Nova

Nova sighed, taking in the sights of the stars amidst the inky blackness outside of her window. Sitting in the captain’s seat, there were many buttons and levers laid out before her, screens displaying complicated visuals that would have made sense to somebody more learned in the ways of piloting than her. Floating aimlessly through space, she was stuck on the SS Nebuchadnezzar - what that name meant she would never know.

She hadn’t chosen to be there. Well, sure, she had chosen to be in that particular seat in the ship, but the ship part was certainly not preferable. She’d rather be safe, back on Earth.. though these desires, she realised, weren’t remarkably well informed. Nova had been put on this thing when she was six.. and now, nine years later, she was still there. Not much by choice, but when it’s the only place with any chance of human contact and with a supply of oxygen, food, and water, where else did she have? The spaceship was what she had known for what seemed like most of her life, although she had vague memories of her home planet and her life before this. Not many, and not clear memories, but they were there.. more comparable to a collection of colours and feelings than to be called memories.

Nova wished to be back on Earth, even if she knew that the only basis for it was a few fuzzy memories she wasn’t even sure were true or just her brain’s wishful thinking. Well, what could be worse than this?, she thought, but then remembered that of course there could always be something worse.. even if she couldn’t think of it at the moment. And if that something did exist, she certainly didn’t want to start thinking about it now anyways, and so her mind went back to wandering without purpose, her eyes staring blankly to the sights outside of her window.

The expedition was supposed to warrant something. Or that’s what everybody said, at least. Armed with a few centuries’ worth of food, the Nebuchadnezzar would host generations of space travellers, and hopefully they would be able to introduce the human race in a positive light to any alien species they met. Maybe they would even find another suitable planet to inhabit, and this would be humanity’s first step in expanding throughout the rest of the universe!

But if this was really the goal, why only send three families? If they wanted to expand the human race, things were going to get, well, somewhat inbred after a while.. Nova suspected nobody really expected this expedition to succeed. It hadn’t, as after nine years she hadn’t even come across an alien breadcrumb that one of them had left behind, nor found a planet that wouldn’t destroy the ship with ice shards or pure heat before reaching anywhere near the mere surface of the planet. 

Nova glanced at a map of the ship, all the rooms laid out.

———

Jeremiah and Nova looked at each other and snickered. Hiding in a closet, they had escaped from their confines of their area of the ship, where all the grown ups always told them to stay, that there were important things they must not disturb near the back of the ship, to stay near the front where their rooms were and where they could play by themselves. The very front of the ship was where Nova’s dad was, the all mystical and powerful Captain! Everybody always called him that, but to Nova he was still just her dad. Her dad, who decided to go and leave her alone for lengthy periods of time while he hid out in his little Captain’s room, where he “wasn’t to be disturbed”. If Nova couldn’t disturb him up at the front of the ship, but also wasn’t supposed to disturb anything near the back, what was she supposed to do??

Jeremiah agreed with this sentiment. He was a year younger than her, him being eleven and Nova now twelve.

“Man, we’ve been here for SIX YEARS, and all the adults still expect us to play with the stuffed animals we had when we were tiny? If they didn’t expect us to sneak out at some point, it’s their fault,” Jeremiah said with a satisfied nod to himself, followed by an agreeable nod from Nova.

“Exactlyy!” Nova said, as loud as she could while still technically whispering, just in case somebody was near the closet and listening. “You know, we’re basically teenagers. Kinda. Like, we’re in the double digits now, so I feel like that’s enough,” Nova pointed out.

“Uhhh, but aren’t they called teenagers because of the numbers ending in ‘teen’? Thirteen, fourteen, whatever.. I’m not oneteen years old, I’m eleven, so I dunno if I’m a teen..” Jeremiah said, contemplating.

“You know, there’s a question. Why are eleven and twelve called that?!” Nova cried indignantly.

“Whaddya mean?” Jeremiah asked blankly.

“Why aren’t they called oneteen and twoteen??” Nova exclaimed. “It makes no sense! I mean, twenty one and so on don’t ever use eleven or twelve again, they just say twenty ONE and twenty TWO!”

Jeremiah widened his eyes at her volume and quickly shushed her. “Shhh!! Someone might hear you!”

Nova blinked. “Oh, yeah, sorry..” she whispered, immediately lowering her voice.

“But you know, I think that’s pretty cool. It just means that eleven and twelve are special! We must be at the best ages right now, dude!” Jeremiah concluded with a beaming smile.

