Brilliant Starlight

by Anna Carven

  Tarak looks down, meeting my gaze. His face is a frozen mask of silver. His walls are up, but the demons inside him threaten to pour out of his molten-red eyes. “My love,” he whispers, going perfectly still, “Xar is the place where monsters are made.”

  And that, folks, is how you successfully scare the living daylights out of a simple Earth girl who’s hundreds of light-years away from home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Abbey

  “Hi, sweetie.” I wave at Ami’s holo-projection as we hurtle towards Xar. Silence is heading for Xar’s outer orbit, where it will lurk in cloaked invisibility as we ride a stealth-cruiser down to the surface of the mysterious planet. Tarak explained that speed and stealth are the key; no enemies should figure out what we’re trying to do, and therefore we shouldn’t get caught. Fast and simple. That’s the plan, but when it comes to all things Kordolian, nothing ever goes to plan. If Tarak he has to, he’ll summon his entire damn fleet to Xar.

  I told him not to be silly, that the peacekeeping mission on Kythia is more important than me, but Tarak doesn’t pull any punches.

  “It’s my war fleet, amina. I’ll command it as I please.”

  Xar, it turns out, isn’t just some place. It’s actually a planet, complete with scary secrets and a sinister past. It’s where the First Division were created.

  Hold that thought.

  “Mamda.” Ami holds her arms out, reaching for me. Her projection—generated with the aid of mysterious Kordolian tech—is so realistic, so vivid, that I automatically lift my arms. For the last few weeks, it’s been our only method of communication. She doesn’t understand why she can’t be with me, and it’s breaking my heart.

  This isolation is slowly driving me insane.

  “Aww…” I choke back a sob. She doesn’t quite understand that the version of me she’s seeing is only a hologram. “Mama will be back. You be a good girl for your aunties. Behave yourself, and for the love of Jupiter, please don’t break anything until after I get back.” I push the tears away and summon a smile.

  A gentle smile spreads across Ami’s face in response, breaking my heart all over again. All I want to do is put my arms around her and hold her close, but because of this stupid mutating, cell-eating virus, I can’t even do that.

  Instead, I’m forced to stay in this horrible isolation.

  It won’t be for long, though. Damn it, I’m going to beat this thing. Total exsanguifiltration sounds like the worst torture in the entire Universe, but I’ll gladly do it if it means I get to survive.

  Ami coos and swats at my image. I blow her a kiss, and she blows me a raspberry in return. “I love you, Ami-tsunami.”

  Her violet eyes are as wide and brilliant and mysterious as the Universe itself. I never get tired of gazing at her beautiful face, even now, as we speed towards the place where Tarak’s past is buried.

  “There’s nothing good on that cursed hell-hole of a planet,” he said at one point. “The quicker we can get in and out of there, the better.”

  Apparently, it’s an abandoned planet. Why the hell would anyone have to abandon an entire planet? What the hell have these mad Kordolians been doing in this sector of the Universe?

  Ami’s image flickers slightly. “I have to go now, honey.” I should probably keep this short, otherwise I’ll turn into a complete mess.

  Thankfully, Tarak is able to slip out now and then to spend some time with the Little Monster. He’s left me again, to attend to some business or other. Even when I’m holed up here in isolation, the Universe has to move forward. I don’t understand how he’s managing things on Kythia from up here, but apparently he has troops on the ground, whatever that means. He’s also sent Prince Xal down there to iron out the finer details of civilization building, as they call it.

  “Mamda, bababa,” Ami babbles. She’s clutching her favorite toy—Mister Smilo the Crocodile—and looking around in confusion. “Mamda?” Her voice rises in pitch as the innocuous baby word becomes more of a question.

  “Mama will be with you soon,” I reassure her, believing every word.

  “Uwah.” Ami goes all serious, handing me the entire Universe in a look. I love this kid to bits.

  I will do anything to be with her again, even if it means going down to an abandoned, forsaken planet that none of the Kordolians wants to talk about. Even if it means having my chest cut open, my aorta clamped, and my entire blood volume drained and filtered in the space of a few minutes. At least that’s how Zharek explained it to me. When he started to go into further gory detail, I held my hand up and said: “enough”.

