Out Past the Stars

by K. B. Wagers

  Adora held up a hand before the guard could shoot me again. “That was the Shen.”

  “You don’t need to keep lying to me, Adora. I know how to follow a money trail. Pro tip for you, when choosing front names for your companies don’t use obvious shit like Star Optics. When I get done here I’m going to hunt Jamison down and skin him. You two will be examples for what happens when people dare to fuck with me.”

  “Are you going to skin me, too, Hail?”

  “I might.” I smiled. “I’m feeling generous enough, though, that if you let me go and turn Thyra and Adaran over I’ll give you a head start. It probably won’t do much for you since I’m sure Aiz, not to mention the Pedalion, would like a word with you.” I tipped my head toward the dais.

  “The Pedalion has almost outlived its usefulness,” Adora replied with a smile. “As have you.”

  “Adora.” Thyra’s quiet reprimand filled the sudden silence. “I told you both of them were not to be harmed before I figure out what happened. I will take her down to the lab.”

  I grinned. “Figured you weren’t in charge here.”

  Adora snapped her fingers and the guard kicked me. I folded in on his leg, rolling into the strike rather than trying to avoid it, and the satisfying snap of his knee breaking filled the air. I kept rolling over the top of him, making it to my feet before anyone else reacted.

  The explosion was close enough to shake the floor and pieces of the ceiling on the far side crashed down. I bolted for the still-open door, shoulder-checking the guard standing there hard enough to knock his head into the wall, and scrambled around the corner before Adora’s shouts reached my ears.

  “Emmory!” I yelled over the coms. “Can anyone read me?”

  Static fuzzed in my ears.

  I skidded around the corner and went down hard as the sounds of howling echoed through the air. “Fuck.” I straightened my back, slipping my cuffed hands below my ass and pulling my legs in until I could maneuver my hands in front.

  I made it to my feet as the first guard came around the corner. Only a Farian, thankfully.

  Hands cuffed in front was still a disadvantage, but all those days with the Shen meant the guard had almost no chance and once I eliminated the threat of his gun, his chance dropped to zero.

  It also meant I could scoop up his gun and shoot the next three guards I ran into in quick succession. The building shook again as I pulled up the maps we’d gotten from Tesha on my smati. I still couldn’t raise anyone on the coms, but I assumed this bombardment had something to do with my people.

  I wouldn’t put it past my Ekam to level a building just to get to me.

  The penitent cells were on the other side of the complex, but I put the route onto the map. I wasn’t leaving Sybil and the others here.

  “Whoa!”

  I pulled my shot to the left, narrowly missing Hao. Gita skidded to a stop behind him. “Sorry.”

  “Majesty, are you okay?”

  “Well enough.” I winced when she patted my ribs. “Little sore there, Gita, gently. You got anything that will get these off?”

  “Possibly, let me see.” She took my gun and shouldered it along with her own.

  “‘Alive, rescue my ass’?”

  I grinned at Hao. “I didn’t know how long a message I could send and figured that way you’d know it was me.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You weren’t wrong.”

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  “We split up, figured we had a better chance of finding you that way. Coms aren’t responding for shit,” Hao replied. “Though we’ve got Ragini working on the problem from above.”

  “Was that our ship blowing holes in the building?”

  “Ground ordnance, courtesy of the Shen, if you can believe it.”

  I thought of all those long hours on Sparkos listening to Aiz and Mia discuss the war. “I can, actually.”

  “Mia had a theory about the Selan being affected by the architecture that evolved into the best solution being destroying the architecture.” Hao grinned. “Which seemed like a good plan no matter what.”

  The cuffs clicked open and clattered to the floor. I kicked them out of the way and held my hand out to Gita for my gun. “Sybil and the rest of the Council of Eyes are in the penitent cells. We need to get them out.”

  Gita grabbed me at the sound of feet pounding down the hallway but relaxed when Aiz, Mia, and a squad of Shen appeared. The building shook again.

  “Hail,” Mia said, stepping forward. I took her hand.

  “I’m fine.” I smiled when she linked her fingers through mine and arched an eyebrow at me. The wash of energy flooded me a moment later and my injuries healed. “Thank you.”

