Stars on Fire

by Justin Bell

  The air is thick and wet this deep in the swampland, and I've lost track of where we are. We're far away from Braglosh at this point, navigating through the open water bracketed between thick forests of trees, but unlike some of the waterways on Braxis, there is no other traffic. We have the entire river way to ourselves.

  "You are Brie Northstar?" the voice is quiet and inquisitive. I twist around to peer at him. One of the Bragdons is seated on a flat bench behind me. His staff is held high. A light blue flag is floating from the post above its curled blade.

  "Excuse me?" I ask.

  "You are her, yes? The Child of the Stars?" the guard looks around, then shuffles closer, moving to the bench just behind me.

  "Well, I'm Brie, yes. Whether I'm the Child of the Stars or not is still up in the air. I'm not feeling especially all powerful at the moment."

  "Why are you here?"

  "Here where? In this boat? Or on Braxis?"

  "In this boat. Going to our prison camp. Is this one of your stages of suffering?"

  I chuckle and squint towards him. "Stages of suffering? There are stages of suffering? This whole celestial being thing isn't all its cracked up to be, I guess."

  He tilts his head. "You are not familiar with the myths?"

  I shake my head. "Never even heard of it until it was supposedly me."

  He studies me carefully with his eyes roaming from my face to my feet. "But you are Bragdon. They teach this in all Bragdon schools."

  I laugh, turning on my bench to speak more directly with him. "That's a long story. I may look Bragdon, but I was raised on Athelon."

  Now it's his turn to smirk. "Where you are raised does not matter. Who you are is who you are."

  I look back out towards the water. "I'm not sure I know who I am. I don't think I ever have."

  The wind pushes my hair around as we move over the water. The low rumble of engines and the splash of water undercut the relative silence of the swamps. Every once in a while I hear the scream of some strange bird beyond the thickness of the trees. The forest is teaming with wildlife. I look back towards the Bragdon guard. He looks young and reminds me of Luxen with a bright innocence in his eyes and a smoothness to his leathery skin.

  He looks back towards me with questioning eyes.

  "Did you hear that?" he asks.

  "Hear what?"

  The yellow beam of light shoots from his right, spearing from the trees and punching him in the helmet at his temple. His head jerks as the metal buckles under the focused plasma beam, serving no purpose but to fold inward and puncture the flesh at the side of his head. His eyes widen in strange curiosity as if this experience is something completely new to him, then he glares down at his now empty hands and slumps forward into the body of the boat.

  "Defensive positions!" a Bragdon voice screams from up ahead, and almost instantly plasma weapons raise into attack formation with every exposed commando glaring out into the swampland, searching for the source of the gunfire.

  I hadn't heard it before, but I hear it now. It's a second low rumbling in tune with the boat motors, only this second roar isn't coming from the water...it's coming from higher up.

  It's a faint roar that isn't quite a roar, but more of a rapid thumping like a swift drumming of low wind hurtling through a contained turbine.

  At the front of the convoy, the two armored boats, dip together, closing off the rest of the line, setting up a barricade of sorts while the rear of the group veers outwards with their weapons scanning the area.

  "Hold fast!" shouts a guard from behind me. "We're getting sound from above...over the trees!"

  Is someone coming to my rescue? If so, who? And why?

  Or is this some happy coincidence? We're out in the middle of the swampland. Are there pirates or rival clans out this way? Is this not a rescue, but some kind of turf war?

  Boat motors ebb, winding down to near silence above the rippling of the surrounding water. The low whir of propellers is even more audible, coming from the east and growing louder with every passing moment.

  "East side!" comes the shout. "Weapons at the ready!"

  Almost at once, a tree thrashes and a small vehicle hurtles through the tangled leaves. It's a sleek, angular bike of sorts with a contoured, slender body perched on four separate legs, each one with a mounted turbine.

  A rider lay flush to the body of the craft, pinned low to the seat with arms outstretched and hands clutching twin control bars. I recognize the vehicle immediately as one that Luxen and I hijacked during my first trip to Braxis a lifetime ago. Twin guns are mounted on each side of the front wind screen and as the bike dips low, the propellers roar and the guns explode to life.

  Gunfire rattles as the vehicle approaches, and the first barrage strikes an open-air boat, plowing through the Bragdon guards who stand aboard, sending them scattering into the water. One of the armored watercraft swings around elevating it's mounted turrets. Within seconds, return fire brackets the air, punching through the approaching vehicle, and as quickly as it appeared, it breaks apart and explodes, sending the rider spinning through the air to drop into the swamp. Debris scatters the thick, green water, and a light layer of smoke rests in the humid air.

  Everything is quiet. Bragdons are helped out of the water and brought back onto the boat, but beyond the splashing of water, nothing moves, speaks, or utters a single sound.

  Eyes dart throughout the sky, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Plasma weapons lift upwards towards the trees, sweeping left and right, holding for a moment, then moving again. The leaves remain still.

