Chasing the Stars

by Malorie Blackman

  ‘By then it may be too late,’ Darren said, exasperated.

  ‘I refuse to believe that a race with the obvious intelligence of the Mazon can’t be reasoned with,’ said Mum.

  ‘And if you’re wrong?’ asked Hedda quietly.

  ‘We have to try,’ said Mum. ‘I’m willing to take that chance.’

  I raised my head again, just in time to catch the shared looks exchanged around the table.

  Darren shook his head. ‘Just as long as you remember you’re taking a chance with all our lives, not just your own.’

  3

  ‘Aidan, is there any chance that you might make your next move before the last syllable of recorded time?’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ Aidan frowned, never raising his gaze from the chess board.

  I sighed. ‘You’ve been thinking for over twenty minutes.’

  Aidan’s hand hovered over his bishop, who was pursing his lips with impatience, then moved slowly to hover over his rook which had a darkening cloud over it, then back to his tetchy bishop.

  Arghhh! This was the eighth time he’d contemplated the exact same move.

  ‘Stop rolling your eyes,’ my brother said, without looking up at me.

  ‘Move then!’

  ‘My bishop . . .’ Aidan began ponderously, ‘takes your knight.’

  Aidan snatched my knight as it reared up and put his bishop in its place, then raised his head to triumphantly grin at me. I immediately moved my queen to E5. She glanced around the chess board imperiously, then smiled with slow satisfaction.

  Aidan stared at the board, then raised his head to blink at me like a stunned owl.

  I winked. ‘How d’you like me now?’ Ha!

  His frown deepened. ‘There’s a distress signal coming through.’

  I glanced down at the screen that made up the right-side arm of my chair.

  ‘Screen up,’ I ordered.

  Instantly a map of our immediate vicinity was displayed directly before me. Rotating my wrists slightly to adjust the command bracelets I wore, I scrolled across the map. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No blips, no beeps, no burbs. Nothing. I dragged my hand down vertically to remove the screen, then turned to frown at my brother. ‘I can’t see anything on the monitor.’

  Aidan had a faux inquiring look on his face. ‘No? I must’ve been mistaken.’

  Yeah, right! Eyes narrowed, I glanced down at the chess board. My queen now wore a thunderous expression. She wasn’t the only one who was annoyed. ‘Aidan, stop cheating!’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘I swear if you don’t stop cheating, I’m not going to play chess with you any more.’

  ‘How did I cheat?’ Aidan asked with indignation.

  ‘My queen was on E5 and in three moves you would’ve been in check and begging for mercy – and we both know it. So why is my queen now on E6?’

  The hologram of the chess set disappeared. Proof positive that Aidan had been cheating and was now going to sulk because he’d been caught.

  ‘I’ll take that as your resignation,’ I said. ‘That’s three hundred and twenty-eight games to me and one hundred and ninety-one games to you, with thirty-four stalemates.’

  I jumped up and did an impromptu victory dance. ‘Go, Vee! Go, Vee! I win again. Yeah, me! Go, Vee!’

  ‘Very mature! And I can’t believe you’re keeping the exact score,’ sniffed Aidan.

  ‘Getting the better of you is always an unforgettable experience,’ I grinned, sitting back down. Plus, to be honest, it was getting harder and harder to win against him. In a few more months or even less, I’d be lucky to win any at all.

  ‘You need to get a life,’ my brother said. ‘And chess is a stupid game anyway.’

  ‘Go wash your mouth out! Chess is a game of strategy, tactics and deeper thinking. It is a game of the soul.’ I placed a hand dramatically over my heart. ‘As well as the mind. And how come it’s only a stupid game when you’re losing?’

  Aidan didn’t deign to answer.

  ‘Should I break out the cards? We can play Pairs if that’s more your speed,’ I teased.

  ‘You don’t hear me going on and on about it when I win,’ said Aidan.

  I snorted with derision. Actually snorted. ‘You are joking, right?’

