Out Past the Stars

by K. B. Wagers

  I shared a look with Gita. “Already on it,” she subvocalized. “I’ve sent their photos to Fasé.”

  “We can’t wait around here for long. Those fighters are going to find us again.”

  Gita nodded, then said out loud. “Fasé confirms they’re with the resistance. We’re good.”

  I lowered my gun and the Farians relaxed. “Get your weapons, we need to keep moving.”

  Gita put the pair of Farians in the front while she watched my back, and the four of us made our way through the now eerily silent streets.

  We’d lost the fighters who’d been chasing us, a fact for which I was extremely grateful, but the sudden stillness made me nervous. I hesitated a moment, skin prickling on my arms.

  “Majesty?”

  The creature dropped from above us, landing on Dimi, and the sharp crack of the rebel’s neck snapping was loud in the air. Pelagia froze in shock and I fired my Glock just past her left ear as the Farian soldier turned on her with a snarl.

  “Go-go-go!” I jumped forward, pushing Pelagia ahead of me as several other Farian soldiers landed in the street around us. Gita shot one before it even hit the ground and it fell dead in our path.

  Pelagia recovered from her shock and vaulted the corpse, shooting at the pair of soldiers ahead of us. Warnings went off on my smati, and I realized they were for Gita, not me.

  Spinning, I saw that she’d taken down one of the soldiers behind us but the other had her pinned to the wall with an arm across her throat. I took aim, snarling when I realized my Glocks were empty, and launched myself at the pair.

  I dropped my guns and pulled Johar’s knife from its sheath, jamming it into the Farian soldier’s exposed neck and wrenching it back and forth until they collapsed.

  Gita folded over and the horrible sounds she made drove straight into my heart. My smati screamed at me.

  “Let me see.” I dropped the knife and went to a knee, putting both hands on her throat. The soldier had crushed her trachea and I fought past my own panic, dragging in the energy around me.

  “Star of Indrana?”

  “I’ve got it,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “Keep watch. There will be more.”

  Rebuilding someone’s throat was a lot different than closing a cut, and I found myself eternally grateful for the fact that all my BodyGuards’ medical scans were at my fingertips. In the blink of an eye I had an image of Gita’s throat in my vision and the energy went to work.

  “Easy,” I murmured when she gasped for air. “Stay down.” I grabbed for her gun at the sound of pounding feet, but lowered it just as quickly when Emmory and the others came around the corner. “Pelagia, they’re friendlies.”

  She stared at me, the awe in her face hard to hide. “You healed her.”

  “It’s a very long story.”

  “Gita!”

  “She’s all right,” I said as Hao dropped to my side. “Give her a minute.” I got to my feet and hugged Emmory. “I am really glad to see you.”

  “Likewise, Majesty. We’re not out of this yet, though. Can she walk?”

  “She’s fine. A little shaky,” Aiz said, getting up from Gita’s other side and helping Hao lift my Dve onto her feet. “You did good, Hail.”

  I returned his nod and went to retrieve my Glocks. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Zin’s incoming with a shuttle, Majesty. We’re not far from the landing zone.” Emmory put a hand on my back and pointed. “We’re going that way.”

  I lifted Gita’s gun and the six of us took off down the street.

  “Are you all right?”

  Biea looked away from the city. The white buildings glowed in the rising sun and I suppressed a shudder at the ominous reddish hue coating them. By the time we’d made it back to base it had been too late to make the meeting with Prosa. Now I was back to square one because of Thyra’s fucking creatures and rapidly running out of time.

  “This entire planet is unpleasant, Your Majesty, but it is not as bad here.” They sighed. “I had hoped we could be of more help but until we figure out how to combat this”—they waved a limb in the direction of the spikes jutting up into the sky—“we must be cautious about our forays into the city.”

  “You have helped. You saved Tesha’s life. You argued for more time for us.”

  “Would that I had been as successful on that last piece,” they said. “I have read the words of my ancestors. Learning to value life was difficult for them, perhaps the most difficult thing they learned once they were free.”

  “Being treated as something disposable would do that to you, I suspect,” I murmured. “That is the biggest reason humans made cloning sentient beings illegal.”

  “It has been interesting watching you humans grown up. In some ways I am grateful you are so isolated,” Biea said with a tiny smile. “Though I confess it would be fascinating to see the rest of the universe react to what you have become.”

  “I confess I’m curious as to what’s out there,” I replied. “But as Hao said it would probably end badly for us were we to go.”

  “Possibly.” Biea dipped their head in acknowledgment. “Or maybe it would be a much-needed surprise. We cannot leave this galaxy for fear that the Infrastructure may still exist and be looking for us. I have considered sending probes, but it is a risk.”

  We fell into silence, watching the light wash over the buildings until the cloak of night was pulled back from the landscape and the lights of Sicenae winked out one by one.

  “I had my people dig in the archives for information on Thyra as you requested, Majesty. I have passed the files on to your Ekam. May I ask what you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know, maybe nothing,” I admitted. “I’m trying to understand my opponent better before I face her.”

  Biea blinked. “You would not survive a fight against them, Your Majesty.”

