Snow White and the Seven Dwarf Planets: A Space Age Fairy Tale (Star-Crossed Tales)

by J. M. Page

  “That’s the spirit,” Hunter teased. Then, more serious, he added, “Don’t worry, Princess. How bad could he be?”

  “As long as he’s not a merchant,” she said. “I’ve heard their kind are insufferable.”

  Hunter grinned, then rolled his eyes, standing to his full height. “This is how I’m treated for trying to be encouraging?” The navigation panel beeped some more, but before he walked away from her, Hunter bent and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Buckle in, Princess. It’s time for landing.”

  She drained the rest of her tea, telling herself that the flood of heat spreading through her was from the hot beverage, not his absently-placed kiss.

  Ureika was the planet’s name, she learned as they landed. It had a smaller permanent population than Avuuna and no major ports or towns to speak of. It seemed exactly the kind of place one would go if they never wanted to be found. Was that the case with their contact?

  “This is certainly charming,” Hunter said, scowling at the barren, dust-covered landscape stretched before the ship. “You sure this is the right place?”

  Snow shrugged, unbuckling and sliding her new blaster into its holster. “It’s where Beaver said to go. Unless you think he might be misleading me for some reason.” The thought had occurred to her, but until Hunter voiced similar concerns, she was chalking that worry up to latent paranoia.

  “I can’t see what they’d have to gain from that,” he said with a sigh. “Alright, I guess we should do this.”

  The door to the ship opened, a staircase descending down to the hard-packed surface below. There were no plants or obvious buildings, just unrelenting wind. Snow wrapped her head with the shawl from Avuuna and proceeded with her hand hovering over her blaster. Hunter stayed close on her heels without touching her. She almost wished he would.

  The howling winds made it difficult to hear her own thoughts, let alone Hunter’s voice. She managed to read his lips as he asked, “Which way?”

  It was a good question. This was the precise location Beaver had given them. She turned in a circle, shielding her eyes with her hand, searching. Rocks and dust, as far as the eye could see, but nothing else.

  Had they been tricked? Sent on a wild goose chase so the rebels could swoop in and claim credit for her actions? Or worse; had their contact already been found and dispatched?

  She swallowed and set off in a random direction, marching with purpose like she knew exactly where she was going. She made it ten paces before the dust was so thick she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She couldn’t see Hunter either. Couldn’t hear anything but the wind whipping around her.

  “Hunter?” she called out, coughing as she drew dust into her lungs. “Hunter?” she tried a little louder.

  His hand settled on the small of her back and Snow sagged with a smile. The last thing she wanted was to lose him in all of this. She turned to face him, about to suggest they go back to the ship to double-check the coordinates, when the ground collapsed beneath them.

  Snow groaned, wincing at the throbbing ache in her head as she pried her eyes open. She blinked, everything around her blurry and gray. At least there was no wind down here, underground. But where had they fallen through? The rock ceiling above her was intact.

  She tried to sit up, her body aching from the fall, and found that her hands were stuck. More precisely, they were bound.

  This wasn’t an accident then.

  “Hunter?” she cried out into the darkness.

  “Shh,” came his answer. At least she wasn’t alone.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Some kind of trap door, I think. Are you cuffed too?”

  “Yeah,” she answered, tugging against the bonds. “Did you see who did this?”

  She could hear movement to her side and hoped it was Hunter. “No,” he grunted. “I might be able to bust out of these tho—” He gasped and a flare of white-blue sparks sliced through the blackness.

  Snow cried out and lunged toward him, but couldn’t reach him; she wasn’t just bound, she was bound to the wall.

  “Shh, I’m okay,” he croaked while she was still pulling on the chain attaching her to the wall. “Don’t try to get out of them, they’ll shock you.” His voice sounded tired and weak. They needed to get out of here before things got worse.

  “Do you think it’s the Queen?”

  He managed to laugh. “No.”

  He sounded completely certain but didn’t offer any explanation. “I think your contact might be more difficult than Beaver anticipated.”

  Snow swallowed, a bitter metallic taste in her mouth. Maybe this person didn’t want to be found. Maybe they didn’t want to help her. But she couldn’t let a setback like this stop her. Not now.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  “Snow! What are you doing?” Hunter hissed in a whisper.

  “Hello? I’m sorry we were trespassing. We just wanted to talk to you!”

  “Snow, you’re going to get us killed!” Hunter growled.

  “If you just take these off, we’ll leave. I promise we won’t tell anyone where you are.” She was through being scared and hiding. That’s all she’d ever done.

  “Snow—”

  “Snow? Snow White?” another voice interrupted Hunter’s warning. Hushed and nervous. Like a mole given a voice.

  “Y-yes,” she said, pulling herself upright, squinting into the darkness. “I was told you knew my father. King Stuart?”

  A light blazed before her eyes and Snow blinked away the spots, trying to focus on the person beyond the light. But it was doing its job of effectively blinding her to anything in the dark. She squinted and turned away from the brightness.

  “The King… The King…” the man muttered. “Do I know the King? Can I know the King?”

