by Keary Taylor
My stomach twists in knots just at the thought of it.
“I can’t say that I ever have had a secret of that scale,” he confesses. “Surely, you don’t actually mean billions.”
I huff one short laugh and nod my head. “Actually, I do. And the thing that sucks about it is that I could tell people, but it would create so much chaos, I might actually make things worse. I hate that. I hate it so much, because it makes me feel responsible.”
“One person can’t be held accountable for billions,” he says. His words are like a soft touch, like a hand on my back, rubbing for comfort and support.
“Sure they can,” I argue, even though I want to accept his words. I’m in a self-depreciating spiral right now, and I have no intent to get myself out of it at the moment. “Look at Cyrillius. He’s destroyed trillions of lives. And he doesn’t even feel guilty about it.”
Just saying his name makes my mouth taste bitter. As the heir and owner of Dominion, he makes all the calls that affect every single solar system. He could make the galaxy a better place. He could stop the centuries of greed and money. But he’s only taken things twenty steps further than his father and his grandfather before him.
“Seems like a little bit of a jump, comparing yourself to him,” he says quietly. “Just a few days ago you were complaining about your boring life, and now you’re hiding a secret that could affect everyone on your planet?”
“Pretty insane how quickly life can change,” I muse. Though, really, nothing has changed at all. Other than now I have to figure out how to get me and my dad, and Zayne, off-planet. “Know of anywhere good left in the galaxy?”
“Suddenly you’re also ready to move planet?” he asks. There’s a thoughtful probe to his tone.
I shrug, even though he can’t see it. “Know of any place?”
This is where I hate this part of our connection. I hear his voice. But that’s it. I can’t read his body language. I get impressions sometimes, but I don’t know if those are real, or my brain filling them in.
I want to read his face right now. I want to have something to fill these longer pauses, to decipher what he’s thinking.
But I have nothing but his voice, echoing in my brain.
“Do you really think there’s any such thing as a good place, anymore?” he finally asks.
I consider his question as I look out at Korpillion.
This is supposed to be a good place. But, as I look at it, I see the race for credits. I see advertisements flashing bright in my face. I see businessmen talking to prostitutes who are only interested in their connect-link accounts. I see jobs, so many of them, that no one takes pride in, they just do it because it allows them to survive.
I think of Reena, whose goal isn’t to save anyone but herself and her crew.
I even think of my dad, who has no joy in life. He just puts his head down and survives.
“I don’t know, anymore,” I say. I hate the confession, but I am honestly not sure.
“I’ve been to a lot of places, and all I’ve seen everywhere is the innate drive to survive,” he says into my head. “People will do whatever it takes to survive.”
“I wonder when we lost everything else,” I say. “The few books that were stored before all of that was lost talk about all these other things, these principals. Honor, glory, love. When did we become a galaxy full of survivors?”
He doesn’t answer, because really there isn’t an answer. These are just the deep thoughts spoken out loud between two strangers connected by a power neither of us understands.
“I wish I was there with you,” he surprises me with his honest words.
I straighten a little, and a smile creeps onto my face. “I wish you were here, too.” I pause, letting that confession fill me. “Do you think we could ever meet in real life?”
He takes a considering pause. “I think we have to be careful what we wish for, sometimes.”
I don’t know what that means, and I don’t know why he said it when he just said he wished he were here with me.
“Just tell me the first letter of your name,” I say. I’m desperate right now. I don’t want to be alone. I want something real. I don’t just want this air that’s surrounding me instead of the person I wish was here.
“No,” he immediately says, but I hear a smile in his voice.
“Oh, come on,” I egg him. “What harm is there in just telling me a letter?”
He pauses for a beat, and I feel it, he’s teasing me. “It’s not A and it’s not Z.”
“Great,” I say sarcastically. “That’s helpful.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, and I can just imagine a smug smile. “It’s only fair you give me yours now.”
“You won’t tell me yours, but you want me to be straight about mine?” I say in protest.
“You’re your own master.”
I smile. “It starts with an N.”
I hear him groan. “Your name is Nova, isn’t it?”
My eyes roll of their own accord and I actually laugh at myself.
“Really, the most common female name in the galaxy?” he eggs.
“It’s not like I picked it!” I defend. “My dad says he loved that name and so that’s what I became. Along with about ten million other girls on this planet.”
There’s happiness surrounding that little place in my brain where he lives. This is nice. I actually feel alive here. I feel real, even though if I told anyone else what was happening right now, they would think I was crazy.
“I need to go, Nova,” he says, putting a little emphasis on my name.
“Alright,” I say, disappointed that he’s leaving me. “I’m going to figure out your name. Next time we talk, I’ll get it.”
“Good luck with that,” he says.
I smile, but only for a second longer until he says goodbye. Leaving me alone in the middle of this doomed planet.
Alone in my room, I do research.
