Dreaming of the Stars

by Cora Buhlert

  Dreaming of the Stars

  by Cora Buhlert

  Bremen, Germany

  Copyright © 2016 by Cora Buhlert

  All rights reserved.

  Cover image © Grandfailure, Dreamstime

  Pegasus Pulp Publications

  Mittelstraße 12

  28816 Stuhr

  Germany

  www.pegasus-pulp.com

  In Love and War

  For eighty-eight years, the galaxy has been torn apart by the endless war between the Republic of United Planets and the Empire of Worlds.

  Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov are soldiers on opposing sides of that war. They meet, fall in love and decide to go on the run together.

  Pursued by both the Empire and the Republic, they struggle to stay alive and free and prove that their love is stronger than the war…

  Dreaming of the Stars

  I. Anjali

  In the Gurung highlands on the planet of Rajipuri, three girls, the daughters of a craftsman from the valley, scrambled up a mountain trail.

  It was the height of summer in the Northern hemisphere of Rajipuri. School was out, Mama and Grandmama were busy at home, Papa was busy in the workshop and their older brother Milan had gone away to become an apprentice silversmith. So the three Patel sisters spent their time exploring, roaming the valleys and meadows and mountain paths near the village.

  At thirteen — about to turn fourteen — Anjali was the oldest. She scrambled ahead with the easy grace of a mountain goat, scouting out paths and routes for her sisters, seemingly unburdened by the backpack she was carrying.

  Anjali had always been something of a tomboy, who wore her dark hair tied back in a messy braid and hid her developing body under her brother’s cast-off clothes. But — so the neighbours in the village whispered — you could see that she was going to become a beauty one day soon. Anjali usually frowned at such remarks. Beautiful was not very high on her list of things she wanted to be.

  At ten, Lalita was the second oldest. She was lugging a fresh box filled with the girl’s lunch and groaned under the weight, even though — so Anjali had insisted — the box was not very heavy at all.

  If Anjali might grow into a beauty one day, Lalita — so everybody agreed — already was one. She had been gifted with sparkling eyes, a heart-shaped mouth and glossy black hair that fell to the middle of her back in gentle waves.

  Where her older sister favoured boy’s clothing, Lalita was clad in a shalwar kameez, the pants and tunic combination that was the traditional garb of young girls on Rajipuri, of bright pink synth-silk. Anjali had told her to put on something more practical, that she’d only soil her nicest clothes, but Lalita did not care. She liked looking pretty. And besides, Anjali was the one who always managed to soil her clothes.

  At six, Sundari was the baby of the family. She trailed after her older sisters, a broken com unit in one hand and a much loved plush rabbit in the other. Like Lalita, she was dressed in a shalwar kameez, but in darker colours and sturdier fabric than her sister’s. Sundari’s dark hair was bound in two braids that constantly whipped in every direction, as the little girl struggled to keep up with her bigger and longer legged sisters.

  “Can’t we stop here?” Lalita wanted to know, “Just for a little bit?”

  Anjali continued undaunted. “We’re almost there.”

  “But I’m tired,” Lalita insisted.

  “Like I said, we’re almost there.”

  “I’m tired, too,” Sundari piped in.

  Anjali’s expression softened. She paused and dropped to her knees in front of her youngest sister. “I know, sweetie. But we’re almost there and I promise you that you’ll love it.”

  “Love what?” Lalita demanded, “Where are we going anyway?”

  “A special place.” Anjali patted Sundari on the back to encourage the little girl to go on. “Milan and I found it last summer.”

  “But what’s so special about it?” Lalita wanted to know.

  Anjali grinned. “You’ll see.”

  A bit later, the three girls came to a rocky slope that marked the final ascent to the spot Anjali had chosen.

  Anjali scrambled up first, while her sisters rested at the foot of the slope. Once she’d reached the top, she ditched her backpack and clambered back down to haul up the fresh box. Next, she helped Lalita, who somehow managed to get up the slope without soiling her pretty pink shalwar kameez, and finally Sundari, half pulling, half pushing and half carrying the little girl up the slope.

