Girl of Fire: The Expulsion Project Book One (A Science Fiction Dystopian Thriller)

by Norma Hinkens

“Target eliminated,” the electronic voice chirped. “Breach alert resolved. Sentinels stand down and return to stations.”

  Fir frowned, the deep “V” in the center of her forehead the only visible indication of her anguish at the knowledge that Ivel and his young daughter, Leba, had just been obliterated by Preeminence’s robotic air defense system—unerringly accurate, as always.

  She had created it.

  “To defend humanity,” she whispered more to herself than anyone else.

  Oka reached over and squeezed Fir’s shoulder awkwardly. “No one could have predicted it would be used against us.”

  That wasn’t exactly true, and they both knew it. They had discussed the risk, and others like it, many times, but ultimately decided a robotic defense system was a necessary evil, considering the growing threats from Maulers and other Galactic Pirates.

  Fir avoided making eye contact as she turned back to the control hub. “Consigning pods for departure.” She depressed a sequence of buttons and then straightened up and faced her colleagues again. “Five minutes to lift off. Time for us to make our exit.”

  Without a backward glance, the four scientists filed silently out through the entry doors and made their way along the corridor to the high-speed elevachute. They rode the thirty-seven floors up to the ground level of the ASRI headquarters in under thirty seconds, scanned their ID’s at the security gate, and exited through the glass doors at the front of the building. Oka nodded a curt good-bye to his colleagues and turned onto the main thoroughfare to begin the short trek home.

  At eighteen hundred hours and thirteen minutes, he glanced back over his shoulder. A brilliant ball of scarlet and mustard lit up the sky over the spot where the underground laboratory lay buried.

  2

  Fourteen years later …

  “Oremongers docking!”

  I flinch, my spear poised for the kill. The small herd of three-horned sham scatters in a cloud of dust at the shout. I lower my arm, my spine tingling with a raw excitement that supersedes the thrill of the hunt. I’ve heard tales of oremongers and other galactic traders whispered against a backdrop of flickering campfires, the smell of roasting meat tickling my nostrils, but it’s the first time in fourteen moons that a trade ship has docked on Cwelt. The last one brought me here.

  “Trattora! Where are you?”

  I peer out from my hiding place high in the rocks and grin as I take aim and land my spear with a satisfying whoosh directly in front of Buir’s leather-bound feet.

  She gasps and hops backward. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she shouts, her eyes roving in vain over the jagged outcroppings. She won’t spot me; at best, I’ll be a streak in her vision against the burning sun. I can leap as nimbly as any sham, and vanish like a vapor into the dark crevices in these formations. I come here to be alone—when the sense of not belonging anywhere becomes too overwhelming.

  “That was payback,” I say, splaying my fingers in greeting as I vault down from behind a large luminescent indigo boulder. “You scared off the herd of shams I’ve been tracking all afternoon, and I was in sore need of that kill.” I gesture at the latest tear in my shamskin cloak—a fault line, even by my tolerant standards, and the third cloak I’ve ruined this month.

  Buir raises a filigreed brow at me. As always, she is immaculately turned out—her gleaming hair woven tightly around her scalp, her shamskin accessorized with an enameled brooch fashioned by a revered Cweltan craftsman.

  “Your father won’t be pleased that you were hunting where the dead are mourned,” she scolds. “Or that you greet the oremongers in such disheveled shape.”

  Buir takes her advisory role in how I present myself in affairs of state more seriously than I’d like. Her father died fifteen moons ago in service to my adoptive father, the chieftain, and she strives to honor his memory in every way she can. I link my arm in hers and tug her playfully to my side. “We’ll strike my first misdemeanor from the record as we both know you’re not going to rat me out.” I throw a quick glance down at my ruined cloak, and shrug. “As for my shoddy appearance, my only defense is that I wasn’t expecting visitors after this many moons of isolation.”

  Buir’s the only person who knows I hunt in the sacred triangle, and despite her disapproval, she indulges me on this one issue. She understands that at times I need to rest my head against the coolness of one of its magnificent boulders when the pain inside me swells until my chest hurts. Something about the solitude here has a healing quality to it.