  “Where’s Adora?”

  I tipped my head behind me. “Pedalion chambers, maybe. I don’t know what Thyra’s done to the other members; they were nonresponsive, but still alive as far as I could tell. Sybil and the council are in the basement. We were just about to go rescue them.”

  “We’ll go to the chamber,” Aiz said.

  “Be careful. Thyra’s there.”

  He barked an order to the Shen and they took off the way I’d come. Mia released my hand and smiled, then followed.

  The sudden sick feeling at the sight of her back retreating from me almost made me call out to her, but I swallowed her name and headed in the opposite direction.

  We stared at the empty cells.

  “Someone else let them out?” Hao asked with a frown.

  “I just hope it was one of our people and not Adora’s,” I muttered, and glanced ceilingward. “I haven’t asked you for much, Father, but it would be nice if we could have the coms back up.”

  “This is Senior Tech Ragini Triskan with the Vajrayana, Hailimi Bristol, does anyone read me?”

  I laughed and shared a look with Gita. “Remind me to make an appearance at Ganesh’s temple when we get home.”

  “Dve Desai, do you copy?” It was Indula’s voice, not Emmory’s, on the com, and my heart stuttered with panic.

  “Yes, we copy. The empress is with us. Has anyone heard from Emmory and Zin?”

  “We’re upper level, southwest side,” Emmory said. “Copy on the empress’s location. Where are you?”

  “Just below you, Emmory,” I replied. “Does anyone have eyes on Sybil or the other members of the council?”

  “We’ve got them, Majesty,” Emmory replied. “Or almost all of them, Sybil wasn’t with them.”

  “Where’s Fasé?”

  “I just met up with Aiz and Mia,” she replied. “We’re headed into the Pedalion chamber now—” The coms cut out again and I muttered a curse.

  “Aiz, do you copy?”

  “We’re meeting resistance here—”

  I was running before his response was finished. Gita’s protest faded as I took the stairs two at a time. I crashed into a pair of Adora’s guards, clocking one in the jaw with the butt of my gun.

  “Gita, two hostiles right in front of you,” I said over the com.

  Her reply was garbled as the coms cut out again and I swore, vaulting over a pile of rubble in the hallway and turning the corner to the narrow stretch that led to the Pedalion chamber.

  There were bodies strewn across the floor—Shen and Farian both—and I gasped a second, breathless prayer to the Dark Mother when I saw Aiz.

  “Aiz!” I dropped to my knees next to him and rolled him over.

  “Thyra took Mia.” There was blood everywhere and I realized in horror there was a gaping hole in the middle of his chest.

  “Where’s Adora?”

  “Still in the chamber. She’d have finished me off if Sybil hadn’t shown up.”

  “Stay still.” I put my hands over the wound in the front and dragged in a breath and felt my skin cool as I started pushing energy into him.

  “Stop, Hail. You can’t heal this. You have to go after Mia.”

  “I’m currently occupied trying to save your life.”

 
He shook his head and smiled weakly. “I’ll come back from this. She won’t.”

  “But it won’t be you.” The protest slid out, choked with tears.

  “Humans.” He laughed, coughed, and spat the blood to the side. “It’ll always be me, Hail. Please go.”

  It was the hardest thing in the universe to stop healing him and pull my hands away. I wiped at the tears, smearing Aiz’s blood across my cheeks, and sprinted down the hallway toward the Pedalion chamber.

  “Don’t come after me.” Mia’s words were loud in my head, and I realized what she meant as I ran through the open door. “You’ll die if you follow, Hail, and I won’t survive the loss of you.”

  Adora, Fasé, and Sybil stood inside, all three Farians bloody and their hands interlaced, the other members of the Pedalion watching like a row of dolls.

  I snagged a knife off the corpse of a Shen, crossed the room, and plunged it into Adora’s back in a spot I knew wouldn’t kill her but would put her on the floor. The Farian gasped in pain. Fasé and Sybil pushed her to her knees with a triumphant cry.

  “You stay right where you are,” I ordered, putting my gun to the back of Adora’s head. “I don’t need a reason to pull this trigger.”

