Supernova

by Kass Morgan

  “Oh, Arran,” Rees said, shaking his head. “So sweet, so innocent.”

  Arran bristled slightly. “How do you know he’s on the council? I’ve never read anything about Stepney being involved.”

  “I make it a point to know stuff like this. Everyone acts like letting Settlers into the Academy is this huge step toward equality, but that’s bullshit. There are very rich, very powerful people who’ll do anything to maintain the status quo. Those are the ones we need to pay attention to, so I make a point to do just that. For a long time, we were too poor, too broken, too sick to pay attention to what was really going on. But now we’re in a position to ask questions, and that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.”

  Rees spoke with such intensity that his eyes seemed almost to glow, fueled by a fire deep within him. Arran’s skin tingled as his mild irritation gave way to admiration. It’d been a long time since he’d heard someone speak so passionately about something unrelated to life at the Academy. When Arran didn’t respond, Rees shook his head and looked away. “Never mind. I know it’s not what everyone wants to think about.”

  “No, you’re right,” Arran said firmly. “I’m glad you told me about Marcel’s mom and Stepney. I’m just embarrassed I didn’t figure it out on my own.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, but it was a companionable, thoughtful silence, as if Rees was purposefully giving Arran time to process his thoughts. They reached the launchport and, using their upgraded clearance to enter the restricted area, made their way to the head mechanic’s office.

  Arran explained their task to the harried-looking blond woman, who let out a long, weary sigh. “The ship’s already been taken apart and sent to different labs for analysis. What did you want to look at?”

  “The vents for the hydrogen. The ones that were damaged by the Specter pulse,” Arran said patiently.

  The head mechanic grunted. “Looks like today’s your lucky day. The crew forgot to pack up one of the vents. I put it right over here in case anyone came back to get it. The people they sent to fetch them seemed pretty anxious to make sure they had all the pieces, but it’s not my fault they couldn’t be bothered to count.”

  “Definitely not your fault,” Rees said, amused. It was clear he’d taken a shine to this disgruntled woman.

  She gave him an appraising look without saying anything, then walked over to the cabinet against the wall. She pressed her thumb against the scanner, and a drawer slid open with a hiss. She reached inside and removed a large, vacuum-sealed plastic bag and handed it to Arran. “Here you go. You’ll need additional clearance to open the bag,” she said. “We can’t introduce any contaminants.”

  “I don’t need to open it,” Arran said without taking his eyes off the bag. “This is all I need to see.” He held it up in front of Rees. “Look, there’s no damage. No sign of burnt circuitry or melted insulation. That’s why I didn’t smell anything.”

  Rees nodded once, implying that he agreed but that they shouldn’t talk about it here. Arran took a photo of the vent with his link and thanked the head mechanic for her help, and then the two boys left her office. When they were a safe distance away, Rees broke his silence. “So what do you think is going on?”

  “I’m not sure. But whatever caused that explosion, it wasn’t an electrical pulse. Maybe it was some kind of malware?”

  “But how could the Specters have installed malware in one of our ships?”

  “Who knows? They did install a spy, after all. They might have more access than we realize.”

  “That’s a good point. Do you think she might’ve had something to do with it?”

  “Orelia?” Arran shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t have done something like that.”

  “Why not? Wasn’t that her whole mission?”

  “Her mission was to transmit the coordinates of the Academy. Not install malware to blow up a ship. Trust me, she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to get hurt.”

  Rees looked at him quizzically. “Okay, sure.”

  Arran knew he sounded ridiculous. By sending the coordinates to the Specters, Orelia had jeopardized the life of every person here. A few days after her transmission, a Specter ship had come within seconds of blowing up the Academy. Yet, at the very last moment, Orelia had given her squadron mates the information they needed to destroy the Specter craft, killing a crew of her own people in the process. So while it was impossible to know exactly what Orelia was capable of, Arran couldn’t imagine her causing the explosion that’d killed Sula.

