Xavin had been on auto-pilot for four days.
It had been a week since she managed to escape from her cell, and about five days since she realized she was wounded badly. A further day to figure out how to put the autopilot on and program it, but finally she could rest. A large gap in her side was going from numb throbbing to aching and pounding, but she could just rest it off and wait for her body to repair it.
So she lay on her bed in the ship she had stolen and let it steer itself. She found herself missing the static, metallic voice of Chase's faithful contraption, and that got her thinking.
Where was she going?
"Home," a voice said, but where was home? Her birth home was destroyed, and Karolina was on Earth.
She choked back a sob, even if she was alone and no one would know. But she held back her tears until absolutely necessary. She looked out of the window, at the vast universe laid out before, behind, above, below her, and she fished the compass from her pocket.
It was battered and bruised after a whole eighteen months of being stored on her night and day. But she still saw a shimmer of Karolina on it. It was faint, and tiny, but she saw a little bit of her energy on it, rainbow and glowing, so very Karolina and so very lovely.
Xavin brought it to her lips, brushing her mouth against the place where the energy signature lay, and smiled as she felt it, the course of energy that made her happy. Karolina always did this for her…
She breathed in a heavy sigh, trying to calm her thoughts, and screwed her eyes shut. She needed a plan, something to do, something she had to go by.
She looked outside, at the vast expanse of stars, and felt a memory lunge into her, so forcefully that she didn't have time to react.
"It's called Peter Pan. It's one of my favourite stories."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What is it about?"
Karolina shrugged. "Growing up, letting go, being a child…"
"Quite contradictory, isn't it?"
"It's about this young boy who lives in a place called Never Never Land, where you can never grow old. And he takes these three children with him, and it's about learning to grow up and still be a kid at the same time."
"I see…" Xavin murmured, and took the book from Karolina's hands.
"I wish I could get there."
"You think it exists?" Xavin asked, and Karolina shrugged.
"Well, I wouldn't be surprised."
"How do you get there?" Xavin smiled at Karolina, who leaned forward and kissed her quickly.
"Second star on the right, and straight on until morning," Xavin murmured to herself, repeating the words Karolina had said to her so long ago. She smiled, and gripped the steering wheel. Onwards she was going, she knew her destination, she knew her directions…
When she got tired, she went back to autopilot, falling asleep again for a few hours. Her side was healing slowly, the gaping hole taking on a green tinge that meant she would be better soon. She found some small remnants of a meal in a safe part of the hull and scavenged that, and soon realized that she was so close to Earth, she was getting transmissions.
She ignored a few that seemed to be coming from NASA, and hooked on to a familiar frequency that Chase used to blast whenever he caught onto the station. Something that sounded like Kaboom!? Or was it…Kerrang? That was it!
"Hey, you're listening to Kerrang, and we're gonna play a bit of an Avenged Sevenfold Oldie for you. Here is 'Gunslinger'."
The song started up, and as Xavin started to regain control of the ship, steering it slowly towards Earth, she smiled as the lyrics came to her over the speakers.
"Yeah, you've been alone, I've been gone for far too long, but with all that we've been through, after all this time I'm coming home to you…"
