Cast of Nova

by S J McLaughlin

  Shit, Mira thought. Gravity’s going away.

  She was about to kick off before she stopped herself. She knew nothing about the Morana, and without help, she’d spend hours wandering the halls aimlessly.

  “Nova!” she cried, trying to listen among the voices.

  “Here!” Nova said. Mira felt a hand grab hold of hers, fingers too boney to be anyone else’s.

  “We need to get to the exit,” Mira said. “If the lights and gravity is gone, then the door locks are as well.”

  Mira kicked off the floor and felt herself glide upwards. The gravity hadn’t disappeared completely. Not yet. But she was light enough to jump over the crowd and land on one of the tables.

  Another gunshot, this one close enough that she could smell gunpowder.

  The doorway into the crew passage was open, just a hair, and clear from any Union officers or prisoners. Either no one had thought to go there, or no one could find their way. Mira tugged Nova’s arm and brought her along as she maneuvered through the air and followed her memory.

  The crew hallway wasn’t completely dark. A soft ambient light bounced along the surfaces and scattered around the bends and turns in the corridors.

  “You know where you’re going?” Nova asked. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Where the light’s strongest,” Mira said. She came to a four way turn and followed along the where the light was strongest. If she was correct, then each section of the Morana had its own network of functions which could be turned off without affecting the rest. If it was only the detention block that was down, then the light would be coming from another part of the ship.

  They traveled down the hallways, letting the zero-gravity push them faster than running, until they found the source of the light. A plain metal door with a window in the center that bled a harsh orange.

  As she expected, once out of the detention block the gravity and lights had come back. It took a moment to get adjusted to the light, but once she did she was ready to get moving again.

  “This is familiar,” Nova said, looking down both ends of the hall. “I think we’re near to the storage units.”

  “How far from my ship?” Mira asked.

  “Too far,” Nova said. “They’d catch us no matter which way we go.”

  “That can’t be right,” she said. “We got to get out of here somehow.”

  “We got one way,” Nova said, looking down the hall towards the storage block. “Might not be the safest thing to do, but it’s still a better chance than what we have now.”

  “You’re askin’ if I wanna risk dying over getting’ captured for certain?” Mira said. “Well, I’ll take the risk.”

  Nova grabbed Mira’s hand and broke into a jog towards the storage block. Mira almost tripped, but caught her footing and followed Nova’s lead.

  She better know what she’s doing, Mira thought. She couldn’t stomach the thought of letting Nova help her, yet knew she was her best chance of getting off this ship. That was the only reason Mira even bothered saving her from the detention block. Nova knew the ship, and if anyone could find Kendal, it was her.

  They stopped at a door that didn’t look any different than the others. Storage 33. Mira opened the door and went inside first. The lights turned on by themselves and showed the monstrosity that Nova had been looking for. What looked like a giant syringe on its side, with a platform in its center wrapped around a circular room with a doorless entry.

  “That’s the machine from Benith Town,” Mira whispered.

  “How do you?” Nova said, voice trailing off. She walked up to Mira, looking her up and down with widened eyes. “You’re the girl from Nau Cedik. The one with the custom EG-pack.”

  “Took you that long to remember?” Mira scoffed and walked away from Nova. She was more interested in the monstrosity in front of them. She looked up, barely able to see the top of it. It was twice as big as her ship, both in height and length. “How’s this gonna help us?”

  “Destroys planets,” Nova said. “At least it’s supposed to. It bends space-time around it. Warps gravitational waves and collapses it in on itself. The machine’s destroyed in the process, but it’s enough to cause damage before it does.”

  “How in all hell’s that gonna help us? We get crushed and kill everyone here and that’s supposed to get us off this ship?”

  “You naïve little child,” Nova said and started looking around the structure as if trying to find a way to climb up. “It’s not something that happens in an instant. The machine takes a few minutes before it starts, and the effects will be noticeable before they become fatal. If the Union has any sense left, they’ll be evacuating before it even reaches close to dangerous.”

