Nova was sitting in the bench with her head down. Her blonde hair was curled and pushed back behind her ears. She had on a white blouse and looked prettier than Kendal had ever seen.
They wanted her to look good for her trial, Kendal had thought, unable to stop taking her in with his eyes. Nova wouldn’t have picked something out like that unless she was talked into it.
Nova looked up when his name was called as a witness. She’d been in her own little world since before Kendal arrived, but now she was watching him as he walked up and sat at the stand. He looked out at the room full of wandering eyes. Most were unknown to him. Faces and fashions that all looked alien. The only person he knew, besides Nova, was Fleet Admiral Tearly who sat in the first row of the audience.
On the floor, a scrawny well-dressed lawyer paced in front of him. He’d talked to him several times in the past week and almost knew the rehearsed lines by heart.
“Please explain to the members of the jury your relationship with the accused,” he had said.
Kendal wasn’t looking at the lawyer, but instead looking at Nova and trying to figure out what was going through her head. For a moment he thought he caught a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Maybe a hint of a smile when she thought that Kendal would be there to defend her.
Even years later as he sat in his room awake at night waiting for Mira to tell him when they would be landing, he still wasn’t sure what she was thinking in that moment.
Kendal cleared his throat. “She was the admiral for the fleet I was assigned to.”
“And you were assigned to her ship in particular?”
Kendal nodded.
“I need a verbal statement.”
“Yes.”
“Good,” the scrawny lawyer had said, turned away to take a pace around the floor, then turned back around. “And how did you meet Admiral Nova?”
She’s not exactly admiral anymore. “We met on the Morana. I was just out of the academy and working the telegraph room to send notes back and forth. There were a few of us at first sending her notes, but eventually it was just me.”
“Are you saying she singled you out?”
“I suppose,” Kendal had said. “She liked seeing me more than the others.”
“And, it is public knowledge, that you had started seeing the admiral in her private chambers?”
“Yes.” Kendal didn’t want to look at Nova when he said that. He kept his eyes at either the scrawny lawyer or at the floor when he paced too close to Nova’s bench.
“After a few months she asked me to stay after her shift was over. I did what was asked of me, and she told me that she liked seeing me more than the other officers. She told me that I’d become her favorite and she wanted more time with me. Before out first time, she told me that as the admiral, ‘she was more than capable of getting what she wanted.’ And she got what she wanted.”
Kendal had trouble getting out his words. All half-truths and full-truths distorted to sound like lies. They had seen each other several times off-shift before she confessed that. They had met either in the halls, or the recreation deck, or during lunch, and they had spoken casually many time. By the time Nova had started keeping Kendal after shift, they’d known each other well enough that Nova could say such things and he’d know she was only being coy. But up on the stand, with Kendal’s throat tight and his hands shaking, it sounded like she had used her rank to force him.
“You’re saying that she treated it as part of your Union work, and that you had no choice as a low-ranking officer?”
“That’s how she put it.”
“And during such work, did the admiral mention anything about the plans she had?”
“She had.” Kendal had written out every word Nova said about her treason. Her plans to become high admiral and re-structure the Union so it would have less control over the system. He wrote about the long nights with her wrapped in his arms, going off on megalomaniacal rants into his ear. He listened, of course. Her views were extreme but she had this way of making them make sense while she spoke. They had his reports, but they wanted him to say it aloud for everyone to hear. And he did. Forty-five minutes where he cleared his mind as they all listened. By the end, the scrawny lawyer had a smirk on his face. He knew he’d won.
Kendal, while leaving from the stand, took one last look at Nova. He had to. She would be exiled from Union space for what she did, and Kendal knew he would never see her again.
She was looking down at the floor with eyes half closed and hair already disheveling into her face. She was broken. Her expression gone. The cockiness Kendal once admired taken away. She had her legacy and her life stripped in front of an audience by the one person she had trusted. It was unfair, but Kendal, at the time, thought that this was the only way he could keep his rank in the Union. He was the youngest to ever be a lieutenant and he wasn’t going to give that up.
