Out Past the Stars

by K. B. Wagers

  “I serve my gods to the end.” She gritted the words out and I felt her will twist as she tried to escape my grip.

  “Your gods will gleefully sacrifice you to the fire for their own selfishness.”

  I heard the door slide open behind us, the startled shouts of the Farians at Emmory’s order to surrender, and then silence.

  “Majesty?”

  “Little busy.” I took hold of Adora’s wrist with my cuffed hands, pulling her away from me and then straightening. “Good timing,” I said to Emmory. “Are we still on?”

  He nodded once, then trained his gun on Adora. I smiled and held out my cuffed wrists. “If you’d be so kind?”

  Adora pressed her thumb to the middle and they opened with a click. I gestured for her to drop to the floor and cuffed her wrists behind her as Emmory turned his attention back to the handful of Farians clustered at the far side of the bridge. I smiled up at the main screen.

  “Farians, I know you are scared, but soon you will have the choice to fight or surrender. I recommend the latter. Be better than the sum of your fears.”

  “Broadcast off, Majesty,” Gita said.

  “Gita, how are we doing there?”

  “Locking out systems, Majesty. Five more minutes. Not going to lie, I wish Ragini were here, she’s better at this than me.”

  It was sheer luck on my part that I was looking in the right direction when Priam appeared on the bridge.

  “Emmory!” I launched myself at him, feeling the hot sting along my back as I spun us both out of the way of Priam’s strike. Adora dove to the side. Gita brought her Koros 101 up and shot the Farian Hiervet in his spindly chest.

  The sound Priam made was awful, but when he didn’t collapse and no wound appeared, I immediately filed it under laughter rather than pain. “Gita, door!” I pushed Emmory ahead of me as the three of us scrambled for the corridor.

  Gita slammed the panel to open the door as Priam started toward us—all spindly limbs and fury. We slipped through and the door shook as the Farian Hiervet crashed into it just after it closed. Emmory fired his Hessian into the panel, turning and shielding me so that the sparks flew into his back rather than my face.

  “Bugger me, that was closer than I wanted. Gita, did we get a message off to Admiral Hassan?” I slipped out of Emmory’s grasp, brushing away the sparks from his back before they could catch fire.

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  Something in Gita’s voice made me turn and I couldn’t stop the choked laughter at the poor Farian who was standing with his hands up and Gita’s gun shoved against his nose.

  “Secondary communication center, now.”

  The Farian pointed a shaking finger. I saw the muscle in Gita’s hand start to shift and reached out. “Let’s bring him with us. I want to have a chat.”

  Gold eyes that were reminiscent of Fasé’s flicked to me for just a second and then went blank as Gita knocked him out with the butt of her gun. He folded over, dropping to the ground at my feet with a dull thud.

  “We need to move,” Emmory said as another bang echoed on the door behind us. He passed me his gun.

  I took it with a raised eyebrow. “Emmory, why do you have a 201?”

  The Koros 201 was definitively not a shipboard weapon, but that hadn’t stopped my Ekam. It was, in essence, a mini railgun that fired tiny pellets at a higher velocity than the old-school powder guns of Earth.

  “I thought it might come in handy at some point and it looks like I was right. Those Farian Hiervet don’t seem to be bothered by energy weapons.” He grabbed the unconscious Farian, throwing him over his shoulder. I followed Emmory down the hallway.

  “This is it,” Gita said. “First door on your left, Emmory.” He hit the panel and, judging by the way he slipped inside, the room was empty, so I followed. Gita came in behind me and the door slid shut.

  “Excuse me, Majesty.” She moved past, heading for a console. “I want to get that door locked before they recover enough to come looking for us.”

  A klaxon started. The piercing wail filled the air around us and then the ship shook violently.

  21

  I winced when Emmory dropped the Farian and his head thudded off the floor. I handed my Ekam back his gun with a stern look and joined Gita at the bank of computers on the far side of the room.