  She put her foot on one of the grooves in the metal and started climbing up. Her hands and feet nestling into slots that Mira couldn’t even see. The entrance was high enough that one slip meant death. She moved with precision, knowing just where to put her hands and feet, eventually getting up to the top of the metal from with only a short gap between her and the entryway.

  A pause before she leapt, falling fast and catching the edge of the doorframe and slamming into the metal wall. She pulled herself up with just her arms and sat on the ledge with her legs hanging off the thirty-foot drop. “Once the Union has issued a ship wide evacuation they won’t even stop to look for us,” Nova said, looking down at Mira, “let alone try to capture us.”

  Nova stood up and disappeared into the machine.

  Mira sat on one of the crates and waited. Union will be evacuating their own, Mira thought, but the hundreds of prisoners back there won’t be much of a bother to ‘em.

  She sighed. Nova was willing to end the lives of all the people who’d worked for her and dedicated their lives for her cause. Mira knew from the gossip of the guards that only the rogues who hadn’t bowed to the Union were captured. Nova was punishing the ones who were the most loyal to her.

  The machine started up, making Mira’s heart jump. The roar of an engine and the rumbling beneath her feet reminded her of the day Benith Town crumbled. She rested her arms on her knees and looked down between her feet. They were bloody from being trampled on in the cafeteria. She wiped the dried blood off, only to find no cuts underneath. Ain’ mine, she realized, wondering who she’d trampled trying to escape.

  Her pant-leg moved. She wasn’t sure why at first, then she noticed that her hair gravitated towards the machine as well. On the floor, the clumps of dust had been inching their way towards the machine.

  Mira stood up and felt a strange imbalance as she wobbled to her feet. “Nova!” she screamed, trying to get her attention. “We got to go!”

  “One moment!” Nova said from inside the machine.

  Mira glanced at the door. If she treats her own like that, then what’s gonna happen if we take her with us? She’ll do the same damn thing once things are lookin’ grim.

  Mira hesitated towards the door, looking back at the machine. Nova had helped her this far and shown no signs of malice, yet Mira didn’t trust her. Kendal might, but Mira knew how much emotions got in the way of common sense. Nova was a murderer. A genocidal sociopath too unstable to keep around, let alone take with them. If a crew was a family, then Nova wasn’t someone she wanted to be a part of that.

  Mira left the storage room and shut the door behind her. She broke the lock shut, ensuring that Nova wouldn’t be able to escape.

  “Sorry ‘bout all this,” Mira said, taking a deep breath to calm herself before running back the down the hall.

  The ship was less of a maze than Nova’s, yet she didn’t have much luck finding her way. She knew the docking bay was on the same floor as the detention block, as she hadn’t come up any gravshafts on the way from one, but she couldn’t make sense of the layout.

  The ship jolted and she felt a surge of gravity flowing towards one end of the ship. Not enough to slow her down, but enough to made her stomach turn.

  She heard the crackle of a speaker, then the st
atic voice of a recording. “All personnel to the nearest shuttle station for evacuation,” the voice said. “All personnel to the nearest shuttle station for evacuation.”

  Mira stopped and looked around her, the halls were endless and she wasn’t sure if she was any closer to the docking bays than she was when she left Nova. She listened, hearing the soft patter of footsteps in the distance. She listening close, then ran in the direction of the sound.

  Around a corner and she hit the main hallway. A row of Union workers rushing in one direction. Some gave her looks but most didn’t even raise an eye at her. They trying to get to their shuttles before the Morana crumbled any further.

  An officer bumped into her shoulder as he ran by. The gravity had increased enough that Mira could feel it in her walk. The halls groaned and the lights dimmed and strained to keep on. The static voice played regularly over the intercom.

  Mira felt out of place in her pink prisoner’s uniform, and being unarmed only made her uneasy. She looked around, trying to find where the docking bay was. Following the Union officers had brought her to the right section of the ship, but they were heading to the shuttles. She needed docking bay 27.