“Hehehe.. you’re probably right,” Nova admitted, now smiling as well. “Okay, it should be lunch for most people right now I think.. I’m gonna open the door and look,” she whispered cautiously.

Jeremiah gave a thumbs up that in the dim light coming from under the door, Nova could just about make out. She creaked open the door and peeked outside. The sudden abundance of lights blinded her eyes for a moment, but after they focused she saw an empty hallway. She opened it a bit more, looking the other way, and again saw nobody. She grinned and gave a thumbs up back at Jeremiah, and they both tiptoed out of the closet.

“What do we do now?” Jeremiah whispered quickly, knowing they should get moving in case anybody was patrolling the halls. Nova silently walked in the direction they had come to the closet in the hallway, wanting to check if anybody was coming. This time, she DID in fact see a shadow approaching. Her eyes widened and she quickly turned back to Jeremiah, who read her expression and turned around to speed walk as fast as he could while still attempting to be quiet. Nova followed, not looking back.

They turned a few hallways, doing their best to breathe softly, and eventually came to a room with a door that said “WARNING - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY”. Jeremiah looked a bit worried and so looked to Nova, who looked back from where they had come. Not seeing anybody approaching, she felt it suitable to whisper.

“I authorise you,” she whispered with a smile.

Jeremiah grinned. “Well then, I authorise you as well,” he whispered back.

They opened the door and went inside, seeing a room with a lot of buttons and levers on the walls. After closing the door, and not hearing any sounds outside, they gave up on being sneaky and looked amazed around the room.

“You know, I think this is the very back of the ship!” Nova said excitedly. “Ha, that’ll show them.. we did exactly the opposite of what they said not to do! Probably shouldn’t touch any of these things, but it’s still kinda cool that we’re here.”

Jeremiah nodded in agreement. “Yeah.. man, this stuff looks so complicated.”

There were a few rectangular electronic display panels, with part lighting up, filling most of the panel but with a little unlit part at the top. These were accompanied with various buttons, switches, levers and the like, which Jeremiah and Nova had no idea the reason for.

Just as they were busy inspecting the ins and outs of the room, faint footsteps froze both children in place. Nova inched backwards towards the wall, hoping that maybe the further away she was the less likely the person outside was to hear her.. as long as they didn't enter the room, she would be fine.

Nova flinched as she hit the wall behind her, hearing a beep from one of the buttons she must have accidentally pressed. Jeremiah looked over, a nervous expression on his face and glancing back and forth from Nova to the door, where the footsteps seemed to be getting louder.

Just as the children’s faces were turning red from holding their breaths and as they could hear their beating hearts in their ears, suddenly a shhh noise came from above. They looked up, and there were sprinklers, showering them in cold water.

Jeremiah snickered. “I think you hit the fire alarm or something, Nova.”

“Ohhhh man, am I gonna be in trouble,” Nova exhaled. “Wait, I know, in the commotion of everyone getting drenched with water we can sneak back!” she exclaimed.

Jeremiah nodded, and they both ran to the door, opened it, looked around to see if anybody had seen (nope), and ran together through the halls. After a few turns, they hesitated to go further due to more footsteps being heard. Nova looked to see who it was and immediately turned and backed up against the wall, hiding.

“It’s my dad,” she mouthed to Jeremiah.

“I’ll distract him.. you go,” Jeremiah mouthed back, and before Nova could interject, he ran off right past Nova’s dad. 

“Hey!” her dad exclaimed, seeing Jeremiah run right past him, and Nova saw her dad follow him. She allowed herself a second to feel relieved before remembering her task, and began maneuvering her way back to her room, clothes damp from all the sprinklers going off.

Surprisingly, hardly anybody was in the halls as she got closer to her room. Nova decided not to question her good fortune, and quickly opened the door, slid into her room, and slammed it shut. 

Panting and drenched, Nova sat down, trying to calm herself. After a minute in her room, Nova felt it was eerily quiet. She decided to try to open the door but just as she began to, a deafening explosion rang out. Knocked backwards onto the floor and feeling the entire ship shake, Nova was almost blinded by the light that shone through under her door, instinctively squeezing shut her eyes and covering her ears with cupped hands as she lay on the floor.

This lasted for what seemed like hours to Nova, scared and shaking, trying to shut off her senses with pure willpower. In reality, it must have taken not even a few seconds. Nova unsteadily got up as the sound and light faded, daring to open her eyes. She cautiously opened the door to her room and stepped into the hallway, and noticed it seemed like everything was travelling very quickly. In fact, maybe downward? She ended up running to the captain’s room at the front of the ship instinctually, expecting her father, as he was always there.

