He’d authorized the ship’s departure out of the city dome himself. Apparently the cargo ship was now classified as a military grade vessel because of its improvements, even though it wasn’t actually part of the military fleet. Any military grade vessel required approval to leave Zocrone’s city dome, and Merkin was one of the few people who had that kind of power. He explained to Nova that he’d been quite high up in the military at the time of his retirement, and out of respect, the Zocronians had not revoked any of his clearances that normally would have been revoked upon retirement. Nova had a feeling that Merkin’s back story ran deep and was quite interesting, but she hadn’t had time to ask him about it. If she survived the stunt she was about to pull, which was definitely not guaranteed, then she’d make him tell her everything. But for now, she was operating under the assumption that she wasn’t likely coming back from this.
She pushed the little spaceship as fast as she could, feeling a bit more comfortable now that she had made it past Zocrone’s atmosphere and into open space. Even if all of the crates somehow exploded right now, they wouldn’t harm Zocrone.
Nova had had quite a hard time hauling all the boxes from Zocrone’s surface into this ship. She’d flown down to the crates and moved them one by one, thankful that Zocrone’s gravitational pull was on the lighter side of what she was used to. That made the huge boxes slightly easier to drag onto the ship—but only slightly.
Somehow, though, Nova had managed. She had been sweating like the outside temperature was a thousand degrees instead of being the freezing temperatures it actually was, but she had managed. And now, she was hurtling through space toward the asteroid field, praying that she wouldn’t get caught before she did what she needed to do.
It took ten minutes to get to the edge of the asteroid field, and that ten minutes proved to be mercifully uneventful. Nova nervously checked the ship’s scanners every few seconds, expecting that at any moment a small fleet of Zocronian military vessels would appear. But when she entered the asteroid field, she entered alone. No one had come after her. Perhaps Daxar hadn’t yet realized that the basestos crates were gone. That seemed unlikely, since the first thing any Chief with half a brain would have done in Daxar’s situation was to put guards on the basestos. But if Daxar had realized the basestos was missing and still hadn’t come for her…that meant he didn’t care about her at all, didn’t it?
What Nova was attempting was basically a suicide mission. And as much as she didn’t want Daxar to stop her before she had a chance to reach the point of no return in this mission, she could hardly stand the thought that he wouldn’t care enough about her to at least send some ships after her to tell her to stop.
Don’t be a fool. He doesn’t love you. He might have been overcome with passion in the moment, but just because a man sleeps with you, or even says he loves you, that doesn’t mean he actually does. Men are the same, across all races and all Seven Galaxies. They get in your pants and get what they want, then move on.
Nova didn’t want to believe that this was true about Daxar. But what else was she supposed to believe?
Stop thinking about it and just do the job you came here to do.
Nova gritted her teeth and brought the spaceship in for a landing on a medium-sized asteroid on the very edge of the asteroid field. She wanted to choose a spot that was surrounded by as few other asteroids as possible. The explosion she was about to cause would be big, and she would have enough trouble trying to escape the explosion without trying to escape giant pieces of asteroid shrapnel. The fewer asteroids she blew up, the better. Besides, there was a possibility some of the exploded asteroid pieces might make it all the way to Zocrone’s surface. Nova would prefer to lessen the likelihood of that happening. From here, the asteroid pieces should only hit uninhabited parts of Zocrone, not the city dome or the active mines. But still, Nova figured it was better to minimize asteroid strikes as much as possible.
Nova’s heart was pounding as she brought the ship down for a soft landing. She checked the scanners one more time, but there was nothing. She was utterly alone out here. Feeling a mixture of relief and disappointment, she got to work.
She closed the helmet on her survival suit, then rechecked that her suit was properly pressurized and oxygenized. She tethered herself to the spaceship, even though part of her would have loved to just cut herself loose and float off aimlessly into space. That wouldn’t solve Zocrone’s basestos problem, though. The guys who technically owned this stuff might find it before the Zocronians did. If they did, they’d haul it back to Zocrone and continue merrily on with their plan to explode the city dome. Nova couldn’t let that happen.
And so, she depressurized the back compartment of the ship, then opened the back hatch. Thanks to the ships artificial gravity field, the basestos crates and Nova didn’t instantly float away. But she could feel the temperature drop even through her very climate controlled survival suit. The atmosphere out here was just as unforgiving as Zocrone outside the city dome. Nova prayed that the biolock scanners would work through her helmet. Otherwise, she was definitely going to die in the process of trying to unlock these crates. She could close the hatch, pressurize the back cabin, and unlock all of the crates before opening the hatch again. But basestos was notoriously sensitive to pressure changes, and the sudden pressure change of a hatch opening to space was likely to cause the extremely volatile basestos to combust once the protective crates were no longer sealed. Nova would accomplish her mission of destroying the basestos, but she herself would definitely explode in the process. It wasn’t an ideal Plan B.
Luckily, the biolock eye scanner worked through her helmet’s visor, and she wasn’t forced to abandon Plan A just yet. Quickly, she began unlocking crate after crate. There were only ten crates, but the time it took to unlock them felt like an eternity to Nova. She kept glancing up at the sky, expecting to see Zocrone’s military speeding toward her. But when the last crate was unlocked, she was just as alone in space as she’d been at the start of this crazy plan.