  She frowned at his rambling. He sounded unhinged.

  Hunter tried to reason with him. “Look, we don’t want trouble, just let us go and—” More sparks flashed and his words turned to an anguished cry before he went silent.

  “The Queen… Queen’s always listening. Listening and waiting. Don’t want to talk to the Queen,” their captor said.

  “No,” Snow agreed, her heart racing. Her eyes kept flicking over to Hunter, but she couldn’t go to him now. She tried to keep her voice as even as possible, hoping he was alright. “I don’t like the Queen either. I’ve heard you worked for her and was hoping you could tell me a little about that project.”

  Her eyes began to adjust and Snow could just make out the hunched frail shape of the man shining a light in her face. He looked old, but it was the kind of age earned by worry and fear, not years. Wispy bits of white hair burst from his scalp and stuck out at odd angles.

  “The King… You’re his daughter? Snow White?” he asked in a moment of lucidity. Snow nodded.

  “I am. I know the Queen has done terrible things and I’m trying to help.”

  He shrank away, shaking his head. “The Queen has ears everywhere. Always listening.”

  “I promise I’m not working for her, I don’t know how to prove that to you.”

  The man giggled, a manic nervous sound that made the hairs on her arm stand straight up.

  “Snow,” Hunter croaked. “He’s out of his mind. There’s no use talking to him.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said, gritting her teeth. How could he give up so easily?

  What other option did they have anyway?

  “The King likes riddles,” the man said like he was remembering something from a different lifetime.

  “Yes!” Snow said, leaning toward him more. “Yes, he does,” she ignored the pang in her heart that came from referring to him in the present tense. “He taught me all kinds of riddles.”

  The man giggled again. “Riddles are good. Solve my riddle and we talk.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Hunter asked, half-slumped over. She couldn’t make out his eyes even in the spotlight, but it looked like the fa
ll and shocks had sapped all his strength. She’d never seen him look so limp and helpless. If nothing else, she had to get them out of here for his sake.

  “We don’t,” their captor said with another hair-raising giggle. That’s when Snow saw a blaster — her blaster — in his other hand, pointed at them both.

  “Snow you—”

  “Okay,” she said quickly, before Hunter could try to talk her out of it. She just couldn’t look at him because she knew his look of betrayal would make her hesitate.

  “The beginning of the end, the end of time and space. Needed for everything and surrounding every place.”

  “It was nice knowing you, Princess,” said Hunter.

  “Shush,” she spat at him, repeating the lines to herself. Thinking it through, she wasn’t on her knees in this cold underground prison. She was on her father’s lap, his eyes twinkling as he toyed with the sweet that would be her prize. She may have been a princess, but that didn’t mean she was given everything she wanted without a little work. And those candies were always so much sweeter when she’d earned them.

  Snow smiled. “E,” she said. “The answer is ‘e.’”

  The man giggled again and holstered the blaster at the same time their handcuffs released. Snow fell forward, catching herself on her freed hands.

  The stranger moved the spotlight, lighting up the whole cave instead of blinding her. Snow immediately scrambled to Hunter’s side. He was pale and clammy, but when his eyes focused on her he smiled.

  “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “So little faith in me,” she teased. She stood and extended her hand toward him. “Can you walk?”

  “I’m not an invalid,” he groused. “And this is far from my first torture.”

  Before she could stop to think about that little gem, the grinning, giggling madman was leading them down the tunnel.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hunter

  What had they gotten themselves into? The tunnel sloped down and opened up into a cavern that could only be described as a bunker. Most of the room was taken up by electronics, computers, monitors, and things Hunter couldn’t identify. In one corner, there was a lumpy cot and scattered all around were empty pouches from dehydrated meal packs like the ones at the cottage.

  The stale, fetid smell of someone who’d long ago given up on hygiene permeated the air and Hunter choked down a gag, his head still swimming in fog.

  Snow wrinkled her nose, but made no comment about the stench. He had to give her credit. Not many princesses would be able to function in these conditions. But she’d kept a level head and saved their skins. As long as the nutjob didn’t turn on them again.

  “Wow,” she said breathing through her mouth. “How long have you been down here?”

  “Wrong question,” the man snapped, whirling on her with the blaster aimed at her chest. Hunter rushed in to push her back, coming between them.

  “Okay, you don’t have to answer that,” she said, gently, the way one would talk to a rampaging wild animal. “What’s your name? Is that an okay question?”

  The guy huffed and holstered the blaster, turning his back on them to tend to his computers. “No need for one.”

  “Snow, we should just go,” Hunter whispered. What could they really hope to get out of this guy? And if they did get anything, could they even trust it? He was a raving lunatic.

  “Beaver told me about you, do you remember him? He said you might be able to tell us about the project you worked on, for the Queen?”

  “Doctor… Doctor…” His face screwed up in concentration and he slammed his fist on the table when he couldn’t produce anything else.

  “You’re a doctor, then? We can call you that, if that’s okay?”

  “Listen, Doc,” Hunter said, not able to hide his disdain for this whole farce. “Do you remember working for the Queen or not?” What would they even do with another dead end? Where would they go from here without this supposedly valuable information that Beaver had promised them?

