The Imaginators (Of Stardust and Aether Book 1)

by M. K. Valley

  PHASE TEN

  THE SKILL TO TRUST

  The spiderweb of the imagiMap fills the screens, and I grab manual control by instinct. Twig’s alone in the Aether, brows knit in concentration. I curse and correct our course, and he reaches for the exit, and I see him miss by a fraction, and I brace.

  The Aether spits out the cutter in the midst of an asteroid field. The burn plasters me to the seat, and Twig surfaces with a grunt just as debris smashes into the ship, proximity alerts and shield stability blaring throughout our vessel. We take damage left and right as I struggle to find our way through the fallout of an ancient collision. My partner’s muttering apologies, but I’m focused on the cluster of rocks we’re speeding toward, eyes stinging and teary as I miss a mountain-sized boulder by a hair’s breadth and yank us out of the field with a bruising maneuver.

  I let the autopilot sail us to safety and slump in my seat. I’m crap as a pilot, and Twig’s bewildered expression is evidence enough we just got lucky.

  “I’m sorry, I missed the exit…”

  “Not your fault,” I wave his argument aside and drag a hand over my face. It’s shaking hard, and I hook it back into the imagiDrive’s mesh for support. “You shouldn’t have been alone in there in the first place. But I froze. We would’ve been space dust if you didn’t make the jump. Those fuckers! I leave, and they build a defensive ring, and the moment they saw our ship’s signature, the whole ring is weapons hot, target locked, DESTROY!”

  “Andria, Andria, please!” Twig’s fingers stop me from thrashing in my seat, and I give a shrill moan, panting. “Take a breath.”

  I do, but it shudders in between my ribs with the echo of my thundering heart. I bite my lip raw, anger burning every sober thought to cinders until air thickens like honey, and I can’t push it through my lungs.

  “We can’t go past that ring,” I wheeze out, teeth rattling.

  “But Ares is not an option.” Twig brings a communicator to life to show me the still active Contract. I swear, I’ll snap that normie’s scrawny neck if we get back. “I’d say there’s a space-wide manhunt underway right now. There aren’t enough paths back to Ares that can take us safely home.”

  “And what do you suggest, I crash us into the star?” I shake my head, voice hoarse, as my mind scrambles for purchase, options dwindling down to zero. “Computer, run diagnostics.”

  “Not the star,” Twig probes as the indifferent mechanical voice rattles off values that fly by my ears. “We got a vague read on the quadrant, maybe just land us on the other side of the imagiSun, closer to Scorpio. We’ll make a dash for it.”

  “Out of the question,” I snap as I unbuckle and vault to the deck. I have no idea where I’m going on the tiny cutter. Maybe to have a drink. Something neon and poisonous. “You saw what a slight deviation of the exit point can cause. You’re talking about millions of miles off. There could be a meteor shower on the other side of the star, a stray comet, a solar flare!”

  Twig strains in his seat, fumbling with the buckles, but the hysterical note in my voice muffles both my stomping feet and his protests. “Alright, further away, then! It’ll take a bit longer, but we’ll be out of range of their railguns, maybe send a note requesting audience?”

  “I’m sailing us back to Ares, at least until we can solve the fucking Contract situation. That was stupid, what was I thinking!?”

  “And spending hours on end in the Aether isn’t?” He shouts after me, but I’m already halfway down the ladder to the lower deck.

  “I can fucking outlast them, the lot of Assassins thinking they can pin me in the Aether!”

  “Or die!” Twig pokes his head through the opening, livid, but I’m already turning my back on him. “Andria…”

  His bellow dies out as the computer sputters and cuts off. I freeze, leg drifting mid-step, unable to clamp to the floor.

  REGISTERING MULTIPLE SPACIAL EVENTS

  We race back to our seats, and I realize I’m sweating for the first time in my life, palms slick and cold. The Vacuum before our eyes saturates with flickering lights as one, two, a dozen ships exit imagiSpace.

  “Strap on, we need to jump,” I rasp out, the distance too close for comfort. What did the computer say? Shields holding at seventy percent? The cutter can take no more than half a missile. One long-range cannon and we’re space debris. I buckle half a belt and reach to yank at my partner. “Twig!” But he’s rooted in place.