  Then, once again, before I can see anything, a different sense tells me something's coming. It's nothing I hear this time. There is no ambient noise that clues me in. Everyone else is looking towards the sky, shifting around with eyes fixated on the threat from above.

  Nobody notices the next attack until it's far too late.

  Without warning the water sprays up into the air in a wide, arcing green fountain chased by a narrow, darkly armored shape. Momentum carries the slender missile-shaped vehicle straight up out of the water in front of the hurling wake that tips two of the open boats nearly sideways. For a moment the submersible seems to hover in mid-air, then tips slowly forward to compensate for the speed and slams down right on top of a boat, smashing through the narrow hull to crush a pair of Bragdons and sending the rest spilling out into the water.

  A second splash explodes just to my right and another submerged watercraft barrels up into the air, then drops down, as armored plates open on the left side, revealing mounted plasma weapons.

  Within seconds, energy beams rocket from the convoy's armored ships. One of them pounds through the pointed front of a submarine, blasting it into shrapnel.

  Two more armored submersibles burst from their under water hiding place to my left, hit the top of the swamp and launch their attack. The lethal crisscross of plasma fire rocks the armored boats, knocking hunks of metal away and blasting apart the defense turrets at the top.

  Two convoy escorts break away left and come back around to get line of sight, but the submersible to my right charges forward to strike one of the boast, splitting it in half and spilling out guards. Two narrow spears of yellow light skim over the green water to strike the fuel tank of the other, blasting both boats into smoking, shrapnel spewing wreckage.

  The three Bragdons remaining in the boat track one of the submersible vehicles and open fire, but the plasma skitters off the angled armor of the attackers. Behind us, the last armored escort angles tightly, spraying water into the air, then barrels at the pair of submersibles, launching twin rockets just under the surface of the water. One of the subs thrashes left as twin splashes blast water up into the air. It rolls and drops down below the surface, chased by bubbling foam.

  "What is this?" I ask to one of the guards in my boat.

  "Don't play stupid!" he shouts back. "They're here to rescue you!"

  "If they are, it's news to me!" I shout back. "I don't recognize
them!"

  Green light hurls from the front of the convoy and narrowly misses me, pounding into the torso of the guard I was just speaking with. He's picked up off his feet and thrown backwards into the water. I twist, lift my weapon, and fire back at the vehicle, but the plasma splashes away from the pointed bow of the sub, doing no damage.

  I hear a strange sound and look over at the convoy's last armored ship. It's lifting slowly out of the water. Massive twin propellers that were powering its water transport are spinning at an incredible velocity to the point where they're lifting the entire ship up out of the water. As the craft stabilizes, a third rotor system unfolds from underneath, takes shape above the main body of the vehicle, and carries it upwards into the air. Underside blades fold in on themselves, and the boat becomes a sleek attack helicopter that banks left and comes around towards one of the submersibles.

  Ratcheting energy pulses from side-mounted launchers, walk fountains of steam towards the underwater craft. As it tips to bank left, the energy smashes craters in its armored hide, blasting fragments of hull up into the air. The helicopter swoops down, blasting away for a handful of seconds, then turns right and comes back around.

  "Brie! Get in!" the voice snaps me out of my trance and I whip my head around, glaring at one of the approaching submarines. A door has unfolded from the top to reveal the narrow interior of the vehicle. I can see a large Bragdon inside, but can't quite make him out as he waves to me.

  "There's no time to explain! Get in, we need to get you out of here!"

  I look back over my shoulder at the helicopter, which is swinging around for a run at us. The mounted launcher is already spinning in an attempt to fuel up more ammunition. Breaking away, I dash over the benches of the boat just as the approaching aircraft begins unloading its barrage.

  Behind me the ship blasts apart amid a torrent of plasma and fuel-tank explosions. The heat rolls over me from the rear, pushing me forward into a clumsy, leg flopping leap. By sheer luck I drop down through the opened roof of the sub as it lurches to the right, narrowly avoiding the helicopter gunfire.

  "Hold tight!" another Bragdon says and the submarine charges forward, already starting to dip its nose under the water as the roof compartment begins lowering itself down upon us. Plasma strikes pound into the left side rocking the vehicle, but nothing gives. An echoing slam signals the closure of the roof panel just as the water level crawls up towards us. Inside the artificial darkness I can feel us plunging deeper and deeper into the Braxis swamp.

  #

  "So, uhh... thanks I guess?"

  The submersible is a slender tube of low lit consoles that is eerily quiet as it churns through the deepening swamps. Shortly after submerging, my would-be rescuers dispatched down a front hallway, leaving me in the main body of the watercraft sitting on a flat, hard bench, drenched in darkness and silence. My voice echoes down the length of the inner chamber. No voice replies.

  "Luxen?" I ask. "Kleethak? Is that you?"

  With each word, I increase the volume of my voice a few octaves, waiting for some indication of a reply.

