Her good hand played over the console.
DISENGAGE AUTOMATIC PILOT?
YES
DISENGAGED. AWAITING MANUAL INPUT.
Imperceptibly, Starwind slowed, turned, and reversed course. Covenant began to enlarge.
Nothing to do now but wait.
The scan readout lit up. Indicators winked from green to red.
TRANSITION ALERT
Jade blinked. “What—?”
A front of Roessler-space waves flew past Starwind, insensible in realspace, but very real to the instruments. Had the yacht been in Roessler-space, she’d have been flung aside as flotsam.
“Computer, nature of transition waves?”
MOST COMPATIBLE WITH SUPERNOVA PHENOMENON
“TROY!” Jade screamed. The cry, wrenched from the deepest part of her being, echoed in the small bridge as if Starwind, feeling the loss, was repeating the outburst.
The impossible happened. Gamma Hydra 4 exploded into a supernova.
The bomb disrupted the interfaces between realspace and the Roessler continuum, causing gravitational fluxes that otherwise would never have occurred in a star of Gamma Hydra 4's mass.
In a fraction of time the star’s outer layers collapsed, falling under the inexorable pull of gravity until they could fall no more. Horribly compressed, burning with fusion fires the likes of which the star had never known, they slammed into the core, and rebounded. Gamma Hydra 4 shattered.
And no power in the universe could halt it.
“Oh, God,” Jade groaned, “Not Troy. Please not Troy.”
She wasn’t flying, she was plummeting…
The Roessler-spatial disturbances caused by the supernova crossed the system almost instantaneously, flooding away from the dying star. To Jade’s eyes, Gamma Hydra 4 hung in the heavens, unchanged, oblivious to the eruption that had eviscerated it. The light from the star hadn’t reached her yet.
The light hadn’t…
As if a cloud parted, Jade’s mind raced, crystal clear, transcending the emotional and physical discomfort that wracked her body.
Covenant orbited at a mean distance of 300 million kilometers from Gamma Hydra 4. Traveling at the speed of light, roughly 300,000 kilometers per second, equaled 1000 seconds; just sixteen minutes until the leading edge of the supernova—a firestorm of radiation, particles, and visible light—reduced Covenant to so much superheated plasma.
“Sixteen minutes. Come on, move your fingers.” Jade inputted a new flight pattern. Starwind swooped towards the doomed planet.
The minutes ticked past, each one that much less that Kuchera, Emmers, and she herself had to live. Covenant swelled rapidly.
Not quickly enough.
The negotiating center sprang into view beside the towering cliffs.
Twelve minutes.
The hangar bay yawned wide.
Jade brought Starwind in as quickly as she dared.
WARNING. YOU ARE EXCEEDING STANDARD DOCKING VELOCITY.
OVERRIDE, she entered, negating the navigational program’s safeguards.
Starwind entered the docking bay at a velocity that would have made Karenina Neilson blanch.
Ten minutes.
The docking link extended. Slowly, so slowly! A faint click as it latched onto Starwind's hull.
Jade slipped her restraints, hauled herself to her feet, and hurried to the lock.
LINK SECURE
She dashed into the tube, running as rapidly as her injured arm would allow, berating her slowness, thankful for a surge of adrenalin.
Pretend the Politicals are on your heels.
Politicals? What are Politicals compared to a supernova?
There was nobody in the hangar area. No technicians, no guards, nobody.
Nine minutes.
Her boots rang on the corridor floors. She blessed whoever had designed the center and caused the landing bay to be located at the junction of C and D sectors. The corridors were deserted. Jade plunged into the lifter, and punched the access override that Kuchera and Emmers had left in place. She urged the lifter downward.
Eight minutes.
Come on…
The lifter stopped. She lurched into the corridor, willing her legs to take one step after another, gasping for breath and chafing herself for her fatigue.
Keep your feet moving.
Don't slow down now.
