Shoes paced restlessly down a metal deck. Mechanical arms clicked and whirred over their surgical work. A sharp gasp of pain, which Nikki hushed back with her hands and her voice. "Easy, it's okay. You'll be okay."
From behind her came a shaky murmur. "An alien … a real live, god-damn alien."
Audrey rotated on the spaceship's deck in slow, disbelieving circles, sucking on a cigarette the way a hospital patient might grab an oxygen mask for relief. She'd kept placid long enough to help drag Celeste up the ramp, but once inside her mind retreated in shellshock.
"Nik, this is all real, isn't it?"
Nikki didn't reply, didn't even notice the question. Her senses were focused entirely on her wounded Valkyrie; she wouldn't have noticed the diva if she were swearing and prying up the metal floorboards. She barely noticed Cogni's spare camera body peering over her shoulder at the raised medical stretcher, where segmented pincer arms worked over Celeste's inert form with needles and laser cutters. Another gasp. She gripped Celeste's hand in both of her own, wishing she could absorb and take on the hurt herself.
"You'll be okay," she repeated. "You're onboard the ship. Cogni's going to fix you up. It's gonna be okay."
In the back of her mind, she wondered just who she was trying to convince. Celeste was hanging on by a thread.
The skin around her shattered horn was black with blood. Burns and blisters from the slave bracer seared her arms and chest. Cogni had injected her full of painkillers and stemmed the worst of the bleeding but there were just so many wounds to treat. Celeste's body trembled with lingering pain and her breathing came in shallow gasps.
"You're safe…" she coughed. "Pa na isho, you're safe…"
"Of course Nikki's safe! She had you looking out for her, right?" Audrey stomped over to the table with a blustery grin plastered on her face.
"Nik, this is nothing! You should've seen this bitch slice up that giant monster thing at the docks! Ran up with nothing but a shiv and she's hacking and stabbing that fucker into a bloody, green hamburger! I got tossed in the air like a chew toy, and this chick comes up and catches me!" She leveled a smirk at Celeste. "Just had to have a big, damn hero moment, huh?"
Celeste did her best to chuckle. "Enduring your … driving skills … required … far more bravery."
"Please! Nik, get this – after we dumped Tiff with the paramedics, this bitch starts barking at me like, 'I require vehicular transport! Take me to the forested region!' Well of course I'm gonna drive like a bat outta hell!" Audrey took a fresh puff and laughed out the smoke. "I seriously thought you were Australian, you know that?"
"And I … convinced myself … you were … intelligent enough … to remain hidden." Celeste's words shook with displeasure, and yet she raised her finger in the Earth gesture of approval. Audrey smirked and flashed back both middle fingers.
"Bitch, please! I'm the naughtiest donkey you ever met!" Then she clapped Nikki on the shoulder. "See, Nik? She's gonna pull through in no time!"
The cigarette trembled between her fingers, but Nikki took the hint and forced herself to smile.
"Y-yeah," she declared weakly. "Celeste, you're going to pull through this. We'll take you back to my place – I'll get the bedroom all set up for you to rest. I'll take the week off work and look after you! And when you're healed up, we'll hit the town and celebrate! Bowling, dancing, um–"
"A target range … to practice your … firearms."
"Yeah! Anything you want! We'll take Audrey and Tiffany; Cogni, you can use one of your bird remotes and come too, right?"
She turned to the camera bot, inviting the AI to join in their illusion. Cogni narrowed her aperture like she was squinting with incomprehension.
"The bleeding has been stabilized, but these wounds are beyond my capacity to treat. Ki-Celeste must be placed into cryo-sleep and transported to the nearest medical starport."
On cue, a floor compartment hissed open, summoning a glass capsule similar to what Rondarr had used to lock up Kyu and Anton. To Nikki, it looked like a metal coffin. So it had come to this.
"Right … c'mon."
She and Audrey each took a shoulder, and with the help of Cogni's tractor beams they settled Celeste into the capsule's padded interior. Audrey stood by awkwardly while Nikki crouched to whisper her assurances.
