that in real life.)

       Later, I was in a space fighter craft, defending a neighboring world from invaders. The fighter was like a Star Wars X-Wing, but quite a bit larger. The cockpit was filled with fluid and everything I could see was enhanced by some sort of optical or brain implants. I really wasn't flying the ship as much as directing its strategy, I simply wasn't fast enough to keep up with the actual tactics of a space battle. I did manage to break the shields of an invader's capitol ship, and stripped it of its weapons systems.
       I called for them to put themselves in a stable orbit or to withdraw. The chose to orbit, perhaps thinking that they would get reinforcements. I hit them with ion pulses until they had no working sensors or communication other than LOS lasers. I then hid in a debris field and waited for their support ships to arrive. Four repair tenders jumped in from the edges of the battle.
       When the four tenders were docked, I dove out of cover and rendered their weapons useless, and took out several of their drive units for good measure. I left two working enough to evacuate, and they did take that option. I escorted them away from the battle zone, protecting them from friendly and enemy fire both. I was hit by mines on the way back to the battle area, and had to make an emergency landing on the invader capitol ship. I radioed that I was OK and was bringing the ship in. My fighter was scrap. I watched it drift away from the hold to join the floating debris field, then set about landing the large ship. (The effects of the ion cannon being relatively easy to repair. I don't think the invaders were aware of the ion cannon technology.)
       The dream started again almost where I left off, but, having been disturbed by rampaging kittens, it didn't have the same plot any longer.
       I was still landing a giant three story tall mansion of a ship, but now it was exactly that, a sort of space-going mansion. (Inside it looked quite a bit like the bread and breakfast N and I stayed in in Hollywood.) I managed to wrestle the starhouse to the ground, finding a recently leveled lot with an open basement large enough to nestle the engines into. When I finished, it almost looked like we belonged there, except the styling was completely off from the rest of the neighborhood.
       The property owner showed up, stunned, not knowing what to make of the house that had sprung up over night on his property. I offered to pay him rent for the week or so I would need to make repairs. He accepted, since I'd somehow appeared over night, not believing that I would be leaving with the whole starhouse in just a week. I gave him a quick tour, and I could see that he was a little bit disappointed that the place looked just like a three story house on the inside. Only the book cases being glassed in and rails around all the hallways gave any indication that the place could move. The control center was situated in the bay window in the front room, and when stowed looked like a cozy window bench.
       I did show him the very science fiction looking repair tenders in the bay, and that somewhat convinced him that I was on the up and up. I gave him an audio call code in case he wanted to ask any questions. He came back to the door a few seconds later. Told me I didn't have to pay rent. He was writing the property off as a total loss and selling it anyway, he just had stopped by to make sure the basement were posted as unsafe.