  “You’d be surprised what I’ve survived,” I replied.

  “Your people seem unbothered by that fact that you are planning to go to your death.”

  I glanced back at Emmory. “Oh, they’re bothered. They’re also used to it and I’m very hard to kill. If your people won’t give us more time, the only way to do this is for me to sneak into the Pedalion and kill Thyra on my own.”

  “Is that the outcome you seek, Your Majesty?”

  “I want to go home,” I whispered. “I want the Farians safe from these criminals. I want peace between them and the Shen. I want the Shen, all of them, to be able to come back to this place they started from. I don’t want to fight your people. I would rather we be friends.” I thought of the children I’d seen on the ship.

  Biea was silent for a long moment, then spoke. “I don’t want to fight you either, Your Majesty. You are a good leader. You care about not only your people but the lives of others. This is uncommon.”

  I shifted uncomfortably at the praise. “I’m nothing special.”

  “Watching your people tells me otherwise.” They smiled. “They would follow you into this fight without hesitation.”

  “Which is why I don’t want them to, but I will let them.” I glanced at Emmory again. “My empire is secure in the hands of good people. The Shen require their leaders to help them rebuild. And Faria needs Fasé. I am the expendable one. Less violence is a great concept, but I know the world well enough to know that sometimes violence up front can prevent even more down the road. It’s not pretty and when you’re the one who makes the call you get to live with the weight of the lives you’ve taken.

  “I already know who I’m dealing with. They won’t listen to reason even if your people gave us the time. They won’t stop. I don’t negotiate with people like that because you can’t; they will happily drown us all in blood to get what they want.” I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I’m sure that must sound bloodthirsty, Biea, and I understand if you want no part of it. I have been through a fight like this once before and it nearly killed me. But I took down the man who murdered my family. Thyra’s creatures o
r your people, it makes no difference, I will not stand by and let it happen again.”

  “It does not sound like anything beyond the duty of a leader, Your Majesty. You wear that burden well.”

  “I’m glad someone thinks so, as I often doubt it myself.”

  Biea shook their head. “That is the way of it, Your Majesty. We who are at the front try to see every angle, guess every battle plan of our enemies, all the while wondering if we have made the right choice.” They tapped their limbs together twice in a decisive gesture. “I am going to my ship and we are going off-planet to see what help we can be with the battle that will surely happen up in the sky. I wish you luck, Your Majesty, and here.” They held out a limb, a small black square balanced on the end. “Call me if you have need and I will try to come.”

  “I appreciate it.” I took the square and slipped it into my pocket. Biea nodded once more and vanished.

  “I don’t want to fight them,” Emmory said as he stepped up to my side. “Even this far out from their original design, they’ve got advantages we could never match.”

  “I don’t want to fight them because they’re decent beings and there’s a lack of that in the universe.” I hooked my fingers together at the back of my head and stretched. “I wish we had more time, Emmory.”

  “I started in on those files Biea sent me. There’s a lot of information there. Almost too much. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s going to be a struggle to find anything.”

  “Anything I can use against her. We already know she was after the Farians’ ability to control the energy, but I want specifics on how it applies to her. Put Ragini on it,” I said. “Tell her to look for anything that ties back into that idea. We can cross-reference from there and get with Biea to—”

  Thyra appeared in front of us with a handful of creatures and the rest of my words were lost to Emmory’s shout. She threw my Ekam out of the way with one long limb and kicked me in the chest with another, knocking me back against the outside wall.

  I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline crowding out the pain, but Thyra moved fast, wrapping a limb around my throat and jerking me into the air. “You are infuriating in your persistence,” she snarled, tightening her grip until spots appeared in my vision. I could hear the faint sounds of fighting in the background and I hoped that Emmory was still alive as Thyra ripped me away from him.

  41

  The only thing worse than getting choked out is when you wake up afterward by hitting a wall. I slid awkwardly to the cold floor, my brain trying to make sense of the chaos that had just happened and my smati screaming enough warnings at me to be worrisome.

  My instincts were also screaming, and the training from Aiz had me back on my feet despite my injuries. I slapped away the hand that reached for me with a snarl.

  “We mean you no harm.”

  I blinked several times before I could get my vision to focus on Sybil. The future-seer was standing out of arm’s reach, her hands held out to me. The rest of the Council of Eyes was behind her, though at the moment I was hard pressed to remember names and my smati was otherwise occupied detailing what was wrong.

  “Give me a second,” I mumbled, and sat back down, burying my head in my hands.

  “We have the time,” she replied, crouching down but not moving any closer.

  “We don’t have time. The Selan.” I cursed in Cheng. “How the fuck did Thyra know where I was?”

  “What happened?” Sybil asked.

  “Just now? I was fighting Thyra a moment ago.” I lifted my head, squinting in the dim light. “I was getting my ass kicked, rather. Where am I?”

  I tried my coms but only static filled my head.

  “The penitent cells in the basement of the Pedalion compound. You will not be able to reach any of your people. They are shielded against communication and prevent us from using any energy.”

  I blew out a careful breath. The air felt strange. It was heavy and pressed down on me, but I could feel my own energy rolling around in my gut and drew on a little of it until my ears stopped ringing.