On my personal holotab, I search the galaxy for a safe planet to move to. There aren’t any Neron-free planets in the solar systems near ours, thus the reason Korpillion is so overpopulated. There is one in the X sector, but the second I get the estimate for a ticket on a ship for three of us, I know it’s not in the scope of possibility.
It’s discouraging. There are only five livable planets in systems close enough to be feasible. One of those is the desert planet, Starvis, and no one immigrates there. The locals there are said to be near savages who are suspicious of any outsiders. They’re known for violence and endless, primitive war.
The closest planet to us, and the least expensive to move to is almost exactly like Korpillion. It’s overpopulated and the vast majority of the population lives in poverty.
I’m not looking for my home planet 2.0.
That leaves two other possibilities. After some research, I decide my goal is Panus. It has a good variety of landscape, the northern sphere is an ice continent, the southern tip is desert tundra, but the center, along the equator are four tropical continents that are livable. It isn’t insanely populated because not everyone can deal with the rainfall they receive.
Rain sounds kind of nice. I’ve never actually seen real rain. It gets sucked out of the sky the moment a cloud appears because we have to regulate all our water so strictly.
But holy slag, the cost. I do the calculations.
With the current number of Neron weapons I’m building and selling every lunar, it’s going to take me almost five solars to save enough money.
I want to be off Korpillion and settled on Panus well before Dominion comes looking for the Neron here. I want to be gone a solar before.
I’m going to have to start hustling.
It’s time to get to work.
The very first thing I do is get a list of names from Reena. She’s face to face with these kinds of people way more than I am. I, at least, have a legal day job. She runs the crime circuit all day, every day. She’s dealing Neron to junkies and elite space hogs.
/>
So she knows those who might potentially be interested.
I reach out to the first five people on the list. And I breathe a sigh of relief when one of them gets back to me.
She wants to meet.
So late at night, I change into all black. I pull on my boots. I don my fingerless gloves. And because I can’t afford to be tracked on the city’s cameras, I take a jar of black smudge, and rub it around my eyes, across the bridge of my nose, stretching from my eyes, back to my hairline.
I leave my hair down, a wild mane of dirty blonde waves.
I want to be a good daughter. Everything my father has done my entire life was so we can have a good, peaceful life. But he’s taken care of me all this time. I’m doing this so I can take care of him. Take care of us.
The woman wants a whip. What she wants a whip for, I’m not going to ask. She tells me how long she wants it, how thick and long the handle should be, and she is very specific about how much Neron she wants it to hold.
It’s a lot.
I should question what her intentions are. I should maybe consider that this isn’t something I should make, because it will hold way too much power.
But I can’t afford to have a conscience for the next three solars.
I have to get us off this planet.
So, with her specifications, I go to work the next morning. I stay late. I take the elevator down four floors from my office. I go through the hidden door I installed. I enter my workshop, buried in an old core that was abandoned long before I came to work here.
Piece by piece, I begin building that whip.
I tap the icon on my connect-link that says The Black Hole of Truth.
Arden Black’s voice comes through my audobuds.
“This is the kind of stuff that makes me sick,” she says, and I hear it in her voice. It’s heavy. It’s weighted. “You know my sources are spread throughout the galaxy. There is no galaxy-wide news and truth without all of you.”
She pauses for a long moment, and I feel the darkness she’s feeling, and I don’t even know what she’s going to say yet.
“I had five, yes you heard that right, five sources contact me yesterday, from the planet Hogwa. As you well know, the planet in the T5 sector was taken over eight solars ago. When Dominion found Neron on their planet, they executed their normal routine and dominated the planet, forcing a population of three billion to either move off planet, or work for them.”
I shake my head as I pull the metal from the forge, pouring it into the forms.
“Initially, there was a fight, but you know Dominion’s numbers. You know their army. They came with their half a million soldiers, and Hogwa’s governments didn’t stand a chance. It’s been eight solars of servitude since then, for the seven hundred thousand people left on that planet.”
It makes my stomach sick. Two point three billion people had to leave their home planet and settle somewhere else, because Dominion came and claimed the Neron as theirs.
Power is an ugly thing. Motivation purely for money is evil.
“I had no idea until yesterday that for the past six lunars, Hogwa was planning revenge. They had planned for freedom. I don’t know the details, but they were going to war.”
I place my hands on the table, my head hanging low as I wait for the metal to cool. I want to hope, that there’s a chance that any planet could rebel against Dominion and win.
But not one planet, in the four hundred solars Dominion has been in power, has won against them.
“On the eve of their strike,” Arden continues, “The Dominion arrived. The Nero came. They knew. And while the population still worked in the mines, while they went about their daily duties, the Nero stood on the roof of their command center. And in an instant, half the population dropped dead.”
I jerk upright, my eyes wide, my stomach clenching.
“My sources say it’s like their skulls spontaneously crushed inward,” Arden says, her voice breathy, but angry. “Like wadding up a piece of paper in your hand. Their skin glowed Neron blue, just before they died.”