Time for the most dangerous part. Nova was going to push the crates out of the hatch and into open space. Because there was no gravity to speak of on this asteroid, the crates would begin floating away. That was okay. They wouldn’t drift anywhere very fast, and Nova only needed them to be reasonably close together. Once the last crate was out, Nova would reenter the front, pressurized compartment of her spaceship and fly away, praying that she managed to get off the asteroid and into the air without the heat and energy from her spaceship setting off an explosion amongst the basestos. Not likely, but possible. She’d positioned the spaceship so that the launch would not blast the basestos directly, but the vibrations might still cause problems, and the heat the spaceship was generating even now might be enough to cause an explosion.
Just do the best you can. Nova could have used a better self pep-talk than “do your best,” but there didn’t seem to be much else to say to motivate herself right now. All she could do was her best. And then she would hope that things turned out for the best. Nova gingerly began pushing the crates out of the hatch one by one. With each push, she held her breath, certain that the crate would spontaneously combust and set off a chain reaction, causing her, her new spaceship, and the asteroid beneath them to turn into a giant fireball. But with each crate she pushed out, she grew a little less afraid. After seven crates were out, she began to believe she was actually going to manage this. She paused, and looked out into the open space in front of her.
Instantly, her fear returned. She could see the lights of three spaceships in the distance, heading directly toward her.
Daxar? You did send someone after me, after all. The knowledge warmed her all over, while also terrifying her that she wasn’t going to be able to finish the job she had come to do. As quick as she dared, she started pushing the remaining boxes out into space. She had to get into the air and explode these things before those ships got any closer. She didn’t want to send any Zocronian ships up in flames as part o
f this whole fiasco. But if she didn’t hurry, she wasn’t going to have time to get clear of here herself before needing to set the explosion off.
Nova started to close the back hatch, but before she could even get the pressurization sequence started, an uncomfortably familiar face suddenly appeared at the back of her spaceship.
“You!” Nova said. The alien man couldn’t hear what she said through the thick visors of both of their survival suits, but the look of terror on Nova’s face must have been obvious. Standing in front of her was the alien man to whom she was supposed to deliver the basestos. Nova had never met him in person, but she had seen several photographs of him during her contract negotiations with the seller of the basestos. But how in the world had he gotten here? Had she been followed? But she hadn’t heard any spaceships coming up. This alien had appeared out of nowhere. He was typical of his species, the Ithos species, from Ith. He had six arms, three on each side, and each arm was as long and flexible as a squid’s tentacle. His face was a pale green color, and square in shape. He had three eyes: two normal sized eyes that were similar to a human’s eyes, and one giant eye in between the two smaller eyes.
All three of those eyes were watching Nova right now with a look of triumph, and she couldn’t help but shiver. She had never met an Ithos in person before, but she’d been told that their eyes could freeze your blood cold. She believed it now. She’d never seen anyone of any species looking quite so diabolical.
Stay calm. You can still salvage this. You just have to get these crates to explode now, before this man can steal them back.
Of course, this meant giving up any hope of actually living through this ordeal. But Nova had always known that surviving was a remote possibility, and she didn’t have time to bemoan her fate right now. She quickly hopped off the back hatch of her spaceship and began to run toward the crate floating closest to her.
But the man anticipated her move. He hit her in the chest so hard that all the air went out of her lungs and she fell backwards into the ship, hitting the floor hard thanks to the artificial gravity. For a few moments, she was so breathless that she thought that her survival suit had sprung a leak.
But a moment later, she regained her breath. It hurt like hell to breathe in, but at least she could breathe. Frantically, she tried to get to her feet and see where the Ithos man had gone. But he was nowhere to be seen. She looked out at the basestos boxes, thinking that he must be trying to collect them. But he wasn’t there either. The boxes were slowly floating off into space. The lid on one of them had actually opened, and a shimmering white stream of basestos was slowly seeping out of the box.
I have to get a hold of one of those crates. But just as she was about to take a step off the back of her spaceship, she felt herself being suddenly pulled backward by the tether that attached her to the spaceship. Confused, she turned around to look, thinking that the Ithos man must have been behind her, and must have jerked her back. But he was still nowhere to be seen. She tried to step forward again, but she could not move. The tether was now stretched taut, and the boxes seemed to suddenly be moving away from her at a rapid pace.
After another brief moment of confusion, Nova suddenly realized that it wasn’t the boxes moving, but her. Her entire spaceship was suddenly speeding away from the asteroid.
What the heck?
Nova found herself suddenly being dragged along behind her spaceship by the tether. She had been flung out into open space, and her ship was speeding up even though the engine hadn’t been started as far as she could hear. Even if the Ithos had taken over the controls of the ship, he shouldn’t have been able to move anywhere without starting the engine.
But Nova was definitely moving. When the ship suddenly changed directions, diving down away from the asteroid and the crates of basestos, Nova was finally able to see what was happening, and her jaw dropped in shock at the sight.
