I don't have time.

Nova tasted its haunting refrain when Neo's communicator beeped a station-wide message from the senior research team. But maybe this is it. Maybe this is the change I needed. Nova followed him off the bench after their momentary silence, but she never needed to ask what prompted him into action.

"I need to head to central command." Neo shuffled with his datascroll, picking up several infodrives from his terminal to stuff them in his pockets. "I need to get my findings to them."

Nova left him to gather his things to grab her own, opening the defense cabinet with her keypass. Two defense blasters sat in safety locks, and she grabbed them both into each hand. Rejoining Neo in the main area, she held out the extra to him. "Here."

"Here... what?" He turned.

"Take it." Nova indicated to the blaster. "We don't know what's out there." Not that these things do anything to it... but it'll make me feel better.

Neo twisted around to keep his back to her, rubbing his fingers against the edges of his datascroll. "I don't know, Nova. I have atrocious aim and I'm infamously clumsy." His scroll closed with his twisting click. "I'm more likely to hurt myself with that than do any real damage."

"That's not what I'm concerned about."

"Let me pretend that it is. Also, you never know with me!" He waved his hands up and down to indicate his body. "It might go off in the holster if I'm not careful — which we both know I have a habit of not doing." He gave her a forced smile. "You trust me with a blaster? You don't even trust me with scheduling."

Nova checked the safety dock. "It's not going to go off in its holster, Neo." One last time, for comfort, she held it out to him with the grip towards him.

"We've come so far with tech." He huffed. "I'm a lover, not a fighter."

"Well, can you 'lover' your way into defending yourself?" Nova questioned. "That's why I want you to hold onto it, not for any other reason. I'm not expecting you to turn around and use it — I don't want you to have to use it. I want to have peace of mind if—" The truth almost slipped past her lips, but there was so much she had left to measure and plan around, and what threats waited for them. "It's for if something happens."

The longer they stood there in a stretched staredown, the less time wrapped around her fingers.

Ready to give in to get moving, she lowered her hand.

"You really want me to have it?"

"I'm not going to force you to take it." Nova checked the settings on her defensive blaster before holstering it. "I just want us to be ready to defend ourselves after what we saw. We aren't trained personnel. We're barely out of our last quad in college. We're in internships. I was supposed to be learning hands-on applications while you finish your thesis, but that's out the window." Because I don't even know... if we'll get out of here to do those things... but we're just college students... Nova sighed. "I know you don't like it. You were never..." It melted into her heart. "You'd choose everything but defending yourself even if you were in danger."

He protected her in the stupidity of a human error, and died in her arms. Nova sucked in her lips and went to leave.

"Wait." Neo twiddled his fingers, then sidled to her. "If it'll make you feel better, I can keep it on me." He brushed one hand through his black hair and took it from her. "I-I can't promise I'll have the ability to pull the trigger if my hands start shaking too much."

"I also have one." Nova patted the grip. "Hopefully, you won't be put in that position." He holstered the blaster with a heavy, furrowed brow. "You don't need to think of it like a weapon of mass destruction, Neo. We can both name plenty of things that fit that bill." Fists clenched, she guided him through the darkness swallowing the eastern facility, which ran on auxiliary power to give the central area more reach to stabilise the space station where it needed it the most.

"It's more like something that can hurt people if it's in the wrong hands, like mine. My hands, specifically," Neo mumbled behind her.

Life never revealed itself. But I know if there's anyone here, all they're doing is waiting to die... and they don't even know it. Acid crawled through her throat, and she held her blaster for some last minute comfort, but the lack of assurance on the part of the everchanging monster stole it from her.

Why didn't it attack me?

On the eastern terminal, one of the transits slid into the station as Neo swiped his keypass down the control for the bulkhead, which closed behind them. A rippled barrier followed the circuitry, but it never mattered against a force of nature.

We can stall it, but it'll find a way. It always does. A knife in her heart, but less weight on her shoulders. There's nothing I can do about security. It won't work. Always consistent, I guess I can take solace in that. It hesitated for time in the loop, but never gave her a moment to relax and think of her next action, or to rest and empty her mind of thoughts. No... if I'm ever going to be able to rest, it won't be now. I missed that chance.