  If my brother won at anything, he went on about it for hours, sometimes days, sharing every thought which had accompanied each decisive or winning move.

  ‘Want another game of chess then?’

  ‘No. You only win because you’re better at cheating than I am.’ Aidan swung round in his seat to face his navigation panel, effectively turning his back on me. He was such a sore loser. I mean, really? Getting bent out of shape over a game? But that was Aidan all over. He hated to lose.

  I sighed. Now what should I do?

  This was how I spent my days, playing games with my brother, where the outcome tended to be a given, or looking after the plants in the hydroponics bay or learning about as many different alien cultures and their languages as I could.

  But that was it.

  It should’ve been a lot, but it wasn’t.

  It should’ve been enough, but it came nowhere close.

  It served to pass the time.

  And God only knew I had more than enough of that, if nothing else. I swivelled right round in my chair, gazing out of the transparent dome which made up most of the roof of the bridge. A few distant stars and a lot of nothingness. It matched all the activities I pursued to occupy my mind and my time. Lots of nothingness to fill the empty hours. This was my life now. Each day I tried to find something – but it tended to be the same old something – to fill the moments, the minutes, the months. Life wasn’t meant to be so predictable. The bridge I currently occupied was small, it could only hold eight comfortably, but I knew every piece of machinery, every byte of software, every panel – real and virtual. Apart from my sleeping quarters, this was the place in the universe I knew the best.

  It wasn’t much. But it was all I had.

  I cast a cursory glance over the command panel for want of something better to do and saw it immediately – a pulsing cursor at the very edge of my screen which disappeared almost at once.

  ‘Aidan, what was that?’

  ‘What was what?’

  ‘Aidan, don’t muck about. That looked like the signal from a distress beacon. You were serious about that?’

  ‘I thought I saw an emergency signal but it was cancelled,’ Aidan replied.

  ‘Cancelled or extinguished?’

  ‘I don’t understand the question.’

  ‘Never mind. The signal is back,’ I said.

  I bent closer to the panel in the arm of my chair for a better look. The signal was incredibly faint and getting weaker.

  ‘Where does this signal originate?’

  ‘Barros 5, the fifth uninhabited planet in the Barros binary star system,’ said Aidan.

  What on earth . . .? That planet was inside Mazon space.

  ‘Take us there,’ I said.

  ‘Vee, I don’t think that’s a good idea—’

  ‘Aidan, take us there,’ I ordered. ‘Maximum speed.’

  Twenty minutes later we were in high orbit around the so-called uninhabited planet. The trouble was, it was far from uninhabited. I had originally thought that maybe the signal came from an unmanned probe or an exploratory robot ship in trouble on the planet’s surface. Now I was closer I was getting a jumble of life readings. The added problem was my ship wasn’t the only one in orbit. Two Mazon battle cruisers were several kilometres below me and firing at one particular area on the largest land mass in the southern hemisphere.

  ‘What exactly are the Mazon firing at?’ I asked.

  ‘The scanners indicate eighty-five Terrans on the planet surface,’ Aidan replied.

  Stunned, it took a moment or two to digest that information.

  People.

  People from Earth were down on that planet. People like me. But not for much longer if I didn
’t do something – and fast. But what? There was no way my ship was a match for the fire power of the two Mazon battle cruisers. If I tried to take them on in a knockdown, drag-out firefight, I’d be blasted to smithereens.

  Think.

  ‘Aidan, I need you to solo transfer me directly into the engine core of both those Mazon ships,’ I said.

  Aidan swung round in his chair so quickly I’m surprised he didn’t give himself whiplash. ‘The core? Are you unhinged? You’ll suffocate, then fry. Literally.’

  ‘Not if I wear a protection suit and you shield me in each one.’ I deliberately made my tone bright and breezy.

  ‘Even with a protection suit, I can only shield you for fifteen seconds max, and if my calculations are out by even 0.001 per cent, you’ll die,’ said Aidan like he was telling me something I didn’t already know.

