Among The Stars

by Robin Banks

  “Well, kid, I don’t know what Dee said to you, but you look better. Not so tightly wound.”

  “I feel better.”

  “Maybe this is what you needed all along: a sense of purpose, or an adventure.”

  “Maybe. Alya?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “Everything.”

  Her eyes get kind of wet. “What are you getting all mushy for?”

  “Dunno. But we’re going on a mission. Like in the old days.”

  “In the old days we weren’t on any damn mission. We were bumbling around from disaster to disaster for no discernible reason.”

  “We had some fun, too.”

  “That we did.” She sighs. “Are you ready for some food?”

  “Who’s cooking?”

  “Raj.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “And if I’d said that I was?”

  “I would have asked you what was wrong with Raj, and whether you needed help to space his body.”

  “Very funny. Come on, then.”

  It takes over a week to get to Pollux, even going at full speed. The time seems to go faster, though. Everything seems a little bit easier. Knowing that it will all be over soon makes it easier to deal with stuff. This is just the last push forward. Today sucks, but that doesn’t matter so much because it will all stop sucking soon. Somehow, that makes today suck less.

  Things are getting easier between us, too. Alya isn’t as worried about me, which means that I don’t have to worry so much about what I’m doing to her. Raj is happy because she’s happy. It’s a weight off my chest.

  My chest still hurts like a motherfucker, on and off, but I can sit with it and let it happen. It’s not so bad that I can’t stand it for a while – I know that, because I already have. I won’t have to stand it forever. Until then, I can deal.

  I find myself able to enjoy stuff again – well, not full-on enjoy it, not quite, but remember that I thought that it was good. Alya puts on some music one day, and I hear it and realize that I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss my music. I’m going to miss my guitar. I’m going to miss Alya and Raj like hell. I try to be really present when I’m with them, now, because I know that our time is running out. I try to be present in whatever I’m doing, because it could be the last time I do it.

  I’m not scared. I’m sure I will be, when it comes to it. I’m not brave. But for now, thinking of myself ending is such a relief that it leaves no room for fear. I hope I don’t cock it up when it comes to it. I hope I go easy.

  I’m not brave enough, or not dead enough inside: reaching Pollux freaks me out. We’re crawling our way there, which makes it worse. Alya slowed us down and cloaked us up way before we got to normal detection range.

  “Sorry guys, but we’ve got to take it steady.I don’t know what systems they use or what they’re like with unexpected visitors. I don’t know how they feel about Anteians, either.”

  Raj squeezes her shoulder. “I thought everyone loved us.”

  “I’m not sure. You aren’t Fed, but you get on with them well enough.”

  “We have nothing the Fed want, we are useful to them, and we’d blow them to smithereens if they tried to take us on. I wouldn’t class that as ‘getting on’.”

  “You have a mutual non-aggression pact with them. That’s more than Pollux ever got.”

  “They did better than anyone expected them to.”

  They keep chatting away about nothing much, probably to ease their tension. I wish I could do something to ease mine. The bigger Pollux gets on our screen, the more my insides clench.

  I’m wound so fucking tight that when a sudden bump rattles our ship and sets our alarms off, I fall right off of my seat.

  “What the fuck is going on?” screams Raj over the clanging.

  Alya is groping at her controls. “Ship nearly fucking hit us. They’re inside our cloak now.”

  “What do you mean, inside our cloak?”

  “They’re under us, close enough we could spit on them. Matching our course. I don’t know how they didn’t hit us.” She turns off the alarm noise, but the lights keep flashing. “Gods, they’re fucking close.”

  The com starts making a racket. Alya fumbles with the switches until it clears up, audio only, and a man’s voice fills our ship.

  “Well be with you, fair visitors. I must apologize for the somewhat intrusive nature of this first contact. However, we don’t know who you are, we weren’t expecting you, and you’re armed and cloaked inside our space. Call us silly, but that’s the kind of thing that makes us a tad suspicious. Now, before you decide to do anything regrettable, may I point out to you that my ship is too close to yours for you to point your weapons at me, while my guns are aimed right at your belly. Blowing you up into next week wouldn’t bother me much, but it would likely scratch my paint. So, in the spirit of friendship and mutual understanding, I suggest you disarm your fucking guns, turn your com to video, and keep your hands where I can see them until we’ve got this sorted out. How’s that for a plan?”

  Alya turns to look at Raj, who nods at her. She speaks in the com as she operates her controls.

  “Following your instructions as I speak and as quickly as I can. I would appreciate it if you could not shoot us while I’m doing so. We come in peace.”

  “Sure. I’ll take you to my leaders, if you don’t make me kill you.”

  Once the guns are offline, she fiddles with the com to go to video. Our screen shows a dude about Raj’s age sprawled in the pilot’s seat. He’s looking way too relaxed. Then again, it’s his guns pointed up our ass. Maybe he’s cool with that.

  “Alright then. Now that we’re all here, would you be so kind as to tell me the purpose of your visit?”

  “We’re here to see our uncle. Friend of the family, really.”

  “And his name?”

  “Kolya. Nikolai Ivanov.”

  He shakes his head. “Not helping.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve got at least three of them. Can you be more specific?”

  “Big, tall guy. Mid fifties. Animal trainer. Good cook. Plays the violin.”

  The guy’s face splits into a grin. “Oh, Kolya! You should have said.”

  “I did say…” Alya trails off and squints at him. “Hang on a moment. I know you. Where do I know you from?”