Nova slumped into one of the chairs when the door closed and cut them off from the terminal, and it rolled its way to central command. Neo slid in beside her, his shoulder against hers, and the chirp of his datascroll silenced the spiral inside her mind. Unable to deafen the sounds of the monster within the rocking station. Nova rubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm as they followed the path of time. Closer to their destination, but never with the finality. Over her fingers, she observed Neo take notes, his attention divided. And you? You'll die no matter what. Do my choices really matter? You said it wasn't impossible, but stars — I'm out of my depth. It seems impossible to me.

Blood caked her hands and squeezed over her fingers when she tried to stop his bleeding, and dove into the void, hiding with no chance to flee. Impossible, or difficult, it sliced her heart into ribbons at the idea of her best friend, whose existence never mattered in space, a dying, yet no less bright star with so much potential to explode into something more. He breathed and spoke, but he never would do so again if she failed. Nor would anyone on the station. Just her.

The last reminder of the consequences with messing with the unknown.

Innocent people fought and died to stall an immovable force of nature in the foolish hope to get themselves away from the existential doom.

It didn't.

Everyone died.

Admiral Mythrai and his personnel.

The senior research team tasked with finding the truth around the D.S Butterfly.

Thuni. Ulin. Izerva.

Neo.

Nova jumped when a warm arm wrapped around her shoulders. Neo tipped his head at her. "Are you okay?"

"I could be better," she admitted. "I'm sorry — that thing threw me off and I worried you. I didn't even... learn anything. It didn't explain the security footage we saw."

"When it was thrown out of the droid's ports when it made the emergency landing." Neo cupped his free hand against his cheek. "It came from outside, whether picked up with the anomaly or followed the droids in." He drew his thumb against his lips, and a thoughtful huff left his nose. "It's curious. As for the reason for its aggression, I have a couple of thoughts on that."

"What are your thoughts?"

Anything to make sense of this — of why it didn't attack me, but looked... looked like it wanted to hurt you.

"I suspect it has something to do with the heart," Neo explained. "It was—" He hesitated, and Nova frowned when he took his arm off her shoulder and pressed it against his temples. "What? It was what?" Confusion danced in the greys, but after a moment of silence, he shook his head. "There were odd fluctuations," he continued, off the original thought he started. "It matched extreme stress levels. I suppose that could've called the creature into being, as a defense mechanism." He frowned at his boots. "I... I swear when we brought it in, the readings were steady, predictable. Did I overlook something...?"

Nova studied his expression for any hint of recollection, but none slipped to the surface when he sat back against the seat and gave her a familiar, constant smile. "I guess I'll have to find out."

"Yes." Nova held onto what little energy she had when the tram slowed to a stop. "We need to report to Miss Zynaia."

"You took the words out of my mouth." Neo grinned, and Nova copied his expression to feel the last remnants of a normal life. Off the tram, she headed for the corridor to the anomalous research labs, but stopped at the lack of footsteps following behind her.

Neo leaned against the column with a holomap, his hand on his brow as he breathed deep and slow. Nova frowned. "Neo?" His gaze remained unfocused and glassy as he dragged his fingers down his nose. A grey nebula twisted on the edges of his pupils when Nova came for a closer look, but one blink, and it disappeared. "Neo?" she pressed when he refused to respond. "Are you okay?" Her hand rested on his shoulder to steady him.

"Sorry," he said with a softer smile. "Just... got nauseous. Let's go."

Scientists rushed down the corridors with soldiers at every other entrance.

Full of life.

And if I don't find a way to break this, they aren't going to stay that way. Nova took Neo to the anomalous research labs, and her heart stuttered when they closed in on the crimson-stained observation room through the decontamination tunnel.

The first death.

"Wait here." Neo touched her arm when the guards stopped their approach. "I shouldn't be too long."

"Neo, maybe you should... sit down?"

"Spacyn!" Thuni's voice called from the junction.