  Cweltan legend claims warring galactic gods hurled the spectacular luminescent rocks at each other, and that they hold some mysterious power. Since our elders still haven’t figured out what that power is, snagging the odd kill here doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

  “Hurry!” I say, unlinking my arm from Buir’s. “I don’t want to miss the landing.”

  We tuck our cloaks into our leather belts and break into a run toward the settlement that houses our thirty-thousand-or-so strong population. Cwelt is a tiny, fringe planet in the Netherscape, outside the jurisdiction of the Syndicate, and also beyond their protection. Navigating the Netherscape is fraught with danger, not the least of which is the risk of encountering Maulers who regularly hijack trading vessels, seize slaves, and invade sovereign nations to extend their reach and resources. The Syndicate occasionally patrols the Netherscape, but only attempting to protect its own borders. The fate of other sovereign nations is only of interest to them if resources are at stake, and Cwelt has no tribute worthy enough to offer a protector.

  My breath tingles the back of my throat as I run. My heart beats wildly, not from exertion—I can pound the dirt for hours like any long-legged Cweltan—but from exhilaration. I’ve dreamed of this day for many moons. Pictured it in my loneliest moments staked out on a hunt, my cloak wrapped tightly around me against a bracing solar wind. I’m hoping, of course, that there are people like me on board the ship. Fiery-haired and white-skinned. At the very least, they might know of others like me.

  Apart from the lights of the odd Syndicate patrol with its distinctive insignia of a flaming planet, I’ve never seen a ship, other than the few wrecks half-buried in the desert beyond our farms. Ordinarily, the Syndicate patrols give planets like Cwelt a wide berth. Fringe planets are too remote and primitive for them to bother with. But no one has an explanation for why the traders don’t come anymore. Astro fruit from our farms and our shamskins used to be highly prized commodities along the eastern arterial trade route. In return, my father purchased educational materials from the Syndicate EduPlex system, technical and medical DigiPads from societies advanced far beyond our own. He takes great pride in the fact that I have absorbed it all and deciphered things the elders could not understand. I fear it’s the only area in which I truly please him.

  I glance again at the unseemly tear in my tunic. Despite my nonchalant response to Buir, I’m secretly worried about my father’s reaction to my less-than-regal appearance. As chieftain, he demands a certain level of decorum from his daughter. He’s almost always sorely disappointed. I’m nothing like my graceful mother. I’m not like anyone on Cwelt. No fully grown adult here is under six feet tall, and the hair on their heads is waterfall-straight and shimmery white from birth, which is why they are endlessly fascinated by the way my red hair ripples uncontrollably over my freckled shoulders when I turn it loose.

  The ground beneath us begins to vibrate and an unfamiliar rumbling fills our ears. “This way!” I say, grabbing Buir so that we don’t get separated.

  We elbow our way to the front of the seething crowd and stare in awe at the oremonger’s ship powering down in a shroud of dust on the far side of the settlement. A crude patchwork of soldered metal, for the most part, totally unlike the intergalactic cruisers, battleships and trading vessels the elders describe from moons gone by. It’s more like the wrecks buried in the desert, but to me it is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. My nostrils twitch at the unfamiliar odor of fumes wafting our way. “Do y
ou think they will let us on board?” I whisper to Buir.

  Her ice-gray eyes widen. “I’m not going anywhere in it. They could be kidnappers.”

  I laugh. “I just meant to look around. Not to go anywhere.”

  Buir has little desire for adventure and none for risk. Like many other Cweltans, she’s convinced she will die the moment she leaves Cwelt’s atmosphere. Campfire folklore, of course. I’ve already been beyond it.

  I glance around and spot my father a few feet to my left. He’s robed in his finest shamskin and wearing his three-horned headpiece encrusted with augamond stones from our neighboring planet, Oxtian. In his gnarled right hand, he clutches his spear. From his waist dangles a ray gun salvaged from one of the ships that crash landed here many moons before I arrived. It doesn’t work, but the oremongers won’t know that.