Almost there…
Over the rasping of her labored breathing she discerned another sound. It took seconds for her to recognize it as singing. Another moment to recognize the voices of Emmers and Kuchera. The information officer’s mellow baritone blended with Emmers’ slightly squeaky tenor. Jade hadn’t realized Kuchera possessed such a good voice—she couldn’t recall hearing him sing before.
She shook her head. Singing while waiting for death to overtake them.
Death.
They’d never feel the shock-wave hit. It would be over even as it arrived.
She staggered, bumped into the wall, and wrenched her shoulder. She sucked in her breath. Her vision greyed, and a few more precious seconds passed while she waited for it to return. She steadied herself and pushed ahead. The singing grew louder.
Seven minutes.
Her knees buckled. She sagged against the door frame.
“Troy—”
He pivoted. A momentary look of delight, followed by astonished horror, flashed across his face, and then he was on his feet, at her side, holding her up. “Jade!”
“Come on!” she said.
“What…? Why…?”
She put her hand to his lips, shushing him. “Because I love you! We’ve got six minutes. On your feet, Rick!”
Emmers shook his head. His sightless eyes stared in her general direction, clear fluid trickling from the scorched sockets. With a start, Jade realized he must be in terrible pain. “I’ll slow you down,” Emmers said. “Go without me.”
“Not a chance. Move it, Lieutenant! Order.”
Kuchera took Emmers’s hand and jerked him along. He slid his other arm around Jade’s waist.
“Hold on.” Emmers changed positions and felt his way to Jade’s other side to help support her. “There’s nothing wrong with my arms and legs," he said, marshaling a wry smile.
They shambled, rather than ran, along the corridor.
Five minutes.
“We’ll never make it!” Emmers exclaimed.
Kuchera glanced at his chrono. “Not at this rate.”
“Save your breath,” Jade grunted.
The lifter doors shushed behind them. To Jade, the ascent felt even longer than the descent had been.
Her shoulder throbbed even worse from the jarring.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Kuchera said, still holding her waist. “You were safe.”
Jade turned her head to look at him, thinking suddenly how much his moustache suited his receding hairline. “I didn’t want to be safe. Didn’t I tell you no heroics? Now I’ve got a sore jaw as well as a sore shoulder.”
“Do you think I could have lived with myself if I ran like a coward and left you to die? I’m sorry I had to hit you, but you weren’t about to go of your own accord.”
A sudden warmth filled her. Jade looked away, so Kuchera wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. “Why won’t this thing move any faster?”
At long last the lifter reached the main level.
Four minutes.
“Almost there,” Jade said for Emmers’s benefit.
“Grit your teeth,” Kuchera said.
“What?—OUCH!”
The room spun as Kuchera plucked her off the ground and slung her over his shoulder. One moment she was staring down the corridor, the next, Kuchera’s tan-clad back filled her view. She realized for the first time that he’d put his shirt back on.
“Got a grip on my shirt, Rick?” Kuchera asked.
“Tight.”
“Then let’s run.”
Half running, half jogging, Kuchera set off down the corridor.
It seemed interminable. Jade’s head bobbed. Floor, shirt, floor, shirt…
He’d fall…any moment…and that would be it.
His muscles, firm, and tense as steel cords, gripped her. She’d never noticed his muscles.
Floor, shirt…
And then…then the bare metal of the docking link.
Three minutes.
Starwind's airlock.
Kuchera set Jade on her feet.
“Bridge,” she said, barely noticing his purple face.
Jade lurched into the pilot’s seat, Kuchera directed Emmers to the one behind, and himself took the co-pilot’s.
“Airlock secure,” Kuchera said, activating controls. “Docking link released. Drive’s still warm.”
Two minutes.
“There’s no time to get out of range,” Kuchera said.
Jade’s usable hand played over the console. Faster, girl…No matter that her vision threatened to dissolve into a series of luminescent blobs. Status lights illuminated. The containment field built.
“Prepare to transition,” she said.
Emmers gasped.
Jade could almost feel Kuchera’s shock.