"Celeste, we're gonna put you to sleep now, okay? We're gonna get you help."
Her Valkyrie raised her lips in a smile. "Cryogenic … transportation. Nicole, let me … see you … once more. Before I wake … from this precious dream."
Nikki went livid. "What're you saying? I'm coming with you! I'll stay with Cogni, make sure she gets you somewhere safe! I'm gonna make sure you're okay."
"Cogni will … direct… the physicians. Your presence… will merely… cause alarm."
Her presence. Right, her alien presence. Out among the stars, she would be the anomaly carted off to a galactic government lab for dissection and study.
"But you'll come back," Nikki added. "As soon as you're fixed up, you'll come back to me!"
Burdened with memory, Celeste's eyes fell away.
"Nicole … you recall … the cupidae-"
"We talked about the love fairies. They told us about Rondarr, right? They want to keep us safe!"
"They want you... kept... hidden," Celeste wheezed. "Your world ... Nicole, they ... present themselves as gods ... compassionate spirits ... but they - they -" She broke off into coughing. Nikki held her hand until she was done.
"Chiletto, they ... demanded that I leave. They declared that ... if I did not depart ... they would ..."
She couldn't finish, but recalling their threats brought strength flowing back into her eyes. "I will not allow them to harm you," she declared.
"So you're leaving me?" Nikki squeezed Celeste's hand tight, refusing to let go. "No… No! You can't just give up like this!" Not after all they had gone through to be here! "We're supposed to be together, Celeste! I …" Her voice was falling to pieces, but she forced her lips to part.
"Celeste, I love you."
The pain in Celeste's face wasn't just from her injuries. "Ashi iko cho, Chiletto. I adore you with all my soul…" She swallowed. "But this is … an opponent … I cannot best."
What had they said to her? What kind of threats had these kindly, pink fairies made to her Valkyrie? She forced her mind to search back, to peer at those searing, white flashes of memory and scrape up some glimmer of a clue. Ugh! Still nothing but blanks.
"You have to come back! Celeste, I need you. I need you to be with me. I can't go back to being alone."
A touch. A caress of trembling fingertips across her cheek, like she was a priceless treasure to be handled with utmost care. But Celeste didn't see frailty.
"You are so much... stronger than you realize..." she smiled softly, "and you are never... alone." Her eyes drifted to the raven haired girl shivering in the refrigerated ship. "Live your life... Nicole Ann Marie. I can be happy... knowing you are safe."
Why couldn't she see reason? Nikki rifled through her dress, found the keys to her apartment and pressed them into Celeste's palm.
"Come back to me." She didn't care about fairies or gods or any other supernatural crap that dared to threaten them. "Just come back home."
The metallic floor trembled as engines came online. Cogni lowered on her periscope arm to get at eye level with the capsule.
"Coordinates set, Ki-Celeste. We must depart." Audrey's hand touched Nikki's shoulder.
"Nik, c'mon - this thing's starting to move."
The capsule lid began to seal, and only Audrey's quick reflexes kept the glass from shutting over Nikki fingers. Even as she was pulled backwards, Nikki's eyes fixed to Celeste like they were tied by invisible strings. Then a hiss of frosty air filled the tube, obscuring the glass. The ship's machinery retracted the capsule into the floor.
"No!" Nikki lunged after it but Audrey had pinned her tight around the arms. The ship was rumbling towards takeoff but she didn't care. She wanted - needed to stay! "I have to – I have to be with her!"
"You heard the robot. Everybody off! This ship's leaving!"
She fought the diva every step of the way, kicking and flailing, but Audrey still dragged her down the ramp and outside, where the blasts of steam and heat made it impossible to race forward.
The Wraith's Wings rose on thunderous thrusters, maneuvered its sickle-wings skyward and exploded into the atmosphere. Nikki chased the afterburners higher and higher, following until the ship's fire was just another pinprick of light among the countless stars.
