Cast of Nova

by S J McLaughlin

  The ship lifted and everything inside pushed towards the ground. The engines growled and the atmosphere beat the hull around as they broke through it. He laid on the ground, letting the gravity flow through him and crush his chest against the floor. It’d only take a second, and then they were in space.

  Kendal felt weightlessness. He sat up, keeping himself upright and stable. He was comfortable in zero gravity, but saw that Mira wasn’t. She pushed off the ground and flew straight at the ceiling, hitting her back on one of the panels. She tried to push off the ceiling, but caught herself in a spin.

  “Gravity in five,” Dess said, still strapped comfortably in his chair.

  Kendal counted down, and landed gently once the gravity kicked in, managing only a short stumble. Mira had been against the ceiling and fell five feet, landing face-down.

  Kendal helped her up. She sat up, legs folded and arms held over her stomach.

  “You okay?” Kendal asked, reluctantly putting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Wind knocked out of me,” Mira said between coughs.

  “Right,” Kendal muttered.

  Once she stopped coughing, he helped her to her feet. They walked over and both stood behind Dess to look over the monitors.

  “Are we in the clear?” Kendal asked.

  Dess was staring at a flashing red dot on the console. He looked concerned and hesitant.

  “Dess?” Mira asked.

  He pushed the button and the center monitor, switching the feeds. Admiral Tearly was on screen.

  Kendal wanted to run. His breath caught in his throat and his blood ran hot. He stepped back, keeping out of what he thought was the line of sight. He’d promised to help talk them through with the Union, but he couldn’t face Tearly. Not now.

  “What is this vessel’s ID?” Admiral Tearly asked.

  “644810D,” Dess said.

  Tearly typed onto his computer, then looked back up. “Desmond Kanta,” he said. “Known smuggler and bounty hunter. You served ten years, and now you’re on probation.”

  Dess gripped the console and sifted air through his teeth. “That’s right.”

  “And here you are, carrying an unauthorized passenger.”

  “It’s not his fault!” Mira said. Unlike Kendal, she was in full sight of the admiral. “The planet was blowing up and w—”

  “I didn’t ask you to speak!” Tearly shouted. “How many passengers are there, Kanta?”

  “Two,” Dess said. “The girl and one of yours back there.”

  Tearly raised a brow. “One of mine?” he said. “Well I cannot see him. Approach the camera.”

  Kendal hesitated. He knew Tearly would rail on him for abandoning his post. He’d been through enough already, but swallowed his pride and walked into frame.

  Tearly smiled. “Lieutenant Kendal,” he said. “Well, I shouldn’t be saying lieutenant anymore.”

  “Admiral Tearly,” Kendal said, “I must ask what you mean by that.”

  “You’re a known criminal now,” Tearly said. “That strips you of your lieutenant rank.”

  “I haven’t.” Kendal took a breath. “I’ve done nothing.”

  “Aiding in the traitor assault. Conspiring against General Devon to weaken the marine assault, ultimately leading to the death of him, and his marines. And now it seems you’ve bartered with a known criminal for an easy escape.”

  Kendal’s fists tightened. “None of those are true.”

  “And, you have a known history of bedding a traitor and a terrorist. That ties all of it together.”

  “That’s what this is,” Kendal said, brow furrowing in anger. “It’s about her. It’s about Nova!”

  “Kanta, you have one minute to shut down your engines,” Tearly said. “Prepare to be boarded once we arrive. Otherwise, your ship will be shot down and your records will reflect the criminal activity you have committed. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  The screen went black, and a silence plagued the room.

  Chapter 8

  Dess started typing into the console, face caught between anger and regret.

  “What are you doing?” Mira asked.

  “Shutting down the ship,” Dess said.

  Mira grabbed his hands and made him stop. “No, no,” she said. “Ain’t happening. I only just got off that damn rock and I sure ain’t gonna be taken up by the damn Union.”

