Two days later, Kayla helped Thandi get out of bed and into a pair of crutches. While they were practicing the strange new form of mobility, Lyna and Bibi also showed up to collect their squad-mate.

“Oh, hey, Kayla,” Lyna said. “How’s Yak doing?” She walked over and squeezed the unconscious woman’s hand.

“No change,” Thandi said. “But I’ve been playing her music and stuff.”

“Doctors know what they’re doing right?” Kayla said. “She’ll be on her feet and smiling before long.”

“Yeah,” Lyna said. “But she’ll need another month of rehab after that. Whatever they have planned for us next, she’ll be pissed to miss out on it.” She kissed Yak’s forehead, then turned to Kayla. “Are you coming to watch the show too?”

“Uh, I’ll help Thandi get over there,” Kayla replied. “I dunno if I want to hang around for some big science experiment. I might go workout.”

Thandi winked at the others as she began to hobble forwards. “She doesn’t get it yet, but she will.”

As they slowly made their way to the ship’s observation deck, they ran into other Rangers heading in the same direction. Kayla wondered what the big deal was.

Tian caught sight of them and pushed through the crowd with a big grin. “How’s the squad hero?”

Kayla shivered, and returned the grin with a blank smile. “Well, Yak’s still out, and Thandi’s barely walking, so…”

“No, I meant you. You saved everyone with that crazy stunt. Lyna, did you see her go up the crane?”

“No, Tian, I was shooting,” Lyna said. “Got a bit distracted.”

“It was like something out of a movie,” Tian gushed. “Kayla, did you really tear your muscles doing that?”

“Yeah, it was really painful afterwards.” Kayla tried to avoid her eye contact. Why couldn’t she just stop talking about it?

“And you were still able to shoot the machine gun? I know we’re all enhanced but that’s a little superhuman.”

“Is this the place?” Kayla asked.

The observation lounge off the corridor was filled with crewmembers, Rangers, and others. Huge windows let out onto the starscape beyond, while big displays showed a small point of light surrounded by blackness. Kayla peered closely at it. The glowing smudge appeared to be vibrating.

“Alright Thandi, I chaperoned you over here. I’m kind of surprised there are so many people to be honest.”

“Well duh,” Lyna said. “Who doesn’t want to watch a star explode?”

Kayla paused. “Wait what?”

“Not a star,” Bibi corrected. “Two orbiting stars will collide, and then explode.”

“What?” Kayla demanded, and turned to Thandi. “You told me it was going to be some dumb science project.”

“Nonsense,” Christie said as she pushed through the crowd to join them. “We said there would be a binary star merger. You assumed it would be uninteresting. It is not our fault that you have abandoned your intellectual growth in favor of wanton destruction.”

“Well—” Kayla began, before shutting her mouth. She had no good response to that.

“So, you’re off to the gym?” Thandi said with a smug grin. “I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

Kayla reddened and looked down. “I mean, I guess I could hang around… it could be kind of cool.”

“Hey Christie,” Tian said loudly. “Is it true that you’re in the Minerva Group? Can I ask you about the selection process?”

Kayla cringed as women around them went quiet and looked around. Christie pretended that she hadn’t heard the question. The Minerva Group was one of the most secretive and select intelligence units in Valkyrie. Its members were never named, or acknowledged, although it was widely known to participate in the most hair-raising operations. Kayla had always known that her friend had both a brilliant and ruthless mind, while her team leader, Zhang, was only ever seen working with tier one operators. That left only one inevitable conclusion, though they had never spoken about it, and probably never would.

Lyna snorted with laughter. “Oh, is it Minerva this week, Tian? Last week it was Raiders. Next week it will be ODT again.”

“Hasn’t been ODT for a while,” Thandi said with a sly wink. “I think she got scared of spacewalks.”

“I just like to be informed about potential career paths,” Tian said sulkily as the crowd’s chatter resumed.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I believe in you, honey,” Lyna said. “You’ll be the baddest operator in the organization as soon as you can figure out which badge matches your hair color.”

Tian looked away as her cheeks reddened. Kayla gave her arm a squeeze and saw her face scrunch in response. She knew she had done something stupid, and was obviously regretting it.

“Alright Chris, I can see you bursting with eagerness to stick your hand up,” Thandi said and gestured at one of the screens. “You want to explain this phenomenon to us?”

“Oh gosh, it’s not covered in the bible?” Christie shot back.

Thandi half-heartedly stabbed a crutch at her leg, which she easily sidestepped with a playful smirk.

“But since you so politely ask,” Christie said, “I will explain. You see, we have two neutron stars—”

“What’s a neutron star?” Kayla asked. “The small one, I guess, if memory serves.”

Christie cocked her head. “Okay, sure. When a really big star explodes, part of it gets compressed into an ultra-dense state, and you have something with the mass of a regular star but which is only twenty kilometers in diameter. So, if you took a teaspoon of its matter off the surface, it would weigh as much as a mountain.”

Kayla nodded happily. This seemed simple enough.