  Yadira and Delphine’s breaking of the Pedalion had resulted in a number of surprising side benefits—among them, the downloading of the entire Farian language to our database. The writing on the screens resolved itself as I leaned over Gita’s shoulder.

  “Now I really wish Ragini were here. The alarm isn’t because of us,” she murmured, her fingers flying over the keys. “There’s other ships out there. I don’t—”

  “It’s the Hiervet.” I rubbed a hand over my face, swallowing back the curse I wanted to spit into the air. “Of all the times to show their faces.”

  Our entire plan to signal Admiral Hassan and take control of the ship had just been blown to pieces with the arrival of what looked to be a small fleet of Hiervet ships.

  “Send a message to Inana, Gita,” I ordered. “We need to find a way off this ship. With any luck we can escape during the fighting with no one the wiser and they can pick us up.”

  “Shuttle bay is four floors down, but that’s the largest concentration of Farians on the ship because our route will take us right past the bridge.” Emmory gestured at the Farian on the floor when he groaned. “This one’s waking up.”

  “Let’s have a chat, maybe he knows a faster way down.” I grabbed the platinum-haired Farian by the shirtfront and hauled him into a sitting position. He looked past me to Emmory and then snapped back to me as the realization dawned.

  “Star of Indrana.”

  “That’s me.” I smiled. “What’s your name?”

  “What are those alarms for?”

  I grabbed him by the chin when he tried to look around, feeling his jolt as skin met skin and I wrapped my will around him. Something in the back of my head cautioned about the dangers of doing this and I knew it wasn’t wrong. There was a rush of power when the person I’d grabbed had no hope of fighting my hold. It was an entirely different feeling than it had been when I’d stopped Aiz in the negotiations or fought against Adora.

  This was power. Too much of it and tainted with something that made me dislike myself.

  “Name,” I repeated, watching his eyes widen as the realization of what I’d done hit first. The fear followed.

  “Orrin, Star of Indrana.” His eyes flicked from me to Emmory and back again.

  “Good. Orrin, we’d very much like to be off this ship. What’s the easiest way to the shuttle bay?”

  “Four floors down, but you’d have to go past the bridge.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from tightening my grip on his face and he winced. “Not going to work for us, Orrin. Even though your people come back from it, I’d rather not shoot my way through them.”

  It was really more about the fact that if someone shot Emmory or Gita, I was the only one who could bring them back, and I didn’t want to leave something that important to chance.

  “There’s another way through, but it’s dangerous.”

  The ship shook and Gita cursed.

  “More or less dangerous than where we are now?” I asked. “Because the Hiervet are knocking on the door and I don’t think they came for a chat.”

  Two bright spots of color appeared high on Orrin’s pale cheeks and he pointed just past Gita’s shoulder. “There’s a service access tube that goes straight down to the shuttle bay.”

  “Why’s it dangerous?” Emmory asked.

  “It runs right through the fuel storage for the weapon.” Orrin swallowed when I raised an eyebrow. “We’re being shot at, ma’am. One of those shots gets through the shield and the whole thing will explode.”

  “That seems a very poor design choice.” I let Orrin go and got to my feet. “Gita, did you get that message out?”

  “Yes, ma
’am, and a confirmation. I’ve got a map of the area downloaded to my smati and told them where we’d be.” She was frowning at the console. “Orrin’s telling the truth about the service tube.”

  My gut cramped in terror, but I ignored it. “That’s what we’re going to have to use, then. Come on.”

  “Star of Indrana, please!” The Farian had his hands up and was staring at the barrel of Emmory’s Hessian.

  “Emmory.”

  “Easier to just send him back to Faria,” he replied.

  I saw the panic flicker across Orrin’s face and felt an odd well of sympathy for him. “That’s rather mercenary of you, Ekam. Though you’re not wrong.”

  “Please don’t kill me. I heard your speech. It was broadcast to the whole fleet. I don’t want to fight.”

  “Give me a reason not to kill you, Orrin.” I crouched at his side again.

  “I can fly the shuttle?”

  I smiled. “I can fly a shuttle. So can these two. That’s not good enough to bring along a traitor in our midst.”