  A hand touched her shoulder and she grabbed hold of it, almost snapping the owner’s wrist. “Don’t you da—”

  Mira stopped, her eyes wide and her arm trembling as she saw Kendal standing right in front of her.

  “My wrist,” Kendal said, wincing in pain. “You’re hurting me.”

  Mira let his wrist go and jumped at him, wrapping him into a hug. She put her lips against his, getting a short and desperate kiss. “You’re safe.”

  “Not for long,” Kendal said. “There’s something not right about what’s happening to the ship. The south end has already been cut off and depressurized.”

  “I know,” she said. “I came from there and it ain’t gonna get better.”

  “Can you fly a shuttle?” Kendal asked, trying to tug her towards the shuttle bay, but she wouldn’t budge.

  “We don’t need to take a damn shuttle,” Mira said. “You know where docking bay 27 is?”

  Kendal nodded and smiled. “That’s where they’re keeping ‘er, isn’t it?”

  Mira smiled, and he led the way.

  Chapter 31

  Kendal held onto his side, putting pressure on it as his muscles begged for rest. He’d been running for twenty minutes, trying to keep up with Mira as he told her which ways to turn.

  The ship was clearing fast. Most of the crew had gone to the shuttle bay and Kendal hadn’t seen another officer in the last five minutes.

  Mira ran straight past the hall to the docking bay. “Mira!” he yelled, getting her to stop. She walked back over as Kendal walked down the hall, happy to catch his breath and let his body settle. The numbers started at 30 and worked their way down.

  Kendal opened the airlock door and went inside. There sat his ship, just the same as he left it. Sitting in the bay at a diagonal, the room not quite long enough to sit straight. The engine thick and bulky, taking up most of what made the ship, the bowed front and the two stories that he’d only ever seen the top to.

  He craned his neck to look up at it and couldn’t help but smile.

  “How long we got?” Mira asked.

  The gravity felt heavy, and the hull of the Morana swelled and groaned against the pressure being put on it. Kendal knew the plates were doing their best to absorb the gravity. Up to 54 g’s, but it was struggling.

  “Not enough to waste time,” Kendal said. “Get the ship started, I’ll set a timer.”

  Mira nodded and ran to the ladder. While she climbed up, Kendal went into the control room. Cramped with two seats in front of a desk with a control panel awkwardly built in. A medical green color with the paint worn from use. The door was designed to pressurize when the docking bay opened, and there was a window that looked into the bay itself. His ship was already firing up the engines.

  Back in basic training, he’d learned how to set a timer, but he needed a refresh. He opened the desk drawer and took out the operations manual. He flipped through, finding the timer settings and carefully set the docking bay door to open in six minutes.

  Once the timer was set, he jogged back to his ship, ignoring the pains in his chest. He looked up the ladder and gripped the rungs, panting as he strained to climb up. Tearly’s beating still took a toll on him as his muscles burned to hold his weight.

  A kinetic went off. The sound registered first, his ears ringing strong. Then he felt the pain in his side. The bullet had dug in beneath his rib and tore him up inside. He looked down and saw blood soaking into the fabric around the wound.

  He lost his grip and fell backward off the ladder. He’d only been a few feet up, but the impact stung and sent him into a fit of coughing. Once he caught his breath, he sat up and looked over to the docking bay entry. He expected to see a Union officer. Maybe Vernan, or Blake, or anyone other than who it actually was.

  “Nova?” Kendal said, trying to keep his voice steady against the pain and dizziness.

  She walked over, kinetic still in her trembling hands. Her eyes were red and face rested to a scowl. She’d grown a dark stubble on her head and her clothes were tattered and stained. She looked little like the woman he’d met all those years ago.

  Nova stopped a few feet from where he sat, kinetic pointed at him as she looked him in the eye. Kendal had trouble focusing, and the wound in his side screamed with each breath.

  “You came all the way here,” Kendal said, trying to speak through the pain, “and the first thing you do is shoot me.”