  At my father’s side, as always, is his advisor, Parthelon. His long frame bends as he whispers in my father’s ear. At almost eight feet tall, Parthelon is the tallest man on Cwelt. He dislikes me, although he hides it well around my father. My mother once told me that Parthelon tried to talk them out of buying me from the traders who brought me here, even though he knew how much they longed for a child in their old age. He was worried I would taint the Cweltan genes if I married among them. But there’s no danger of that. Cweltan men view me as a curiosity, not an attraction.

  My fingers instinctively reach for the tiny bracelet engraved with my name and birthdate that hangs from a chain around my neck. I suspect it may have contained a tracking device at one point, but the electronics inside are dead. I don’t know if my birth parents are dead too, or if I was stolen from them by Maulers. Or perhaps they were sent to an interplanetary penal colony and forced to give me up, which is not uncommon on planets in the four quadrants under Syndicate jurisdiction.

  My eyes settle hungrily on the visiting ship. If I bought passage with traders, I might be able to find out where my bracelet was forged. I sigh inwardly. As the chieftain’s only heir, the elders would most certainly forbid it. I swallow down a familiar painful lump. My destiny is here now. Only Parthelon would be pleased if I disappeared with the oremongers.

  A collective gasp ripples through the crowd as the ship’s enormous cargo bay slowly hinges open revealing centrifugal mining gear and impact grinders. I recognize the equipment from the educational materials I have pored over. The oremongers will be sorely disappointed to learn that Cwelt has nothing to offer them after they risked passage through the Netherscape.

  Buir elbows me excitedly when several figures emerge on the deck. “So … strange-looking,” she gasps.

  I scrutinize the group of four oremongers as they descend the metal ramp and begin making their way toward us, led by a stocky, flat-nosed woman. They’re shorter than Cweltans, dressed in simple tunics of earthen shades, shod in leather boots. The most striking thing about them is that they’re bald-headed. All but one. He walks at the back of the pack, the subservient position, yet his stride is assured—verging on a swagger. He’s taller than the rest of the party and broader, but nowhere near as tall as Parthelon. My lips curve upward when I see his caramel-colored skin and long, glossy black hair, woven into skeins and bouncing off his back. He too is a stranger among his people.

  I gesture discreetly at him and whisper to Buir, “Look at the dark one! He rides too close to the sun.”

  “Either that or he’s ill. He’s got some strange marking on his neck, too.” She leans over and whispers in my ear. “Can you believe they expose their heads like that? They look naked!”

  My father steps forward and splays his hand in greeting to the stocky woman. “Salutations!”

  The oremonger returns the greeting with a quick nod of acknowledgment and introduces herself as Sarth. She grins patronizingly at the crowd of onlookers, displaying an assortment of dingy-looking teeth. Brows like angry dashes frame her dark, unsmiling eyes. The other three members of her party hang back, their expressions guarded. Directly behind Sarth is a tall, narrow-hipped man with sturdy shoulders, a beaked nose, and a knot in his neck that looks like a tumor. By his side is a much younger man with a squashed face, built like a boulder, and then the caramel-colored outsider. All three look as if they’re poised to bolt if anything untoward happens. If they’re armed, they’re hiding it well.

  “Cwelt welcomes you as the first traders in fourteen moons,” Parthelon announces, with a flourish of his hand.

  Sarth flicks a disinterested glance up at him and then addresses my father. “My ship, the Zebulux, has an ailing thruster. I request safe haven here until we can repair it.”

  “You come unarmed?” my father asks.

  Sarth gives an unconvincing nod. “We left our weapons on board. We come in peace.”

  “Then your request is granted.” My father motions behind him at the crowd pressing in. “You must forgive my people’s curiosity. It’s been many moons since we’ve seen a trading vessel of any sort. How did you find your way to us?”

  A wary look comes over Sarth’s face. “We stumbled on a tertiary route through the Netherscape. It brought us past several old fringe trading posts such as yours.” She looks around with a sharp eye. “I had hoped to find parts, but I see you have no fleet.”

  “Our population is small,” my father explains.

  Sarth tents a hand over her eyes and surveys the craggy hills behind our settlement. “What do you have of interest to a speculative oremonger operation?”