  "It is good to see you again, child."

  The voice is closer than I'm expecting and tinged with a metallic echo from just behind me. I spin and draw back.

  It's not Luxen or Kleethak. It's not even Shrag. He's a tall, narrow shaped Bragdon who seems familiar in some way, though I can't quite put the pieces together even as I stare at him. His face is draped in shadow, but he's walking with a strange, clumsy gait.

  "I don't..." I start to say, not sure how to finish. As he ducks out of the darkened ceiling entrance of the inner chamber, the shadows fall away, revealing a narrow fin of webbed cartilage running across his gray, bald scalp, and the brushed metal plate screwed to the left side of his face. An oval crimson lens peers out from where an eye should be.

  Out of the shadow I recognize him immediately. Anyone would with that face.

  "Rorjak?"

  My mind flashes back to the frantic trek through the asteroid belt that wasn't really an asteroid belt on the outskirts of Braxis space. Our shuttle was disabled and boarded by Bragdon space pirates who pillaged our lowly ship for parts before taking a small slice of mercy on us by withdrawing to allow us to limp to a refueling station.

  Notorious, lawless, and brutal, the Scalebacks had quite a reputation throughout Braxis...and now I was apparently their prisoner.

  "Welcome to our new pirate vessel, young one," Rorjak sneers.

  "I don't understand," I reply. "I know you saved us from the Bragdon fleet, but I figured you'd died in that battle, or escaped to non-Braxis space."

  "When space gets too hot to handle, the next best place is down here. Braxis is ninety percent water, all of it interconnected. With these modified submersibles we can go anywhere almost completely undetected."

  I try to look around the inner chamber, but the dim light provides very little in the way of true illumination, and the Spartan chamber is short on features to provide topics of conversation to discuss with a pirate. It's just me and Rorjak, though to his credit, Rorjak is looking a lot more friendly now than he did the last time we met face-to-face.

  "So why me?" I ask without preamble.

  Rorjak holds out his hand and gestures for me to take it, a movement that seems completely foreign to the Bragdon I know. Hesitantly I reach out my own hand and he takes it to help me to my feet.

  "Last time I saw you, you didn't look Bragdon," he says.

  "I've been here a while. The change made sense."

  I follow him as he walks back towards the rear of the sub. The light grows even dimmer as we progress.

  "You're staying true to your lineage," he says.

  "Everyone keeps saying that," I reply. "I was raised on Athelon."

  "Indeed."

  I stop walking, and he hears the lack of footfalls, then turns to face me.

  "What is it?"

  "Everyone on Braxis talks to me in these stupid riddles. When will someone just talk to me?"

  His eyes narrow. "You are a girl full of secrets," he says. "Peeling back those secrets requires caution."

  I lower my eyes and shake my head softly back and forth. "I'm not a secret. I'm just me."

  "Come with me. We will explain everything, I promise."

  I follow him through the narrowing corridor, then turn right into a tiny room set near the rear of the submarine.

  "So why did you save us?" I ask as we get into the room and he gestures me to sit. "Did you really believe I was the Child of the Stars?"

  He lowers himself down to the bench across from me, placing his elbows on his bent legs. The metal universal joint at his shoulder creaks slightly with the motion, the metallic sphere connecting his arm to his collar bone glows a dull red under the lights.

  "There's more to it than that. It's complicated. Let's just say that meeting you in that ship led to some eye opening discoveries."

  I shake my head and push myself up from the bench, throwing my hands up. "More riddles. Seriously?"

  "Brie," he says, his voice a narrow edge. That hard, gravel voice that had signaled our initial meeting comes back and I feel his fingers clamp tightly around my forearm.

  I look back at him, my eyes shifting to where his hand meets my arm. His leather skin is rough and scaly, a cool compression against my relatively warm Bragdon flesh.

  "The truth is, we need your help."

  "I'm hearing that a lot lately. Problem is, the help feels pretty one-sided."

  He releases my arm and stands up, turning away for a moment. "As I think you know, I and most of the Scalebacks were once members of the Bragdon military."

  "I've heard that rumor."

  "I don't know why some of the others left, but I know why I left."

  "And why was that?" As the conversation progresses, the room feels chillier as if the air is growing harsh and brittle, like the thinnest of ice.

  He turns to look at me. "Braxis has always been a world of relative peace. We did
what we had to do for the other two planets with the understanding that we'd have our own oasis against this conflict."

  I nod, folding my forearms in front of me, but say nothing.

  "Recently, things have changed. Braxis has decided that, rather than be that oasis, they would take things into their own hands. By taking drastic measures to weaken Athelon and Reblox, they can take them down and rule the Yarda Quadrant on top of their shattered races."

  The words make a certain amount of sense. Command's attitude seemed to be in stark contrast to most of the Bragdon citizens I've met, and I can see how this mentality might drive Shrag, Kleethak, and Wiskral to the Resistance.