Mira knocked on the door. Kendal was already awake, but he wasn’t all there. Lost in a memory that seemed to feel less real with each passing day.
He got dressed and opened the door.
She looked terrible. Eyes dark and skin paler than the usual soft brown it normally was. She’d been eating less the past two days, and sleeping in the command room. He’d tried to get her to go to bed, but she told him to “fuck off,” and he left her alone.
“You told me you wanted to me to come get you when it was time,” she said. “Well, it’s time.”
He followed her to the command room. Back on Nau Cedik, he’d come close to dying when Benith Town sunk into the ground, and he almost died when being thrown into the vacuum of space, but at least those times adrenaline was enough to keep him from realizing what was at stake. Now, as he walked into the command room to wait to see if they’d make it, he had time to truly realize how close he was to death.
Out the monitor, he could see Jennifer. A marble on the screen, white and blue, getting steadily bigger as they decelerated towards it. Mira hopped into the chair and started up. It was like the simulation he’d seen her run through, only there wasn’t a second chance.
The ship rocked for a second. Kendal put a hand to the wall to keep from being tossed around while he waited for the ship to settle. He watched the screens as she controlled the ship. Her fingers danced over the keyboard and her eyes darted between monitors.
“Everything working?” Kendal asked.
Mira typed a short string which jerked the ship and knocked the cabin around for an instant.
“Workin’ fine for the most part,” she said. “Slowing down a bit fast back there, but all’s workin’ fine now. Shouldn’t take much more than a few hours now before we come up on Jenny, then I’ll try not to crash us.”
“Do you think you do this?”
“Well, if I can’t then you sure won’t get a chance to bitch about it,” she said. Mira had completed over ten successful landings in the training module, most happening one after another near the end. But every few successes met a failure.
The room swelled with improper fluctuations of gravity. Kendal took a seat in the corner of the room and felt the uneasy gravity flowing in and out. It made him appreciate just how good of a pilot Desmond was. The hulls of ships were lined with grav-panels which canceled anything up to 49 gs of acceleration. Mira was having trouble keeping it regulated as they approached the planet.
He was half tempted to stay in the common room until landing, or in his cabin asleep the same as Boe, but he felt the needed to be in the command room. If they were going to crash he wanted to know it was coming.
Once they delivered Boe, then they’d need to get to Sintic. When he proposed the idea to Desmond, the plan had seemed so clear. Go to a non-Union planet near a red dwarf star on the edge of the solar system. It seemed peaceful and almost idyllic. But that fantasy was starting to fade. Desmond was dead, and they’ve nearly died and failed several times just trying to get enough money for fuel to leave Jennifer space.
“We’re up on atmosphere,” Mira said.
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Kendal stood up and walked back over to get a clear look at the screen.
“Entry’s a bit too fast,” Mira said, “but it ain’t nothing I can’t handle.”
The ship shook as it hit atmosphere. Kendal caught Mira’s chair before he tumbled over.
“We’re going in too fast,” Kendal said.
“I know!” Mira’s hands blurred as she typed. The ship jerked and Kendal lifted off the ground as zero-gravity took over. They were in free-fall. The left-monitor only showed clouds and sky, while the others showed statistics that told them the ground was coming up too fast.
Kendal hit the ceiling back first as Mira turned the thrusters and slowed their descent. His head rung and he tried to stand up, but felt like the room was spinning. He managed to sit up. Once his eyes focused, he saw Mira above him, strapped to the seat with her hair hanging down and trying to control the ship. They were decelerating faster than the grav-panels could keep up with.
The ship lurched and Kendal fell upwards and landed on the floor. The wind knocked from him and he gasped for breath as he tried to get to his feet. He couldn’t figure out which way was up, and only clued in when he saw Mira on the same plane he was standing on.
