Blood of a Thousand Stars

by Rhoda Belleza

  Kara remembered how her long hair whipped in the wind, stinging her face and getting in her mouth. But she liked the bite of the air and refused to put on a jacket. She’d just gotten over a bad headache, and it felt like she’d woken up from a deep sleep.

  Now, Kara realized it really had been a kind of awakening. Because that day on the beach had been her first day as Kara.

  That memory wasn’t just any memory: It was Kara’s first memory. Even though she’d been about twelve years old.

  “I might not always be around to take care of you,” Lydia had tried to explain then.

  At the time, Kara had listened without really understanding. But the context of it now felt wrong; she saw the lie for everything it was. Lydia’s idea of taking care of her had been to use the overwriter on her, to erase all memory of being Josselyn Ta’an.

  Then Lydia had grabbed her hands so tightly that Kara had dropped all the smooth rocks she’d been collecting. “If something happens to me,” Lydia had said that cold day on the beach, “I need you to think through all your options, to stay safe . . .”

  But where would playing it safe get her now? There was a dangerous weapon out there. One that could steal memories, mine them. It could erase entire histories and make new ones. It could reinvent the world, for the worse.

  “Nothing is safe anymore,” Kara said to Pavel.

  “Does this mean we’re going to Ralire, then?”

  Kara nodded. “As soon as we break out Aly from wherever they’ve got him.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It turned out there was a single internment camp on Nau Fruma, hastily set up just a few hundred meters from the old marketplace. Aly had to be there, along with all the other Wraetans and Fontisians the UniForce had rounded up.

  Kara and Pavel spent the next twenty-four hours monitoring the camp from a new lookout point, watching security guards rotate shifts. They figured out a time—a precise fraction of a moment—Kara could slip in unnoticed and break Aly out.

  Rhiannon’s televised coronation would provide the perfect distraction.

  Meanwhile, Kara managed to pocket tools from the vendor stalls in the central square, and secured a prison guard uniform off the black market that cost all the credits she could scramble together.

  When she got back to their new lookout spot, Pavel was furiously beeping and blinking as he rolled toward her.

  “I have something!” he said, projecting a holo of a line graph.

  “What am I looking at?” Kara said, squinting at the screen.

  “When the last round of overwriter research turned up nothing, Alyosha directed me to continue combing the holoforums.”

  “He didn’t tell me that.” Her heart beat faster. Why hadn’t she and Aly talked about it together?

  “He requested we keep it private, so as not to elevate your hopes if attempts were futile. However, I pieced together some information on a hunch . . .”

  Kara very much doubted Pavel had hunches so much as algorithms, but sure. “Well?”

  He blinked his blue eyelights. “I found a mention of a testing facility on Wraeta, and I cross-referenced it with the G-1K summit dates prior to Diac Zofim’s death,” he said. Diac was the scientist Lydia told them about—the one who’d pioneered the overwriter tech and ended up suspiciously dead immediately after. “And finally, the frequency of times Emperor Ta’an mentioned new technology in his speeches.”

  The Emperor? Kara wondered. It wasn’t a variable she would have thought to include.

  “And I found this . . .” It was formatted like an official memo, written in a language she didn’t recognize. It shared some qualities with the Kalusian characters, but the lines were simpler. When Pavel activated the translation screen, the letters blurred apart and rearranged themselves in modern Kalusian.

  “New developments in the biotech device . . . Deletion or overwriting of the cube may result in memory loss . . . work suggests that new technology for targeted memory deletion is not far off . . .” Kara read along quickly, not sure what she was reading but with the sensation she was tumbling down a slope, faster and faster, toward an inevitable crash that would hurt—but at least the falling would end. “. . . furthermore, targeted memory deletion on a mass scale is achievable if the cube-using public were uniformly updated with the latest technology so that specific molecular mechanisms can be identified and wiped . . .”

  Kara sucked in a breath. She knew of the overwriter’s capabilities because it had been used on her. But targeting masses of the public, deleting specific memories all in one stride—it seemed particularly invasive, and particularly difficult. Had Lydia known?