  “I hate you,” she said.

  Kendal didn’t answer. He had nothing to say to that. He’d stepped on enough toes and took too many wrong turns in the last few months, and now it came crashing down on him. All of his luck and all of his narrow escapes balanced out as he sat there bleeding to death. Even though he knew it wasn’t unfair that he was dying, but he still resented it. And he hated Nova for being the one to have killed him.

  “I loved you,” Nova said. She looked calm, but he knew that kind of calm. Where she boiled inside so hot that the water steamed away and left only a dry, calm burn. “I helped you. I helped you and after all that you were going to leave me here. You were going to leave without me.”

  Nova was panting, holding the gun tight with her finger over the trigger.

  “You got that bitch to lock me away in some place I’d never escape until the ship came crashing down on top of me, not even caring if I’d get crushed or suffocated. If someone hadn’t of come by, I would have died!”

  Nova lowered the gun and put it close enough that Kendal could smell the gunpowder lingering from the last shot.

  “Say something,” Nova whispered. “Please.”

  Kendal looked away. The pain had numbed, but that feeling was worse than pain itself because he knew that his body was giving up.

  “Did it mean anything?” Nova asked.

  Kendal looked back at her, the question rattling his thoughts. “I’m not sure what you—”

  “You know what I mean!” Nova said. “All those nights and all this time. Did it ever mean anything? Or were you just using me like they said?”

  “It did,” Kendal said. “It meant something once. But you’re too far gone. You’ve killed so many people. You’re losing more and more of yourself every time we meet.”

  “You did this to me!” Nova screamed, voice cracking to a high pitched whine. “You betrayed me and has me exiled to the that place. You did that! You could have told them it was a lie. You could have told them I was loyal to the Union. You could have.”

  “I’m not the one who put you under investigation!” Kendal said. “I’m not the one who followed you to my quarters, and I’m not the one who put you on trial. You did this to yourself.”

  Nova was crying. He’d never seen anything like this before. He’d seen anger, and hatred, and suffering, and loss, and lust, and love, all from Nova. But not this. She threw her
pistol away and fell to her knees. She looked about to apologize, but couldn’t get the words out.

  “What do I do?” Nova said.

  “I’m sure there’s a few Union shuttles that haven’t left yet,” Kendal said, pausing to cough. “They can save you.”

  “And be locked up in a prison for the rest of my life?” Nova laughed. “What kind of life is that?”

  “Then stay here,” Kendal said. “You don’t want that life, then don’t have it.”

  Nova sifted air through her teeth and glared at him. “What about you?”

  “I’ll die,” Kendal said, barely able to get the words out. “And it’s your fault.”

  Nova took a step back and hesitated before running out of the room. He wasn’t sure how long he was on the ground before Mira found him, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes if the timer had been set properly.

  Mira was speaking, but he couldn’t hear anything.

  She dragged him over to the ladder and helped him climb up, and he made the effort for her sake, but knew she was wasting her time. He could feel his body giving up, and in his last few moments, all he could think about was whether Nova had chosen to be captured, or stayed on the Morana.

  Chapter 32

  Mira rushed down the ladder and jumped off. Once the engines were up, she planned on waiting for Kendal in the command room, but after the first few minutes passed she was worried enough to go check on him.

  He was on the floor beside the ship, leaning against the hull with a trail of blood on the ground next to him. Mira ran over and lifted his head up, trying to get him to look at her.

  He was alive, but barely. Blood had soaked his uniform and dyed his hand as he held the wound.

  “Kendal?”

  He coughed and grabbed her hand, blood warm and wet between his fingers. “Hey,” he said, trying his best to smile. “Don’t know how long ‘till the door opens.”

  “We should have enough time to get you up,” she said and helped Kendal to his feet.

  Mira had to guide him to the ladder, pushing him up as he climbed slower than she would have liked. When he did make it up, he collapsed to his knees, crouching beside the door as she opened it.