  “Wait, they’re hailing us.”

  “Yeah, to gloat!” I screech, smashing the controls in front of me in an effort to bring our measly weapons online, just as he opens a channel.

  “I thought you liked blades, princess? Never took you for the trigger-happy type.”

  Twig stiffens. Illiran’s voice precedes his smug face on our screens, and I feel like someone’s pulled the whole Universe from beneath my feet, letting me drift into oblivion, unmoored. A massive, impractical collar fans out around his neck, almost closing at the cheeks. I absently think it’s to be expected. He has enough scars to tolerate the one left by the imagiDrive’s needle.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whisper as the computer finally matches the signature of Samraha’s personal cruiser. The sting from that day on the asteroid almost a month ago flares up once again, and I curl my fists. “Make sure you end me this time around, otherwise, I will end you, Illiran.”

  “Andria, let’s not get off on the wrong foot here. Bring those weapons offline. I’m sure the sprout can explain…” He rolls midnight eyes in perfectly symmetrical sockets, making the horn-stumps twitch. “Us.”

  “What did you do?” I hiss before I can stop the hurt from leaking into my voice. Did he betray me? Not that I haven’t given him a reason, but… When? Did he tell Illiran that’s our final stop before the Corona system in exchange for protection if he delivers my head? No… No! I push the thought aside before rampant paranoia pushes me to something irreversible. But I wince at the plea in my voice. “Twig, what did you do?”

  Without looking at me, my partner reclaims the pilot seat, buckling up, muting the connection. “Let’s discuss it after Scorpio,” he says, unmuting us in the same breath.

  “After…”

  “Samraha, there’s an interstellar defense ring circling the star and its planets. Mounted, long-range railguns, presumably along the whole circumference. I’m sending you whatever our scopes picked up.” An uncomfortable, unfamiliar wave rushes up my neck, and I realize it’s heat. “We need you to cover us until we clear the ring.”

  “We’ll provide suppressive fire and clear out as much of their defenses as we can.”

  “You will…” My head snaps from Twig to the screen, where Illiran’s content face and full attention focus on me to watch realization dawn. “All those ships…”

  “Answer to me.”

  “You have a fleet?!”

  “Do you find it sufficiently big, princess?”

  His lips crack into a grin, and I disconnect completely, almost springing out of the seat, but the single belt whips me back into place. “For fuck’s sake, what did you do!”

  Twig sighs and rubs at his broad forehead, clouds gathering over his hopeful features. “Coming here was stupid. And I thought about stopping you, but seeing… everything… I know you need closure, Andria.” He fucking-finally looks at me, and an iron fist squeezes my heart. “But racing through the Aether, landing on an obviously hostile planet… Think of the thousands of ways we could’ve been killed by now for making a single mistake. I thought about them. So, I asked for help. And yeah, Illiran’s not the optimal choice, but he’s the only one we have, and, to be honest, I’m relieved he showed up.”

  “Relieved?” My tongue knots into a painful lump, and I ball my fists.

  “Look, Andria,” his needle-like fingers cup my hand, and it’s all I can do not to flinch, “I know the dark hol
low place you’re in right now. I have one of my own. It’s where we seek refuge from all the monsters on our heels. We’re not that different, Andria. We’ve both been despised and chased. I for not being enough, you for being too much.” He gives me a light squeeze, and my eyes glaze over with a thin film of emotions that I’ve been bottling up for far too long. “I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. But even if I’m calling you ‘boss’, please, don’t forget that we’re a team. And right now, I want you to trust me.”

  Trust. Such a quaint little thing, especially now that I don’t have a choice. But I’d trust Twig with my life, yet he looks at me like I’ve never trusted him before. My shoulders sag, and I deflate, the lightning of realization illuminating my mind, a clear thought forming at last. It’s why Illiran left. The one reason I could never form a meaningful, or at least, not openly hostile relationship with others. I’d trust them but only on my terms. I had to be in control. Always.