  “I’m not a traitor!”

  “You joined up with Adora and Priam and in doing so put all of Faria back on the brink of war with the Shen. Did you think for a second about how that put all your people at risk?”

  “Adora said the Shen had driven you mad. That you murdered the other gods, but then you said there could be peace. And I heard…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  I almost responded that it was Adora who was driving me mad, but I kept the thought in my head. “Heard what, Orrin? You’re not giving me a reason not to kill you and time is rapidly running out. What did you hear?” I punctuated the words with a poke to his chest.

  “I can tell you what they’re planning.”

  “I am already aware of what Adora’s planning, she’s not going to be able to accomplish it.”

  “Not Adora, the gods. I heard Priam talking to Thyra, Star of Indrana, they are—”

  The ship rocked, and I fell over into Emmory as more alarms screamed through the air and Gita pushed away from the console.

  “Move, Majesty. Now.”

  I muttered a curse at the confirmation of all my gut’s screaming. There wasn’t time, but now I was going to have to keep this Farian alive on top of everything else until I could get him to tell me just what Thyra was up to.

  I grabbed Orrin by the shirt and hauled him to his feet, but I didn’t release him. “You’re going to stay with Emmory. You so much as blink in a manner that makes me think you’re going to hurt him and I won’t ever kill you, do you understand me? I will keep you alive and in pain forever.” My voice was colder than the space outside and Orrin nodded, his head jerking up and down with the movement.

  “Good.” I shoved him at Emmory.

  “Is this a wise idea, Majesty?” he subvocalized over the coms as he caught the Farian.

  “It kind of hasn’t been from the start,” I admitted under my breath, heading for the hatch Orrin had pointed out. “But what he overheard could be important and I think we’re in the middle of that future Sybil showed me. I do not want to be on this ship when those Hiervet get through the shields. We need to get out of here and get word to the others to stay away.”

  I was still trying to figure out how I was going to keep them from blowing the Hailimi out of the black, but with any luck the Hiervet would be long gone by the time my people showed.

  I popped the hatch, looked at Gita.

  “Gita, send Hao a message. Tell him—” My brain froze as I tried to think of something to encompass everything I needed him to know in only a few words. “The painting job, Xiao Bai Tolph, he’ll know what I mean.”

  “Done.” She finished sending the message, slung her gun over her back, and climbed into the hatch, disappearing down the ladder with a graceful jump.

  I did the same, pulling on my gloves and looking over my shoulder at Emmory. He gave me a nod while he herded Orrin forward. I tamped down on the screaming in my brain and scooted, legs first, into the service tunnel.

  “Just slide down, Majesty,” Gita called up from the first landing.

  I obeyed, gloved hands on the outside of the rails as I jumped and slid down the ladder, landing with a jolt. Gita pulled me back and I watched as first Orrin and then Emmory slid down to join us.

  I wasn’t going to think about the fact that I was in a metal tube. That if the Hiervet scored a direct hit on this very spot we’d be incinerated, trapped, or sucked out into space. The rush of water in a metal coffin filled my head. Something of my determined not-thinking must have shown on my face because my Dve put her hand on my back.

  “Three more, ma’am,” Gita murmured. “You can do this.”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. She waited a beat and then jumped. I squeezed my eyes closed and followed.

  We repeated the pattern twice more and each time the sound of running water in my ears grew louder. I backed myself into a corner as Gita pulled Orrin in close and grilled him on where the access hatch came out into the shuttle bay.

  “Breathe, Majesty.” Emmory was standing in front of me, blocking me from Orrin’s vision.

  “Talk about your fucking liability,” I muttered, the laugh that escaped sounding hysterical to my ears.

  “You’re fine, Hail. You’ve got this.” He leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine. “Breathe.”

  I dragged in a breath and then another, until my heart calmed down to a pace that wasn’t thundering in my head. Emmory waited patiently until I looked into his eyes. “Good?”

  “I’m good.”

  The smile was quick. He straightened. “Gita, we ready?”

