Supernova (30 page)

She
looked up at the stunned Nym soldier. Without thinking further, Lily fired her
gun upright and scrambled out of the way as the body fell face-first to the
decking with an ungainly thump. Black goo seeped from its body and splashed on
her clothes. She looked around and saw no one else, but that was going to
change soon. The blast from her weapon had been loud and had sliced cleanly
through the Nym, leaving a smoking crater in the wall behind him. She could see
a comm badge winking through the black sludge on his chest. She ripped it off
his uniform and stuck it in her pocket. That could be good for something.

She was
in a small foyer. There were a few doors lining the walls, nothing labeled in
her language, of course. She would have to pick one and brave whoever and
whatever was behind it. If she stayed here, every door would open, and she
would have far more Nym than she could handle.

Well,
she already did. She picked a set of doors and fired her gun. There was a
hollow sawing noise, and she kicked them in.

She saw
a viewport looking out over space. Then two shocked Nym sitting at consoles,
strapped into chairs.

Dear
God, she’d picked the cockpit. She fired two quick charges to the Nym, who
slumped over in their seats, leaking black blood everywhere. She held her
breath—did they ever
stink
when they died—and pushed against one with
all her might. He fell over to the floor, and she took his seat.

She
looked at the console in front of her. Red symbols blinked in an angry staccato
across the screen, a clock next to it. No, a countdown. It was counting down
minutes and seconds.

It was
down to eight minutes, twenty-eight seconds.

Whatever
was supposed to happen in eight minutes, it couldn’t be good. She tapped the
console and found it unresponsive to her touch.

No.

She
tapped her Fleet comm badge and prayed. “Stewart to Captain Marska,” she said. “Stewart
to the
Defiant
—anyone!”
Please, please let someone hear me
. She
had no idea of the kind of range these things had.

A
familiar voice replied, and she nearly wept at the sound of it. “Lily!” said an
incredulous Rian.

“I’m on
a Nym ship. I can’t get out. Help me!” The fear and panic she had kept at bay
had overtaken her. She was in danger of having a complete meltdown, and she
couldn’t afford that.

“I know,”
Rian said. “We have a tractor beam containing the ship. Lily, I need you to
listen to me very carefully. Where are you?”

“A
cockpit or a navigation room, I think. I think I killed the pilots. I mean, I
know I killed them, but I’m pretty sure they were the pilots.”

“Starboard
or portside?”

“I have
no fucking idea! I just crawled through an elevator shaft! Can’t you find me?”

“We’re
trying.”

Lily
heard some static, and the link went dead. She heard voices nearby, the angry
growl of the Nym.

No.

It would
not end this way.

She
looked around the room for a place to hide and found nothing. She would have to
go back into the corridor. She could get back and hide in the elevator shaft.

She
chanced a peek outside. There were at least two voices, and they sounded like
they were around the corner. She bolted for the broken elevator doors and
looked up and down the shaft. She could climb another deck and cut her way onto
another deck. It was her only option. She teetered on the edge of the deck,
willing herself not to look down, and jumped gracelessly for the support beam.
She clutched it for dear life. Tears blurred her vision, but she soldiered on.

I
didn’t tell him I love him
.

“Lily?”
said a hoarse voice from her comm badge.

She kept
herself wrapped around the beam and tapped it. “Yeah?” she whispered.

“It’s
Taz.”

* * *

Rian’s
comm badge trilled. “Shraft to the captain,” he heard.

“Captain
here.”

“I’m in
the Nym’s PSI,” the ensign said proudly.

“What?”

“I
hacked into the PSI. I’ve almost figured out how to shut down the ship. I’m in
their computers right now.”

Rian
looked at Lieutenant Steg, who glowered at the doctor as he demanded answers
from him. “Watch him,” he ordered.

“Yes,
sir.”

“Shraft,
what have you done?” he demanded.

“I’ve
unlocked their transport code,” Shraft replied. “I’ve got a lock on Lily’s DNA.
I know where she is, approximately. I can’t bring her here using our locks,
though. I can’t get through that part of the ship’s shields.”