Opening the door, an empty chair sat in front of a complicated mess of control panels. Nova, still panting, wet, and anxious, ran to the front of the room where the chair was. She felt the pit of her stomach drop, realising that no, her dad was not hiding anywhere. She was truly alone in the room. She then noticed what was displaying on the biggest screen on her dad’s arsenal of controls. The back of the ship appeared to be completely blown open.. and there was an option to detach that part from the rest of the ship, there in case of emergency.

Nova’s eyes frantically darted back and forth, unsure of what she could do, but in the moment and spurred by adrenaline she pressed the button, not wanting the explosion in the back’s fire to damage the rest of the ship. A few seconds after, she felt the ship wobble and then stop its movement, the whole thing feeling lighter.

After feeling this, Nova’s heartbeat slowed down very slightly, relieved to have answers to what had happened (an explosion) and having a solution for it that she implemented, though she knew there was a lot of food and resources stored back there.. most of them had probably already been destroyed, however, and at least this way everybody would be safe.

She decided to go and find Jeremiah and others, maybe investigate how this even happened! Nova, now slightly more calm but still coursing with adrenaline and some excitement, ran through the ship, checking rooms for anybody else. With each empty room after another, Nova became more disheartened and nervous. They must be hiding in some sort of shelter room, she figured at last, after having gone through almost half the rooms and getting closer to the new back of the ship. Undamaged, it seemed the fire hadn’t spread to this part before Nova had sent it off into space, which relieved her. A window which had originally looked into a sort of commons room now looked out into space, so natural it almost seemed like it was the intentional design.

Nova froze, however, when she looked out of the window. The faint remains of a hand, burnt off at the wrist, floated through the void outside, and Nova saw, far away now, debris floating around the remnants of the ejected part of the exploded ship. She quickly turned away, eyes wide and breathing quickening, not wanting to inspect those debris closer.

She ran through the rest of the ship, slamming open doors while her breathing grew more uneven and raggedy, her heart hurt beating in her chest, and her eyes quickly scanned every inch of the spaceship. After making her way around the ship and getting back to the captain’s room, she fell to the ground on her knees, not wanting to believe it.

Shakily managing to walk over to the captain’s chair, she saw a map of the ship. The very back room, the one she recognised her and Jeremiah had snuck into it, was right next to the gigantic fuel tank, the one that was supposed to last them for centuries. Nova realised whatever button she accidentally pressed probably wasn’t the fire alarm.. but must have caused some sort of fire, which then resulted in the fire alarm. A fire right next to the fuel tank definitely wasn’t good news.. and everybody must have known that. Except her, stupidly hiding in her room.

All the adults must have been trying to stop the ship from being blown open, but she hid in her room, worried about getting yelled at by her dad. Pathetic.

Nova felt her breathing give way to gasping breaths, tears beginning to run down her face. She saw her dad’s coat laid on the chair in front of her, and clutched it as hard as she could, crying into it, and collapsed onto the ground. It smelled faintly of her father, warm and kind.

———

Nova looked away from the map, the same memory again flooding back to her, playing over and over again. Her face flinched. It still stung, even after she had thought about it every day for almost three years.

Three years ago, she had sent the engines and large supply of food and water from her ship into space, never to be seen again. At first, she had been determined to keep on surviving and carry the legacy of her family on.. There was still certainly enough food and water kept in the front of the ship for a single person, so she was not lacking there. The oxygen generator was still functioning, and she had figured out mostly how to operate it. She could survive until old age took her in this spaceship, and she was only fifteen right now.

Nova wore her father’s coat, sitting in his chair. It was her father’s birthday today.. and she was tired of having to go on like this. Three years later, alone on this ship with only her thoughts, memories, and regrets, Nova had decided to join her father. This “morning”, as told by the ship’s clocks at least, she had shut off the oxygen generator. Every breath Nova took began to hurt more and more, but she was soothed by the thought of joining her father.. or maybe not.

Her father would be up in heaven. She surely wouldn’t be up there, the murderer of the entirety of her family and friends. She began to close her eyes, her breaths becoming slowly harder to muster. One might think there was a less painful way to die, and Nova thought there surely was. But she didn’t deserve it.

Her eyes barely still open, she saw something in the distance, far off in space. A sudden brightness, where a new shiny star now appeared through the window.

A nova, she thought to herself, and if she had the strength she would have smiled.

One nova appeared that day, and one finally finished fading.