Shaking, Nova rose to her feet and swung the lash. In a single, fluid movement, she severed the serpent's final three heads.
"How we doing?" Nova asked, limping toward the second seat. Smoke rose from her armor.
"Could use some help," Twig said. "I can't fire both cannons at once. My arms are too short."
Enemy ships still flew ahead. The tesseracts screamed as they streaked through the sky, leaving trails behind them. With so many afterimages crowding her vision, Nova couldn't decide how many enemy vessels flew here. She didn't care. She didn't need to blast them all, just cut her way through.
She pressed her own controls, firing the Drake's portside cannon.
Twin beams shot through the darkness, slamming into the ships ahead. The cosmos seemed to explode with spinning, shattering metal.
Leaking air, dented, and wobbling, the Drake shot between the enemies and out of the black hole.
They burst into open space.
Nova grabbed her own joystick, struggling to steady the swaying ship. Monitors mounted above showed her the rear view; the carcasses of enemy ships floated there, smoking and tilting. Hope rose in Nova for the first time since waking up inside this black hole.
"We can defeat them," she whispered. "We know their secrets now. We know where their home world is—a Dark Planet inside the black hole. We can win. We'll fly back with the Dragon Huntress and blast their whole damn world apart."
* * * * *
As the Drake flew out of the black hole, planet Kaperosa loomed ahead.
Nova had expected to see a spherical world, but even outside of Yurei, she was still stuck in four dimensions, it seemed. Kaperosa did not appear as a three-dimensional sphere but as a great tube that stretched across the sky. Nova frowned.
"Why is the planet stretched out into a ring around the black hole?"
"We're seeing the planet in four dimensions." Twig's eyes gleamed. "We're seeing it across time as well. We're seeing its orbit around the black hole—countless spheres spreading in rings around the darkness."
Nova pointed. "I see a light. The observatory." She frowned. "Actually, a line of light. Countless observatories."
Twig shook her head. "No. Only one observatory, but appearing as many to us."
Nova growled. "But we're out of the black hole! Why are we still stuck in four dimensions?"
Twig tilted her head. "I don't know."
Nova glared at the halfling. "Aren't you a scientist?"
"A mechanic! Not the same. And this is new, Nova. I didn't even think such a thing was possible. I don't know how this happened." Twig sighed. "I understand so little."
"And I understand nothing," Nova muttered. "All I know is my whip, my fists, the fire in my belly. New dimensions?" She snorted. "Give me an old-fashioned skelkrin to kill, and I'm a happy girl. This place makes my brain hurt."
The ring of countless planets—no, one planet stretched across time—grew closer, soon covering their field of vision. Nova directed the Drake toward one image of the observatory. The network of tunnels and domes clung to the rocky surface, smeared across the higher dimension. It was like seeing a speeding car smudged in an overexposed photograph. Beside the observatory rested the Dragon Huntress, still out of commission. A squat figure in a space suit stood here, welding the starship together.
Piston!
Twig engaged the thruster engines, and Nova managed to guide the Drake onto the lot. They thumped down beside the Dragon Huntress.
Piston didn't even turn around.
No scientists stretched out a walkway.
Nova glanced at Twig. The halfling stared back, her large blue eyes gleaming in the shadows.
"Doesn't he see us?" Nova said.
"I don't know," Twig said. "Let's suit up."
They grabbed helmets and oxygen tanks from the wall, then left the bridge. They walked through the dented fuselage of the Drake, over the corpses of dead shade pets, and out onto the surface of Kaperosa.
The Dragon Huntress loomed ahead on the lot, a towering metal dragon, its hull still smashed. Piston stood on a ladder, welding one of the ship's cracked wings.
"Hey, you bozo!" Nova said, marching up toward him. "I'm free. Free!" She jumped around. "Rude as a rhino, you are."
She froze and gasped.
Up on the ladder, Piston was crying softly. Tears streamed down his brown cheeks, dampened his white beard, and fogged up his helmet.
"Where are you, Twig?" the gruffle whispered, lips trembling. "Where are you, my friend?"
"I'm right here!" Twig shouted, jumping up and down.
