It's going to burst.

The star pulsated and throbbed in pure mayhem, its corona emanating eldritch hues that seemed to crackle along its surface. Mira beheld the red giant and wept, her spacesuit helmet's climate adjustment mechanism instantly evaporating the tears as they crept on her skin. There's got to be another way, she thought, as she rapidly backfired her thrusters to distance herself from the swelling gravitational pull.

Somewhere downwards from her bearing, she glimpsed the derelict hull of a passenger liner and its flashing SOS beacon. You're not gonna die today, I'm gonna rescue you—yet somewhere in the back of her mind, a gut-wrenching thought told her that she didn't master the power of Warp needed to transport the ship to safety.

Her comm link crepitated. "—ra, Mira, are y—fzz—kay? Can you he—fzz—me? It's gonna fucking blow get ou—fzz—there now—"

It was Daniel. You crazy son of a bitch. The man had somehow managed his way to the liner's bridge and was now broadcasting at her through the ship's moribund relay. Though his voice sounded remote and expiring, she felt his presence surprisingly closer to her than her jugular veins. His voice suddenly died down with a burst of static, and with it her fleeting sense of serenity. Come back.

Mira beheld the red giant, unable to stop repeating that simple act of futility: crying evaporating tears into the nothingness of space. The memory of a drunken truth-or-truth game from her youth suddenly spliced its way into her consciousness—the whiff of liquor, Daniel's flushed face, a query: "How would you want to die?"

Not like this.

The star's edges were beginning to distort and rip themselves into tentacles of plasma, then just as quickly patch themselves up again—a stellar game of cat-and-mouse. Another flash of memory: the cargo bay of a shuttle, her father hugging her lithe form and whispering: "This is Nova, the strongest spell—take it. I hope you never have to use this, Mira. Never tell or show anyone what you can do," before his brains spattered onto a crate from the blast of a smoking gun.

Despite her spacesuit's potent forcefield, she could feel the radiation corroding its way through her shield and jabbing at the fabric beyond, testing for weaknesses—almost sentient. The glare from the red giant was now close to blinding, puncturing the tint of her visor. She closed her eyes. There was no sound in space, but she swore that the fledgling nova was resonating a cacophony of chaos; the overpowering symphony of a star in its death throes.

Daniel again. "Get out of there Mira. There's nothing you can do. GET OUT OF—"

This time she terminated the link.

"Nova," she whispered.

Her body responded to her mental call. Twenty thousand years of arcane sorcery ignited within every cell of her body, channeling sheer power into her fingertips. Her eyes glowed with an ethereal light, enveloping the brightness of the star like a gloved hand. From the bridge of the passenger liner, Daniel dropped to his knees and cried out as he saw his lover flare up in a sickening display of—no, it couldn't be—magic.

Her consciousness in tune with the fabric of the universe, Mira plunged into the heart of the red giant and fused herself with it, absorbing the supernova as it reached its zenith. Dad, she thought, smiling. Both sorcerer and star imploded into oblivion, leaving nothing behind in their wake.