NOVA
Nova Terra crept through the darkened passages deep inside Gehenna Station. Down here the rocky walls were rougher, and the lighting farther apart; most of the spaces appeared to be used for storage, or for some other purpose long since abandoned. But she was down there for a reason.
She had thought briefly about going straight for Augustgrad, but she knew Mal would be long dead by then. She needed to get to him first. Friendship over duty. It was a decision she would never have made a few short weeks ago, but she was a different person now. Her returning memories and emotions both confused and overwhelmed her. But she knew she had to do this. Mal needed her, and she could not let him down.
The November piloted into docking bay and boarded, came the words across her remote console. Spectres have discovered our deceit.
Nova paused in the green glow, taking that in. She was now on borrowed time, but it had given her a chance to make her move. “Thank you, Lio,” she typed. “You did the right thing.”
There is no longer any right and wrong for me. There is only truth.
Lio appeared to be drifting rapidly away from humanity, his metamorphosis accelerating. He seemed to have given up on whatever had been motivating him to help the spectres, calling Tosh hopelessly unstable and Bennett’s plans fatally flawed. She had barely been able to capture his attention after her escape from the medical unit. But there was still a small piece of something human in him, because when she explained that Bennett was threatening to kill Mal to get her to cooperate, he agreed to help her. She got the feeling that he did it not because he had any emotional reaction himself, but simply out of some last vestige of loyalty, a salute to his memories of their time together at the academy.
From there it had been relatively simple for him to autopilot the November into deep space and alter the scanner’s data so that the ship appeared to have a life-form on board, while she hid herself away in the Palatine’s storage facility off the loading bay, right under their noses. She knew that it was unlikely she would be able to find Gehenna Station on her own, and if she tried, they would catch her before she arrived. But if she made it look as if she had taken the November, she wouldn’t have to find it; Bennett would surely head straight for the space station and take her along for the ride.
The plan had worked perfectly. As soon as the Palatine docked with Gehenna and Bennett and his entourage had left for the bridge, she was able to sneak off undetected. Lio had supplied her with the plans to the station, and an alternate route through these rarely used passages that would bring her directly under the room where Mal was being held. From there she could access an air vent and get into his room or, if that didn’t work, tear the walls down. Nothing would stop her.
She crept forward in bare feet, ignoring the rough-hewn floors that cut into her flesh. She was still in the surgical gown she’d been wearing before her escape from Shaw; she hadn’t had the chance to find other clothing. Without her ghost suit and HUD, she felt particularly vulnerable. But she had the portable console to communicate with Lio, and the needle-gun she had grabbed from the ship, along with enough rounds to do some serious damage, if it came to that.
And she was ready for a fight. Over the course of the last several hours she had felt her psionic talents come fully to life again as the last of the drugs Shaw had given her wore off, and along with that came a burning rage that threatened to overwhelm her senses. What Shaw, and by extension Bennett, had tried to do to her was unforgivable. She only hoped to get the chance to put her hands around Bennett’s neck and squeeze the life out of him.
Mal was close. Although she didn’t know how or why, some kind of mind link had formed between them, and she could feel his presence more strongly than any of the others on board. He was hidden deep within the complex passages of this remarkable ship. Or space station, to use a more accurate term. Gehenna Station had been created from the hollowed-out core of a giant asteroid, the remains of a space platform providing the guts that drove the monstrous engines. Whatever technology they had used was impressive, but it was the sheer size of the thing that took her breath away. She had never seen anything like it. Gehenna was indeed like a small moon moving through space, yet completely hidden from view.
As Nova reached an intersecting passage, she sensed someone approaching. She flattened herself against the wall, but there was nowhere to go, and no way to hide without a cloaking device. It was a woman in great distress, her mind full of fragmented thoughts, and she was moving quickly. Nova looked around frantically for a hiding place, but the walls here were unbroken. If the woman turned down this tunnel, she would be discovered. She worked to let her mind go blank.
When Kath Toom came stumbling around the corner, she stopped short, and both women stared at each other in surprise. Tears streaked Toom’s face and her eyes were puffy and red. She was carrying headgear and wearing the spectres’ now-familiar black combat suit, and it looked strange on her.
“Nova,” she said, and it wasn’t clear whether her tone was relief or dread. Her eyes went to the gun cradled in Nova’s hands. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to rescue Mal Kelerchian.” Nova kept the barrel down but ready. She sensed a threat, but it wasn’t clear if the feeling was coming from Toom or somewhere else. “Bennett and Tosh are holding him hostage and threatening to kill him unless I help them kidnap Emperor Mengsk. And I’ve got a feeling that even if I do that, Mal and I are dead anyway.”