  “She’s always listening. Ears everywhere. Killed everyone else, but not me. No, no, no. Not me. Come for me and I’ve got a plan, I do. Won’t see it coming. BOOM!” Doc dissolved into a peal of disconcerting giggles and Hunter shuffled on his feet, edging back from the madman.

  “A plan is good,” Snow hazarded. “We’re trying to make a plan too. Can you tell us what you helped her with?”

  “Chips,” he said, sobering. “It’s all in the chips.”

  Snow frowned and Hunter’s hand instinctively went to cover his heart, digging the heel of his palm into his chest.

  “Chips? Haven’t you mentioned those before?” she asked, turning to Hunter. He dropped his hand and tried to remember what he’d already told her and what he was purposely not telling her. The stories were getting harder to keep track of.

  “Yeah. Every Imperial citizen gets one. Except the ones that elect to have them removed, though that’s considered treason.”

  “What do they do?”

  He swallowed and tasted salty sweat when he licked his lips. “Officially? Banking, medical records, employment history, passports… Unofficially? She’s tracking everyone. A lot easier to see patterns of dissent when you monitor every aspect of someone’s life.”

  She scowled then, putting all the pieces together. “That’s why there haven’t been tourists on Avuuna? People are scared of being marked dissidents?”

  “Treason is executable,” Hunter said, his heart hammering in his throat, blocking his airway, making his throat tight and painful.

  “Always listening. Always watching,” Doc muttered.

  She turned back to him, her expression softening as if he were a child she was afraid of upsetting. “So you helped her create the chips? You know how to disable them, then, right?”

  He blinked owlishly, his head tilted to the side. “You don’t want to do that,” he said, his voice clear, his eyes focused instead of wild and fearful.

  “Why not?” Snow asked.

  “She has the master. Can’t disable them any other way,” he said.

  Hunter’s blood ran cold. They’d have to get to the Queen to do it? If he’d thought helping Snow was suicide before, this was asking for total annihilation. Getting close to the Queen was hard enough, but getting close to her with the means to take down her Empire? Impossible. They’d have to find another way.

  Or he should just give up on all of this and take Snow in. Put an end to this ridiculous quest once and for all. That was the way to his survival. To saving his father.

  “Suppose we found a way to get close to her,” Snow said, sitting gingerly on the rumpled cot in the corner. “What would we need to do to disable the chips?”

  Doc’s moment of clarity broke and he shook his head violently. “No, no, no. Can’t. Always listening.”

  “She’s not listening, I promise,” Snow said, standing to gingerly place a hand on Doc’s shoulder. The man winced and shrank away, but his wild steel-colored eyes softened.

  Hunter almost wished he wasn’t in the room. He was the reason that promise was a lie. Doc was right that the Queen had ears everywhere, but if either of them knew they were his ears, he was sure he’d be dead in a second.

  Doc’s frail body trembled and shook. “The King,” he whispered.

  Snow’s hand dropped from his shoulder and her brow creased. “What about him?”

  Doc’s head swiveled around the room, seeming to expect assassins to pop out of the cave walls at any moment. “The King…” he whispered again, “ordered the chips.”

  Everything stopped. Hunter’s jaw dropped, but it was Snow whose knees buckled. He leaped forward catching her before she collapsed.

  “What are you talking about, you lunatic?” Hunter barked, easing Snow back onto the cot. She was so pale now, almost gray, her eyes unfocused and distant. “King Stuart wouldn’t have done something like that. That kind of evil could only be the Queen.” He was going to get himself killed for sure, saying thi
ngs like that.

  Doc made no attempt to defend himself or his claim, watching the two of them with detached interest.

  “My… father…” Snow croaked, her eyes fixed on a spot on the littered rock floor. “He created them? The things that are controlling everyone and making them afraid to stand up to her tyranny?” Her voice broke and Hunter sank into the hard mattress next to her, an arm around her, stroking her back softly. He couldn’t help but think a dead end would have been preferable.

  “Made them, yes. Disabling device, too,” Doc giggled, drumming his fingertips together gleefully. “Hid it so she wouldn’t find it.”

  Snow’s eyes snapped up, her back straightening. “So he suspected they might need to be destroyed,” she said, her voice gaining strength.

  “You always said your dad was a smart man,” Hunter said. He squeezed her shoulder but she didn’t seem to notice he was there any more.

  “Do you know where he hid it? We could get it, we could go to the palace, we could disable all the chips and then… and then…”

  Hunter arched a brow. “Maybe one step at a time?” She shouldn’t get her hopes up. There was no way this crackpot was going to give them anything useful for actually finding the thing. Unless he had coordinates, Hunter didn’t see how they’d decipher anything the guy said.

  “I know… I know…” Doc said, his face scrunched up again. How long had he been living in fear, his brain slowly melting away from the stress and lack of communication with the outside?

  Or was all of this a result of torture? Everyone else on Snow’s list was already dead. It was a miracle Doc wasn’t. Still seemed like a dead end might have been more useful though.