The gruffle froze, then turned around. His eyes narrowed. Then he shook his head and let out a sob.
"I miss you so much, Twig, that I can almost hear your voice." He lowered his head. "Where are you, little one?"
Twig leaped around. "Over here!" She raced forward and tried to grab the gruffle, but somehow the halfling's small hands kept missing.
"Oh, Twig." Piston returned to his welding. "How can I fix this ship without you? How can I live without my little clod friend?"
Twig and Nova looked at each other.
"I don't like this," Nova whispered.
Twig shuddered. "Neither do I. Let's go inside."
Leaving the gruffle to his work, Nova and Twig approached the observatory's airlock. The door spread out into multiple reflections. Most were still closed, but in one reflection, the door was open, and they stepped through, entering the shadows of Kaperosa Observatory.
Nova blinked.
The insides of the observatory were a hodgepodge of dimensions. The walls kept turning around her. The stars streamed outside in streaks. Scientists walked through the corridors, leaving trails of reflections.
"Are we really here?" Nova whispered. "Are you sure we're not still in the black hole, and this is some illusion?"
Twig grimaced. "This is the place. But we're still stuck in the higher plane."
A scientist walked ahead of them, not seeming to see them, leaving a wake of himself.
"This place is full of ghosts," Nova muttered.
"Or maybe we're the ghosts now," said Twig.
They kept walking, heading deeper into the observatory. People bustled back and forth, a crowd of thousands. Nobody seemed to notice them. In the round, glass dome, the telescope appeared as a disk, pointing at once in all directions. In the cafeteria, ten thousand meals topped the table.
A scent of jasmine tickled her nostrils, and Nova turned to see Giga walking down a corridor. The android seemed to wear several kimonos at once, each a different color, each alternating, vanishing and reappearing.
"Giga!" Nova shouted and ran into the corridor after her. "Giga, can't you see me?"
The android turned toward her. Her dark eyes narrowed, and a furrow appeared on her brow. Clicking and humming sounds rose from her mechanical innards.
"Giga!" Nova said.
She tried to grab the android, but she couldn't seem to grasp her. Her fingers barely ruffled the android's kimono.
"Giga, can't you hear me?" Nova shouted.
The android stared at her, perplexed, then shrugged and turned around. She marched away.
Nova spun toward Twig. "Let's blow some fire."
"In the observatory?" Twig cringed.
Nova nodded, doffed her jet pack, pointed it forward . . . and blasted out a spurt of flame. The fire roared, a shrieking inferno. The jet pack tore free from Nova's grasp, whizzed across the chamber, and finally clunked down.
Two scientists walked by, passing right through the flames.
"Bit warm in here, isn't it?" one said.
His companion nodded. The pair walked on.
Nova groaned. This was ridiculous. She raced through the halls. Twig ran behind her. They burst into a laboratory.
"Romy!" Nova said. "Romy, can you see me?"
The demon held a purple crayon, drawing dinosaurs onto the wall. She froze and looked over her shoulder.
Nova breathed a sigh of relief
. "You can see me, can't you, Romy?" She stepped closer and grabbed the demon. "Where's Riff? I—"
Romy gasped. "A ghost!" she whispered. "Oh god, a ghost!"
"Romy, I'm not—"
But the demon was already fleeing. She raced across the lab, managed to trip on her tail, then pushed herself up and ran down a hallway, wailing about golden ghosts in the lab.
Twig came to stand at Nova's side. "It's no use. We're stuck in the higher dimension."
"Why can't they see us?" Nova said, turning toward the halfling.
Twig lifted Romy's fallen crayon and drew a stick figure on the wall. "Imagine that this figure lives in Flatland, a two-dimensional world. Somebody three-dimensional, staring at the wall, will see our flat stick figure. But our flat gentlemen will have no idea that anything exists beyond the wall, beyond his flat realm. He can only see other flat figures drawn onto the wall."
Nova groaned and placed her hand against the wall. "There, I'm two-dimensional now."