“You can’t transition from the surface of a planet!” he protested.
“Covenant’s small.”
“It’s impossible!”
One minute.
“Do you know another way to escape from a supernova?” Jade demanded.
Kuchera shook his head. “No.”
Jade patted Starwind's console. “Fly, girl,” she urged. “Fly as you’ve never flown before.” Louder: “Ready. Transition…Now.”
Jade had heard ships grumble and complain, ships witter and whine like a newborn baby, ships die a deathrattle of failing electronics and disintegrating metal, howling in despair as structural integrity failed.
Starwind screamed.
A high, keening wail of mourning. A banshee screeching in the night. Such a wail of utter, hopeless agony as Jade imagined all the damned of hell would voice. A shriek that transfixed her while at the same time ripping her asunder, nerve from nerve, molecule from molecule, spirit from flesh.
The ship shuddered and shook in an insane frenzy, as if shredding herself to atoms would somehow relieve the anguish.
Flung sideways, Jade’s head hit Kuchera’s chest. He grunted then put his arms around her, trying to cushion the savage shocks.
The viewscreen—the few wild flickers Jade was able to glimpse of it—showed a mad, incoherent kaleidoscope of shifting shapes and colors. Not Roessler-space exactly, but not realspace, either.
Impaled on the edge, Starwind fought against forces impossible to imagine, crucified between reality and unreality, between hopeful life and certain death.
Are we trapped? Jade wondered. Is this what happens to ships that never return?
Please, God, let me not have condemned us to an eternity in limbo…
Would the screaming never cease?
She clapped her good hand to one ear, trying to shut out the interminable howling.
Her mouth was open and she was screaming too, in sympathy, her voice lost in the wailing.
Any moment, and she’d hit the sea, and it would be like hitting solid granite…
Granite…
Granite…
Another shock, stronger than the rest, and then it was as if a giant hand reached down and plucked Starwind from her predicament. One moment the ship struggled for existence on the boundary of Roessler-space, the next, she was sailing through that eerie realm.
Then the screen blazed with rainbow light, all the colors of the spectrum glowing with brilliant radiance, a vibrant, swirling dance of color.
Jade thought that heaven itself couldn’t be any more beautiful.
The screaming died to a low whisper of fading torment and dwindled away. With a final, fitful convulsion, the shuddering stopped.
The rainbow subsided and the stars shone against the blackness of space.
Diamonds. A million diamonds.
Emmers groaned from somewhere behind her.
“We made it,” Kuchera breathed. He raised his voice. “Hear me, Rick? We made it!”
“Thank you, God,” Jade breathed.
“Amen to that.” Kuchera bent close to Jade and kissed her lips.
Jade held him in a one-armed grip, letting his closeness and his kiss banish the bitter taste of fear from her mouth.
She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.
“What—what’s that?” Jade asked. She removed her lips from Kuchera’s and gestured with her head.
He followed her gaze, seeing the red indicators winking on the scan console, and leaned forwards.
“Ships. Third Fleet,” he said. “Underway, with weapons armed.”
“Oh,” Jade moaned.
“Call coming in,” Kuchera said. “Remorseless.”
“Must be Vespage,” Jade said, thinking how dull her voice sounded. “Take it.”
Miriam Vespage looked busy as her image formed on the screen, directing orders to command staff out of pickup range. “Imperious, close station! Violator, move to accompany the second squadron.” She looked into the screen. “Starwind, clear the area. You’re in a battle zone.”
Jade slumped back. A wave of weariness washed over her. She felt herself fading. The medications the doc had given her were wearing off.
“This is Lieutenant Troy Kuchera for Commander Lafrey, Admiral.”
“Is Lafrey there?”
“She’s badly wounded, Admiral. What’s happened?”
Vespage issued another order, then said, “Ambassador Halaffi has voided the cease-fire. First Admiral Koharski has assumed overall command of the Third Fleet. The Gara’nesh have left us no choice but battle. We’re closing to engage with the Gara’nesh fleet. In minutes this area will be inimical to life. So get that ship away! Starwind is not equipped to take part in a major fleet engagement.”