  “We ain’t got any other choice, Mir,” Dess said, tearing his hands from her grip. “There’s an entire Union fleet out there, and we’re just one vessel. Besides, prison ain’t so bad after the first month. Most of it busy work and keepin’ your mind clear.”

  “What about you?” Mira said, looking at Kendal. The strange officer had been quiet for most of this and she was wondering what was going through his head. “What you think?”

  “How fast is this ship?” Kendal asked, suddenly looking focused and determined.

  “Goes up to 49gs,” Dess said. “Same as regulation. Union ships are faster than that.”

  Kendal shook his head. “Not by much. The Morana’s got the newer panels which puts them up to 54.”

  “Still enough to catch us, lieutenant.”

  “That’s only if we try to run away,” Kendal said.

  “You’re suggestin’ we fight?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Kendal said. “Instead of flying away, we fly towards them. They might be accelerating faster than us, but if we accelerate towards them, we’ll pass them fast enough that they’d need to decelerate, then accelerate the opposite direction just to catch up.”

  “But they would catch up on us,” Dess said. “Not right away, but eventually.”

  “Not if we set our course erratically. This ship has side thrusters?”

  “We use ‘em for take-off, but yeah.”

  “Use them to alter course. If we go in a zig-zag, then they can’t follow us.”

  “That’ll all fine there, lieutenant, but those ships got scanners,” Dess said. “They can track us.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Kendal said and put his hands on the console keyboard. Dess moved aside, letting Kendal at the controls. Mira stood back, trying to keep track of what the two were talking about.

  “You better know what you’re doin’,” Dess said.

  Mira walked over to Kendal and looked at his screen. “Yeah, what are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m seeing if Tearly thought everything through,” Kendal said. “All Union registered ships have a tracking code. If we ran, they would find us.”

  “And that’s fixed onto the ship?” Mira asked.

  “Fixed to the ship’s number, which can be changed, but only by Union.”

  Dess rushed back over, almost excited. “You can change that?” he asked.

  Kendal smiled. “Tearly might have revoked my basic access, but I still know most of the general passwords and workarounds. The Union tries to be thorough with its safety, but officers kept forgetting the passwords every time they’d change it so after a while they just kept them the same.”

  “How long’ll it take to change the ship’s number?” Dess asked.

  “I just did,” Kendal said. “We now have a scrambled number. They can’t look us up on their system anymore.”

  “Move it then!” Dess said and pushed Kendal and Mira out of his way. He turned the engines back up and the screens switched to a flight display, showing live feeds, radar, and flight stats. “I just gotta regulate the gravity so we don’t get crushed to death when this thing starts movin’.”

  The ship shuttered for a second, throwing everything loose across the room. Mira tumbled over and caught herself before her face could hit the floor.

  “Let’s just hope they don’t shoot us right out of the sky,” Dess said.

  Mira pulled herself up and rubbed her side. “I’m going to be so sore in the morning,” she said. “Can’t we just shoot them back?”

  “This is a transport ship,” Dess said. “Transport ships don’t got w
eapons.”

  She saw the Union fleet dotted in the distance. Small flickers reflecting the light of the three suns. The indicators flashed and the console beeped.

  After a few minutes of acceleration, they were in the thick of the Union fleet.

  “Are there even any planets that way?” Kendal asked, holding the side of Dess’s chair.

  “Shut up,” Dess said and focused on the controls.

  The Union started shooting at them. EG-blasts rocked the hull, but the Union was careful about ammo. Dess had flown straight into the thick of their fleet. They couldn’t shoot without risk of hitting their own ships.

  “Time for something clever!” Dess said and the ship rocked to the side, throwing everything against the wall before the ship stabilized. Mira picked herself up and brushed the hair out of her eyes.

  Mira glanced at the monitor, seeing the ships in front of them. Dess had stabilized and was in the dead center of the fleet. Despite the 3d projection showing the ships at close range, in reality they were separated by a few hundred feet.

