Nova Cassidy's Chronicles: Judges Pt 6
25 Mar 2016Nova Cassidy
Life is full of firsts, and life is full of lasts. The first time you see someone. The last time you see someone. The first time you wear a pair of shoes. The day you throw them away. From birth to death, what we call “life” is just a series of cycles within cycles, beginnings and ends, all within the greater cycle that we call life. All of this happens within the known universe, which may or may not be subject to a grand cycle of creation and destruction itself. For millennia, people have seen the inevitability of change as something to be embraced, not fought against. And certainly not something to be sour about.None of this fine philosophical sentiment made me feel better about what I had to do.
I sat down in the pilot’s seat and glumly flipped the master activator switches. I felt to the reactor thrum to life, and heard the whine as the engines spooled up. All the systems were registering in the green, and there was no reason to stay put. I looked up, and through the canopy glass saw Matt’s Fer-de-Lance glide above me like an elegant black shadow.
Exiting from the station’s interface, I disengaged the safeties and pulled back on the joystick. The Bluebird lifted flawlessly, just like she had always done. I found Matt’s ship on the scope and linked our nav systems together. As I waited for them to complete their link cycle, I could help but to smile under my helmet. The first time I had ever done a linked jump had been with Matt. I remembered sweating as his computer took over my ship’s steering, making my ship act seemingly on its own.
Now it’s my turn to lead. I swung to my left, inputting the route for where the Snowbird was stored. It wasn’t the most efficient route for me, but I had to remember the fact that ships like the one Matt flew had much shorter legs than an Asp Explorer. The command cycled for a moment, and gave me a satisfying conformation chime that the route was plotted and ready. I raised Matt on the voice comms.
“You ready to do this?”
I heard a short, sad exhale over the radio. “Are you?”
Hardening my face in determination, I shoved the throttle forward, causing the frame shift countdown to engage. As the computer voice counted down to 1, I opened the channel. Matt’s Fer-de-Lance was ahead of me, cutting through space like a shadow.
“I just wish that ship of yours was good for something other than looking pretty. I ain’t got all day!” I called over the comm to him.
All I heard was his chuckling on the other end before the comm signal was interrupted by our ships slipping into witchspace.
It was a silent journey. Jump, scoop, jump, scoop… I didn’t much see the point of small talk over the radio, and neither did Matt. We both probably had a lot to think about, anyway. Well, at least I did. Matt was probably thinking about, I don’t know-
Accessories for his Fer-de-Lance? Importing Earth-like oxygen?
I shook my head and frowned. I wasn’t being fair to him. He was as caught up in what had happened as I was, and even if he had lied to me out of a misplaced sense of protectiveness, his heart had still been in the right place. As Matt and I made jump after jump, I considered my feelings. I wasn’t angry with him, not really. In fact, he had never truly been the focus of my anger- that was all Gideon. I had been deeply disappointed in Matt’s decision, and wasn’t sure if things would ever be the same as before- but angry? No.
I thought about his position in all this. He had been carrying the guilt of his lies with him for an entire year, and when it came to betraying the Inquisition- one of the most powerful and feared organizations in the ‘verse- he had offered to do so without hesitation.
And all because he had been lied to in turn. I guess he figures that it isn’t worth being loyal to anything that will treat you that way.
I looked down at my lap, wondering what that meant for me.
And since I’m still willing to run with Matt, I guess that makes me either a saint or a sucker.
The dull red star came hurling at me as I dropped into normal space. Matt and I were in an uninhabited system. One more jump to go…
Here. It has to be here.
I turned to my left and brought up the nav menu. I terminated the automatic plotting and steered the Bluebird away from the star before me, maxing the supercruise. I wanted to be in the middle of nowhere for what had to be done. The voice comms activated.
“I’ll just follow your wake wherever you drop, darlin’.”
I smiled slightly. Matt played the fool sometimes- but when there was business to be done, he was as perceptive as anyone else.
“Thanks.”
The reddish star was a tiny speck by the time I chopped the supercruise. Here was as good a place as any. A moment later, the Inevitable Betrayal dropped a few clicks away from my position and started toward me. Good.