"Perfect timing." Neo beamed, but a twisted, pale shadow overcame his pallor. "Keep Nova company." He nudged her towards her fellow engineer before disappearing into the bloody coils.

"So..." Nova dragged out her words with Neo out of reach. "They called you?"

"Yeah," Ulin revealed themselves from behind Thuni. "We heard they're planning an emergency warp."

"Backwards, might I add," Thuni finished. "You know, the sensible option above all else. Ignoring the fact that without a proper coordinate backwards emergency warps might as well slingshot us into any untracked star with the odds we have." He shrugged and leaned on the wall.

Nova peeked around. "Have you two seen Izerva?"

"Admiral Mythrai took all the trained personnel to get the comms back up in the space station," Ulin explained. "It... It looks pretty bad. Admiral Mythrai kept in contact with one of the teams... and then it just went quiet on the other end. He went to go check on the team, and Izerva went with him."

"They're out here, and we're kept around just in case," Thuni mumbled, then studied her. "You alright, Spacyn? You look sick to your stomach."

Nova swallowed acid. "We saw that thing for ourselves."

"Yes, and Admiral Mythrai called for the lockdown when he lost contact with the security overseer — and the bridge went dark on top of this entire shitshow." Thuni waved his hand with a grunt. "They better hope that thing hasn't wormed its way into the substation cores. We all saw what it did to my droid."

Another reminder. "What alloy did you guys use for your droid core?"

"Couldn't tell you the exact specifics of it. It's a steel blend with Xelnodian metalworking."

Ulin grinned. "It shines gold."

"It is certainly not gold though."

Nova relaxed, but Neo never returned.

The station shuddered and almost sent her to her knees in crushing, timely despair. Every light dimmed for one second too long. Alarms blared all around her, a dissonant scream to send a wave of pressure through her temples, and she jumped when the door to the lab slid open with a familiar hiss.

Neo left the crimson shadows. "A situation is occurring," he said, quick and methodical, as if he wasn't dizzy minutes before. "First, we have a massive anomaly reading coming straight for us from the western branch. Second, we lost contact with the reactor cores." He tangled his fingers and sank into his shoulders. "We... Something went wrong down there, but we don't know what. We need people to go down there and check the subcores."

Thuni eyed Neo. "Are you about to tell me the defenses of central command aren't going to be enough, Teimea? If you are, I'm going to pretend you didn't say anything."

"It—" Neo shuddered. "Like I said, it depends on the state of the reactor core. We're about to head into a blackout, and central command doesn't want to resort to siphoning off other branches who still have people in them."

"Teimea, you said the exact thing I didn't want to hear in twenty extra words."

Neo ignored him to poke her. "They want all available engineers to go down there and check it out, and if needed, to override the cores."

Thuni scoffed. "As if we have clearance for that."

Neo smiled at him, then held up an overseer's card. "That's why I'm coming with you — and to also determine the strange activity we heard before the communication cut."

Thuni narrowed his eyes. "Do you know anything about the delicacies of core maintenance?"

"Not one bit, that's not what I'm here for," Neo said with a smile against the descending void. "I'm just your access point. They want the central core overridden to input the failsafe on the off chance they need to siphon. "

"Great."

What if I'm wrong about this monster? If it's going to the heart, this is our best chance... but what if it's focused on Neo?

Too many risks. Too many variations.

"I'll input the failsafe then," Nova whispered. "You just let us do our thing, Neo."

"You won't get any arguments from me." Neo raised his hands. "Trust me, I could touch a socket and end up shocking myself by accident. I'd rather not have that happen with something a touch bigger than a socket." He lowered her hand to her shoulder. "You have no need to worry. I'll just be figuring out the anomalous stuff and leaving the engineers to the engineering stuff."

Stars, I know you handle being scared through humour, but don't make jokes like that... I don't need that image in my head.

"Oh yes, an active core would do a lot more than shock you," Thuni remarked. "Akin to getting burnt alive from the inside out if you don't know what you're doing." He sighed then pointed down the corridor. "Come on, we'll take the lift down. Let's do this before we get launched into a star."

Nova brought her hands to her face and wished for silence.