“You don’t need to look so nervous,” Fornax said after a while.

I blinked and smiled at her guiltily.

“Sorry, is it that obvious?”

“You might as well be shouting it at me. We’ve done a bunch of missions just like this. It’ll be fine.”

I nodded, my eyes flicking to the scanner again before glancing at the screen showing the others in the weapons pods. I shook out my hands before placing them gently on the controls and running through them in my mind.

Fire, direction, change weapon, lock-on.

“Okay, enough. This will drive you crazier than you already are! I can basically feel your brain working away beside me. It’s not needed, you know what you’re doing. You’ve done so many missions already and they’ve all gone fine!”

A slightly hysterical snort burst from me before I could stop it.

“Ah…” Fornax breathed, realising her mistake.

“Well, ignoring the mission that landed us in prison and almost killed Gem and the last one that could lead to a whole planet being destroyed, they’ve all gone swimmingly.”

“Alright, no need for the snark,” Fornax smirked.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“I mean, you’re right. Our current success rate, ignoring the two catastrophes, is pretty high but I feel like that doesn’t count.”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry! You can be as nervous as you want! Or… you can talk to me about it.”

I glanced at her before looking back at the screen.

“We’re muted, they can’t hear us.”

I chewed my lip, my nails wanting to press into my skin again.

“You don’t have to say anything but, if you want to, we have time before we get there.”

I lowered my shaking hands to my lap and examined Fornax’s face for a minute. Her eyes were fixed on the sky in front of her but she was clearly waiting for me to talk. I just didn’t know where to start.

“I know it’s tough. You’re only young and you should be hanging out with friends and, I don’t know, flying off to faraway planets for a weekend away or whatever it is normal kids do anymore. But instead, you’re trapped on a ship in the abandoned sector, helping to lead a revolution whilst one of your best friends is being held captive by the Council.”

A tear escaped my eye and slowly traced down my cheek. I bit my lip so that no more would fall.

“It’s hard. You’re surrounded by jaded, bitter adults who all have no real clue what you’re going through. Yes, we all read your story but I know that wasn’t everything. It didn’t tell the full story, did it? I recognise barely repressed trauma when I see it.” Her voice was softer than I’d ever heard her speak.

Another tear slipped through as I thought about the things I’d purposely not included in the story. The many panic attacks, the true extent of my self-hatred, the number of times I woke to find a used blade in Cas’ hands and blood trickling down his arms. Or Gem’s. Or Peggy’s. Or even my own. I think Cory is the only one who hadn’t. He always patched us up without taking us to the medBay when needed.

I hadn’t written about how he’d hide blood packs under the bed for when life got too hard and we didn’t know any better ways to cope. I didn’t write about some of the things my crew had whispered to us in the dark about their childhoods. It wasn’t my story to tell. It wasn’t a story that needed to be told. Everyone knows about the horrors of Nova, they didn’t need to hear about it from us.

There were so many things I hadn’t included. Maybe, I should have included some of them. Some of the threats from Harvey, the Guardians and their wandering hands, the screams I heard late at night in prison from the other rooms when the night shift got bored of waiting for us to wake up and wanted someone to hit. I’d never spoken to my crew about that. We didn’t have anything to say.

“I’m surprised you can even go on missions now,” Fornax admitted softly, “I don’t know if I’d be able to. It took me a long time after what happened to me and it wasn’t even that bad.”

She chuckled quietly.

“What happened?” My voice was ragged with emotion but I needed to think about something other than what was going through my mind.

She took a deep breath and I saw her hands tighten on the controls.

“I was left on a planet to die.”

I stared at her blankly.

“What?”

She chuckled again.

“Unfortunately, it is that simple. I trained on the same base as you but years before your time. Andy had just started teaching there when I graduated. I was working professionally and had… ‘differing beliefs’ as to how we should handle a situation and the people there. I thought I’d be able to talk it over with my crew but… I got hit from behind and woke up to find myself covered in blood and surrounded by people. Last I heard, my crew claimed I was gravely injured and died there. Elliot picked me up a couple weeks after that.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Oh, shit indeed. I’ve been with Freo ever since.”

I nodded.

“Unfortunately, what happened to me isn’t that rare.”

“It isn’t? I’ve never heard of it happening before.”

Fornax laughed at that.

“What?” I asked finally.

“Do you really think that’s something they’d advertise? ‘Hey crews, if one member doesn’t do what you say, just leave them for dead’!”

She laughed again.

“Fair point. Is it really that common though?” I questioned.

She shrugged.

“Half the fighters on Freo who weren’t born there had similar experiences. Hell, almost the exact same thing happened to Trolis but he’s built like a warship so he didn’t go down so easy.”

She smiled lovingly.

“What happened with him?”

“You know what he’s like. He fought back. He argued with his crew before they started firing at him. A bolt through the arm later, he realised they were aiming to kill and disabled half of them. We picked him up not long after and signalled for the Council to pick up their leftovers. That boy has a lot of restraint. He didn’t kill a single one of those fuckers.”

The fury in her voice told me she would have reacted differently. I understood the sentiment. Your crew were the people in the universe who you were closest to. You had to trust them with your life and know that they had your back. I couldn’t even imagine being in a situation where my crew would betray me.

I’d just opened my mouth to respond when the radio blared into life.

“Fornax, Trolis, come in,” Aquila’s voice ordered.

“Here,” Fornax replied, flicking the controls over to me.

I took them, bringing the ship closer to Nova. I thought that I’d be happy to see the planet again, unlike when I left the orphanage and felt nothing, but all I felt was trepidation. I had so many good memories there but the bad ones were almost overpowering.

“Here,” Trolis’ deep voice came.

“Our fighters are preparing to breach the lower entry. Elliot has organised for you to be able to stream it into your main bays.”

“Rightio,” Fornax said, typing furiously before glancing up at Nova, “pull her to a stop here. We’ll go into the bay and watch. We can come back if needed.”

I did as she commanded, my heart hammering in my ears before relaying the orders to my crew.

We’re coming through now. Ready to watch this thing?

Not really, Gem shot back.

Yeah, me either, I thought as I took a deep breath and followed Fornax through the ship.