"Your palm is." Twig nodded. "Now our flat figure can see the shape of your hand, but not the rest of you. A slice. A ghost." Her shoulders slumped. "That's how we appear now. Flutters of color. The hints of a voice. Four-dimensional beings barely able to communicate with the three-dimensional world. Ghosts."
Nova sighed, gazed out the doorway Romy had fled through, and frowned.
Out in the corridor, she saw herself.
An older reflection of her, no dents or scratches on her armor, was walking down the hall with Riff.
"I should never have let you try to land the ship," the reflection of Nova was saying, marching down the corridor. "I swear, Riff, every time you try to fly, you end up crashing, and . . ."
Nova—the real Nova, here and now—gasped.
"It's me the day they grabbed me." She turned toward Twig. "That was the day I walked with Riff to the greenhouse. The day we fought the ghosts there, and they snatched me." She made a beeline to the doorway. "I have to stop this from happening."
Twig ran in pursuit. "Nova, I don't know if that's wise! We don't know if we can change the past. And even if we can, we don't know the ramifications."
Nova ignored her. She burst out into the hall and saw her old self—Nova from a few days ago—walking toward the greenhouse with Riff. She followed.
"Riff!" she shouted. "Riff, you idiot!"
His reflection paused.
He turned around.
Nova shouted again and leaped up and down, but Riff only shook his head, turned away, and kept walking. Nova growled and followed.
"Nova, wait!" Twig said. "If you change time, you can create a paradox."
Nova snorted. "Paradoxes, schmaradoxes. I leave that to the scientists." She kept following the reflection of herself and Riff.
"Wait!" Twig's pockets jangled as she raced alongside. "If you stop yourself from being kidnapped, you'll have never met me inside the black hole, never escaped the tesseract cage, never come here . . . to stop yourself from being kidnapped. Which means that the kidnapping would still happen. Which means that you will escape, will come here, will stop it . . . and you'll create an impossible loop, Nova. A version of the Grandfather Paradox."
"So?" Nova kept marching down the corridor.
"Well, that could lock the entire cosmos into some kind of knot. It could undo the very fabric of our reality. I don't know what would happen." Twig blinked and tapped her chin. "To be honest, I'd be kind of curious to see it. But . . ." She shook her head wildly and grabbed Nova. "No. I can't let you do this."
Nova spun toward the halfling and hissed. "I don't care what you say. I don't need your permission to do anything." She shook off the grasping little hands. "Now help me or shut it."
Ahead, the younger Nova and Riff stepped into the greenhouse. The current Nova followed, Twig fast on her heel.
She found herself back in a hot, steaming room full of plants. Nova could now see the plants rise from seeds, grow taller, and finally wither, all at once. The younger Riff and Nova—the ones from a few days ago—were exploring the place, hunting for ghosts.
Nova froze and gasped.
"They're everywhere," she whispered.
The shades covered the ceiling, clung to the walls, crawled along the floor. The creatures hissed, stared down at Nova and Riff with blazing eyes, scuttled back and forth. These were not the ghostly creatures Nova had previously seen. From her current plane of existence, the shades appeared fully formed, four-dimensional, demons of charcoal flesh, claws, fangs, and burning eyes.
And the younger versions of Nova and Riff couldn't even see them.
"Riff!" she shouted. "Nova! Younger Nova!"
They couldn't hear her. They kept walking among the plants.
"Carrots? Celery? Apples?" said the younger Nova. "That's rabbit food. Where do they grow the steak?"
"There's synthetic meat in the lab down the hall." Riff passed his hands through a tree's foliage.
The younger Nova snorted. "Synthetic meat. So human. We ashais hunt."
As the reflections spoke, the shades grew closer, leaning down from the fourth dimension. Still the pair couldn't see the creatures.
"Why can't you see the enemy?" Nova shouted. "Damn it. Riff! Nova!"
Twig stepped closer to her. Her gleaming blue eyes looked so sad. "Because they're like the stick figure on the wall. They can't see what's in the higher dimension."
Nova clutched her head. Of course. Damn it! The shades weren't ghosts. They were always in the observatory. Always watching, hovering in the dimension the humanoids couldn't see. Their reflections scuttled around the younger Nova and Riff, always there, waiting to pounce.