“Just give me a few minutes, Matt.”
“Rodger.”
I killed the comm signal and looked around the canopy bubble. Well, let’s not stand on ceremony.
I zero’d the throttle, unbuckled myself from the pilot’s seat, and went to the door. In my imagination, I had always pictured this moment to be a long, drawn-out, emotional affair. It wasn’t- not with me shutting out my thoughts and forcing myself to just focus on putting on the spacewalking suit I had stashed on-board for this moment. I tried not to think about the finality of what I was doing and just get suited up. It’s always a little awkward to do by yourself, but after a few minutes I was fastening my gloves and powering up the life-support systems. I shut off the lights for reasons I wasn’t entirely certain of, and trudged to the exterior airlock.
Turning around, I allowed myself one last look around the ship. Everything was still as functional as the day I bought her, and the same wave of emotion as when I embarked on the trip swept over me.
You’ve been a good girl, Bluebird. So long. And… I'm sorry.
I keyed my suit’s comm system. “Coming out. Don’t go anywhere, now.”
Matt didn’t laugh at my lame joke, instead replying with a terse “Okay.”
I yanked the airlock release, and I saw the white gassy rush of atmosphere escaping through the entryway as the door opened. All around me, warning lights were spinning- but I didn’t hear anything except for my own breathing. Securing the tether, I disengaged the magnetic boots and let myself float towards Matt’s ship. It was hovering only a short distance away, and as I approached the black, curvy lines, I was reminded of the first time him and I had worked together.
We had spacewalked side-by-side towards the derelict Anaconda, him cool and collected, me nervous as hell. Now, I was doing that exact thing solo without a care in the ‘verse. He’d told me that he was proud of me for how I’d handled myself. Then he said it again when I made the decision to destroy the Bluebird.
You’ve come a long way, Nova. A long way from puking in your spacesuit, and a hell of a long way from being some replaceable bartender in some nowhere planetside town.
I touched down on Matt’s ship, activating the mag boots. I made my way to the rear of the Fer-de-Lance, between the two massive thruster nacelles. Beside the massive cargo ramp was an emergency airlock. I opened the control interface and extended the short boarding platform, allowing me to stand directly in front of the door.
“I’m in front of the airlock.”
Matt didn’t answer, but the glowing red light beside the handle switched from red to green. I reached down and twisted the airlock handle, opening the door into the room. I stepped inside the room and used the controls to retract the ramp and secure the door behind me. I waited until the display verified that the seal was good, and keyed up the comm.
“I’m in.”
This time, Matt responded. “Got it. See you on the bridge.”
I walked over to the master airlock controls and hit the CYCLE AIRLOCK button. Almost immediately, my throat and stomach felt like they were dropping inside me as the artificial gravity restored itself. Gradually, regular ship noises returned as regular atmo was pumped back into the chamber. After a minute or so, the controls went from red to green.
AIRLOCK CYCLE COMPLETE. ATMOSPHERE RESTORED.
I opened the thick door, stepping into the empty cargo bay walkway. I swiftly made my way to the main corridor- cargo bays in deep space always made me nervous, even if they had atmo as surely as the bridge. Closing the door behind me, I made my way to a storage locker, opening it up with a button push and storing my spacewalking gear in it. It took a few minutes, but I was able to get the bulky suit off and secured. Sighing, I knew that there was only one thing left to do before I could rest.
I walked through the flowing, sculpted lines of Matt’s ship until I got to the bridge entrance. It wasn’t locked. I walked in, and Matt rose out of his chair to greet me. He met me halfway to the commander’s chair and took my hands, wearing a flight suit for once. In his eyes were a look of concern.
“How you holdin’ up, darlin’?”
I pulled my hands away from his and started towards the commander’s chair. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Settling down in the chairs, I felt the gel cushions immediately adopt to the contours of my body- remaining soft, yet keeping me securely in place. Even the seat is foofoo. I adjusted position, feeling the leather and the gel underneath immediately accommodate my movement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matt take position beside me, still standing. I wrapped my hand around the joystick and throttle and brought the ship gently around.