  We’d be shells, Lydia had said of the overwriter. Every memory—every part of your mind that makes you you—ripped out.

  Is that what she’d hinted at when they’d been escaping from the prison on Houl? Is that what Nero was attempting on the scientists she and Aly had seen on the zeppelin? They were vacant, childlike, drawing triangles obsessively for no reason. Had they lost their minds to this experimentation?

  We’d be shells . . .

  And what would anyone want to erase on a mass scale?

  There were more facts and figures that Kara’s mind skipped over until she got toward the final fragment: “. . . as the political divide is insurmountable with our current history. This provides the necessary justification . . . for the memory of the Great War itself to be erased from the collective memory, for the good of the people and advancement of the galaxy . . .”

  “Kara,” Pavel said, letting the translation drop so the words rearranged into the original text. “Do you recognize the language?”

  She shook her head, half in response to Pavel, half in disbelief at what she’d read. “Some sort of ancient Kalusian, I’m guessing?”

  “Yes. It’s no longer spoken, or taught to the public,” Pavel said. “It’s Royal Kalusian. It’s a language passed down only through the royal lineage, and read only by the highest in the Ta’an cabinet.”

  Understanding dawned on her. Her skin started to prickle.

  “What are you saying?”

  “That this was written to the Emperor Ta’an himself.”

  “Turn on the translator again.” When the words arranged themselves into a language she could read, Kara scanned down to the bottom.

  “Executive Order 10642.”

  Her father had signed his name right under it. Emperor Ta’an had not only known of the overwriter technology—he’d planned to use it.

  FOUR

  ALYOSHA

  THE guards kept saying it was a “camp,” and no one was going to call them out on it. The prisoners wouldn’t even talk about it with each other. It made sense, Aly guessed. Throughout the whole history of humankind, people had always been in a rush—taking shortcuts, dropping words, slurring phrases together. “Good morning” became “morning,” and “don’t worry about it” became “no worries,” and “what’s going on” became “what goes.” And so “internment camp” just became “camp.”

  It had been two days since Aly and Kara had been separated during the protests. Two days since Aly had been taken in by the UniForce, despite the fact that Nau Fruma was technically neutral. Two days. But already it felt like an eternity.

  He had kicked and screamed and got the taejis beat outta him. They were cowards, all of them, taking a cheap shot to the back of his head before he could even shout for Kara to keep going. Not knowing where she was drove him crazy now. All kinds of things could’ve happened to her. It was a war; soldiers became monsters. And Rhiannon had put a target on Josselyn’s back, whether or not she’d meant to. It scared him to think how many people were looking around for Kara—and how many of them might try and get a higher price from Nero for delivering Josselyn dead.

  And now he wasn’t there to protect her.

  It was al
l his fault; he hadn’t followed his instincts to take her hand and hitch a ride the hell off this moon, to the edge of the galaxy. Just disappear, take care of his. Being with Kara messed with his head like that, made him think that if they could get a person like her on the Kalusian throne, then all of them had a damn decent future ahead of them. A chance at peace.

  But that had been a pipe dream, a fantasy he’d been swept up in—and now he’d paid the price. They might have been rounding up only Wraetans and Fontisians, but who knew what they’d do with a Kalusian girl aiding and abetting the enemy. And who knew what would happen if they found out that Kalusian girl was actually the Empress of Kalu.

  Aly knelt in front of a makeshift altar littered with statues of Vodhan in different sizes. Some people had brought them from their homes—a last-second grab before they were forced into the camps. And some of them were made here, carved out of a fine white talc that dissolved a little bit more every day.

  There wasn’t a ceiling, meaning the dust floated in and coated everything. The walls were stained and grimy with handprints, the whole place overrun with rats longer and leaner than any he’d ever seen, because of the lower gravity. The air was thick with the scent of close, unwashed bodies. It was worse than the Wray, which was saying a whole lot.