"They're not really here," Twig said softly. "We're just watching reflections. Just memories. A thing that happened, that we can't change."
The lights went out. The shades swooped.
Just a memory, Nova told herself, watching helplessly.
"Riff, damn it!" she shouted. "Nova! Can't you hear me?"
She stood helplessly, watching the battle. The shades appeared as nothing but ghosts to the younger her, but standing here, a four-dimensional being herself, Nova could see their true forms. They kept backing away from every lash of the younger Nova's whip. In three-dimensions, their forms would appear to be contracting and morphing. From her new vantage point, they simply stepped aside from each lash, as easily as a three-dimensional being pulling back from an aggressive stick figure on a wall.
But I can hurt them.
"For fire and venom!" Nova cried and swung her whip. The lash arched through the air . . . and passed right through the shades, doing them no harm.
"They're just memories." Twig lowered her head. "We're just seeing the past. Come on, Nova, let's get out of here."
Nova stared, eyes damp. The shades were grabbing the younger her now, wrapping their arms around that naive woman, dragging her away from Riff.
I can't let them take me. Nova's heart fluttered. I can't let this happen to me. To be trapped like this, able to see the man I love but unable to speak to him, to let him know I'm here.
"Riff!" she cried, and now tears streamed from her eyes.
Because I love you, Riff, she thought. I've loved you since I was a girl. And now I'm doomed to forever float above you as a ghost, watching you grow old without me, always there, never able to tell you. It seemed to Nova a fate worse than death.
"Damn it, Riff!" she shouted. "I'm in the fourth dimension. The shades are too. They're everywhere, Riff! Always watching you. Like me. Like me . . ."
She thought that maybe he heard her. His eyes flicked toward her, then away again. Shades were pinning him down, cutting his skin.
Nova growled.
She raced forward.
I will stop this.
She barreled forward, shoved between the memories of shades, and grabbed the younger version of herself.
Her fingers passed through nothing . . . and then she snapped into place.
The two Novas, old and new, became one.
>
Gripped in the shades' claws, she turned to look at Riff. He lay on the ground, pinned down, and met her gaze.
"Remember the tesseract, stupid," she whispered.
And then the shades yanked out her younger half, ripping it away, and it felt like Nova's soul was torn free.
Her eyes rolled back. She fell to the floor.
"I've got you, Nova." Twig grabbed her. "Come with me. We're getting out of here."
Nova limped out of the greenhouse, leaning on the little halfling. They made their way down the corridor and into the glass dome. The telescope stood on its stand, facing the black hole above. The stars shone around the gaping pit.
Nova stared toward that dark eye, toward Yurei.
"It looks different now," she whispered.
Twig shuddered. "We can see the world within."
They stood together, holding each other, staring through the glass toward the hole in the sky. Inside the black hole, like a lurid Christmas ornament, hung the Dark Planet of the shades.
As they stood watching, countless starships shaped as tesseracts rose from that strange world. The warships streamed out of the black hole, heading toward Kaperosa.
"Enemy ships." Twig shivered. "Those aren't reflections."
"It's the shade armada." Nova clenched her fists. "And they're coming here."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
HALLS OF SHADOW
Riff stared out the window and felt the blood drain from his face.
"There they are," he whispered. "All their might and fury."
Steel stood at his side in the airlock, chin raised, hands clasping the hilt of his massive sword. The knight's face remained hard, his eyes dark. "By my honor, I will fight them until my last breath."
"I'd rather you fought them until their last breath." Riff hefted his gun.
Steel said no more. Behind them, a score of scientists stood in the airlock. Each held a rod crackling with electromagnetic radiation, weapons to banish ghosts. Each stared out the window, waiting for the enemy fleet. They all wore space suits and helmets, the visors raised. Oxygen tanks hung across their backs. If the shades breached the observatory, they would need them.
Riff returned his eyes to the window. The ships were approaching rapidly, flickers in the darkness that blocked the stars. The ships changed form as they flew, contracting, flaring out, their angles forever morphing.
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