Out the monitor were clouds rushing past. The floor vibrated and Mira looked like she was caught between terror and excitement.
“Shit!” Mira said just as everything shot towards the side. Kendal almost hit the wall face-first, but caught himself just in time and only hurt his hands.
“What happened?” Kendal asked as freefall took over once again. He knew they weren’t righted. The ship was falling sideways.
“Just hold on!” she said.
Kendal knew what was coming and kicked off the wall towards Mira. He grabbed hold of the chair, arms wrapped around her and hugging around her waist while his legs locked to the base of the seat.
The ship’s thruster’s kicked and the ship spun around, whiplashing everything in a spiral around the room. Kendal held on as tight as he could, trying not to get caught in the gravitational whirlwind.
One last jolt, and then the ship settled.
He couldn’t believe it at first. No sound, no violent shaking, no strange influxes of gravity. The ship was calm, and the engines were down to a dull roar.
He let go and wobbled to his feet. His vision was blurry, and his body sore and begging for rest, but he felt a smile crawl onto his face as he saw the rocky-blue ground of Jennifer on the monitor.
Mira was panting and her hair stuck to her forehead from sweat. She hadn’t moved since the landing. Hands still on the controls and looking straight at the screens.
A moment passed, both trapped in disbelief until they finally snapped out of it. Mira unbuckled and stood up, and Kendal ran over and hugged her hard enough to throw the pair off balance.
“We did it!” Kendal said
“We?” Mira replied in a playful tone. “I did all that goddamn work! You just sat there.” She smiled wider than he’d seen her smile before. He could practically feel the excitement radiating off her.
“Well next time I’ll just leave you out here to do it all yourself,” Kendal said. “I’ll get Boe, you get the jackets and everything out of the closet.”
Kendal hadn’t felt this excited in a long time. The landing had gone right, and he was about to receive a sum large enough to get them to Sintic and away from the Union’s grasp. Once he was free, he wasn’t sure where his life would take him, but he knew it would be better than anything the Union could have ever given.
Boe was where they’d left him, chained to the bed with his hands cuffed. He’d looked much the same as before. Nose cracked and still healing, a few teeth missing, a busted lip, and bruised all to hell. They had cleaned off most of the blood though. Kendal hoped Boe looked presentable enough that Sava would still give them their bounty.
He expected Boe to say something, but he didn’t. Kendal wouldn’t hear another word from Boe’s mouth ever again.
“We’ve landed,” Kendal said and unchained him from the bed with the key he had fished from Desmond’s pocket before they put him to rest.
Boe was defeated. He stared out at nothing and complied with all of Kendal’s instructions. Had the snappiness before just been an act? Kendal thought and he led Boe out of the cabin. Or is this the act. He might be trying to lower our guard and make a run for it.
But Boe never did. He kept his pace average, and his sight at the ground beneath his feet. Kendal had to help Boe down the slight angle towards the main door. It was hard keeping your balance with your hands tied up.
When they got back to the entryway, Mira had most of the warm clothing sprawled out on the floor. “You want to dress him?” Mira asked, sorting out a fur coat and scarf and hat for the two of them, while Boe had to wear Kendal’s old Union coat and a few bits of cloth to keep warm.
“I’ll do it,” Kendal said. He had to free Boe’s hands, at least for now. He gave him Kendal’s Union coat to double up and wrapped a spare scarf around his head, making sure his ears were protected but also that he could still see.
Kendal dressed in the clothes Desmond had worn last time, the jacket practically down to his knees and sleeves hanging over his exposed hands.
He opened the door and mist seeped into the entryway. The cold already stung his face, and he had to curl his sleeves into his hands to keep the air from rushing up. He’d wished his scarf was tucked tighter.
Mira went down first, and Kendal let Boe go in front of him. Both Mira and Kendal were armed. He’d given her Desmond’s kinetic, much to her protests. She hated kinetic weapons, but he explained that EG-packs didn’t work well when it was too cold. And it was beyond cold. Even though the air was breathless and calm, the cold still choked them and tried to suck the warmth from all three.