The dust settled, the wind died and the forest returned to its natural stillness.
Celeste was gone, back among the heavens.
Leaving her here.
Alone.
Wind whipped through her blue hair as Nikki watched the dull, orange haze of Glenberry grow on the horizon. Riding shotgun in Audrey's red convertible, it wasn't speed that blurred her sightlines, but the tears welling up in her eyes.
Audrey's fingers tapped restlessly on the wheel. She'd tried turning on the radio, but the cheery pop songs felt so out of place and she settled for silence. Nikki could feel the diva glancing at her, nervously chewing her lip until she finally grunted in frustration.
"Are you just gonna sit there? For fuck's sake, I just watched an alien goat-woman stab a dinosaur through the chest and take off in a motherfucking spaceship! And that's after I was almost eaten by some god-damn tentacle monster from outer space! Fuck, maybe you can just shrug it off, but I need to talk!"
"I thought I had things figured out," Nikki murmured against Audrey's outburst. She'd always been guilty of drifting through life, not really thinking of the future. Being with Celeste had given her purpose. She'd been gifted a shining, blue beacon to light her way, granting her a life - a love - to strive towards.
"You know that building that collapsed downtown? That was Celeste, and I was there. Just trying to talk to her. I almost fell from the roof and got crushed, that's how bad I wanted to be with her! And now she's gone. She's gone. Audrey, what am I supposed to do now?"
Audrey's only reply was to continue driving. Then -
"Couple months back, I met this guy." Audrey grunted, lighting another cigarette as she drove. "Guess you could say he was the perfect guy. Nice to look at, cared for animals, made me smile. A god-damn saint. Sure as hell didn't work out."
Nikki turned her head. "What happened?"
Audrey didn't respond all at once. Her eyes and hands tensed with that glazed, spaced-out look she'd emitted at the café, and then again at the diner and the dance club. For a moment, Nikki worried that the car would slip into the ditch, then -
"Oh fuck this! Wasted enough time getting mopey over that piece of shit." Audrey shook herself from the trance, snorting and flicking her cigarette down the highway.
"Let's just say he wasn't after me for my personality. Tried to get me drunk so he could rip off my dress and get all grabby…"
Nikki stiffened. "Did he –"
"Tiff showed up and stopped him, okay? Fuck, I don't know why I'm telling you this. I mean, your girlfriend just shanked a guy in the chest to keep you safe; that's how much you meant to her." She drummed her fingers on the wheel. "I guess both our happy endings turned out shitty. Just shrug it off and keep going, I guess."
Nikki didn't answer that heresy. How do I go on without Celeste?
"Fuck!" Audrey blurted as they pulled up to Nikki's apartment building. "Tiffany – she's probably at the hospital right now. I gotta go find her. You coming?"
Nikki shook her head. "Audrey, I need some time alone. You'll text me, though? When you find her?"
"Never did bother taking you off speed dial." Nikki shut the car door but Audrey didn't leave immediately. "You sure? I don't do this break-up crap like, ever but … aren't I supposed to make you coffee? Buy a bunch of ice cream so we can gush and all that crap?"
"I'm not hungry," Nikki sighed. Then she paused. "That story about that guy. Audrey … that was some scary shit. You don't deserve that."
"Yeah, well you don't deserve to be trashed because you're into girls, but there's some real assholes out there." Her eyes drifted shamefully. Nikki swallowed carefully.
"Hey, maybe … can we hang out later?"
Ruby eyes smirked her way. "Why not? Someone's gonna have to drag you out of that apartment. Might as well be someone fabulous."
"Fuck you," Nikki scoffed, and Audrey returned her grin.
"Only in your dreams, bitch."
It wasn't until the diva drove off that the full weight of the emptiness hit her.
Celeste was gone.
Nikki shuffled up the stairwell in a daze while her mind grappled with this new reality.
Celeste was gone.