Even from that one simple maneuver, I could tell that the Fer-de-Lance handled like a dream- Maybe I could get used to foofoo too- but I wasn’t in this for a test flight. I looked down at the joystick. It looked to be a fairly standard design, even if it was wrapped in leather over carbon fiber. I glanced over to my old partner.
“Any funny control bindings I should know about?”
He silently shook his head. “Nothing you can’t figure out. Thumb lever on top cycles through the groups. The trigger deploys the hardpoints. You know the rest.”
Gently selecting my ship, I looked over to the display on my left. The sensors ran their scan for a second, and the Bluebird popped up.
J. Sharwit
Mostly Harmless
Independent
Clean
I looked over at the more detailed display on my left, and sure enough, there it was. The 'Scuttlebug'. I had disabled her shields prior to leaving, so it was just her hull against the Fer-de-Lance’s weapons. I felt Matt’s hand on my shoulder. His voice was a mutter.
“The Hammers’ll do it right quick.”
Pursing my lips, I selected the Imperial Hammers, the triple-shot railgun of the Empire’s elite. I lined up the Bluebird- I couldn't think of her as the Scuttlebug- and squeezed the trigger. The capacitors charged for just a split second-
-and I released the trigger, cancelling the shot.
There's a horrible sense of irony in destroying your own ship in one called the Inevitable Betrayal.
Matt must have sensed my hesitation. He knelt down beside me, looking up. He spoke softly and sincerely.
“They grow on you, don’t they?”
It had been the same thing he had told me when we were leaving the Bluebird together in the hijacked Lysenko Asp, when she had been critically damaged and dead in space. It had been a seminal moment for me. Now, here I was. Full circle. All I could think of were the times I had seen her from another ship’s view- when Matt and I left in the captured Lysenko Asp, when him and I found her again in his Vulture, almost totally repaired by the Lysenko crew.
Still looking in his eyes, I squeezed the trigger, and turned just in time to see the rapid trio of brilliant green flashes reflect off the Betrayal’s hull and violently puncture the Bluebird, sending her spinning. Gritting my teeth, I held down on the trigger, launching three more through where I knew her reactor bay was. Inside the ship, decks had been breached, life support was compromised, and it must have looked like a nightclub with the loss of power and flashing emergency lights. From the outside, she was leaking coolant and atmo, and little fires were starting to break out along the punctured areas. Debris was being ejected as she spun, but she was still holding together.
She’s fighting it. Even at the very end, the Bluebird is hanging on.
Tightening my lips and flaring my nostrils, I squeezed the trigger a final time. The canopy flashed green three more times, the rail slugs tore through the power plant bay-
And the Bluebird’s reactor went critical, engulfing it in a final, violent explosion. Matt and I both turned away from the blast, thousands of tiny chunks of debris causing numerous little ripples against the Betrayal’s shields. When I turned back to look, all I could see was the blackened hulk of what moments earlier had been my favorite ship. For a long moment, I just stared at the wreck, watching the pieces float against each other. In a moment of objectivity, I noted that it wasn’t terribly different than any other blasted hulk I had come across. I took a deep breath, trying to exhale my grief.
It’s just a ship, Nova. There are millions out there like it. And it’s for damn sure not worth your life.
I retracted the hardpoints and stood up, wordlessly handing control of the ship back to Matt.
But that one was mine.
Swimming in my own thoughts, I started toward the pilot’s cabin to collect my thoughts. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning around, I saw Matt standing over me, a tender look on his face. He did his best to force a smile.
“Proud of you, darlin’.”
I let out a dejected chuckle. “You keep saying that.”
The look in his eye deepened. “It keeps being true.”
Not now. I don’t have the energy for this conversation. I don’t think I ever will.
I changed the subject, trying to restore some professionalism to my voice. “You remember where we’re headed?”
He nodded his head. “System and port both.”
“Good. I’m going back to- I just need some time, ok?”
Before he could answer, I walked out of the bridge. Making a beeline for the pilot’s lounge, I strode right into the master bedroom. Not even taking the time to notice the luxurious appointments, I collapsed onto the bed. I had a lot to plan. A lot to think about. A lot of work to do.
Good thing I'm going on vacation.