Rian
looked around the floor and spotted the badge Ashford had been holding. He
grabbed it. “What if I use a Nym badge?” he asked Shraft. “If I have one, I can
transport to their ship, get Lily, and use it to bring her back, right?”

“Sure.
Where do you have a Nym badge, though?”

“Right
here. I’ll explain later. Ensign, can you do this?”

“Yes,”
came back the confident reply. “I just need to have the data on the badge. Can
you plug it into a port and let me look at it?”

Rian
raced to the doctor’s private office and unplugged the computer perched on the
desk. He jammed the badge into the vacant port and relayed the location to
Shraft.

“I see
it,” the ensign said. “It’s showing up as invasive, but...” He heard some taps,
Shraft’s fingers flying across the console. “Contained. Lily is on deck four or
five; it’s hard to tell through the shield. I’ll transport you to deck five.”

“Affirmative.”
Rian removed the badge from the port and held on to it, his weapon in the other
and primed. He braced himself for the transport.

He was a
little unsteady on his feet when he materialized on metal gridwork, but quickly
regained his equilibrium. He looked up and down the foyer he was in and saw the
dead Nym lying not two feet away. Beside him, a set of smashed-in doors. He
blanched and crept forward to a set of doors decorated with black scorch marks.
Inside was a cockpit helmed by a pair of dead Nym.

Lily had
done this. He couldn’t help but feel pride.

He left
the cockpit and tapped his badge, calling for Lily. A soft voice issued out of
it. “Rian?” she said.

“I’m on
the ship,” he whispered. “I can get us back. Tell me where you are. We’ve got
to get out of here.”

“The
elevator,” she replied. “I’m in the elevator shaft. Where are you?”

“I just
found some dead pilots. Good work.”

“Go back
out in the hallway. You’ll find a set of broken elevator doors. I’m climbing up
another deck.”

He
slipped out of the cockpit and into the corridor, where he found the broken
doors he had passed earlier and two Nym peering down the shaft. He fired off
two blasts from his pistol and they dropped heavily into the shaft, a muted
thump sounding many decks away. He heard a very frightened and feminine scream
from somewhere in there. He looked down the shaft and his stomach turned over.

“Up
here,” came a hoarse whisper.

He
looked up and saw Lily clinging to a support beam. He had never been so glad to
see anyone in his life. “Get up here,” she hissed. “They know I escaped. Come
on.”

He
jumped for the support pole she was holding on to and shimmied up the cold
metal until her feet were almost level with his eyes. “We have to get out of
here,” Rian said.

“I’m
going to the next deck,” she said and kept moving upward.

“No, the
ship is set to auto-destruct in a few minutes. I have a Nym comm badge that
will let us bypass their shields and get back to the
Defiant
. If the
auto-destruct goes before we unlock the tractor beam, the
Defiant
will
be blown to pieces.” He hoisted himself up a few feet, twisting around Lily’s
body wrapped around the support so he could face her, his legs holding her in
place. In the dim light offered in the lift’s shaft, he saw the tears on her
face and the reeking Nym blood staining her skin and clothes. After all of this
was over, he would never let her go again. He wrapped an arm around her, kissed
her temple, and fumbled in his pocket for the Nym badge. He slipped it out and
it slid from his grasp, down the shaft.

Lily
stared down, horror on her face. “Shit!” Rian snapped. He forced himself to
remain calm and keep his grip on the support beam. “Lily, we have to move. Now!”

The lift
below them whirred to life and began going up. Lily screamed.

“Go!”
Rian shouted. If the lift got to them...he stole a glance at Lily. He would not
think about that.

The lift
vibrated along the supports, now three decks away. He could see a ragged hole
in its top. “We’ll have to kick in those doors,” Rian yelled over the noise,
and he looked up at another set of doors half a deck above them.

“We won’t
make it,” Lily shouted back, and she tossed her weapon down the shaft, freeing
both of her hands. She felt around her pocket for something and pulled out a
flat square streaked with black gore. Another Nym comm badge. Rian didn’t have
time to ask where she got it.