  Initially, Aly wasn’t praying at this makeshift altar so much as avoiding the chaos of the hangar’s back lot. But he grabbed a loop of prayer beads tangled at the feet of the statues and held it in his hand, clutching one between his thumb and his knuckle as he said Vodhan’s prayer. He’d said it a thousand times before—mumbled it under his breath without much thought to the words, rushing through the calls and responses so the Fontisian missionaries would let him run out of the church tent and play. Even now, praying made him antsy, like there was something else he should be doing. Scheming, strategizing, figuring out his next move. But in that quiet moment, as soon as he closed his eyes the words came back to him—that prayer emerging from that dark, murky ocean sloshing around in his skull.

  It had come to him, that wisp of a long-term organic memory, like it had traveled on a current all the way around the world to come back to him, to bring him home. He said the words. He prayed. Aly didn’t know if he’d ever felt Vodhan’s spirit more than he did in this moment.

  The hangar that housed the internment camp opened up to a fenced-in outdoor area, which was guarded by UniForce soldiers standing at intervals all the way around. The UniForce’s “peacekeeping unit” hadn’t split up the Fontisian and the Wraetan prisoners; why would they? Wraeta and Fontis were technically on the same side—both actively anti-Kalusian and thus, according to the backward logic of Nau Fruma, a latent threat to the moon’s sworn neutrality. Detaining them in the first place was an act of martial law, which seemed to mean Nau Fruma’s security police could basically do whatever they wanted.

  It was a load of taejis—not just because of the moon’s true allegiance to Kalu, thinly disguised as neutrality, but because they were oblivious to the tensions between the Fontisians and Wraetans. What else would anyone expect? It was Fontis that had colonized Wraeta long before Kalu had blown his planet to bits. Fontis that scooped the Wraetans up like a bully with someone else’s toy, mined the entire surface for all the precious minerals that didn’t exist anywhere else in the galaxy, brought in their precious god Vodhan. And then what? They’d roped Wraeta into wars they’d never wanted a part of. So many of his own would never forget that. Some hated Fontis almost as much as they hated Kalu.

  The guards would have had to be blind if they didn’t see those tensions. Slurs like Vodhead and dusty were thrown all across the camp, and it didn’t matter to anyone working there; it was no skin off anyone’s back if the two groups tore each other apart. But they’d separated themselves with an aisle down the middle of the lot, as wide as the Ismee River. Everyone treated it like snake-infested water. Cross it and you’d be liable to get yourself killed.

  For the most part, Aly had been treated okay by the other prisoners—tons of them recognized him from the holovision show The Revolutionary Boys, knew he’d been accused of killing Princess Rhiannon and acquitted by default when she’d announced she was alive over holo. Which meant Aly was a big hero. Hugs, high fives, claps on the back as soon as anyone got close enough to touch him. He was a celebrity all over again, and he hated it. What had he done for any of them? Not a damn thing.

  Now he had to turn it on, smile like he did for the cameras, more people to impress and more shit to make up for. Besides, being charming was his best friend and costar Vin’s job. And now, having all these people who treated him like hot stuff just because he had the decency to not kill the princess seemed twisted. But they didn’t know what he’d done—that his own petty nonsense had gotten Vin killed in the crash over Naidoz. That he’d broken out of a jail on Houl and left all the other prisoners behind. That way back when, he’d passed as Kalusian, abandoned his own history and his own people, just because it was easier if folks didn’t consider him a dusty.

  No. He didn’t deserve to be famous, and he didn’t want to be either. It was the reason he’d been chosen to blame in the first place. He was easy to pick off then and, he was worried, just as easy to pick off now. Aly thought a lot about whoever had framed him. Whose decision was it to point at this black guy’s holo image and say Him? Was it personal, and were they tracking him now? He couldn’t shake the feeling that any minute he would get dragged away and accused all over again on yet another public forum. No way he’d been absolved for real.