  “So who do you think did it, then?” Rees asked as they turned back into the central corridor.

  “I have no idea. That’s why I’m slightly nervous about telling Captain Mott—it makes me sound a little paranoid.”

  “Paranoid? Or awake?” Rees asked.

  “You know, that’s the exact question I’ve been asking myself about you and your theories.”

  “Just you wait, Korbet. Stick with me long enough, and I’ll tell you things that’ll blow your mind.”

  “Is that a promise or a threat?”

  Rees gave him another one of his intense, searching looks, then he smiled. “I guess it depends on how much you like getting your mind blown.”

  By the time they made it back to the main wing of the Academy, there were only ten minutes left. “Do you really think Captain Mott won’t mind if we don’t go back?” Arran asked, glancing nervously at the time on his link.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s why she said report back to me tomorrow. If you go back now, she’ll think you don’t know how to follow orders.”

  “So what should we do, then?” Arran asked, then cringed slightly, wishing he hadn’t been quite so presumptuous. The fact that they’d had dinner together once didn’t make them friends.

  To his relief, Rees didn’t seem fazed. “Come with me. I have an idea.”

  Arran followed Rees down the main corridor and then into a narrow passageway he’d always assumed led to a maintenance closet. At the end was a large metal door that, although unlocked, might as well have been emblazoned with the words DO NOT ENTER. After four months at the Academy, Arran had gotten very good at identifying places he wasn’t meant to enter. Yet Rees merely raised his link to the scanner and, a moment later, the heavy door creaked open.

  “How’d you do that?” Arran asked.

  “I figured out the master code they use on the locks and programmed it into my link. Here, I’ll send it to yours too,” Rees said as he tapped on his wrist.

  “No, it’s okay,” Arran said quickly.

  “Too late. It’s already done. Welcome to the dark side.”

  “So where are we going, exactly?” Arran asked in a voice he hoped was more curious than anxious.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “A surprise that’s going to get me arrested?”

  “Relax, Korbet,” Rees said with a smirk. “Our upgraded security clearance hasn’t expired yet. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “I don’t think Captain Mott upgraded us so we could go gallivanting around the Academy.”

  “You think this counts as gallivanting?”

  Arran fought back the heat threatening to color his cheeks. “I guess I’ll reserve my judgment until I see where you’re taking me.”

  Rees nodded. “That’s a good idea,” he said seriously. “You don’t want to burn out on gallivanting by starting too early.”

  This remark would’ve earned one of Arran’s friends a playful smack on the arm, but he didn’t feel comfortable doing something like that with Rees. He was intense in a way Arran had never really encountered before. His whole body seemed to be made of tightly coiled energy, and even when he smiled, his sharp, searching gaze never really softened. Yet instead of being off-putting, it somehow seemed to draw Arran in, and he found himself with a strange desire to earn Rees’s approval.

  He followed Rees up a staircase that led to a set of large glass doors that, to Arran’s surprise, were streaked with conde
nsation, an odd sight in a space station. “Where are we?” he asked, no longer able to feign nonchalance.

  Rees waved his link in front of another scanner; the doors slid open, and they stepped inside. The first thing Arran noticed was the air, which was warm and strangely soft. Almost wet. Humid. He’d only read the word in books, never said it aloud. But he knew this was the word he was looking for. The second thing he noticed was the explosion of color, more than he’d ever seen in one place in his entire life. Plants of all shapes and sizes spilled out of clear containers. Some were so tall, they nearly brushed against the transparent ceiling, while others had low branches dropping with the weight of brightly colored fruit and vibrant blossoms.

  “The Academy has its own greenhouse,” Arran said, looking around in amazement.

  “Where do you think all the fruit comes from?”

  “I don’t know. I figured they imported it from Loos or something.”

  “That would be an even more unconscionable waste of money and resources.” Rees shook his head as he surveyed the lush tangle of vines, stems, and blossoms. “Can you imagine how much this must cost?”