The lift
was a deck and a half away. “Hang on to that,” he said. She nodded. “When I
tell you, we’re going to jump.” She nodded and clutched the badge in her hand
until her knuckles went white. He wriggled his body around the support until he
was behind her and clasped his hands around her waist. Her spare Rikto-Four dug
into his stomach, but he ignored it. He kept his eyes the rapidly ascending
lift. “Let go!” he shouted.

She
obediently released her grip on the beam as he pushed them off it. They landed
with a thump, the lift’s ceiling cracking under their weight. Rian
instinctively crouched down, and Lily followed and immediately reached for the
laser pistol in her waistband. Rian already had his ready, and he slammed his
weapon at the lift’s ceiling. Pieces rained down on its occupants, a pair of
Nym, who turned shocked green eyes to the sight above them. Rian put short,
quick charges through both of them before they could react. He motioned to
Lily. “Jump in,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

She didn’t
argue or hesitate. She dropped through the hole and landed on a body oozing
black blood. “Fuck!” she said in disgust. “They stink!”

Rian
grimaced and jumped in after her, blood splattering his clothes. His nostrils
constricted at the smell. The gods only knew what that lift would smell like
after an hour or two, but they didn’t have enough time to find out. “The badge,”
he said. “You still have it?”

“Yeah.”
She opened her hand, where the badge had made indentations in her palm.

Rian
tapped his comm badge. “Shraft,” he said. “I’ve got her.”

“Thank
gods,” said the ensign. “You’re down to two minutes, forty seconds.”

“I lost
the first badge. We have another one. Will that work?” He held his breath.

“I cleared
more code after the last time we communicated. I’ve got your DNA, Captain, and
a bunch of Nym comm badges in the vicinity.” There was a pause. “Got the
transport lock.”

The lift
stopped, and its doors opened.

A
battalion of Nym soldiers stood at the doors, weapons at the ready. Rian
grabbed Lily and she clung to him, but further reaction was halted by the
sensation of being turned inside out. Neither could say anything as the air was
sucked from their lungs.

Today
marked the first time Rian wanted to be pulled through a transporter.

Their
bodies coalesced on the
Defiant
’s bridge. The impact from the
transporter knocked them both off their feet, and Lily’s Rikto-Four skittered
across the floor. They both lay on the decking, breathing heavily, before Lieutenant
Asmo jumped up from her post at navigation to help. Rian forced himself to sit
and tried not to throw up. Transporters delivered a hell of a wallop.

Lily lay
on her side, weeping. Asmo talked to her, murmuring soothing things and urging
her to take deep breaths. Rian crawled over to her on hands and knees and
helped her sit up. She swayed a little, taking in her surroundings in
disbelief. “Rian,” she said simply.

“We made
it,” he replied.

“I think
I’m going to throw up again.” But instead, she slumped to his chest in a dead
faint.

The
Defiant
shuddered violently as the tractor beam was disengaged. “Captain,” Kostin
shouted. “Shraft couldn’t disable the auto-destruct. Hold on. This is going to
be bumpy.”

Rian
slapped at his comm badge. “Shraft,” he said sharply. “Are we disconnected from
the Nym’s systems?”

“Yes,
sir. Forty-five seconds to auto-destruct.”

“Thank
the gods.” He eased Lily off him, and Asmo crouched down to hold her up. Rian
ran to the nearest console and quickly took in the situation. Kostin had
disengaged the tractor beam. He and Kostin banked the ship to the starboard
side and brought up the engines to their full power. He activated the shields
and watched the image of the Nym cruiser displayed on the forward viewscreen.
They weren’t going to get far enough away to completely avoid the explosion,
and he doubted their shields at their current state would protect the ship from
the impact. He recalled the last explosion the
Defiant
had to ride out,
that star going nova. He had nothing to lose; his method had worked before, and
Fleet was already pissed off at him. “Cutting power to the engines,” he
announced to the bridge. Kostin sputtered a laugh.