Upstairs, there'd be no one to greet her. When she opened her apartment door, there'd be no one waiting to ask her about her day. Playing video games, the second controller would go unused. No one shaking her head at Star Fox's 'intriguing interpretations of interstellar lifeforms' or flailing wildly at Sonic's 'confounded targeting reticles!'
After she brushed her teeth and slipped on her pajamas, there'd be no one waiting in bed to scoop her into her arms, kiss her softly on the neck and hold her in a warm hug as they snuggled off to sleep.
Celeste really was gone.
But she had to be coming back! She had to! What about all the stuff she left at the apartment? Weapons, clothing … Her projector sphere!
Nikki rushed up the stairs with new purpose. She wanted to bolt inside, gather up all these little mementos and hold them tight, breathing in her lover's heavy, lavender musk. It would only be a shadow, but she'd still have a piece of Celeste next to her heart.
Shit, how am I gonna get in? Giving Celeste her apartment keys was starting to feel more rash than romantic. She'd locked herself out! It had been sheer luck that a neighbour had propped open the back entrance after a smoke break. Was she going to have to sleep in the hallway? Maybe I should have gone with Audrey…
Arriving on her floor, Nikki was immediately puzzled by one suite's opened door and the boxes piled in front of it. Someone moving out at midnight? Wonder who's apart- ? Wait, that's my apartment! Nikki dashed down the hall and through her front door.
The fairies rummaging through her belongings all looked up at once.
Love fairies. Each one sporting bright, pastel hair, short dresses in floral designs and wings like butterflies and katydids. One had been stuffing Celeste's clothes into a pink packing crate. A second had been browsing the files on her computer, finger tapping the delete key. More still had been tracing wands and spray bottles over her walls and bedsheets like a winged home cleaning service.
They were sterilizing her apartment.
"Holy shit! Ladies – check this out!" The silent stares broke when one oblivious fairy with pink hair phased into the main room, waving Celeste's black evening gown in her hands. "It's one of those Kajad all-night stripper dresses! Ho ho, someone was gettin' bi-zay in here!"
Nikki couldn't believe her eyes. "Kyu?"
The fairy turned, and her party girl cheer morphed into the mortified look of a teen busted by her parents. The dress dropped to the floor.
"Champ?" The nickname cinched it. Kyu - the cop, Tiffany's roommate, Rondarr's kidnapping victim. She was a fairy. "Wh-what're you -? I mean, you're supposed to -"
"That's Celeste's dress!" Nikki shouted. Her horrified mind raced through every tender moment shared with her lover in that gown, every nervous touch and heated gasp. Nikki stomped forward and seized the leather dress in her arms, daring the pink fairy to try and defile it with her jokes.
"What's going on here? What're you people doing in my apartment?"
While the pink fairy fumbled for an answer, another sprite with fiery red hair and a leg brace flew forward and slapped Kyu upside the head.
"I thought you were monitoring that tracking charm, Sugardust! Janus' junk, she's not supposed to see this!"
"You would have had to return for her phone anyway," a regal voice commented from the kitchenette. "Just get it done now."
"Right away." Snapping to attention like a soldier, the red-haired fairy marched up and phased her hand into Nikki's pocket, plucking out her smart phone. "Hey!" Nikki swiped at the fairy, but her hand slipped through the magical girl like she was made of mist.
"Oh lovely," the ginger fairy grunted. "She had the entire crash-landing recorded with commentary! Minerva's mammaries, she could've put this all on their Internet!" She grumbled to herself as she began deleting the videos.
"You can't do that!" Again, Nikki grabbed at the fairy. Again, her hand slipped through. She might as well have been threatening a hologram. All around her, the fairies resumed their work:
"Computer clear?"
"No vids or pics, all good!"
"Hey, I need some more sanitizer for these sheets!"
"Just a sec – and check underneath the bed too!"
"Hey, is this human toothpaste?"
"Just take it all. Better safe than sorry!"