  And here I am, doing the same thing to Twig. But my partner searches my face instead of looking away. And I feel seen and accepted, and it breaks my heart. Because I know what he sees is as unpleasant as what lurks beneath my imagiSkin.

  I drop my gaze and rake in a steadying breath. I’m no good with emotions, expressing or handling them. I tap Twig’s arm and withdraw as Samraha hails us again.

  “What did you promise him?” I ask in a small voice, and Twig scoffs.

  “Not my first-born, that’s for sure.”

  He waves the hail in, and Illiran pops up on our screens again. Irritation strains the skin around his eyes, and he gives us a mirthless smile. “Are you done with the family squabble?”

  The breeze off a glacier whistles through the connection when Twig ignores him. “We’ll jump first to draw the attention. Depending on their reaction time, you’ll have the element of surprise on your side when the fleet transfers. Make it count.”

  “Sprout, I don’t need you to…”

  My partner cuts him off, and I raise an eyebrow. “Is it smart to antagonize him right now?”

  “I’m really sick of his bullshit,” he grunts, rolling his eyes, and straps in. “He could, theoretically, put a missile up ours, but that means blowing up the favors we owe him.”

  “He didn’t mention what he wants, huh?”

  “No. Fucking bully.”

  I snort and buckle up. “What’s the plan, then? We make a mad dash for it?”

  “Well, I stand by what I said. We should use imagiSpace to get closer, faster. Short bursts, just several thousand miles at a time. We can account for all the space junk we might encounter.”

  “And for not emerging in the line of Illiran’s suppressive fire?”

  Twig cuts me a sharp glance. “Don’t ruin a perfectly sound plan with your variables, boss. I know it’ll be taxing, but don’t start making excuses now of all times. The only real danger might be on the other side of the artificial star. But if you manage an exit as distanced from the surface as is your entry point, I think we’ll be fine.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m pretty confident. I doubt they let stray objects drift so close to the star. No chance of hurtling toward a planet, either. You just make sure you exit on the inner side of the ring, so they don’t get the chance to fire on us.”

  I sigh, rubbing at my temples. It’s a horrible plan, but it’s still more than what I had coming here in the first place. “Alright. Prep for jumping.”

  PHASE ELEVEN

  THE LAPIS LAZULI

  OF THE AETHER

  Half a dozen long-range railguns scream murder the second we emerge from imagiSpace. Behind us, Illiran’s fleet swings and swoops through the Vacuum and takes aim as I ram back into the Aether. The world fades, pushed aside by the churning mass of what is yet to be.

  Distance is relative in imagiSpace. You can tumble into a galaxy hundreds of thousands of light-years away as long as there’s a trace of another Imaginator. Or you can take a risk and rip through the Aether, bursting among uncharted stars or straight into your demise. The Cosmos is a dark and cold, indifferent place. The light of those before us makes it accessible. And now I take a serrated blade to its guts and split its essence to shine a new one.

  The Aether howls in my mind. A sort of warning as I pull apart the essence of the Infinite Universe. The cutter’s cockpit comes into focus just as our ship shudders, alarms blaring, various indicators flickering with fury. Too far ahead, I see the ring shifting, slowly, like an ancient leviathan, twisting and writhing, bringing to bear lines of mid-range autocannons.

  “Jump!”

  The ring falls from view as Twig twists us into evasive maneuvers. My stomach lurches when the drive’s needle punches at my nape again. The lapis lazuli of the Aether blossoms behind my eyelids, the gilded veins of the navigational spiderweb bleeding through. That’s not right, I know it isn’t, but I’m spread thin between imagiSpace and reality beyond, and all I can do is focus on a single thought – get further.

  “Too close!” Twig hollers as the ship bursts out of the Aether.

  A target-lock warning howls through the flight deck. My heart stutters, and I squeeze my eyes shut, the imprint of flashing indicators burning behind my eyelids. I grit my teeth with a screech and hurtle us back into imagiSpace, slipping the range of a lucky autocannon.

  Blink, and we’re speeding toward the flaming surface of the artificial sun. Blink, and the lapis lazuli blossoms again. My ribcage creaks under the press of sudden acceleration. I shouldn’t feel that in the Aether, yet here I am, breathless, trampled by a giant that I thought I could conquer. imagiSpace bucks around me as I reach despite the weight, slashing back into reality.