  ‘Don’t miscalculate then.’ I smiled with a bravado I was far from feeling. ‘Transfer me into the core of the one closest to the planet surface, then back here. Recalibrate, then rinse and repeat. And I need you to get me into the second ship before the first ship realizes their engine has been sabotaged. OK?’

  Transfer to the Mazon ship? Piece of cake.

  Into the engine core? Doddle.

  And not get caught? I could do that in my sleep and twice on Sunday. Sorted.

  Ha!

  Aidan stared at me as if I’d just lost my mind which, quite frankly, was a distinct possibility. I admit, it was a pretty arseholic idea.

  ‘No, it’s not OK. You’re really going to risk your life for some anonymous people down on the planet surface? That’s just plain stupid,’ said my brother. ‘And even if you do manage to disable the Mazon ships, then what? We can’t take that many people on board. Our maximum carrying capacity is seventy.’

  ‘We’ll figure that part out afterwards.’

  ‘Vee, I know you believe in trusting your gut instincts but this is reckless – even for you,’ said Aidan. ‘We don’t know who they are, or anything about them. I can’t allow it.’

  I stood up and went over to him. ‘Aidan, there are people down there. People in trouble. I’m not going to insist on checking their credentials before deciding whether or not to help them.’ I took my brother’s hand in mine and looked into his dark brown eyes. ‘They need help. That’s all we know or need to know. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if we turned tail and ran, if we didn’t at least try. So I’m ordering you to help me rescue them.’

  ‘You’ll die.’

  ‘No, I won’t, because you won’t let that happen,’ I smiled. ‘Think of this as the last scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’

  Aidan’s eyebrows shot up. I winced. OK, maybe that wasn’t the best example I could’ve given. ‘Scratch that. Think of this as . . . as . . .’ Nope, not The Godfather. Al Pacino had had one of his brothers shot. I was mentally scrambling for a film I’d watched that showed great family loyalty and a triumph over adversity. Come on! I’d watched thousands of twentieth- and twenty-first century films over the years and had memorised every word of a number of them. So why was I having such trouble picking just one to mention now? ‘Think of this as Jeepers Creepers!’

  ‘The film where the brother dies at the end and the weird-ass creature ends up wearing his eyeballs?’ asked Aidan drily.

  Damn it! He was deliberately missing the point.

  ‘But the sister was there for the brother and tried to save him,’ I said. ‘So this is like that situation but in reverse, ’cept you won’t let me die ’cause you’re my little brother and you love me.’

  ‘I’m only your little brother by nine minutes and twenty-two seconds,’ said Aidan, replaying an argument we’d had many, many times before.

  ‘Whatever. Give me a couple of minutes to put on a protection suit, and then let’s do this,’ I said, already heading for my quarters which were on the upper deck and within a stone’s throw of the bridge. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  I ran to my quarters. It took me longer than it should’ve to put on my protection suit because my room was a mess, and after I found it my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Now that I was no longer arguing with Aidan, the full import of what I was about to attempt hit me – and it hit hard.

  My brother was going to transfer me into the engine core, the beating heart of each Mazon ship. Cells, which gave out the same amount of energy as a small sun, would surround me. I’d have around ten seconds to disable the appropriate cells in each Mazon ship’s core before the energy permeated the force field I was relying on Aidan to wrap around me. After that, I’d have less than one second before my protection suit failed and I’d be vaporized. Aidan was going to have to divert all of our ship’s power, except for essential systems, to keep me alive within the force field.

  If my plan failed but by some miracle Aidan managed to get me back to the ship in one whole living piece, we would be sitting ducks, with no weapons, no shields. No hope. The Mazon would know of our presence and after one inevitable blast, we’d be history. Aidan was right. This was stupid. Possibly the stupidest plan I’d ever come up with.

  But there were people down on the planet.

  People.

  I hadn’t shared a joke, a laugh, a conversation with anyone other than Aidan in over three years. That alone made it worth the risk.

  A charge like electricity shot through my body. My mind was buzzing, my thoughts tripping over each other as they raced. This was the closest to instant death I’d ever been, or ever wanted to be; but for the first time in a long, long time, I felt alive.