Jade raised herself. “Admiral…don’t fight. Call Fleet-keeper Sharra—”
Vespage’s voice vibrated with frustration. “I’ve tried, Lafrey,” she said, gesturing with her hand. “Admiral Koharski has tried, but the Gara’nesh won’t respond. There’s no way to avert the action.”
A mist closed over her. Bright sparks danced before her vision.
No more, her body was saying. No more. Enough.
She was slipping…
“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be. Troy…call Nahanni. Rick knows the signal.” Everything was grey mist…rolling over her like an ocean wave… “Nahanni can talk to Sharra. Tell him Nessh’uarin is safe…”
Darkness closed in. From a great distance she heard Kuchera following her instructions. Was she still speaking or just imagining it? “Tell him Vespage and Koharski can be trusted…we can refuse to continue the war…tell him there must be peace…”
She was sinking below the surface…blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God…
“Ship-keeper Nahanni? This is Troy Kuchera calling for Jade Lafrey. “Nessh’uarin is safe. Do you hear me? Nessh’uarin is safe…”
A final wave, and darkness swallowed her.
EPILOGUE
Jade wriggled her toes, digging them into the warm red sand just where the waves splashed ashore in a froth of sparkling silver. The cool water surged around her bare ankles before retreating, leaving them chilled and tingling.
“This is great!” She scanned the deserted cove, guarded at each end by rocky outcroppings and fringed by native trees. “How did you find this place?”
Troy Kuchera scuffed across the beach, bringing the last of their picnic supplies from the flyer that he’d landed behind a dune, where it couldn’t be seen from the water’s edge. He piled an armload out of reach of the waves.
He shrugged. “Just a place I stumbled across on one of my rambles.”
“Good stumble. Let me give you a hand,” Jade offered.
“Uh-huh,” Kuchera shook
his head. “Give that arm a rest. How’s it feeling, anyway?”
Jade flexed her fingers. They felt stiff and a little residual numbness remained in her fingertips, but otherwise—“Not bad,” she replied. “At least it’s my own arm. Don’t let anybody tell you that healing isn’t painful.”
“Have you heard anything of Emmers lately?”
“He’s doing fine,” Jade replied. “Eyes take longer. The last time I talked to him, he couldn’t make up his mind what color he wanted.”
Kuchera chuckled. “If that’s his biggest worry, he must be doing well.” He came to stand next to Jade.
She took a deep breath of the clean air, filling her lungs with the tang of the sea and the scent of sea-wrack. She stared out over the broad expanse of the Northern Sea, following the low swell until it merged into the horizon. For once, Ashton’s Star was tolerable, low in the sky this far north. The day was warm, but not insufferable.
They both wore loose shirts and shorts, the better to enjoy the caress of the sun on skin.
“It feels good to escape,” she said. “I’ve been cooped up in the med center for too long.”
Kuchera grinned. “Yeah. I’ve been waiting to get you out of that place.”
Jade turned and walked along the beach. Her regeneration had taken the better part of five weeks. Thankfully, enough viable tissue remained that the arm could be salvaged, and not have to be regrown from scratch; otherwise the process would have taken even longer and hurt worse.
Kuchera clasped her hand. She twined her fingers through his and squeezed. They splashed through the surf.
“Has Cheerful Charlie Stalker said when he wants you back?” Kuchera asked.
“Yesterday,” Jade replied. “I told him to wait another day."
“His retirement’s on hold, huh?”
“Postponed indefinitely. With all the repercussions from the Covenant fiasco and the purges on the Central Committee, finding his replacement has assumed a lower priority.”
“Gives me another chapter to write,” Kuchera grumbled. “With my luck he’ll last another twenty years.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” Jade stopped to pick up a shell. She turned the pearly white spiral over in her fingers. “This reminds me so much of Earth,” she said.
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