Heat

0, 0, 0, 0 was the centre of the universe in the same way 12:00 a.m. was the centre of a clock. Wasn’t like anything special happened at midnight. For all anybody knew, it could’ve been randomly chosen. But, Millie never thought so.

If it was up to Tet, midnight should’ve never come at all.

She stepped out through the windshield and onto the Dalia’s palm. Her feet thudded onto the titanium chassis.

“And I thought it was cold up there,” she said, her breath fogging up the helmet’s inside.

The cavern the monster had been guarding was somehow chillier than the surface. It was a dozen times taller than the Dalia itself, with only shreds of the alien sunlight squeezing in through its cracked roof. Lavender ivies drooped from the walls and ceiling like ugly tendrils, swaying in the frosty draft. It smelled horrible, even through her helmet’s filter.

The Dalia crouched behind Tet, its arm whirring and bringing her closer to the rocky wall. She braced herself against its titanium thumb to keep the 2.9 G gravity from flattening her.

“Is that close enough?” Millie asked, muffled.

Their voice chimed from the cockpit’s speakers.

She squinted. “Lil’ more—“

Suddenly, the makeshift platform bucked, nearly tossing her off.

“Easy there!” she shouted.

The Dalia slumped.

“S—Sorry!” they said.

Tet sighed. That was why she had to mine the aistra herself. Mechs were nowhere near gentle enough. And if you struck a chunk wrong, the negative mass might just implode your helmet.

The Dalia’s arm came to a noisy stop. A beefy vein of aistra was wedged in the moist stone ahead. She hunkered down onto one knee, aimed her electric chisel to the side, and flicked it on. It kicked to life, spitting dust onto her legs and the Dalia’s palm.

Now, they waited. The only thing slower than ordinary space travel was ordinary mining.

“We’re gonna be here all day,” she groaned. “Might as well power off, Mills.”

The Dalia shifted underneath.

“Eh? You’re sure you’ll be fine?” Millie asked.

She slid the chisel a millimetre down. The gravity made it feel like a boulder.

“Yeah, I’ll be good. Just wish it wasn’t so cold.” Her spacesuit’s insulation only helped so much.

Soon enough, the speakers had gone quiet. Usually, Millie wouldn’t stop babbling. That meant they must’ve powered off.

She ignored the biting cold, and her chisel’s obnoxious buzzing, and glanced back. The Dalia squatted idle in the same pose, its windshield painted with alien plant mucus and insides.

Worse for wear was an understatement. But as long as the engine still ran, it didn’t matter. Just meant she’d have to give it a good buffing before handing it back, if it ever came to that.

Then again, she’d stolen it in the first place; a couple more scratches wasn’t much of a difference.

She shrugged. “Guess I’ll cross that bridge if I get there.”

She brushed a handful of mining dust off the Dalia’s palm. Surprisingly, the chassis wasn’t cold anymore. It felt almost warm against her suit.

“Huh?” She tapped it with her foot. “Mills!”

The Dalia bounced.

“Here!” Millie responded.

“The Dalia’s runnin’ warm. Can you check if something’s up?” she asked.

The Dalia creaked in response, swivelling from side to side. “Mmm. Well, I’m not sure—”

“Mills.”

Millie yelped. “I—I might’ve overclocked the actuators, to keep you warm!”

“Wha—Mills!” Tet whipped around, chisel buzzing into the air.

She sprang to her feet and marched towards the mech. Her weighty footsteps clanged against the chassis. “When the hell’d I say you could do that!”

The mech raised its other arm to deflect a wrench from Tet’s belt. The projectile pounded the windshield with a pathetic clank. They couldn’t be serious.

“You trying to get us stranded, or what!?” she said.

The mechanical arm dipped, exposing hints of the indigo-stained windshield.

“N—No! Of course not!” Millie cried.

“Well! How am I s’posed to get you to the centre of the universe with fried actuators, huh?”

She took another step forwards, thrusting a finger at the robot. Its head spun towards the entrance in shame.

“...Sorry.” Millie’s voice warbled. “The calculations looked fine…” They trailed off.

Her fingers clenched around the chisel. Sometimes, they really were the same, old Millie from back then.

“Do whatever, then. I don’t care.” She scoffed, turning back towards the aistra. “Just keep it steady.”