“And then sometimes,” Christie continued, “two neutron stars will end up orbiting around each other. But, as they orbit, their ultra-dense mass produces waves in the fabric of space-time. These waves cause instability in their orbit, which pushes the stars closer together. Right now, they are spinning around each other approximately eight hundred times per second, which is why it looks like it’s buzzing. They will, in a few minutes, collide at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.”

She gestured to one of the monitors which was zooming in on the brilliant, energetic dot.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Kayla said. “Because I don’t even know how to get my mind around half the absurd things you just said.”

Christie raised her eyebrows. “Hmm, yes. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can put it any more simply. It is what it is. Reality is often stranger than we can imagine.”

Kayla nodded. “Ridiculous space magic, got it.”

“Science is so fascinating,” cut in Bibi.

“No,” Thandi held up a finger. “Creation is fascinating. Science is just the telescope we use to observe its wonders. But I’m not saying it’s not a great telescope,” she said, as Christie looked like she was about to argue. “I’m just arguing for humility.”

“How do we know the impact time so precisely?” asked Bibi. “These events are supposed to be unpredictable.”

“Ah,” Christie said with a nod. “That’s because the shockwave only travels at the speed of light. Our vessels are much faster than that. The star system actually exploded four years ago, and Valkyrie dropped a series of probes at varying distances.”

“Well, that’s lame,” Kayla said. “If we’d gone earlier, we could have gotten a better view.”

“No,” Christie explained patiently. “Any closer and the Banshee’s shields would fail under the extreme radiation, resulting in the ship being vaporized.”

Kayla couldn’t keep a grin from sliding onto her face. “Cool.”

The buzz from the crowd faded as a speaker counted down the upcoming event. Kayla’s eyes flicked back and forth between the display and the ship’s windows. On the screen, the flickering white dot suddenly blossomed outward as a luminescent sphere of radiation. It began to fade, leaving twin fountains of matter exploding in opposite directions along the axis of rotation. They stretched for thousands of miles into space, while expanding vapor and light raced towards the recording probe. Then the feed went dead.

Out through the ship’s window, one of the stars had brightened substantially, but there was nothing else to see.

“Huh,” said Kayla. “If you were on a planet around here and you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t even notice something had happened.”

“If you were on a planet occupying the space we are in right now,” Christie said, “you would die in moments of lethal radiation exposure, while the atmosphere was stripped away to vacuum.”

“Seriously?”

“Of course. We are currently being flooded with more energy than would be released from a nuclear weapon. But most of it isn’t light energy; it’s gamma, alpha and beta particles. Fortunately for us, the Banshee’s shield keeps us safe. Unless Tian knocks something on the control panel she’s leaning against.”

The Ranger leaped away from the bulkhead and span around, eyeing the small panel suspiciously. Members of the crew nearby laughed.

“That’s an environmental control,” a woman said. “Good to see Rangers keeping up their shipboard knowledge.”

The observation lounge began to empty as the crowd returned to their daily routine.

Bibi cleared her throat, and Kayla turned to watch her with interest. When not training, the woman was usually to be found with her head in a book, and rarely spoke if she didn't have to.

“The super cool thing is,” Bibi said, “that neutron star collisions produce most of the day-to-day elements in the galaxy—Oxygen, nitrogen, even metals. This event probably produced several planets worth of gold in that one explosion.”

“That’s awesome,” Kayla said enthusiastically. “Let’s go get a dropship and visit one of them.”

The others stared at her in confusion.

“Visit… what? What are you saying?” Thandi demanded.

“One of the gold planets that’s just been sent spinning off into space. I want to go visit one of them,” Kayla insisted with a twinkle in her eye, and a smirk on her lips.

“Don’t be absurd you petulant girl,” Christie scolded. “There isn’t an actual planet made of gold out there. Good grief.”

“Oh, so after all that silly space magic you just described, I can’t be queen of my own personal gold planet? That’s just unfair.”

Thandi gawped at her. “And what are you going to do with a solid gold planet at your feet, exactly?”

“I would have a solid gold palace, with gold gardens, and gold servants, and I would wear gold dresses all day. It would be awesome come on, where’s your imagination?”

“And what are you breathing all that time?” Bibi asked.

“Oxygen, duh. The gravity would hold an atmosphere. But it would be like… sparkly air—gold flecked.”

Christie nodded wisely. “Oh, of course. And so, you died of metal poisoning within days. Gosh, what an exciting adventure.”

“I’ll be at your gold funeral, Kayla,” Lyna said sympathetically. “I’m sure it’ll be nice. I’ll be wearing a combat suit though, so I don’t die.”

“Queen Kayla the golden,” Kayla said with a sigh. “I shall be remembered for my wisdom, and compassion.” She cocked her head. “Maybe not compassion. I’ll probably cut off a lot of heads when my gold subjects misbehave.”

Thandi smirked. “Someone wants to be a Philosopher Queen. Remember how we used to talk about that in boot camp?”

“Oh yeah,” Kayla said excitedly. “How the Jotnar were trying to enslave humans by recruiting philosophers.”

Lyna gave her an odd look. “Huh? What are you talking about now?”