  “Hey, Abbey.” Riana’s sitting on the floor with Ami. She reaches and angles the holo-device so that she comes into full view. “As you can see, she’s totally fine. We’ve been playing hide-and seek and eating yummy savi pudding. She loves her savi pudding.”

  I nod, suddenly craving the deliciously tangy blue fruit. It’s best eaten cold, with lashings of fragrant purple prillia syrup. I’ll ask Tarak to bring me some on the way back. “Thanks, Riana. You girls have gone above-and-beyond.”

  “Nope.” Riana shakes her head. “This is normal. Nothing exceptional about it. I’d do it over and over again, because you guys are like family to us, and I know you’d do the same for me. Besides, we’re having lots of fun, aren’t we, Ami-banani?”

  Ami-banani? Ha. That’s a new one. Ami giggles and squeals as Riana hides her face behind her hands and then reappears again.

  Knowing that Ami’s in safe hands has made our separation a little easier to deal with. I blink back tears and find another smile. It comes a little bit more easily this time. I raise my hand, waving to Ami. “Bye, sweetie. Mama will be there soon.”

  “Mamda,” Ami coos. “Baibai.” She waves back at me.

  “Bye.” Aw, shit. This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

  Riana swings the vision so that her face fills the holo-vision. “She’ll be fine, Abbey. Tarak has given us an impressively detailed list of instructions and we are going follow everything to a tee, on pain of death.” She makes a face; a weird combination of trepidation and excitement. “If this is what all Kordolian daddies are like, then I can’t wait.”

  “Oh, God.” I drop my face into my hands. Control-freak, General, husband, and total papa-wolf. That’s what he is. I fear for Ami’s future boyfriends.

  Riana laughs. “Don’t worry about a thing. It’s actually very sweet of him. He can’t help it if he’s scary and intimidating. That’s just the way they are.” Her expression turns serious. “Abbey, get well. We’ll see you soon.” She raises a hand in solidarity.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Reluctantly, I end the comm, and I’m lucky that I do so just then, because the next thing I know, I’m doubling over in pain and dark bruises are blossoming on my arms, right before my very eyes.

  This is not the kind of thing I’d ever want Ami to witness.

  The bruises ripple and spread underneath my skin. Spidery black trails grow outwards from the bruises like swiftly branching roots. It’s as if something’s alive under there, and it wants out. The pain is everywhere; in my face, my arms, my legs, my torso, my back.

  “Zharek!” I scream, knowing the mad scientist is watching me from somewhere beyond the dark walls. “Get your ass in here, and get Tarak right now!”

  I stare at my pale skin. The black stuff is writhing around like an abstract tattoo come to life. A sense of detachment comes over me. Is this really happening? I wish it would stop. I really fucking wish it would stop.

  My head spins. I close my eyes and think of Tarak and Ami. I try to separate myself from the pain.

  Seal it in a box and throw it away. That’s what Zharek said. If only I could do that right now.

  In helplessness, there’s an odd kind of strength. It’s the strength to endure, because you know that this too will pass, and eventually things will be different. I hear the qualum doors slide open. Voices float around me, merging into a steady stream of rapid-fire Kordolian.
A lot of the words are incomprehensible to me. They seem to be obscure medical terms.

  I take a deep breath and try to empty my mind. I don’t know why I do that. It just feels right. It seems to help with this terrible agony that’s coursing through my body right now. The pain is worse than anything I’ve felt before, even when I smashed both of my legs back on Fortuna Tau. It’s as if someone is stabbing me with a thousand knives that have been dipped in hot acid.

  Seal it in a box. Throw it away.

  “Sylerian,” I croak. “Dope me up. Knock me out.” It’s a hoarse, desperate plea. Anything to get rid of this excruciating pain. I open my eyes a crack and see Zharek and Mareth and a couple of assistants hovering over me. In the background, Torin is barking into hi comm. Zharek is snapping orders. He’s no longer the strange and somewhat unstable Kordolian I saw earlier. Now, he’s in complete control.