  “I may be exempt from that,” I murmured, smiling at Sybil’s tiny gasp and holding out my hand. She stood and took it, pulling me to my feet and into a surprising embrace.

  “We are very relieved you are still alive, Star of Indrana.”

  I chuckled and hugged her back. “Well, this is a bit shit as rescues go, but it’s good to see you, too. Are any of you hurt?”

  “No,” Sybil said, stepping back with a shake of her head. “The guards have been deferential, either by order or their own reverence, it is hard to tell. We are thankful for it all the same.”

  “Thyra created an army.”

  Sybil nodded. “They look like Farians but have no souls. Adora knew about it. She does Thyra’s bidding and has all these years. Once upon a time I thought she could be turned from this path, but she is committed. It will be her final death.”

  “We met the Selan. Thyra’s people,” I clarified. “They have been hunting for Thyra and her squad. All this”—I gestured at the sharp edges around us—“is designed to keep them out. Thyra and the others are criminals. She’s trying to turn you all into her army so she can take over the galaxy.”

  There were gasps from the others of the council, and I couldn’t blame them. It sounded pretty strange to my ears as well. Sybil seemed unsurprised and I studied her with narrowed eyes. “You knew.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” She nodded. “There is so much I have not told you. So much I did not tell them. I knew. I knew who the gods were when they first landed. Quiet.” She lifted a hand, cutting off the exclamations from the others. “I knew why they were there, Star of Indrana. I saw everything in an instant—including the knowledge that we could not fight them off in the beginning. That any attempt would result in our complete subjugation and a loss of any chance to save my people. And then I saw you.

  “So instead I told them what they wanted to hear. Let their fears filter the visions when I showed them and kept the true interpretation from them. I showed them the fate that would bring all of this about.”

  “Why?”

  “For my people. For your people. For everyone. There are such things out there, Hail. Worse than Thyra. Humanity will not survive without people like you. Faria needs people like Fasé. And the Shen without Mia would be lost. That part of it was real—there is no true shelter for sides that will collapse without each other to lean on.”

  I recognized the words of the prophecy she’d spoken what seemed like a very long time ago on Pashati. We’d guessed as much—that we needed the stability of me, Mia, and Fasé—but to hear it again now?

  Something about it was like the sound of the bells of the mountaintop monastery of Oni-Bistr and I felt an answering vibration deep in my own chest.

  Sybil looked over her shoulder at the sound outside our cell. “We don’t have much time left. You need to listen to what I have to say.” She reached out, wrapping cold fingers around my bare wrist.

  My heart skipped a beat, but I stayed silent.

  “You must follow,” she said. “You will want to stay. For the first you will want to stay but know that you cannot. For the second it will be your choice and everything will hinge on it.”

  I realized there were tears in her eyes. “Sybil—”

  “Remember this, Hail Bristol: Hope is a living thing. You must feed it with faith to keep it alive.”

  I had time to nod and then the door to the cell slid open. Two guards stood on the other side. Actual Farians with their guns pointed at us.

  “On the ground, facedown,” one barked. “You so much as breathe wrong and I’ll put a shot in your skull.”

  “At least we’re all taking this seriously,” I replied, dropping into a crouch and crawling forward. The second guard pulled my arms behind my back and cuffed them. They hauled me to my feet and marched me out of the cell.

  “Where are we going, fellas?”

  “Shut up and walk.” One of
them shoved their gun into my side and pushed me toward the stairs.

  I tried the coms again the second we hit the stairs but still only got static, so I sent a flash message to Hao that simply read: Alive, rescue my ass.

  I recognized the guard at the door of the Pedalion chamber as the one who’d been on the street when Tesha had crashed into me. Now his face was blank, an impassive mask designed to hide anything and everything going on behind it. But his eyes gave him away and I smiled, hoping it would get through to him.

  He didn’t react.

  The blank faces of the Pedalion were of an altogether different sort. Delphine and Yadira, Rotem and Sou, all sat at their spots on the dais with wooden expressions and unblinking eyes. Guarded by the creatures who looked like poor replicas of Farians and had almost the same blank looks on their faces.

  Adora and Thyra were in discussion on one end and didn’t look up as I was marched into the center of the room to stand on top of the sixteen-pointed star.

  “If you’re trying to impress me, Adora, it’s going to take a bit more than just ignoring me.”

  The guard on my left hit me in the back. I kicked without looking, and the sharp crack of his knee snapping echoed in the room.

  The second guard was smarter and the shot to my back felt like a sledgehammer. I went down, my smati screaming alarms at me, but despite the noise and pain nothing vital had been damaged.

  “Energy weapon?” I asked, my laugh turning to a groan as I rolled over. “I’d thought so. That’s got a punch to it.”

  “I can have him shoot you again, Hail,” Adora said, crossing the room to us. “In the mouth, perhaps?”

  “Such violence.” I tutted at her. “You know, once I’d have thought the Farians were above such things, but you’ve thrown that theory into the wind. Attacking embassies, murdering my people, consorting with mercenaries, and now this.”