  And then at last, the three girls had reached their destination, a mountain meadow ablaze with wildflowers in full summer bloom.

  “Pretty,” Sundari exclaimed and even Lalita was impressed.

  “Just wait,” Anjali said, “It gets even better.”

  She opened her backpack, took out a thermo-blanket and spread it on the ground. Next, she opened the fresh box under whose weight Lalita had lumbered and set out the delights contained therein. And delights there were, at least by the standards of three peasant girls from the Gurung province of Rajipuri: Sandwiches, dosas, idlis, a self-heating pot of leftover pulao, three bottles of sparkling fruit drink and — for dessert — a pot of sweet rice pudding.

  “Lunch is ready,” she called, once she’d laid everything out. Immediately, Lalita and Sundari came running from where they had been playing catch.

  The three girls sat cross-legged on the blanket and ate, Anjali making sure that each of them got their fair share and that Sundari got an extra helping of pudding, for she was the youngest and everybody knew that the little ones needed more sweets to grow.

  When they were finished, Lalita wandered off to pick flowers. Sundari remained on the blanket, plush rabbit by her side, and tinkered with the com unit she was trying to coax back to life. It was hopeless, of course, but Anjali didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  So she left her sister to it and gathered up the empty platters and containers instead. She lugged them over to a mountain brook that ran along the side of the meadow, where she rinsed everything thoroughly in the cool clear water. Mama and Grandmama would be furious, if the girls brought back dirty dishes and managed to soil the pricey fresh box in the process. And as the oldest, Anjali was responsible for making sure that everything was kept orderly.

  “After all…” so Mama always said to her, “…you’ll have a household of your own to manage in a few years.”

  Anjali frowned. Managing households was very low on her list of things she wanted to do with her life.

  Once everything was clean and neatly packed up in the backpack and the fresh box again, Anjali stretched out on the blanket, looking up at the sky to watch the clouds pass by overhead. Amarati, Rajipuri’s single moon, hung in the summer sky like a shiny oversized pearl, orbiting what the teachers had taught her was called “the jewel in the Imperial crown”, for Rajipuri was the most beautiful world in all the Empire. It was also one of the poorest, but Anjali did not much wonder about that. There were some questions one simply did not ask in the Empire.

  And so she just enjoyed the peace and quiet of the moment. This was the best part of the outing, she thought, Just lying here on the blanket, enjoying the quiet, the chirping of the birds, the burbling of the mountain brook and the occasional beeps of the com unit Sundari was tinkering with the only sounds.

  Lalita had apparently picked enough flowers for now and plopped down on the blanket next to her sisters. With deft fingers, she wove the blossoms into a wreath.

  “What now?” she asked Anjali.

  “Now we wait.”

  “For what?” Lalita wanted to know.

  Anjali smiled. “You’ll see.”

  They did not have long to wait. Anjali could hear it in the distanc
e, a faint rumbling that increased in volume and pitch into a screaming roar.

  “What is that?” Lalita exclaimed, while Sundari clutched her plush rabbit and snuggled closer to Anjali.

  “It’s all right.” Anjali put a reassuring arm around Sundari and raised her voice to be heard above the roar. “Just look.”

  It streaked past overhead, impossibly huge, plunging the meadow into shadow. Its hull was a dull metallic grey, studded with veins of blue and red neon. For the fracture of a second, it seemed incredibly close, close enough that Anjali thought she only had to stretch out her hand to touch it. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

  “Whoa,” Lalita exclaimed, “What was that?”

  “Kendara class freighter, twin longhaul drives, fifty thousand TEU,” Sundari rattled off the information on the back of the spaceship holo-cards she collected.

  “It’s headed for Chettikan spaceport,” Anjali explained, “One of the main approach routes runs right above this plateau.”

  “So there will be more?” Lalita wanted to know.