  “Nope,” Arran said with a smile. “But at this particular moment, I don’t really care.” He took a few steps forward to run his finger along the edge of a pale purple flower, relishing the sensation of the smooth petal against his skin.

  “I thought you might like it,” Rees said, his voice softening slightly.

  “How’d you find it?” Arran asked without turning his head, his gaze still transfixed by the flower. “It seems like they’re trying pretty hard to keep people out.”

  “I don’t like the idea of living in a place with secrets.”

  “At least this is a good secret,” Arran said as he turned to face Rees. “This is the first flower I’ve ever seen in real life.”

  “Really? I don’t know if that’s sweet or tragic.”

  “Well, you’ve probably never seen snow.”

  “Definitely not a fair comparison. Snow is decoration. Plants are life.”

  “Deep thoughts from Rees.”

  To Arran’s surprise, Rees laughed. “Yeah, I know I tend to take myself a little seriously sometimes.”

  “That’s okay. That’s one of the things I like about you.”

  Rees raised an eyebrow. “So there are multiple things about me you like?”

  “At least three. Possibly four,” Arran said lightly, trying to mask his embarrassment.

  “I’ll take it. That’s more than most people do.” There was a wistful note in his voice, but before Arran had time to examine his expression, Rees had turned to examine the large, waxy leaves of an enormous spineberry plant.

  Arran began to wander down the narrow, cramped aisles, murmuring in amazement every time he reached out to touch a stem or wipe a drop of condensation from a leaf. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, relishing the sensation of the warm air in his throat. Was this what it was like to live on a planet where the temperature wasn’t always thirty centis below freezing? Where the air outside felt like a caress instead of a slap?

  “I guess that means you’ve never seen the ocean either,” Rees said, suddenly appearing next to him.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s such bullshit,” Rees said, surprising Arran with his sudden intensity. “They keep us prisoners on our own planets, working ourselves to death so they can gallivant all over the solar system like it’s their own private playground.”

  Arran didn’t need to ask who “they” were. It didn’t matter that he and Rees had grown up at opposite ends of the solar system. Every Settler grew up knowing that “they” referred to the Tridians. Despite Rees’s anger, there was something comforting about being able to use this kind of shorthand. It was something Dash had never understood, of course, and sometimes his apologies for not understanding had been more irritating than his naïveté.

  “Well, we’re the ones gallivanting right now, remember?”

  Rees smiled, though it wasn’t quite enough to extinguish the fire in his eyes. “I’ve heard that word more in the past ten minutes than I have in my whole life. Is that a Chetrian thing?”

  “Just a weird Arran thing.”

  “Is referring to yourself in the third person a Chetrian thing?”

  This time, Arran couldn’t stop himself from hitting Rees’s arm playfully. But before he had time to retract his hand, Rees grabbed his wrist and grinned. “That was a poorly thought-out attack, Korbet.”

  “I hardly think that constitutes an attack,” Arran said, rolling his eyes. He tried to pull away, but Rees tightened his grip and pulled him closer. Arran’s heart began to pound as the pressure of Rees’s fingers sent a current of electricity up his arm.

  “Oh, really? I look forward to seeing you in action, then.” He let go of Arran’s arm, but the tingling sensation didn’t fade.

  At that moment, every thought, every feeling left Arran’s body except for how much he wanted to kiss Rees. To feel the electricity he could sense surging beneath the other boy’s skin. But he couldn’t do that. He’d never kissed anyone but Dash, and that had happened only after weeks of hanging out. Arran had always assumed he was the type of person who grew on you, for whom you developed a gradual attraction.

  But then he looked at Rees, who was staring at him with an expression Arran had never seen on anyone’s face, not directed at him, at least. Rees’s eyes burned with their usual intensity, but this time they seemed fueled by something other than anger or suspicion. Something akin to longing.