Mira was the only one who knew where town was. Kendal followed close behind while keeping a tight grip on Boe.
Alice was what Kendal expected out of a settler town. They’d been given enough supplies to start a forest and enough cattle to keep themselves fed. Along the main road, the buildings were older than on the intersecting road. They’d expanded recently. If all goes well, terraforming should lower the temperatures over the next half-century and Jennifer would become a place people would want to visit.
Mira brought them to the central square. An open plaza with a barrel sitting in the middle that smoldered with coals. A few of the nicer buildings were around, facing the barrel like it was a statue of the town’s founder.
“Wait here,” Mira said. She left the two by the barrel and disappeared into a building with ‘Store’ written in bold letters above the door.
Boe was shivering. The coat and scarf kept his skin from getting frost bitten, but the temperature was still getting to him. Another ten minutes out and it might have gotten serious.
Kendal wasn’t fairing too well either. Being in space was warm. Ships produced a lot of heat from their engines and heat couldn’t escape into the vacuum of space. Jennifer was something else. To him, this was worse than being exposed to space, at least as far as the pain. It was like air didn’t exist and there was only death all around them.
He lit up when Mira returned. She wasn’t alone. A short man was with her. He had black slicked hair with his ears exposed to the cold, and his fur coat was far more expensive than either Kendal’s or Mira’s. Kendal didn’t need to be told this was Sava.
“I think I owe you an apology, Miss Mira,” Sava said. “It seems you are most competent in your abilities.” He walked up to Kendal and looked at him with a curious eye. “Or maybe this man is a far better captain than Kanta ever was?”
“Never said I was a captain,” Kendal said.
“Of course not.” Sava opened Boe’s lips to see his busted teeth. “These look knew.”
“Rough landing,” Kendal said.
“A damaged bounty should be worth less, don’t you agree?”
“If you don’t want him,” Kendal said, “we can leave.
”
For a second Kendal thought Sava would be angry. Instead, a sickly smile creeped on his face. “I like you,” Sava said. “The other captain bent over for me. But unlike Kanta, you don’t have that quality.”
Kendal huffed out a laugh in a burst of mist. Sava grabbed Boe by the arm and pulled him over, then tossed Kendal a heavy sack of coinage. Kendal looked inside and saw more coppers than he’d ever held at once. Far more than a single Union paycheck. He gave Mira half.
“If you’re ever in Alice,” Sava said, “I might be interested in your skills once more.”
Kendal wanted to tell him no. He was going to Sintic and that was it. No more Union, and no more Bounties. “I appreciate that,” he said.
Sava smiled and yanked on Boe’s arm. Boe tried to fight, but Sava broke one of Boe’s fingers with such casualness it made Kendal’s skin crawl. They turned down the street and vanished into one of the wooden houses.
As he watched them leave, something brushed his fingers beneath the long coat-sleeve that hid them. He looked down and saw Mira’s hand grasping his; their fingers intertwined. Her hand felt much warmer than his and it helped him settle.
“I’ve been thinkin’,” Mira said. She wasn’t looking at Kendal, yet still spoke to him. “We’ve been eating those ration bars for days. I think we earned ourselves some kinda meal?”
She smiled that smile he loved, and he agreed.
Chapter 21
Warmth. Mira unbuttoned her coat as quick as she could to let the heat seep inside and kiss her skin. The air of the store hugged her, and for the first time in her life, she felt rich. A pocket full of copper and a ship that could take her anywhere in the system. These were things she’d dreamed of since growing up in that damned town. All those years spent looking up at the stars imagining how sweet they tasted were finally fulfilled.
They sat at a table near the left-hand wall, sitting across from each other. It was dusk and the store was swarming with people wanting to get in from the cold. Drinks were being served, and slices of steak ordered faster than they could be delivered.
Cast of Nova Page 15