  Anjali nodded. “Milan and I always spotted several, when we found this place last year. All you have to do is lie back and wait.”

  So lie back and wait they did, all three of them stretched out on the blanket next to each other. And of course, they saw more spaceships. Two freighters, a passenger liner and even a sleek private yacht, as Sundari dutifully informed them. No warships, but then Chettikan was a commercial spaceport, not a military one.

  “This is so cool,” Lalita said, after the space yacht had streaked past. Sundari just grinned and happily rattled off vessel’s stats.

  “One day, I’m gonna fly on a ship like that,” the little girl announced.

  “You can’t,” Lalita was quick to reply.

  “Why not?” Sundari wanted to know.

  “Because we’re daughters of Rajipuri,” Lalita explained, “Our ancestors came from the overcrowded slums of war torn Old Earth. They settled on the most beautiful world in the whole galaxy and swore that they would never allow themselves to be displaced again…”

  Anjali recognised the words. They were, word for word, what they’d been taught at school in the “History of Rajipuri” class. Only that the class had pictures to go with the words. Pictures so old that they were flat two-dimensional photos rather than three-dimensional holos, showing the crowded slums of Old Earth and their ancestors as they mounted the shuttles that would take them onto the great Space Arks waiting in orbit. The ancestors were all eagerly smiling, as if the prospect of spending the rest of their lives aboard a Space Ark, just so their descendants could step onto a world none of them had ever seen, was the very best idea in the universe. But then, maybe the slums of Old Earth really had been that awful, though in the photos they looked not all that different from some of the places you saw on the news. Or maybe, they’d simply deleted all the photos of non-smiling ancestors.

  “…and this is why we children of Rajipuri do not leave the homeworld. For we already live on the most beautiful planet in the whole galaxy, the jewel in the Imperial crown, so what reason could we possibly have to leave?”

  Once again, Lalita was reciting word for word what they’d been taught at school. But then Lalita had always been good at learning things by heart — and utterly lost when answers were required that went beyond reciting stuff by heart.

  Anjali had learned the words and the story they told just as Lalita had. But nonetheless, she chafed at them. For even though Rajipuri was the most beautiful world in the galaxy — everybody knew that — that didn’t have to mean that no one ever wanted to go anywhere else. Because sometimes, you simply wanted to visit some other place, if only to make sure that Rajipuri really was the most beautiful planet in the whole galaxy.

  And besides, Sundari looked so disappointed that she’d never get to go on a spaceship that Anjali simply had to interrupt.

  “Oh please! That’s just a big load of crap.”

  Lalita looked positively scandalised, even though Anjali had been careful to say “crap” rather than “shit”.

  “If Sundari wants to go on a spaceship, she can. People leave Rajipuri all the time.”

  “They do not,” Lalita insisted.

  “Of course they do. Soldiers, traders, merchants, they all go travelling through the galaxy.”

  “Because they have to,” Lalita declared, “Not because they want to.”

  “But they still leave,” Anjali said, “And anyway, how do you know they don’t want to?”

  “Because Rajipuri is the most beautiful world in the whole wide galaxy,” Lalita parroted, “Nobody wants to leave, unless they have to.” She snapped off a blade of grass to chew on it. “And anyway, the people who leave are all from the big cities. No one from our village has ever left.”

  “Rajak, the son of the swordsmith, left to join the Navy last year,” Anjali pointed out. Rajak was five years older than she was and Anjali hadn’t known him well, but his departure had caused quite a stir in the village. She was surprised Lalita didn’t remember.

  “Yes, but Rajak…” Lalita crooked her head, thinking hard. She lowered her voice. “Well, Mama and Papa said he was no good. Had to run off to join the Navy rather than learn a trade. And he left his fiancée behind, too.”

  “Rajak’s brother is handling the trade and the shop just fine.” And the fiancée, though Anjali did not say so, for it would be inappropriate to speak of such things in front of the younger girls.