  Blessed darkness erupts, a smattering of distant worlds glistening in the void. Twig whoops and swings the ship to decelerate, and I feel the needle retreating from my nape. An unholy sound ruptures from my chest, but instead of smiling, I clamp my lips, pressing in the back of my hand, and lurch forward.

  “Boss? Are you…” Twig’s voice breaks, unsure, as I swing to the floor, legs shaking. I drudge to a maintenance panel, ripping it open to pull out a mask, as my stomach pirouettes around my abdomen. The mask clamps to my cheekbones and beneath my chin, and the sound of me tossing my cookies into the filtration system gives him pause. “Ah, alright... You do you, I’ll get us closer to Scorpio.”

  I moan into the mask, squeezing my eyes shut again. It’s all lapis lazuli behind my eyelids. But I’m not in the Aether anymore, I can hear the chatter coming from our open channel with Illiran’s fleet. Twig rambles on and on about the arrogant lack of surface-to-orbit defenses around Scorpio, but I couldn’t care less about his opinion right now. There’s lapis lazuli leaking, bleeding from my fingers, tense over the mask. Gilded cracks twist and turn. With a final heave, I unclamp the mask and smack the panel closed, lapis lazuli sinking into it.

  The world fights tooth and nail to snap into focus before my eyes, but it’s all dark hues and gilded sparks until Twig almost shouts at me. “Andria! I think you might be bleeding!”

  I wince and close my fist, thinking he saw the leaking Aether, but then I feel the warmth at my nape and bury my fingers into my hair. They come away red. A single drop floats up before my eyes, and I meet it with my forearm.

  “Well, that’s not right.” I look at him, mute, dumbfounded, and his face twists into worried concentration as he faces the oncoming planet. “Just give me a word to know you are alright.”

  “Shit,” I finally mutter under my breath, and he tries on a smile.

  “That has to work for now.” He plucks bottled protein from inside his armrest, but I wave it away, the bile still burning at the back of my throat. “Any suggestions as to where we should land?”

  “Forty miles southeast of Regia, there’s a ravine where we can land without fighters blowing us out of the sky,” I say, scraping memories off the botto
m of my mind, where maps of military bases and ballistic infrastructure decay. “Illiran?”

  “Your Highness,” he says with a mock bow in his voice and flickers on our screens. “You look like cosmic junk.”

  I grip the armrests, shaking my head, the hues of the Aether snaking through the corners of my eyes. “You would know. There’s an interstellar fleet sleeping in the bowls of Scorpio, they must’ve awoken it from its slumber. I know of at least two more planets housing military-class battleships. Can you assume control of the ring?”

  He tries to put a frown under control, but his scars give it away. “At least partially. Was entrenching ourselves part of the plan?”

  “You’re free to leave right this moment. If you can handle the heat, though, I suggest you land on that ring and target one of the planets. That would make them think twice about pulling the trigger first.”

  Two delicate eyebrows climb to the horn stumps, and Twig cuts me a sharp glance. “Is that a free pass to shoot on civilians?”

  “That’s a free pass to hold a planet hostage. If they decide to sacrifice it, that’s your cue to leave.”

  “Understood.”

  “For a moment there, I thought you finally graduated to a mass murderer,” Twig says when it’s just the two of us again.

  “I prefer monstrosities on a smaller scale. How long until we get in comm range?”

  “Sixty seconds. The fleet you mentioned is just leaving orbit on the dark side of the planet. I’ll give them a wide berth.”

  I nod and focus on the planet bulging before us. It’s a brilliant ball of vivid greens, opalescence, and crimson sands. It’s a planet that no one in their right mind would ever want to leave.

  “Did you miss it?”

  “Like a severed limb.”

  Twig nods in affable silence. We’re both exiles longing for a home we can never reclaim, lest it kills us. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt seeing my planet thriving without me. But I’m just a speck in the lush existence of this beautiful world. It would continue to rotate long after I’m gone. Maybe I’m lucky I get to see it one more time.