  “Hey, lieutenant,” Dess said, and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Yes?” Kendal said. He was next to Mira, panting and holding onto the wall to keep from being tossed around same as her.

  “What you think about ramming through a cluster of ships, like that one in front of us?”

  Kendal saw a thicket of ships, arranged so close they were practically hugging. Dess would have to maneuver through a maze of vessels with a control scheme designed for slow, methodical movements.

  “I think it’s insane.”

  “Glad you think so,” Dess said. He typed in a short string of commands, and lurched the ship forward. Mira stumbled and managed to catch herself before slamming face first into the floor.

  The monitor showed a 3D map of all the ships within range. Dess entered a field of them, all arranged in a spiral too wide to maneuver around no matter which way he went. The only way was through.

  Mira was more interested in the map than the outside feed. The map kept still, showing where they were in relation to the Union ships, while the feed looked like a blur of black and gray. The room looked stable, but she knew they spinning like a propeller.

  Dess spun and swiveled through the maze of Union ships, Mira clinging to the back of Dess’s chair as the grav systems shot her around.

  A violent spin threw Mira up and off her feet, making her flail to try to grab hold of the chair but her fingers barely scratched the fabric. Zero grav lifted her up until she floated a few feet from the ground, and then gravity caught once more. She tumbled forward and bit her tongue on the landing, feeling the taste of copper flood her mouth. Kendal helped her up and she struggled to keep on her feet.

  The ship stabilized.

  Mira walked over to Dess, hearing him caught in a raspy pant, and looked at the screen. Ahead of them was nothing but space. The Union ships were going opposite to them, drifting in the wrong direction.

  “Why aren’t they shooting at us?” Mira asked.

  “They don’t want to miss,” Kendal said. “They miss and the shot doesn’t stop until it hits something. A planet, or a ship, or anything.”

  “Just goes forever?”

  “Until it hits something,” Kendal said. “Nothing in space slows down. You shoot and it goes until it hits something. Might be in a few years, might be in a few hundred.”

  “Enough of the lectures,” Dess said, spinning his seat around before getting up. “I’ve knocked us a bit to the right of where they think we are. If the lieutenant did what he said he did, then they’ll be looking for us in the wrong place.”

  Dess walked down the steps and straight out of the command room.

  “Where you going?” Mira asked and followed after. Kendal didn’t budge.

  “It’s close to night cycle, and if you’re going to be stuck with me then you’ll need to sleep somewhere,” Dess said. “You come too, lieutenant!”

  Kendal sighed and followed after. Dess took them to a place Mira had never been before. Off to the side of the common room was a hallway with six doors on the left, each with keypads on the handles. The hall didn’t lead to anywhere, stopping at a wall.

  “Which one’s ours?” Mira asked.

  “You don’t gotta share,” Dess said.

  “Ain’t what I meant,” Mira said, taking a glance a Kendal. “Which one I get and which one he get?”

  “Room at the end’s mine,” Dess said. “The rest ain’t being used. Just gotta set a code once you get in, but the default’s five zeros.”

  Mira chose the first door to the common room. She typed 00000 into the panel and the door unlocked.

  Kendal picked the room next to hers.

  Just had to pick that one, Mira thought as went into her room.

  It was smaller than what she was used to. A single bed with an equal amount of floor space. Above her bed, against the left wall, was a groove about a foot tall that extended the length that she could use as a shelf.

  The only light was an LED lined against the top corner.

  She closed the door and locked it. On the door was a monitor. It normally displayed a feed of space, showing the same front-ship view that Dess saw in his command room. She touched the screen and the interface came up. It gave options for a few room controls, like lighting and such, but she only cared about changing the door password. She set it to 18164.

  She peeled off her shirt, raising her arms above her head and feeling her muscles burn. Her sides were covered in bruises and cuts from being thrown around the command room. She sat on the edge of the bed and took off her boots and pants, sighing as she rubbed the minor burns along her legs and feet.