  His grin disappears and he tenses up. “You tell me.”

  Her eyes turn inwards for a moment, then she gawks. “Ash McGee. You’re Ash McGee, aren’t you? Gods, you look different!”

  “I haven’t gone by that in years. Who the fuck are you?”

  “We met at the Academy. Alya Pax. I don’t go by that now. You were training to be a floater.” She sounds breathless. “You were… Well…”

  He tilts his head. “I was kind of fucked up. Yes, I remember you. What does the Patrol want with Pollux, and on an Anteian ship?”

  “Oh, no no no.” Alya flaps her hands about. “I quit years ago.”

  “You quit?”

  “Yeah. I ran away with the circus.”

  Now it’s his turn to gawk. “You what?”

  “Ran away with the circus. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  He stares at her for a while, then he shakes his head and his grin comes back. “That’d make for a fine obituary. Ok, then. Let me talk to my people. One Alya Pax and assorted gentlemen, visiting Nikolai Ivanov.”

  “Tell him that Raj is here. Rajesh Cadwaladr.”

  “Bit of a mouthful, that, but I will try. And him?”

  “Luke.”

  “Just Luke?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thank the gods for that. Alright. We’re gonna switch the sound off, but we’ll be keeping an eye on you. Shouldn’t be long, if they can find him. Don’t do anything silly. I hate to blow up people I’ve been introduced to.”

  As soon as the sound goes off, Raj turns to Alya.

&n
bsp; “Darling, who the fuck is that?”

  “Patrolman. Ex-patrolman now, I guess. He was one of those who got sent to the Academy for retraining after Pollux. He was seriously messed up back then, but a lot of them were. He looks different now. Like, really different. I wouldn’t have recognized him if it weren’t for his voice.”

  I’ve never seen Alya this flustered. She never talks about her days in the Patrol. She never talks about her past at all, really. Neither of us do. I wonder what the hell went on with her and this guy. Something did, for sure. I think Raj has spotted something too, though he could be just worked up over the whole getting-blown-to-bits thing.

  It doesn’t take long for that guy to turn the sound back on. “The com went out, but so did Kolya. They’re trying to track him down.”

  “While we’re waiting, would you tell me how you spotted us?”

  “That’s what I do. I hang around in space waiting for visitors. Consider me a doorman, if you will. I’m not the only one, before you get creative.”

  “But we’re cloaked!”

  “Not from me, you’re not. You might have yourselves a fancy, shiny ship, but we’ve got the best tech.”

  She blinks. “I scanned your ship. She’s older than me. It’s a miracle she’s up.”

  “Nah, that’s not what I meant. You might have the newest technology, what with you being rich bastards, but we’ve got the best techie. My cloak’s better than your cloak. My detection system, ditto.”

  “Your guns?”

  “With a bit of luck, that’ll never become pertinent. What business brings you here, anyway? It must be a surprise visit, otherwise Kolya would have told us to expect you.”

  “Oh, you know. Bit of this, bit of that. Mission to save the world. That kind of thing.”

  Raj hisses at her. “Should you be telling him this?”

  She shrugs. “Why not? He’s coming. I’m willing to bet he’s the guy Dee saw in her dream. He’d fit her description: someone she knew, but she couldn’t quite recognize.”

  Alya tells the guy the whole story. He takes it pretty well – too well, really. He’s acting like it’s normal for people to turn up talking about prophecies, psi-bilities, and mysterious threats. Just to make things more surreal, he’s panned the camera back to show the whole bridge. Sitting next to him in the co-pilot seat is a kid of maybe ten or twelve who’s also listening to Alya’s story without batting an eyelid.

  When Alya has finished, the guy shakes himself off.

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “That’s all you’ve got to say about this?”

  “Bit above my pay grade, to be honest. I fly ships and hoe cabbages. The wife does the thinking.”

  “Oh.” Alya looks a bit deflated. I hope Raj didn’t pick up on that.

  “Hang on, something’s come in. And yeah, you’re cleared for landing.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  He grins. “Hey, I have an idea. My shift is nearly over. Given that your cloak is crap and you don’t want the powers-that-be to know you’re here, would you like me to cover your landing?”

  “Say what?”

  “I could just fly around you, make it hard for anyone to detect you. Nothing special.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  He spreads his hands out. “Can’t hurt, can it?”

  “It can, if you crash or hit us.”

  “I promise not to do that.”

  “You know you’re making no sense, right? If anyone can see through our cloak, they’ll know we flew here. It wouldn’t take much for them to work out that we didn’t just disappear orbiting Pollux.”

  He sighs. “Please? We don’t get to do any fun flying these days, and Osh here needs the practice.”

  The kid sitting next to him does that thing that Raj’s nephews do, with the eyes widening to about twice their size until they look like black holes full of despair.

  Alya groans. “Fine! Whatever! But you cut that out, alright?”

  The kid and the guy both grin inanely.

  “Much obliged! If the wife asks, there was an operational need. Don’t give her any details or she’ll work it all out. See you on the other side.”

  He switches the com off and his ship moves far enough from us for our alarms to stop flashing.

  Alya turns around to us. “Strap yourselves in. This is likely to be a bumpy ride.”

  Raj looks stunned. “That guy is not right in the head, is he?”

  “Not even close. But he’s brilliant with it.”

  She starts our descent before Raj has a chance to respond. It’s just as well, I think. I don’t like anything about this.