The Ithos was piloting a strange spaceship, the likes of which Nova had never seen before. The ship must have run on some sort of alternative power which Nova was unfamiliar with, because it made no sound as it moved through space. But that wasn’t the most shocking part. What truly surprised Nova was that the Ithos spaceship was towing her spaceship. The Ithos man had attached some sort of cables between the two ships, and now his ship was effortlessly, silently pulling her ship along, with Nova being dragged behind by her tether. The Ithos had been able to sneak up on her while she was preoccupied with the basestos crates because his own ship was so silent. But why hadn’t he just killed her? Why bother dragging her and her ship along? And why didn’t he rescue the crates? That surely must have been his priority, much more than giving Nova this strange, terrifying joyride through space.
Nova felt tears stinging her eyes. Had she completely failed, then? She’d dragged the basestos out here and unlocked the crates only to foolishly hand it over to this Ithos jerk. She should have known they’d be watching the crates, and that they’d follow anyone who tried to move them. In Nova’s rush to get away from Zocrone before Daxar caught her, she had stupidly assumed that the Ithos wouldn’t do anything except under the cover of darkness. And while they might not have dared come into Zocrone’s atmosphere during daylight hours, they had surely been watching. And as soon as the basestos crates had left Zocrone, this Ithos had made his move. The only reason he wouldn’t have killed her yet was either that he thought it was fun to torture her, or her wasn’t sure whether he still needed her to unseal the biolocks on the basestos crates.
There must still be something I can do! Nova frantically tried to come up with a plan. Perhaps she could pull herself back into her ship by the tether, fire up the engine, and break away from the Ithos ship. Then she could zoom away and fire at the crates, setting off an explosion. She had no idea whether her ship’s power was strong enough to break the cables that were holding it to the Ithos ship, but it was worth a shot. She began to try to pull herself in by the tether, like she was someone in a churning ocean, grabbing a rope that someone had thrown overboard to pull herself back to safety. But pulling herself along the tether was even more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Her arms simply weren’t strong enough to combat the forces created by the forward velocity of the Ithos’ spaceship.
This will never work. I’m doomed. Zocrone is doomed, and it’s all my fault.
Nova choked back a sob, then looked to see whether Daxar’s ships were still approaching from the distance. Perhaps there was still a chance that they might intercept the basestos crates before the Ithos swung back around to them. By then the ships were much closer to her. They had been flying toward Nova’s spaceship, and now, thanks to the Ithos ship towing her, her ship was flying toward them. And as the distance closed between them, Nova realized to her horror that the ships didn’t belong to Daxar after all. They were three Ithos ships, probably come to assist the Ithos who had captured her.
Nova felt like her heart had been torn right out of her body. Daxar hadn’t come for her. The only ones who had come for her were these Ithos, and they were only keeping her alive in case they needed her help opening the biolocks. Once they realized the basestos crates were already unlocked, they would kill her. And then, they would take the basestos and destroy Zocrone. Nova had failed, utterly and completely.
A sudden jerk upward drew her attention back to her own ship, and she realized with a start that her tether was coming loose. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched it slowly tearing away from the spaceship, like a bandage that was being pulled off little by little. The tether had been made to hold someone about the size of a human being to the spaceship as they walked at a normal pace. It had not been intended to keep anyone attached to a spaceship as that spaceship hurtled through space at top speeds. And so, Nova helplessly watched as the tether came completely loose, and she was suddenly flying through space on her own, unattached to anything.
In a way, it was almost funny. She had dreamed of floating off to die in space, hadn’t she? And now, it looked like she was
going to get her wish after all. She didn’t feel as peaceful about it as she’d thought she would have, though. She felt alone in a way she had never felt before. She watched as the Ithos turned his ship toward his left and flew away from her, oblivious to the fact that she had been cut loose from his captivity. And then she looked all around her in space again, hoping that somehow the last thing she saw would be Daxar or his ships coming for her after all. But there was nothing to see in the big black void of space except the Ithos ships, heading ever closer to the basestos.
Nova closed her eyes and looked away. She had failed Daxar. She had failed Zocrone. She’d had good intentions of helping, and of fixing the basestos plot that she had unwittingly been a part of. But now, she would die out here alone, with the knowledge that soon everyone in Zocrone would die too. And worse, she would die with the knowledge that Daxar had not come for her. He didn’t think she was worth saving. What had felt like true love to her must have just been a one-night fling for him.
She was Nova, after all. She burned bright and then burned out. She closed her eyes against the vastness of space, and let the finality of it all overwhelm her. This was her last spectacular failure—the last time she would burn out.
She had reached the end of her road, and had reached it alone.
Chapter Thirteen
Daxar’s leg muscles rippled beneath his military uniform pants as he ran the last quarter mile up to the ship staging area. Jarmuk and Toryx were waiting for him by a small but powerful Havoc. The ship was one of Zocrone’s smallest, fastest ships, but it held some of Zocrone’s longest-range weapons. The Havoc was one of Zocrone’s proudest accomplishments, and if anything could explode crates of basestos from a safe distance, it was this ship.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 13