  “As we’ll ever be. I’ve got no idea on how many enemies. The numbers keep shifting.”

  “We’ll handle it.” Emmory turned back to me. “You stay back with Orrin, Majesty. If something goes sideways, you get to a shuttle.”

  A chill ripped down my spine at the echo of words Portis had said to me not so long ago, but I didn’t protest. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I just knew that, like with Portis, I didn’t want to go.

  But this time you will, Hail. The voice was loud in my head. Now you know what’s at stake. I watched as Emmory and Gita nodded to each other, pulled their guns free, and went to work. This was their job and I knew that as much as I hated letting them clear the bay, it was better to let them do it. They had trained together; they moved with a fluidity I could fake in a pinch but not duplicate. I really should be training with them more.

  It wasn’t quite as seamless as Emmory and Zin, missing that undeniable sync of a Tracker pair, but it was a thing of beauty to watch. I pulled Orrin out of the hatch and hid us behind a pile of shuttle parts so I could see my BodyGuards after they’d slipped out and moved into the bay.

  My speech hadn’t touched all the Farians on board and there were plenty who spilled into the bay howling for our blood. Emmory and Gita didn’t bother with anything other than head or torso shots, taking out the Farians scrambling around with a calm economy of motion that reminded me a second time of doing jobs with Portis.

  It was beautiful. It was brutal. And it was all over in a matter of minutes. The Farians were not prepared for that level of skill. Their centuries-long fight with the Shen had been mostly between spaceships, not people, and it showed.

  “Gita, drop.”

  I appreciated that Emmory kept me in the coms loop. Gita fell to the floor, catching herself with both hands, her gun between her arms. His shot hit the charging Farian right in the chest, the Koros 201 pellet slamming into the man and knocking him back a meter.

  He didn’t get up.

  Gita rolled to her side and then up on one knee in a smooth movement, taking down two Farians on the far side by the door with a pair of head shots.

  “Get down and don’t move.” I pushed Orrin to the floor, bringing my own Koros up and sprinting for the nearest shuttle. The back end was open, obviously torn apart for a replacement or a repair, so I climbed the ladder and flattened myself onto the
roof.

  The Koros 101 pulse rifle wasn’t designed for a sniper, but the bay wasn’t all that large and from my vantage point I could pick off people that Emmory and Gita couldn’t see.

  I shot a Farian who was bringing his weapon to bear on Emmory and watched my Ekam spin, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “Majesty? Was that you?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I thought I told you—”

  “I am technically back with Orrin. Though he’s on the ground.” I grinned and shot a pair of Farians as they came through the door. “I feel like Adora knows we’re down here. Should we do something about that?”

  “I’m voting for getting on a shuttle and getting off this ship before it gets blown to pieces,” Gita said when the ship shook again.

  “I like her plan. Unfortunately, the one you’re on isn’t flying anywhere, Majesty,” Emmory replied.

  “Yeah.” I scanned the bay and spotted a shuttle closest to the bay doors that led out to the black. “Emmory, what about that one toward the back?”

  “Still predictable with your exit plans, but it’ll do.”

  I laughed. “Shut up and go check it out. I’ll cover you.”

  He sprinted toward the shuttle and I found myself revising my estimate about being able to outrun him as I shot down any Farians in his way. Emmory disappeared into the shuttle and a moment later a Farian went soaring out the door.

  I waited as they got up, but they ran in the opposite direction so I let them live.

  At least for a little while longer.

  “Shuttle’s good, Majesty. Get over here.”

  “Gita, you’re next.”

  “No, ma’am. You come down and get Orrin, we’ll go together.”

  “It’s safer this way.” I shot yet another Farian in the doorway.

  “For me, maybe.”

  “Understand this isn’t the only reason, but you know Hao will never talk to me again if I let you die.”

  “Hail,” Gita sighed, but I could hear the laughter she was trying to suppress.

  I grinned and took another shot. “Grab Orrin, Gita, and get to the shuttle. I promise I’ll follow.”