Shadow Cipher

9. Jake

Watching Nova is painful. She is clearly more injured than just the cut and bruises on her face. From how she's moving, it seems like she has injured ribs. That's not even to mention her shoulder. I can't believe she considered Kevin her friend and he did this to her. Sure, I plan to take her to Bolton, who will probably be even worse, but we were never friends.

Crawling through the maintenance shaft, I'm right behind her, which gives me a phenomenal view of her ass. Like, god damn.

We get to the escape pods and Nova opens one of the vents. I help her drop down, but she still has a bit of a drop which makes her wince and I wish I was down there to help steady her. I drop down as silently as possible while Nova gets into the ship's system to acquire us an escape pod. It is a small space, so she is basically sitting in my lap. I steady her with my hands on her hips. She gets into the system faster than I expect and we are off of Kevin's ship.

"It'll take us directly to your ship. By the way, what is your ship's name?" Nova asks.

I smile, because it is a bit ironic. "The Nova."

She chuckles then winces. I wrap my arms around her and say into her hear, "You can lean back and rest until we get to the ship. You did your part, now take a minute to decompress."

I thought she would just lean back and perhaps fall asleep, what I didn't expect was her to curl up into my lap (even though it makes her wince doing so) and sob. I just hold her and tell her everything will be okay. Eventually her sobs calm and she falls asleep.

We arrive at the ship. The pod we're in attaches to a docking port and we are able to board. Nova is asleep, so I carry her.

Franklyn is there waiting for us, "Captain! Are you okay? Is she okay? I'm so sorry, I didn't expect you to be captured! I didn't know what to do. I'm not programed to make decisions in regards to where to fly, so I couldn't follow you."

I pat the droid with my elbow since I don't have a free hand. "It's alright Franklyn. We are okay. As okay as can be at least. I'm taking Nova to the med bay. Can you put the ship into stealth mode so we can avoid this from happening again?"

"Of course captain! Does Nova need anything?"

I look at Nova. She's still wearing that douchebag's jacket. Her shirt has blood on it, and her pants are covered in dust from the vents we had to crawl through. "Can you bring Nova a change of clothes? Leggings, a s**t, and a sweater please."

"Right away captain!" Franklyn says as he rushes off and I take Nova to the med bay.

When we get to the med bay, I lay her down on the bio scanner. Damn, that asshole did a number on her. She has 3 fractured ribs, her shoulder is definitely inflamed, she may have a concussion, her face has bruises and there's a cut on her right cheek bone. I clench my fists in anger, take a few deep breathes and start pulling the meds she will need to recover. I start to set everything up on a table next to where she's lying, and she starts to wake. She groans and starts to stretch, but before I can warn her not to, she winces. Yup, I bet that hurt. She's pretty tough though.

"Worried you won't get paid if I'm not alive and well?" she says glumly.

I really hate being reminded as to why I have her on my ship. It's not like I can just back out of the job either. I already got paid up front, and Red Shadow never goes back on his word. "Something like that." I immediately regret my words when I see a tear slip out of her eye. Nothing I can do about it though. It's the truth. She's off to Bolton and there's nothing that will change that.

"I can take care of my injuries. You can go now." She dismisses me tersely. I sigh and head out of the med bay towards the command room.

Then the comes start blaring, "Entering planet atmosphere in t minus 5 minutes. Please find a seat." I race to the command room and realize Nova is close behind me. She actually slips into the pilot chair and we don't have enough time to argue, so I sit in the copilot chair. She takes the controls and maneuvers the ship easier than anyone, even I, could have. It's the smoothest atmosphere break I've ever experienced. Then I remember what planet we're entering and my blood runs cold. We shouldn't be here. Nobody should be here.