avocado press

“HELP ME.”

Nav huddled behind a bulkhead, flinching at every slug whirr. She touched a hand to the cold endosteel beneath her boots. She could feel the vibrations of the ferroclast, its pulse, but they were weakening. 

“How?”

“I HAVE BEEN BROKEN. YOU MUST FIX ME.”

“You’re a five hundred ton goddamn spaceship!” She hissed. “If you want one engineer to put a plaster over your boo-boo and give you a kiss better in the middle of a firefight you need to spend less time daydreaming!”

She could feel cogs whirring.

“THE Wyvern.”

“What about it? Do you know where it is? What’s wrong with it!”

“IT IS DISCONNECTED. RECONNECT IT.”

She hesitated. A Wyvern? Disconnected? Could that even happen? If she could fix it… A slug whirred through the bulkhead right in front of her, shaving a groove across the skin of her cheek. Tiny barbs caught on her nose, and the little metal creature began squirming. It’s signature whirr filled her ears as it turned towards the source of blood and started burrowing. She screamed as it began to dig through her face. She scrabbled at her cheek, catching it by the tail. It tore her as she ripped it out and flung it to the floor. It pulsated a glowing red, glutted on her blood. She stomped it beneath her heavy boot, feeling the hard carapace bend and snap beneath her. Silent sobs shook her. She could feel air in her mouth. She could feel air in her mouth.

“NAV?”

She opened her mouth and thick blood spilled past her teeth to the ground in a dribble.

“NAV I FEEL THEM MOVING. NAV THEY ARE MOVING IN YOUR DIRECTION.”

“Where’sh th’ Wyvher’?” Her speech was muddled. Noise escaped in the wrong directions. She could hear the edges of the wound screaming every time she breathed past it.

Cogs whirred for a moment.

“TAKE THE NEXT LEFT.”

She staggered along the hall. She could hear boots behind her now, and shouting. They were close.

“I WILL DO WHAT I CAN TO SLOW THEM. TURN RIGHT.”

She did, holding a hand to her cheek, trying to close herself off again. It felt wrong. She was too open, they could get in now. She could hear doors slamming shut behind her, followed by the ear splitting whirr of a ‘clast grade slug.

“NEXT RIGHT.”

She turned and a door at the end of the corridor opened with the customary violent motion.

“IN THERE.”

The room beyond was ruined. She could see the Wyvern of course, they were hard to miss. A nearly three metre metal monstrosity, humanoid in shape, terrifying in form. It was broken. The side of its head smashed, its chest caved where it should stand proud. Ruined slugs and men lay in thick piles.

“THE RECEIVER IS IN THE CHEST.”

She ran forwards in a shambling sprint. The last door gave way in a shriek of metal behind her.

“Closh thi’ ‘oor!”

It seemed to happen in slow motion. The door to the room with the Wyvern began its closing, something that had always seemed too fast to Nav was all of a sudden all too slow. Through the thinnest gap between the two halves a slug whirred. Small as a bee, more dangerous than a traditional bullet. It burrowed into her calf. The door slammed closed.

She screamed and fell to the ground. Her cheek forgotten, she scratched and tore at her leg, but it was too late. This was no grazing hit. The slug was in her, burrowing, eating, devouring. She shook convulsively at the pain. She could feel it moving, making its way deep into her leg.

“NAV.”

The voice sounded distant, but it reminded her. Once a slug got in there was no getting it out. It would follow her blood, seeking the heart. She would never see another binary sunset over the forests of Delgashi. But perhaps the others would.

Her legs wouldn’t hold her. The slug would reach her spine soon, so she dragged herself. She wanted to weep. To curl up and simply stop, but she couldn’t. Hundreds of people worked, loved, and lived on this ‘clast. Hoveatvu had a partner back on Sunsiva who was with child. Nav had been named godmother. She would never fulfil her duties as godmother. But she would get Hoveatvu back home to see Little Isiaah’s birth.

Strong arms from years spent serving her captain and the Wyvern, fixing her ferroclast over and over again. They served it once more, carrying her the last two metres over fallen bodies to the Wyvern. The damage was extensive. She wouldn’t last long enough to do a proper fix. She tore away casing, exposing the jumbled mess of broken wires.

“THE GREEN ONES.”

Those had taken the most damage, but she was surprised to recognise the circuit. A simple receiver unit, more powerful than most but one she was familiar with. One she had with her. She tore the headset away from her ear.

“NAV?” Was the last she heard as Sy’s voice receded.

She tore the casing off the headset, pulling out the wireless receiver. A shrill whirring noise voiced the ‘clast slug starting on the door behind them. With surprisingly stable fingers she began threading the wires of the receiver with the broken one. The slug had reached her thigh. It was travelling up the back of it, tearing through muscle. 

She would be a fairy godmother. A shrill giggle seeped out through her cheek. A part of her knew that was insane, but most of her didn’t care. It would take all her engineering knowhow to turn a pumpkin into a carriage for Isiaah’s first dance.

Her vision was fading. She didn’t need an automated voice to tell her that she’d lost too much blood. It had to be a hallucination, but as she did the final wire she thought she heard Sy’s voice.

“THANK YOU, NAV.”

There was a searing pain just below her rear, a sound of bodies being torn in twain, and her vision failed.

 

Nav floated in nothing. Where there was something there was pain, but here was bliss. She was beyond. She could feel the warmth of Delgashi’s double suns, welcoming her home.

She had never been religious. The only greater powers she had ever believed in were the ones she had fixed with her own two hands. She’d never believed in anything after death. So… Was this death?

The warmth of the suns vanished, and she was plunged back into reality. Pain soaked her skin like rain, and she revelled in it. Pain was real, pain was alive.

 

The world was beeping at Nav to wake up. She felt like she had weights strapped to her limbs, and her eyes were gummy and hard to open. She opened them anyway. Bright white burnt into her vision. She scrunched her eyes against the harsh light. She felt simultaneously light and heavy. Like she would float away at any moment, but wouldn’t ever be able to budge herself from this bed.

“WELCOME BACK, NAV.”

The Wyvern stood to the side of her bed, a motionless statue. It had endosteel hastily welded over its chest, but its face was still smashed in. She could have done better. The inhuman head turned to stare at her with its glowing optics.

“I… IT SAYS IT IS SORRY.”

“Wh-” she stifled a yawn. “Wha’ f’r?” She mumbled.

The Wyvern sat. It was the most impossible, incongruous scene Nav had ever seen. The enormous, inhumanly graceful, unstoppable creature of war sitting somehow awkwardly cross legged on the med bay floor. Even still, its head rose high above her. A whirring of groans and clanks came from it.

“IT SAYS… IT HAD TO PERFORM AN EMERGENCY AMPUTATION.”

A huge metallic hand raised and placed itself on the cot, right where… Where her leg should be. The heavy metal weighed the mattress, pulling it towards it. Nav could feel her body rolling, but… Not all of it.

“THE SLUG WAS IN TOO DEEP. IT WAS THE ONLY WAY. I AM SORRY.”

Gone, one legged, crippled. Hundreds of thousands of kilometres away a pair of suns orbited each other. Tears pricked at her eyes. Somewhere, a binary sunset was taking place on Delgashi, and someday she would see it again.