  “Release them,” Sybil ordered as she let Adora go and stepped back, her hands folded at her waist.

  Adora’s mouth was tight, but she waved a hand and all four members of the Pedalion blinked.

  “What is going on? Adora—” Rotem’s demand died in his throat as he registered the death and destruction in the chamber.

  “Majesty!” Gita sprinted into the chamber.

  “Gun on her,” I ordered, my own still pointed at Adora, and only when Gita complied did I pull mine away.

  Sybil touched her bloody fingers to her lips three times and smiled. “Star of Indrana. We have reached the end of this. Your final choice on this path. The last fork in the road.”

  “There’s no choice. Not for me. You know this already. Open that,” I said, pointing at the star on the floor. “Now.”

  “Hail—” Gita’s protest was choked and I sent her an apologetic smile.

  “You have to stay here.” I knew that all our plans were useless. I had to face Thyra alone.

  “Follow the water.” Sybil touched her hand to the table on the dais. The floor rumbled and slid open, revealing the shimmering pool in the center. Fasé didn’t hesitate, jumping through before I could stop her, and I swore.

  “Are you sure about this, Hail? You could die.” Another strange smile.

  “Everyone dies,” I replied, and jumped after Fasé.

  42

  I hit the water hard but managed to hold my breath until I surfaced and crawled up onto the bank, lying there for a moment before I pushed to my feet and went to find Fasé.

  The cavern seemed the same as it had the first time we came through. The smooth black walls curving and spiraling, shimmers winking in and out of existence like the stars in the night sky on any atmospheric planet in the galaxy.

  By some miracle the little black box Biea had given me was in my pocket and seemed to be unharmed. “I don’t know if you’ll work down here, but it’s worth a try,” I murmured, pressing my thumb to a side. A blue light glowed within and I shoved it back into my pocket.

  Fasé stood, staring at the water, and looked up at me when I approached with a smile on her face. “Are you injured?”

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “Mia healed me just before they went for the Pedalion. Fasé, why did you jump?” The words caught in my throat, hot with pain.

  “Because I need to be here with you.” Fasé reached for me, linking her fingers through mine. “We should get moving, though.”

  “Sybil said, Follow the water,” I murmured, looking around. We hadn’t explored much the first time we’d been here, instead moving quickly forward for the ilios porthmeios. This time I walked the perimeter of the cave until I heard the sound of rushing water.

  “You are fucking kidding me.” I gave my brain exactly five seconds to freak out over the waterfall at my feet, swore a second time, and jumped, knowing that Fasé would follow.

  The roaring filled my head as the water wrapped around me, and it was just high enough that I went into free fall for a heartbeat before I slammed into the water below.

  I’d opened my eyes and to my surprise was not met with pitch-blackness but a thousand stars and galaxies spinning in the water in front of me. They danced and shone, mesmerizing me until my lungs reminded me of their rather urgent need to expel the air inside. I kicked until the water separated above my head. Fasé had already surfaced. She tipped her head to the side in a silent question and we swam away from the waterfall, the turbulent water calming into a river that grew narrower the farther we went on.

  Follow the river, but how far?

  The answer came around a bend, when up ahead I spotted a pair of large turbines. We made a beeline for the shore and I hauled myself, then Fasé, dripping, up onto the bank.

  This wasn’t a natural cavern, but a large smooth area that had been hollowed out and filled with machinery. I squeezed the water from my hair and unslung the weapon from my back, pleased with the blinking lights and slight vibration that greeted my touch. I was going to take that as a sign that Farian guns were waterproof. Fasé was wringing water from her shirt. We exchanged a silent nod and slipped between the softly humming machines.

  They were taller than I was, stretching up toward the black ceiling, but gave no hint what purpose hid behind their white exteriors. Cables stretched across the ground and from the ceiling. Some led out of the room and I traced the others back to the turbines.

  “Generators,” I said to Fasé. “Pulling from the water?” Even as I said it I felt a strange sensation on the surface of my skin and I glanced down at my hands. The stars were under my skin, spinning just below the surface. “Fasé?”