Toom shook her head. But her thoughts gave her away. Nova could sense her uncertainty, and she let Toom scrutinize her mind for the truth, waiting for the feedback loop that would normally occur when one ghost probed another, but it didn’t happen; perhaps it was another effect of the terrazine. Toom’s eyes widened in shock as she took it all in, Nova’s confrontation with Tosh in the palace, Bennett gassing her, and her treatment by Dr. Shaw.
“They took you too,” Nova said. “You think this is about free will, but they drugged you and brainwashed you to get you here. Look at yourself, Kath. Wearing that suit, fighting for the enemy. He’s turned you into a traitor to the Dominion. You don’t know what you’re doing. Leave here now—take the November and escape, while there’s still a chance.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I—I love him.”
“You loved what he used to be,” Nova said, as gently as she could. “But he’s not that person anymore.”
“His heart is in the right place, I swear to you. What Mengsk has done to us, it’s wrong, Nova. Even you have to see that.”
She could feel Toom’s agonized confusion, but she could not wait any longer. Her fingers tightened on the needler. “We’re running out of time. As soon as they realize what I’ve done, they’re going to kill Mal. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to go.” She made as if to walk around Toom, but the woman stepped up to block her path, settling the headgear over her face.
“I can’t let you,” she said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She seemed to be crying again. “Please, give yourself up. We can work together; we can figure this out.”
“Get out of my way,” Nova said. Her fingertips had begun to tingle now, her breath coming faster. She moved forward again. Toom put a hand out to stop her, and Nova jerked the barrel of the gun up fast toward her midsection.
But Toom was faster. She grabbed the barrel with both hands and twisted the gun loose, throwing it down the corridor.
Instinct and training kicked in. Nova took hold of her arm, using her body as leverage to flip her onto her back, but Toom leaned in and went into a roll, regaining her feet again neatly and breaking the hold.
The two women circled each other warily in the narrow confines of the tunnel, in full combat mode. Nova probed Toom’s mind, trying to find a way through to her, but she was barely able to make any sense of the woman’s thoughts at all. “The terrazine’s keeping you from thinking straight,” she said, trying to reason with her. “This isn’t the real you, and it’s not Gabriel either. If you just—”
With a strangled cry, Toom launched herself toward Nova. Her hands caught empty air. Nova teeked herself effortlessly backward, using the wall to plant both palms and flip herself up and over Toom’s head. She tucked and landed on her feet, then delivered a roundhouse kick to the woman’s left shoulder, sending her sprawling face-first to the tunnel floor.
Toom sprang back up, then winked out of sight, but Nova was ready for her. Even with the cloaking device on, she could still see a faint purple-tinged aura moving like a shadow toward the needler.
She could not let Toom get the gun.
Nova narrowed her eyes and let loose with a violent mind shove, and the feeling was like flexing a tense muscle, power flowing out of her and making her gasp. The purple shadow flew left into the wall with a thump, tumbling to the floor as Toom’s headgear went flying and she blinked back into sight. Nova ran to where the gun was, picked it up, and went back to where Kath Toom now lay motionless. Her face was wet with blood and her fingers twitched, but she was alive, and her heartbeat was strong.
Nova raised the barrel toward Toom’s head, her touch tightening on the trigger. Mengsk’s orders were to kill anyone close to Gabriel Tosh.
I want you to track him down, find those he is working with and those he loves most, and I want them dead. I want them all dead. Agent X41822N, you will see to this personally.
She remembered the fat man in the Agrian slum, his chest exploding with gore, his son screaming, “Daddy, what’s wrong? Why you bleeding?” She suddenly remembered how Toom had confronted her at the academy for her lack of teamwork, and how they had eventually formed a strong bond over their similar backgrounds, cementing the team. Their friendship had grown, and she had come to appreciate Toom’s fiery temper and tendency to speak her mind.
She remembered the events on Shi, and what Mengsk had done to the children.
Kath Toom was a good agent, and a good friend.
The gun was shaking. She couldn’t do it. She was bound to obey; even her neural implant commanded her to do what she had been told. But she could not pull the trigger.
Instead, she put the needler down and looked at her bloody feet. She had an idea.
I’m sorry, Kath. I wish this could have been different.
When she was finished, she left Toom lying there and went to find Mal Kelerchian’s cell.