  Just be lucky you’re alive, Mira thought.

  She turned out the lights and had to feel her way back to the bed. She wasn’t used to such darkness. On Nau Cedik, there was always some light, either from the street lamps, or the soft glow from the sun off the horizon, but now there wasn’t a drop of it.

  Either the bed was especially soft, or Mira was more tired than she thought. She pulled the blankets over herself, curling into them and closing her eyes.

  She thought she would have trouble sleeping, but morning came quick.

  Chapter 9

  Kendal woke up to a steady beep from the monitor on his door. It turned on by itself and displayed the feed of nearby space, casting a faint light into the room. Day cycle had triggered.

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes, feeling like he’d only slept a few hours.

  Most ships kept an artificial day/night cycle. The standard was 25 hours, with 8 of them being nights, and the other 17 during the day. With how tired he felt, he had doubts the cycle gave him a full 8 hours of sleep.

  He turned on the main light and picked up his uniform from the floor. It was too hot to wear all of it. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, covered in sweat as the engines heated the ship up. He had to throw off the blankets at some point, but that only eased a bit of discomfort.

  Keeping to the basics, he put on his trousers and undershirt only. He kept the shirt untucked and the top button open to let it breathe.

  He left his room and locked the door behind him. The floor beneath his bare feet creaked and groaned under his weight. He heard the hum of the engine and the light echoes that bounced around the vacant walls with each sound Kendal made.

  There was no one in the hall, nor the common room. All the lights were on, but nobody home. He looked up at the high ceiling, lights designed to give off a sunlight appearance as it cast down on the balcony and the main floor. Books lined the shelves, and two couches were around a short table in the center. The curved monitor showed the same feed of space as his room. Nothing but black and stars.

  “Hello?” Kendal said, voice carrying far and bouncing back at him. It truly felt like he was the only one there.

  “In here!”

  The voice startled him, but he recognized it as Mira right away. It seemed like the voice had bounced a
ll around him, but he followed where it was strongest, down the hall opposite to the crew cabins.

  He wandered down the hall, having to duck under a set of pipes crossing along the top, through the darkness and out into a brightly lit room with a short ceiling. It was a dining room with a kitchen to the back end of it and up a few steps. A long wooden table stood in the middle with eight chairs around it, and a full pitcher of water in the center. The room felt less like something you’d find on a ship, but more like something in a home. No monitors, or machinery. A wooden divider between the dining section and the kitchen with decorative support beams. Carpet on the floor and a few paintings hung up.

  Mira was sitting at the table with a plate of ration and a glass of water in front of her. Her hair was flatter than the day before and her face was red and sweaty. Like Kendal, she’d ditched most of her clothes, keeping only the necessary to keep herself covered. Kendal envied that she wasn’t wearing sleeves, already feeling his shirt sticking from sweat.

  “You look awful handsome this mornin’,” Mira said, mouth half-full of food. “Less like you got a stick up your butt.”

  “...thanks,” he said, taking a seat across from her. “It’s hot in here.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Mira said, rolling her eyes. “Was gonna put on my pants and shirt and such, but I’d rather not melt to death, you know what I mean? You don’t mind I take it?”

  Kendal shrugged. It bothered him, but as long as she wasn’t angry, he was fine with it. “The ship just needs a better cooling system,” Kendal said.

  “What about my cooling system?” Desmond said, startling Kendal. He walked over and sat at the head of the table, only one seat between him and the others. Desmond had a light vest on as well and his kinetic clung to his belt.

  “I said it was fine,” Kendal replied.

  “Mornin’ Dess,” Mira said with a smile on her face, chewing up a bite of food before washing it down with water. “I always thought space was supposed to be cold,” she said.

  “We’re sitting atop enough machinery to get us from planet to planet in a few weeks,” Desmond said. “As well as electricity, plumbing, and grav-systems. That’s gonna generate a whole lot of heat.”