She plopped down crisscrossed and raised the chisel again. If Millie wanted to screw with their ride, that was their problem. They wanted to see the centre, not Tet.

The Dalia rasped beneath as she mined. Millie hadn’t switched the actuators off. Not that she cared.

Frost and aistra dust started settling on the outside of her helmet. After a half-hour of brainless mining, Millie finally spoke up.

“...How big is it?” they asked quietly.

Tet’s right hand had grown tired, so she swapped the chisel to the left.

“Big,” she said. “Might be enough to get us there. Maybe.”

The chunk looked leagues better than anything else she’d scavenged. If they were lucky, that much aistra could astral jump them the rest of the way.

“That’s good,” Millie whispered.

Tet didn’t respond.

She yawned. Before she’d noticed, she was nestled up against the Dalia’s motorised thumb.

Besides the residual heat from Millie’s monitors in the cockpit, space was unbearably cold most the time. It reminded her of the days in the station. When they’d snuggled together under insulated blankets too small for them, warmth prickling between their bodies.

Back then, Millie had asked her something.

“I wonder what the centre of the universe’s like.”

It’d been close to midnight, and Tet could barely hear her over the droning heater.

“Huh?” Tet asked. “Why’d you care?”

“It’s probably pretty different, don’t you think?” Millie turned towards the ceiling. “Maybe what's strange here, wouldn't be strange there at all.”

She smiled. Those days, they didn’t last long.

“I’d like to visit it someday.”

The aistra popped out from the cavern wall with an echoing crunch. Tet dropped her still-running chisel, groggily sitting up to catch it.

She cracked open her palms to reveal the glittering stone. “Gotcha.”

Perfect. She couldn’t tell just how dense it was, considering aistra was weightless and all. But, there was a good chance it was enough to get them there.

Millie hadn’t budged. Tet glanced towards the Dalia again, finding the lights in the cockpit dimmed.

“Hah.”

They’d hibernated, after all. She started towards the mech, actuators still grinding underneath her feet.

“Calculations, my ass.”

Steaming oil seeped through the chassis’s rims. After overclocking them for an hour straight, there wasn’t a chance in hell the actuators weren’t worn out.

She frowned. “...Liar.”

* * *

“All set, Millie?” Tet flicked a row of overhead switches on.

“Windshield, clean. Coordinates, set.” Millie’s digital arms were crossed. “No issues. I guess.”

They hadn’t faced Tet straight-on since the mining incident. Not that it mattered, because their journey would be over soon enough. Just one more astral jump, and Tet would finally fulfill their promise.

She stopped herself from glancing at them, too. “Sounds good.”

She pulled the lever, and the Dalia cranked. Below, the forge’s copper prongs started crackling, rattling the cockpit and her scattered medications alongside it. Her fingers coiled around the handles as the pilot’s seat shuddered.

Sometimes, she felt jealous of the newer, smoother mech models. The Dalia made astral jumping feel closer to self-destructing.

The universe snapped. Swirling colours streaked past the windshield as the stars stretched into tapered strings of white. Their coordinates plunged, the numbers flipping quickly enough that she could hardly read them.

2,400 turned into 2,100. 2,100 turned into 1,300, and Tet’s frown twisted into a wobbly grin. They were fast approaching 0, 0, 0, 0.

She’d never handled an aistra that dense before. At that rate, they’d be at their destination in no time. Even Millie paused their pouting to glance over at the coordinates. They’d uncrossed their arms and raised a hand towards the glass monitor. Or, maybe it was towards her.

Tet motioned with her head. “Keep your eyes peeled for the centre, Mill—“

The Dalia screeched. Tet’s forehead smashed against the windshield with a ringing crack. In unison, the overhead lights and monitors flickered off, and the smell of smoke filled the room.

She groaned, rolling across the cockpit’s floor. Ventilators hissed. Warm blood dribbled down her nose. It was too blurry to make anything out. She wrenched a hand around one of the handles and hauled herself into the seat.

“Nngh… Mills.” She coughed, slamming a hand onto the controls.

Millie faded in. If a machine could fear for their life, that might’ve been the face.

“—et! Are—are you okay!?” Their voice cut out.

At the same time, the monitors flashed back to life, exposing the outside of the Dalia. Another mech. No, three of them.

One to their left. One to their right. One ahead. An ambush.

Tet grabbed the controls. The Dalia whirred, and both its hands promptly shifted into weapons. She glanced down.