I hold a hand over my mouth, trying not to imagine it in detail, but finding it impossible.
Half of the population of an entire planet.
Dead. Instantly. Because of Dominion’s Nero.
“You just can’t imagine it, the power the Nero have,” Arden says. “But all five sources confirm the same thing. One man, one evil puppet, killed 350,000 people yesterday, and he didn’t have to lift a finger to do it.”
Emotion pulls into my eyes. I squeeze them closed, refusing to let tears fall.
This is the power of Dominion. This is what they do. Out of greed and power lust.
This…this is why I have to get off this planet.
This is why I’ll spend every waking moment working.
I think about the credits and my ticket off this planet, and I get back to work.
“How many credits do you have saved up?” I ask Zayne.
He looks over at me and his brows furrow together. “Isn’t that one of those kinds of questions you aren’t supposed to ask?”
I look back down the skywalk, stepping sideways to avoid a woman talking animatedly on her connect-link, pushing myself into Zayne’s side. For a second, it’s familiar. We used to walk this very same path all the time, our arms tucked around each other, looking at one another like we were the brightest stars to one another.
But, now, I just immediately step away and focus on the path that leads to the bar.
“I just…”I say. I don’t know how much to say. I didn’t think of a good lie to cover why I need to know how much money he has. If he can contribute to his ticket, it’s all the faster we can get off this planet. “I have a feeling I have more saved up than you do, and I want to see if I’m right.”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
There. Make it a competition. That sounds normal for me.
He gives me an annoyed side look. “Seriously? You want to make this a competition? You’re forgetting one thing, Nova. I don’t engage in criminal activity.”
Okay. He’s caught me there. It really wasn’t a fair question. “Fine,” I say. “I know exactly how many credits I have saved up if you don’t count the income from my…creations.”
Zayne looks over at me again, clearly annoyed at my questions. “Not that it’s any of your slam business, but I’ve got about thirty-thousand credits saved up after paying off my debts for school.”
I swear under my breath as we step into the bar and head toward our regular table. As soon as we sit, the waitress takes our order—the usual, oxygen-infused calypso and a basket of fried protein.
“Are you seriously going to judge me?” Zayne asks, giving me an annoyed look. “How much do you have, Queen Nova?”
“Ninety-two thousand,” I say. “If you exclude the…extra credits.”
“Holy slag,” he declares, his eyes bugging for a moment. “And with the extra benefits of your alternative lifestyle?”
“Just under four-hundred thousand,” I say, keeping my voice down. “Are you sure you don’t have anything else? How much do you think you can set aside by the end of the solar?”
The waitress drops off our drinks and I immediately grab mine, taking a long draw.
“What’s going on, Nova?” Zayne asks, folding his arms over the table. He leans in close, because there are dozens of other people crammed in this tiny bar and there are always ears listening to everything. “You look entirely mooned out, like you’re going to hurl at any moment. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
I take another long draw from my drink, which was a bad idea, because I really do feel like I’m going to throw up.
Zayne and I might not be together as a couple anymore, but he’s still the one and only friend I have. He’s my best friend, even if it’s by default.
“I talked to Reena a few days ago,” I confess. Maybe it’s the drink flooding my brain with too much pure, clean oxygen, but my lips open before I give them per
mission to do so. “I told her about the rumors going around, and she didn’t give a slam.”
Zayne pulls his drink toward him, but he doesn’t raise it to his lips. “And is there a reason why?”
My eyes finally rise up to meet his. “Did you know that Dominion sweeps every solar system once every fifty solars, scanning for Neron deposits?”
His face instantly loses its color.
I don’t have to explain any more than that. He knows exactly what it means.
“How much longer until they come through again?” he asks in a low voice.
“Four solars,” I say quietly, looking around the bar to be sure we won’t be heard. But maybe I should let someone overhear. Maybe I should stand on this table and tell everyone as loud as I can.
There is Neron on Korpillion. And Dominion is going to come for it in four solars.
Slag, Reena’s right.
If everyone knew, the whole planet would freak out. The economy would instantly collapse, and then no one could afford to get off-planet.
“I’ve got a plan to get us off Korpillion,” I say, leaning in close. My eyes scan the crowd, and suddenly they all feel like competition. Not everyone will get off, but I slam well plan to be long gone. And I hate myself for thinking like Reena. “Me, you, and Dad are getting off this planet and going to Panus. But it’s going to take a lot of credits.”
I see the understanding dawn in his eyes as to why I was asking about his savings. “How much?”
“Two point four million,” I say the number that makes my stomach sick. “Eight hundred thousand each.”
Zayne curses and sits back in his seat. His fingers tangle in his hair and he looks at me with this hopeless expression. He shakes his head. “Nova, that would take me ten solars to save enough just for me, and that’s if I don’t have to spend a single credit between now and then.”
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss at him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him in back toward me. He looks around, realizing his mistake. “That’s why you’re going to stop judging me for my alternative employment. That’s why you might have to start helping me now and then.”