  “Whatever you’re doing,” he whispers in my ear, “keep doing it.”

  “What?” I don’t understand. I’m not doing anything. I’m just lying here and wishing the bad stuff would go away.

  “Knock me out,” I beg.

  “Try to control it,” Zharek counters. What? Is he fucking mad? I’m in agony here, and he’s spouting nonsense.

  “Give her the pain relief, medic.” Torin’s deep voice echoes from behind.

  “Control what?” I grate between clenched teeth. “Give me some fucking pain relief, already.” No more Mrs Nice Abbey. I’m dying here, and Zharek is pissing me off. “When my husband finds out about this, he’s going to go nuts. Do you have a death wish, Kordolian?”

  “Sometimes.” Through the haze of agony, Zharek’s flippant reply catches me off-guard. “You misunderstand. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and do that thing you were doing before, whatever it was, just before you asked me for Sylerian. You can’t have that stuff right now. It’s too dangerous. Try and think. Something was happening inside your mind, was it not? What were you thinking about, Human?”

  “Aargh!” I scream as the agony grows worse. My back arches and I dig my fingers into the firm padding of the pod.

  What was I thinking about? I close my eyes and see darkness shot through with thousands of stars.

  Seal it in a box. Throw it away. Seal it in a box. Throw it…

  If I could just take all this fucking pain and…

  It’s as if there’s pressure inside my head. Something’s trying to intrude on my will. I push back. I imagine a box. I visualize the horrible virus-infected nanites inside it. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could seal the stupid box and cast it into the cold black void of space?

  “That’s it,” Zharek murmurs. “Whatever you’re thinking, hold onto it.”

  A strange tingling sensation flows over my scalp and down my spine. It’s as if I’m being gently shocked by thousands of tiny electric zaps. The feeling spreads down my limbs and into my belly, and suddenly, the pain starts to fade.

  Little by little, it drains away, like a receding tide.

  “That’s it, Abbey. Well done.” Zharek’s voice is full of surprise. “I did not realize Humans possessed it as well.”

  “Possessed what?” Now I’m totally confused. How does thinking about a box suddenly help me overcome the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life?

  “The old Kordolians call it ka’qui. It’s the living energy—the spirit energy—inside us. We all possess it to some small extent, but very few of us can control it. My working theory is that the ability is due to a combination of willpower and genetics.”

  “Oh.” I’ve heard about this ka’qui stuff from Noali. After she had her head cut open by mad scientists back on Earth, the musician suddenly developed terrifying psy-abilities. Me, however, I’m just an ordinary Human. “There’s no way I could possibly have—”

  “All Kordolians have it. It doesn’t surprise me that Humans have it too. Yours was summoned out of desperation; the pain acted as a conduit. Proper control, however, can only occur once you’ve developed enough mental discipline to hold the forms in your mind while the world rages on around you.”

  Ka’qui. Nanites. Boxes. Excruciating pain all of a sudden. My head is spinning. I look down and find that the all the black stuff on my skin—the bruises and the fine branches—has disappeared. My arms are as pale and smooth as ever, complete with a faint smattering of freckles.

  “And just like that, it’s gone.” Zharek points to something behind me, and his assistants erupt into a blur of motion, taking readings, calibrating machines, and hooking up tubes and cartridges and all kinds of things. They’re replacing the cartridge containing the straw-colored plasma-protein infusion with something else.

  I’d know that distinctive shade of red anywhere.

  Blood. Human blood.

  “Whoa!” I scream as the pain returns. It’s like a punch in the guts, and I double over in shock.

  “Close your eyes,” Zharek says, in an almost sing-song kind of tone. “Visualize whatever it is you visualized before. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have distracted you. Focus. Focus. They will respond. Trust yourself. You can do this, Abbey-formerly of-Earth-and-now-a-daughter-of-Kythia. ”

  Daughter of Kythia. Ha. That has a strange ring to it. I don’t completely hate it, but I doubt I’ll ever be going down the surface of the Dark Planet ever again.

  Box. Throw. Away. Right. The pressure. Push it away.

  Again, the pain goes.