“Wha—“

A spear. The closest mech’s arm ended in a jagged spear. And, it’d pierced straight through the Dalia’s chest. Golden sparks sizzled from the opening.

Millie’s voice finally sharpened. “Tet, what’s happening!?”

Tet whipped the Dalia’s guns towards the two enemies at their sides. The mechs loaded their own cannons, raising them in return.

“Damn it, we’re surrounded!” she shouted. “Can you run a scan on their models?”

She’d never seen mechs like theirs before. They looked old enough to be antiques, even compared to the Dalia. But, they were still outnumbered.

Millie hadn’t even started a scan. Their avatar stood there, dumbfounded, like their animation was caught in a loop.

“Mills, what’re you—?”

“I don’t—” They turned towards her. “There’s nothing there, Tet!”

“Huh?” Her hands almost slipped off the handles in disbelief. “We’re hit! Stop screwing around!”

The Dalia groaned as the spear dug deeper. She could take out the spearman. But that’d leave two more enemies, with no time to reload. Try and take out the pair first, and that spear would split the Dalia’s cockpit before she even had the chance to.

She gritted her teeth. Bastards.

“Hit?” Millie’s pupils shrunk down to only a couple pixels. “But… the Dalia’s fine? Let me check your oxygen levels, Tet!”

A heart rate monitor filtered onto the screen, covering the enemies with her vitals alongside their current coordinates: 0, 0, 0.1, 0.

“Fuck off!” She mashed the triggers, replacing the overlays with a rotating scope.

It darted between the hostiles aimlessly. The systems wouldn’t lock on.

“Damn it.”

They’d been so close. Interrupting an astral jump should’ve been impossible; the Dalia should’ve phased right through them at lightspeed. Those pilots were bad news.

“Prep the aistra, Mills!” she shouted.

Still. If they’d interrupted them mid-jump, there should’ve been some leftover aistra.

“Tet, you need that aistra to get back home!” Millie cried. “What’s wrong with you? Let me check your vitals already!” They pressed their digital fingers against the glass.

Tet pounded her fist into the controls. “That doesn’t matter right now! Just fuckin’ listen to me!”

The scope vanished, replaced by a flashing error message: No enemies detected.

“You’re the one who’s not listening! You never do!” Sparkling tears streamed down Millie’s face before disappearing off the monitor’s edge. “Everything’s always about the centre, about my wish. I never even asked you to do any of this! And now you’re saying it doesn’t matter if you make it back?”

Their voice clipped as they continued. “What’s any of this matter if you’re dead! I wanted to see the centre with you, you jerk.”

At some point, tears had started running through the soot on Tet’s cheeks, too. Millie became blurred behind them and the smoke filling the cockpit.

“Don’t… Don’t you dare tell me what Millie wanted.” She ripped herself off the seat. “Forget it.”

How could they possibly understand? She didn’t need their help. She could just do it herself.

The cockpit rocked, banging her shoulder against the windshield. There was no time to waste.

Millie’s voice blasted from the speakers behind Tet. “You’re going to get yourself killed! You know that, don’t you?”

They were still pleading as Tet reached over and pulled the lever.

The Dalia instantly rattled, slamming her back into the seat. Outside, the enemy cannons beamed a scorching red.

The universe seemed to slow as Tet pulled the trigger. The Dalia unloaded a round into the mech to their left. As it began to return fire, their copper prongs chimed.

Usually, you’d need to charge the aistra for a minute or so before astral jumping. But, there was no need if your target was only metres away.

Everything turned blinding white. Tet blinked, and the Dalia snapped forwards. By the time she’d opened her eyes, they’d rammed into the rightmost mech. The spearman attached to their chest had taken the brunt of the lightspeed collision, pulverising the mech behind it like a battering ram.

The pair of hostiles burst into shrapnel, scattering bolts and mechanical debris between the stars surrounding them. A loose titanium panel ricocheted off the Dalia’s windshield as the heat from the sudden acceleration faded.

Tet whipped their mech around, tearing what was left of the spear out with a metallic scrape. She lifted a cannon towards the last enemy. But, just as the Dalia’s cannon finished charging.

The hostile mech disintegrated. Like ashes in the wind, one minute it was there, and the next, it crumbled into nothingness, like it’d never been there in the first place.

For some reason, things always seemed to disappear around Tet.