  “And anyway…” she continued, “…Rajak didn’t run away, he left to defend his homeworld and the Empire. And I for one can see nothing wrong with that.”

  “Rajipuri isn’t in danger,” Lalita said, still chewing on her blade of grass, “There is no war here.”

  “But there is war out there, in the galaxy.” Anjali pointed upwards, for somewhere up there, beyond the blue sky and the puffy white clouds and the ships headed for Chettikan spaceport, was the galaxy, thousands of worlds with billions of people. A galaxy that was at war, had been at war since before Anjali as born, since before Mama and Papa and Grandmama and Grandpapa had been born even.

  “There are ships attacked, planets bombed, outposts raided every day. People die out there. Every single day.”

  Anjali did not know much about the war, did not know how or why it had started or why it was still going on seventy-seven years later. All she knew was what she had learned at school, namely that the Republic of United Planets had refused to accept the Emperor’s wisdom and bow to his authority and that they rejected the divinely ordained order of things — all of which struck Anjali as incredibly stupid and borderline blasphemous — and that this was why they fought the Empire, which struck her as downright suicidal.

  But though Anjali knew little about the causes of the war, she knew its consequences only too well. For even though Rajipuri was too close too the Imperial core worlds and too well protected to ever become a target, the effects of the war were only too present even on her family’s crappy little holo set.

  And so she’d seen footage of gutted passenger liners, of wreckage and bodies floating in space after an attack. She’d seen images of bombed cities on Imperial outposts, had seen once grand buildings reduced to rubble, had seen charred bodies lying in the streets of once prospering towns, had seen weary looking men and hollow-eyed women talk about the atrocities committed by the Republican troops, had seen children as young as Sundari or even younger with a terrified, shell-shocked look in their eyes.

  And even though Anjali might not understand the reasons behind those images, they nonetheless affected her strongly. For whatever the motive or the reason, here were people, small children even, children like her younger sisters, getting hurt and killed. And that was just wrong.

  Ditto for attacking merchant ships and bombing civilian outposts, destroying people’s home and lives. That sort of thing was just wrong: And someone needed to put a stop to it. Somehow.

  Besides, at school she’d been told t
hat every citizen, no matter how lowly born or how poor, had the duty to serve and protect the Empire and its citizens. For if the Emperor unfailingly did his duty to his people, then the least of his subjects could do no less.

  A civil servant from Chettikan, the provincial capital, had said all that in a speech he’d held at Anjali’s school last year. The same civil servant had probably held the same speech at dozens of schools before, but nonetheless his words had affected Anjali a lot. So much that a plan began to form in her mind.

  She took a deep breath, wondering whether she should tell her sisters. For talking about it, telling somebody, made it real, made it something that might really happen rather than just a vague daydream that would dissolve into smoke as soon as you tried to chase it.

  “I’m going to tell you something,” she said, “A secret. But you must promise not to tell anybody. Not even Mama or Papa or Grandmama.”

  “What about Milan?” Lalita wanted to know.

  Anjali had wondered about herself, had wondered whether to tell her brother. Before he’d started his apprenticeship, he’d been her closest confidant after all.

  “No, not Milan either.” At least not yet. Anjali would tell him herself, when the time came. “You’ll tell no one, do you understand?”

  Lalita and Sundari nodded.

  “Swear it,” Anjali demanded, “Swear by the blood of the Emperor and the ashes of our ancestors that you won’t tell anybody.”

  They both swore, with the utter solemnity that only the very young could muster.

  Once the formalities were dealt with, Anjali took a deep breath. “All right, so next year I’ll be going away…”

  “Going away? Where?” Sundari wanted to know.

  “You’re going to get married.” Lalita clapped her hands. “Who is it? Who? Come on, tell me.”

  Anjali shot her sister an irritated look. “I’m not getting married.”

  “But Mama and Papa said…”

  “Mama and Papa don’t know about this,” Anjali hissed, “And you’re not going to tell them or I’ll have your hide. Understood?”