  The paranoia made him look around now. Most of the inmates were obsessed with their handhelds, tech some of them had smuggled in. The guards looked the other way, because they were too lazy or didn’t care, but usually the inmates at least pretended to hide them. Now, though, they weren’t even bothering; dozens of holoscreens shimmered throughout the room. Only then did Aly remember that today was the day Empress Rhiannon was supposed to return to Kalu. How could he have forgotten?

  The scene was somehow worse replicated across so many different handhelds in the crowd. The Empress was there now on the holoscreen. Petite, yet regal, with a slight frown stretched across her brow. She was wearing the ceremonial red. And she was . . . getting egged.

  Riots were spreading through the capital city of Sibu. Aly closed his eyes, felt the blood cement in his veins. For years people had fawned over the girl, and when she was younger they’d given her a half-assed name like “Rose of the Galaxy,” built her up as the orphan princess trapped in her desert tower—then turned on her in thirty seconds flat. Once she was partway to being a woman and not just some little girl, they made her a symbol they could point their fingers at, blame her for their terrible lives. His heart half broke for the girl, but it didn’t surprise him, not even a little bit. Aly knew better than anyone how the public listened to the first thing they heard if a guy like Nero said it.

  Onscreen, a glass bottle shattered at Rhiannon’s feet, and someone—a Fontisian guard, of all folks—grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder like she was no more than a kid. Which was pretty much true. She was only sixteen.

  And she was Kara’s little sister.

  He still hadn’t wrapped his head around it all: that he’d fallen for a Ta’an. The true empress, though she seemed to hate thinking of it. She preferred he still call her Kara and not her real name . . . Josselyn.

  And she’d liked him back. Not that they’d ever talked about it, on account of being on the run for their lives the whole time they’d been together. But he’d felt it in their kiss, in the heat of her touch, in the stubborn way she’d stuck with him when anyone else in the galaxy would have walked away for good. And now, with Rhiannon’s return made official, Aly should be a free man—and he and Kara should’ve been safe.

  Nope. Almost as soon as he’d tasted freedom, it was yanked away from him once again. Here he still was. Separated from Kara and Pavel. He’d told the little man to go
find Kara, but he couldn’t help but worry the droid had been relegated to some far-flung scrapyard. War was raging everywhere, even on the most protected, peace-loving moon in the galaxy.

  The mood in the camp was mixed. Some folks were shaking their heads, looking smug, like they’d seen it before and they’d seen it coming. Like Aly, most of the Wraetans weren’t surprised about the taejis of a reception the Princess just got. Some of them were probably glad too. The Ta’ans had technically saved their butts in the Great War—by ending it—but only after making a mess of their entire planet. And in the process they’d displaced Wraetans, scattering them around the galaxy in Wray Towns that were nearly as bad as this camp. Even now, the damage inflicted by the Great War made Aly’s mind reel. Its legacy threaded itself into him, made it so the anger shaped his present and future. How could you undo something like that?

  Some of the Fontisians, however, especially the ones old enough to remember the Great War, didn’t look all that smug about Rhiannon’s wobbly reception. Probably because the writing was on the wall: Not even the Ta’ans could stabilize things now. Things were notching up toward a full-scale war, and pretty soon, Aly’s gut told him, every single piece of rock in the galaxy would be tainted with the stink of death.

  Aly’s cube buzzed suddenly, and he ripped his gaze from the holoscreen, scared, adrenaline coursing through him. They’d forced him to turn his cube back on once they’d imprisoned him in the camps, and forced a cube update that was about halfway complete. He could only think of one other update in the last few years, and there was a lot of lead-up—a big campaign to outline the perks, and a safety warning to update in the night since it took processing power and made you drowsy. No warning with this one, though. He didn’t like it one bit, but he had no choice.

  Now, a cube notification was how they summoned the prisoners in waves—so they’d come to the fence for food or water or a “shower,” which was really just a hose on full blast that pushed through the chain-link fence. He hadn’t showered yet; he was avoiding it as long as he could. He was no animal.