Nikki had seen this trope play out in so many sci-fi stories: a team of black-ops agents combing over a crash site and scrubbing it clean of all alien presence. Except instead of black-suited CIA agents these were flowery fairies, aliens in their own right! Aliens in charge of an alien cover-up!
A neon blue haired fairy stepped forward and yanked Celeste's dress from her grip. Celeste. They were taking away Celeste!
"You can't do this," she cried out, launching herself at each fairy in turn, trying to paw at them. "Those are Celeste's clothes! You can't take those!" To the bedroom. Before they find it! I have to save -
"Heads up, another tech piece!"
Nikki froze in horror. Celeste's projector sphere – they were loading it into one of their boxes!
"Noo!" Nikki dove in, and for just a second she was able to grab and tug at the box. Then the startled fairies extended their phasing powers and she was sent tumbling while they scurried out with their prize. "You can't take that! She stores her pictures in there! It's all the memories she has left of her planet! Please, those are her memories!"
She tried following the fairies, but then she noticed one especially tall and green-haired sprite poking her head into the fridge. They're raiding my food too? Wait, why didn't this fairy have any wings? She'd been giving orders before. Was she a supervisor?
"Hey, that's my mom's quiche! You can't just –"
Then the woman turned and Nikki's protest dropped along with her jaw. All of space and time fell away. She's … oh wow! The night was cold and miserable but this masked woman glowed like a warm fire. Nikki's feet staggered mindlessly towards her promise of warmth and comfort.
"Needs more salt," was all the woman grunted. No, not a woman – a goddess! Her flawless, centerfold body was crowned with a golden theatre mask and it kept sliding up her face as she shovelled forkloads of scrambled egg into her dainty, ruby lips. Just that innocent flash of a chin or a lower lip sent Nikki trembling like she'd been treated to a full-frontal striptease. Her goddess licked her lips and spoke to her, but the words came in clipped:
"Well, you mother … passable … Don't suppose … napk… in your …" Wait, what was she… saying? Hard to … remember…
Don't look at her!
Celeste's voice hit her like cold water, and Nikki dropped to her knees, duck and cover style, hands pressed over her eyes. She's the one. She's the one that messed with my memories! Nikki could hear the regal click of high heels as the woman approached. She squeezed her eyes into thin lines.
"Why're you doing this?" she whimpered. The goddess seemed amused by her trembling.
"Darling, don't take it personally - this is just the regular clean-up after your planet entertains guests. There's other teams decontaminating the carnival grounds and the nature preserve as we speak. Any evidence of visitors from beyond your planet, my fairies make it vanish." She paused to enjoy her purloined meal.
"Panic has such a distasteful flavor," she continued. "You people are so much easier to manage when you think you're the only intelligent species in the universe."
So she was the one in charge of this conspiracy. That meant she had the power to make it right again! "Celeste – you have to let her come back!"
"Let me guess," the goddess began in a mocking tone, "because you're madly in love with her? Because you're star-crossed lovers meant for each other?" A disapproving cluck of the tongue. "It gets so boring listening to you virgins blather on like broken records. Think for a minute: she's a cold-climate species with an extreme metabolism. Assuming you could keep her fed, your little love bird would still fry like an egg in this planet's summers."
"We'd find a way," Nikki objected. "We'd make it work!"
"How sweet. A long distance relationship? Please, I know how that little game ends: other mercenaries start tracking her; they trail her to this little, blue haven. Or she gets lonely and lets her secret slip over a few drinks. Soon enough your planet is a bustling galactic port, you're all learning and intermingling. You start swapping stories about culture and folklore."
Nikki finished the thought. "And someone comes to warn us about the con-artist cupidaemons and their shitty, memory-eating fake goddess!"
Time stopped. The fairies at their work – moving boxes, deleting files – it all stopped. A furious shadow fell over Nikki.
"Are you arguing with me?"
Invisible hands snatched at her shoulders, yanked her into the air like a puppet on strings. The golden mask loomed over her face with the furious fire of the sun. It was coming off.