  She held up her own hands, as star-filled as mine. “It’s not water, Hail, it’s us. Farians. You were right. Our energy, our prayers. They’ve stolen it all.” She angrily wiped a tear away and I pulled her into a hug.

  “I’m sorry. We’re going to fix this.” My own fury at everything Thyra and the others had stolen from the Farians had reached a boiling point. They had to be stopped, not only for Mia’s sake, but for all of the Farians and Shen.

  “Over there.”

  I spotted the door Fasé was pointing at on the other side and headed for it. As far as I could tell this place was deserted—with the exception of Thyra and Mia.

  Or possibly Adaran.

  Bugger me, I hope not. Bad enough I’ll have to fight one of them.

  I blew out a breath and continued on. A door was open at the far end and light streamed from it into the dim corridor. I slowed, pushing Fasé behind me and making my steps as light as possible. We were dry now and the energy hummed under my skin.

  A shadow moved across the light in the doorway and my smati started to translate the Selan it picked up in fits and starts, and after a moment I realized why.

  Thyra was speaking what was probably the original form of Selan, while Biea and the others spoke a language that had evolved with them.

  “What… that is wrong. And this, too. All the… are wrong. Why?”

  I gestured to Fasé to stay put and crept closer to the door, crouching down and peeking in. Thyra stood with her back to me and my heart lurched when I spotted Mia’s boots on the floor.

  The alien moved, still talking to herself, the words coming too fast now for me to even decipher my smati’s translation attempts.

  Not that I cared; my eyes were glued to the table she’d just moved away from as I sent a third desperate prayer to the gods of my homeland, any of them who would listen.

  Please let Mia be alive.

  I pressed my fingers to my lips to hold in the gasp that tried to break free when I saw her—unconscious but still breathing, not broken open and violated like in her vision. Tears clouded my eyes for a long moment until I
blinked, sending them scattering and falling down through the air.

  “Fasé, no matter what happens, I want you to stay out of sight and if she kills me, you run,” I subvocalized over our com channel, which seemed to be working just fine now that we were out of the range of whatever had been interfering on the surface.

  “She will not kill you. She needs you alive. She wants you willing. You must not be.”

  I knew she was right, I just wasn’t sure if I could withstand that honeyed voice. Either way it didn’t make a whole lot of difference; I had to move. I carefully got to my feet.

  Hao had taught me a long time ago that honorable fights were for dead men and if you had the choice between shooting someone in the back and tangling with them in a fair fight, you should always pick the win.

  I didn’t know if this gun would even hurt Thyra, given that the Koros 101 didn’t, but it was all I had. I lifted the gun and sighted it on Thyra’s back, pulling the trigger without hesitation or remorse.

  The shot hit her in the back, shimmered for a moment, and then dissipated.

  “Hail.” Thyra looked over her shoulder at me. “Do you really think I would teach the Farians how to make a weapon that would hurt me?” she asked in Indranan.

  “It was worth a shot.” I tensed, keeping the curse I wanted to let fly behind my teeth, and waited for that first twitch from Thyra to indicate she was coming at me.

  But she didn’t; instead she turned back to Mia.

  “You may keep it if it makes you feel better, but it won’t do you any good.”

  I looped the strap over my head and shoulder as I stepped into the room. “This is over, Thyra.”

  “Do you think this is one of those vid-dramas? You the righteous hero here to save the girl?” She made a popping sound and waved a limb when I tried to shift toward Mia. “Stay right there or I will pin you to the wall and we will finish this conversation with you dangling like a piece of meat on a butcher’s hook.”

  “You know my people are mostly vegetarian, right?”

  Thyra stared at me and I lifted my hands as I bared my teeth at her in a vicious smile.

  “You probably know by now that my people don’t eat at all,” Thyra replied, turning back to the counter and taking a sheet that shimmered like rainbows. “Priam loved your people. And your vid-dramas. Do you know how excited he was the day we heard of your appearance, Star of Indrana? How long we’d waited for the vision Sybil saw to come to fruition?” She moved closer to Mia, reaching out and brushing a curl off her forehead with the end of her limb. “It almost made all the years of putting up with the Shen and their little rebellion worth it. You crushed his hopes, you disappointing thing. And then your Ekam killed him.”