  Before he could lose his nerve, Arran leaned in and let his lips brush lightly against Rees’s, who shivered slightly, sending a thrill through Arran’s own body. He kissed him again, a little harder this time, and brought his hand to the back of Rees’s head. His lips tingled with the electricity he’d known he’d feel, but even that wasn’t enough to banish the image taking shape in Arran’s mind—the face of the boy he was trying his hardest to forget.

  CHAPTER 12

  VESPER

  “The gang’s all back together!” Ward said cheerily as he walked toward Belsa, who looked annoyed, and Rex, whose features were contorted by so much fury and disdain it was almost comical. Yet before Vesper could smile—or worse, do something to help put Rex at ease—she reminded herself how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place. Rex had broken up with her, using some bullshit excuse about needing to focus on what matters because he was too cowardly to tell her the truth. And while she found it a little distasteful that Ward had taken advantage of her recent breakup to start cozying back up to her, if Rex couldn’t handle watching it, that was his problem, not hers.

  “Everyone excited to save the solar system by restocking toilet paper?” Ward asked with a grin. Instead of practicing in the simulators, today their group had been assigned the slightly less glamorous task of performing inventory checks on the battlecraft that’d recently docked at the Academy.

  “You’re in a good mood today,” Belsa said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  Ward shrugged. “I’m always in a good mood.”

  “Except when you’re vandalizing hallways, I assume.”

  Belsa’s words made Vesper cringe. She’d still been dating Ward when he’d written Go home Edgers in the corridor, and while her shame paled in comparison to the hurt and anger the Settler cadets had felt, she hated that she was somehow associated with his cruelty.

  Yet instead of growing defensive or brushing it off with a joke, Ward nodded, looking grieved. “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m sorry about it. I know words aren’t enough to make up for my actions, but I’ve done a lot of soul-searching since then, and I’m doing my best to learn from the pain I’ve caused and be a better person.”

  “That’s… nice to hear,” Belsa said, looking slightly startled as she tried to catch Vesper’s and Rex’s eyes. But Rex was staring off in the distance, his face hard and unreadable.

  “Thank you,” Ward said seriously. “I
want to prove myself worthy of the Quatra Fleet Academy and”—he looked significantly at Vesper—“worthy of all the people whose trust I’ve unfortunately lost.”

  He sounded so sincere that, for a moment, she wondered whether she’d been too hard on him. Did one moment of stupidity really negate all the years of loyalty and love he’d shown her? Ward had never kept secrets from her, never callously broken her heart.

  “You’re here to do inventory, right?” a brisk voice said. Vesper turned to see a young woman in a corporal’s uniform striding toward them.

  The four cadets nodded and saluted.

  “I need two of you in the infirmary and two of you in the galley.”

  “Vee and I can do the infirmary,” Ward said, shooting Vesper a quick smile. “We don’t have the best record in the kitchen.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rex’s jaw clench, and she felt a satisfying surge of anger that burned away the mistlike sadness that had been seeping through her for days. If she wanted to talk to Ward, or if he wanted to drop references to their past intimacy, that was their business. Rex had forfeited his right to an opinion.

  However, the corporal did not appear amused either. “You’re here to help prepare this ship for battle, cadet. Not to canoodle with your girlfriend. You and Cadet”—she looked at the badge on Belsa’s chest—“Borgone will report to the galley, and the other two will report to the infirmary.”

  The cadets saluted, Ward a little less enthusiastically than he had before, and boarded the battlecraft. Vesper felt the same tingle of excitement she always did upon entering the massive ship. She’d spent so much of her childhood fantasizing about joining the Quatra Fleet that it was impossible not to feel awed. But this time, the thrill didn’t last quite as long as usual, and it was soon replaced by a prickle of dread as she imagined an afternoon spent shut up in the ship’s tiny infirmary with the boy who’d just broken her heart.

  “See you later, Vee?” Ward said. “Maybe we can meet up for dinner or something?”