  It works. Holy hell, it works. I’ve managed to partly control the vicious, seething machines inside me.

  Is this what Tarak and the rest of the First Division soldiers do every time they wear their nano-armor? I’ve always wondered about it.

  “That’s what makes your mate and his brothers such terrifying specimens,” Zharek says softly. “Imagine doing what you’ve just done a hundred-fold. Imagine that the structures you’re trying to hold in place are impossibly complicated, and that you have to maintain them perfectly while being attacked by the most vicious enemies in the Universe. Imagine that every time you draw them out, you feel excruciating pain, like what you’ve just experienced.”

  “That’s what Tarak goes through every single time?” My eyes snap open as horror courses through me.

  “Something like that. But unlike you, your mate does it instinctively. The First Division were all selected for their unique combination of natural fighting ability and superior conceptual memory. The distinction between ordinary will and ka’qui doesn’t exist for them.” A faint beeping noise diverts his attention, and Zharek says something in Kordolian to Mareth. The other medic makes a small gesture with his hands. “And that’s done. You’re very fortunate my former clan-sister had the foresight to stock up on Human blood.”

  “Wha…?” My thoughts shatter into a hundred confused fragments as the pain returns. I scream.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Sirian?” Suddenly Tarak appears, sweeping into the room like a savage winter storm. I didn’t see or hear him coming, but that’s not unusual. He’s in full battle-armor from the neck down, and there’s a knife in his hand. He reaches my side and grazes my cheek with his gloved fingers. I’m breathing heavily and my brow is clammy with sweat, but I no longer feel the need to scream.

  The pain isn’t quite at scream-level anymore. It’s been dialed down to regular agony level.

  “What has he done to you?” Tarak looks like he’s ready to kill someone, and Zharek’s right in the firing line.

  “J-just the virus,” I say hastily before he jumps to conclusions and starts wreaking havoc. “It started playing up again. Zharek’s been teaching me how to control it using ka’qui.”

  Tarak’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Humans do not know of the ka’qui.”

  “Noa does,” I remind him. “There are people on Earth who can do strange psy-things. You and I are not so different, my love. It isn’t so strange that we might share some similarities when it comes to this psy stuff.”

  My pain is fading again, but this time it has nothing to
do with my box-visualizing skills. They’re pumping proper blood into me now. I sigh in relief, but it’s actually Tarak who looks the most relieved.

  The intense pressure in the room drops a notch. His killing aura softens a little.

  “We’re going to need more,” Zharek mutters, more to himself than anyone else. He turns to Mareth. “Tell the Human females to report here immediately. Until we get a good synth-batch going, we’ll need extra blood. If they aren’t a match, we’ll use haemo-modification.”

  “What is the problem?”

  “The kriovirus has mutated again. Now it wants whole blood. Nothing we can’t handle, though. We just need to feed it. As long as we maintain a constant supply, it won’t attack her body.”

  I’m struck by a sudden brainwave. “Is it really necessary for us to go to Xar? Couldn’t I just learn to… control the nanites?”

  Zharek shakes his head. “Not feasible. The virus is only going to keep mutating, and learning how to control the nano-particles would be a long and difficult undertaking. Trust me, you don’t want to know what these guys had to go through in order to develop the proper level of mental discipline. For an untrained Human like you, it could take a lifetime.”

  “The past will stay in the past,” Tarak growls. His ears twitch. “Do not needlessly dredge up pointless facts. If you want to atone for your original sin, cure my mate. She is more worthy than all of us combined.”

  A strange expression dawns on Zharek’s face in response to my husband’s words. It’s a mixture of surprise and wonder and hope. For a brief moment, he turns from an eccentric washed-up drug addict into someone who has the power to change fates.

  A silent look of understanding passes between the medic and my husband.

  Who is this Zharek guy, really?

  The medic goes quiet. Tarak squeezes my hand. “How is your pain?”

  “Better,” I say gently. “Much better now that you’re here.” Despite the fact that I’ve just gone through a hellishly painful experience, a sliver of arousal stirs in my core. It’s always like this with him. Whenever he’s around, I toe the fine line between affection and outright lust.