  “Our trade in the past consisted of shamskins and astro fruit,” my father replies. “We harvest several different varieties that aren’t grown anywhere else in our planetary system.”

  Sarth’s brow ripples with displeasure. “Skins and foodstuffs trade for nothing. Don’t you deal in minerals or metals at all?”

  Parthelon straightens up to his full height. “There is nothing worth mining on Cwelt.” He gestures at his spear. “Even the tips on our spears were bought from traders in moons past. Like the chieftain said, we trade in shamskins and rare fruit, both of which are highly prized on Syndicate planets.”

  Sarth curls her bottom lip. “Were highly prized. I’m not interested in schlepping a cargo of fruit along the trade route without a guaranteed buyer. The Syndicate has hortoreplication plants everywhere to create foodstuffs nowadays.” She turns back to my father. “They’ll still pay a handsome sum for the right minerals and metals, though. Perhaps we can run some core samples, now that we’re here.”

  My father inclines his head. “You have my permission, although I must warn you that oremongers have tried in the past and found nothing. But first, allow my people to refresh you with some sustenance.”

  Sarth gestures behind her to the rest of her party and they step forward to follow my father and Parthelon. The crowd parts to let them through. Cweltan children point and whisper excitedly to one another as the oremongers pass in front of them.

  I freeze when my father’s gaze falls on me like a dark cloud harboring rain. When he waves me over, I stand rooted to the spot until Buir pokes me into action. “Go!” she hisses in my ear.

  Smoothing down my cloak as best I can, I pick my way over to my father, one elbow pressed against the gaping tear in my shamskin.

  Masking the disapproval in his eyes, he turns to Sarth. “Allow me to introduce my daughter, Trattora.”

  Sarth’s eyes rove over me with the calculating gaze of a trader for whom everything is for sale. “A fine specimen, Chieftain. Evidently not from your loins or these parts. Impressive, what your prized fruit can be traded for.”

  My father’s knuckles tighten around his spear. A faint smile appears on Parthelon's lips.

  I flush and toss my head, inadvertently catching the dark-skinned stranger’s eye. He winks brazenly at me. My cheeks burn even more and I turn away, hurrying after my father as he leads the oremongers to the Great Hall.

  I don’t escape the stranger’s attention for long. Parthelon seats me next to him at the main table. It’s a subtle insult; placing the
chieftain’s daughter beside the lowest person of honor in the oremongers’ party. Parthelon knows exactly what he’s doing, but it will pass as an oversight in the midst of the excitement of welcoming our first guests in fourteen moons. My father has every intention of sending the oremongers on their way with a good report of our hospitality. Our finest musicians stroll through the Great Hall with their lyres, while shamskin horn candelabras flicker in the center of the sumptuous spread of fruit, nuts, vegetables, and cold cuts of meat that the women have pulled together from their homes.

  I reach for the wooden bowl of astro fruit being handed to me and offer it to the dark-haired stranger. His fingers briefly brush mine as he takes it. I flinch, startled by the tingling feeling that runs up my arm. Maybe Buir is right, and he is indeed sick.

  “I’m Velkan.” He leans toward me conspiratorially. “You’re not really the chieftain’s daughter, are you?” He raises his brows. “I mean, they seated you next to me after all, and with your flaming hair … you don’t look remotely Cweltan.”

  I peel the delicate yellow skin of the astro fruit in my hand and take a hearty bite from it. “Maybe I’m a genetic anomaly.”

  Velkan laughs. “That goes without saying. Compared to everyone else here, you’re somewhat on the short side.”

  “More your height, you mean.”

  He grimaces. “I’m used to towering over the crew, but I’m on the short side here. So, are you going to tell me how you ended up here?”

  “The traders who came through fourteen moons ago brought me here.” I grin across at him. “Did you bring anything more interesting?”

  His lips twitch. “I doubt it. I’ve never met anyone with hair the color of an angry sun before. Where did the traders find you?”

  I wipe the juice from my chin and shrug. “They didn’t give too many details, but they were in an awful hurry to get rid of me.” I twirl my finger around a lock of red hair that has tumbled out from the coil on my head. “They were afraid of this.”