  4

  There was nowhere to run. Nowhere safe. The ground was erupting. The relentless din of screams, shouts, bomb blasts and collapsing masonry filled my ears. Debris and machinery flew through the air in all directions. Mum kept pulling me, but to where? There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere we could be safe from the bombs exploding all around us and the weapon blasts cutting straight through anything they touched. Some were running back into nearby buildings or making for the barracks, others were trying to run out of the compound.

  I saw Bertrand on his knees, crying as he clutched Simone his six-year-old daughter to him as she screamed in wide-eyed terror. Snatching my arm from Mum’s grip, I literally bent over backwards, one hand down, the back of my head almost to the ground – and only just in time, as a huge metal disc, intent on cutting me in half, sliced through the air just above me. A high, piercing whistle sounded. My heart sank. That whistling sound meant DE, or directed energy weapons. The enemy had stepped up their attack. I knew only too well just how deadly directed energy could be. Two years ago that setting on my torch had detached a third of my leg from the rest of me. The ear-piercing whistling sound was getting closer.

  Game over.

  I sprang to my feet and hit the ground running. Mum grasped my hand as we raced for elusive safety. Ordinarily, I would’ve recoiled from holding my mum’s hand. I mean, please.

  But not today.

  Not now.

  ‘Get to the cavern in the mountain,’ Mum shouted, though in the chaos of the destruction all around us her voice barely carried to me, never mind across the compound to the others running about trying to seek safe shelter. The bomb blasts going off around our compound effectively hemmed us in. The Mazon weren’t stupid. And even if we did get to the cavern, what use would that be? The Mazon weren’t going to stop until every last one of us was dead. Their merciless reputation hadn’t been an exaggeration. They were the dogs of war and they’d bring down the whole mountain on our heads if they had to. As far as they were concerned, we were unwanted, unwelcome migrants encroaching on their land.

  We ran.

  I tried not to focus on the bodies and severed limbs on the ground in every direction. The whole scene was carnage. The random splashes of red soaking into the sandy soil of our compound were now so plentiful they were forming into rivulets.

  And still we ran.

  The undiluted screams of terror, panicked shouts and the cri
es of others tore straight through me. And yet I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. Besides, what was there to say? All I could do was run. And pray. A flash of resentment directed my focus back to Mum. She’d been warned. The Mazon had told us not to try and settle here. They’d made it very clear that we weren’t welcome. We’d been given just one day to be off their planet, but Mum had refused to deploy the emergency beacon until five Sol hours ago. The chances were slim to none that any vessel would be in the vicinity to even detect the signal, never mind come to our aid.

  It didn’t matter that this land was unoccupied. As far as the Mazon were concerned, it was their territory and theirs alone. We were intruders. Mum had tried to convince them that we weren’t a part of the Authority and that all we wanted was to coexist in peace. I’d listened as she’d spoken at length about what we could bring to their table. Mum truly believed that reason could work with the Mazon. But we were the unknown, and as far as they were concerned, that meant we were to be feared and eliminated, not necessarily in that order. It would be laughable if it wasn’t the exact opposite. We weren’t a threat to anyone. Just a bunch of unwanted people seeking a better life.

  This wasn’t what any of us had had in mind.

  Mum had been so sure we could win round the Mazon to her way of thinking. The bombs falling all around us were a testament to just how wrong she had been. Even though I was running for my life, a quiet sense of defeat tinged with sadness settled deep within me. I was only nineteen. There was so much I wanted to see, so much I still had to do.

  No! I wasn’t going to bow out like this. I needed to fight, not run. But how could I when the enemy were cowardly kilometres above us where our weapons couldn’t touch them?

  What we all needed now was a miracle.

  5

  ‘Ready, Aidan?’

  ‘This is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.’

  ‘Aidan, I don’t have time for this. Are you ready?’ I said with impatience.

  ‘I should be the one to go into the Mazon engine core, not you.’