"Oh, you can't keep those little eyes shut forever," the goddess taunted. Her finger trailed across Nikki's cheek; Nikki gasped at the contact. "Look at me," she demanded. "Look at me and let me take the hurt away."
The same invisible arms holding her up were now prying at her eyelids. The golden mask was raised and the light behind it was blinding.
"I'm going to find you people, you 'fairies'," Nikki promised. "I'm going to make sure the whole world knows what you cupidaemons really are! "
And just like that, her strings were cut and she fell to the floor. The goddess' mask was back in place and the woman stared at her with that expressionless, gold facade.
Her head tipped back in howling laughter.
"I haven't – I haven't laughed in … oh, I'm in stitches, you're so adorable!" Nikki risked a glance up, saw her leaning on the kitchen counter and gasping for air.
"Good luck with that," the goddess smirked, snapping her fingers and waltzing out the door. The fairies understood their cue.
"Kay, ladies – time to pack it up!" The fairies! One by one they were taking the last of the boxes out the door. Nikki dashed after them.
"No! Please don't do this!" She begged them, grovelled before them; tried to snatch at their wrists to plead but only phased through their ethereal bodies. Nikki tumbled to the floor and her glasses bounced off her face.
"My glasses!" Shit, not now, not when the last fairy had just left! She patted the floor, trying to find them in the blur.
"Here." Slender fingers handed over her lenses. Nikki refit her glasses and the pink haze kneeling before her refocused.
Kyu.
"Back there," the fairy coughed, "that was just me showing off for the girls. You know that, right?"
"How could you?" The rage she'd leveled at Audrey? That had been a warm-up. This was undiluted, righteous fury and if she could, she'd slap the fairy where she stood. "You're a love fairy! You're supposed to help people find their soul mates, not rip us apart!"
"Champ, we all got jobs we gotta do. You know all about keeping your boss happy, right? I mean, making the Big V laugh like that? Genius! Pure genius!"
Nikki couldn't believe the excuses pouring like puke from this girl's mouth. "I saved your life and all you can do is rant about your lousy job? Celeste was right," she scowled. "You people really are monsters."
The way the fairy staggered, Nikki's emotions might as well have been bullets. Kyu's entire body drooped shamefully, wings and all, like she was shouldering an immense, invisible pile of rocks. "Champ, I …" she stopped. Her eyes opened at alarm and she pointed to the crystal bangle over Nikki's wrist. "Wait, is that –?"
"Miss Sugardust? I believe I said we were leaving." The dreaded high heels clicked down the hallway, and the masked goddess peered through the doorway. Kyu slapped both her hands over Nikki's wrist and whispered for silence.
A bright and perky grin greeted the fairy goddess. "Yep! On my way, boss. Just had to remove her tracking charm!" A hand waved over Nikki's shoulder, causing pink sparks to burst painlessly from her skin. "Just gotta do a quick maintenance spell and we're good."
For a long moment, the golden mask bore holes into the fairy's nervous grin. Finally, a shrug. "Don't keep me waiting." And she waltzed off, muttering something about needing a drink.
Kyu released her wrist, and they both stared at the bracelet's white fire, the hidden token linking them together.
"This isn't right," Kyu muttered, eyes puffy and red. "By the Botoxed bitch I call my boss, this isn't right. But this is all I can do. I'm sorry, Champ. I'm really, really sorry."
She stood and ran out the door.
Nikki looked around at her apartment, her home, scrubbed clean of every trace of Celeste's presence. The luggage, the clothing she'd brought – gone. Nikki went to the bedroom, seized the bedsheets and inhaled. The stale odor of disinfectants assaulted her nostrils.
It was like Celeste had never existed - that her laughter had never echoed through these rooms, that cloven feet had never clicked across these floors. That her adoring, golden eyes had never gazed upon a lonely little girl like she was the most treasured being in all the galaxy.
Nikki fell to the bed, clutching at the alien bracelet and its faint glow like embers in a dying fire.
Now she truly was alone.