by Gwynn White
“I thought you failed phase three.”
Mar snorted. “No, Eris failed. And miserably, from what I hear. I passed it, just not in the way they wanted.”
“What do you mean?”
She grinned. “I waited by the door that night. When the guy came in, I whacked him over the head with a chair.”
For the first time in days, Ember found herself smiling. “I wish I could have seen that.”
The make-out couple must have seen them coming because they finally pushed to their feet and stepped out of the booth. They had difficulty walking they were so entangled, their hands in each other’s pockets. Ember didn’t have to guess where they were headed next.
Ember glanced back at the bar. Eris was desperately trying to capture Stefan’s attention, but he was watching Ember out of the corner of his eye, an odd expression on his face.
“So,” Mar said as she plopped herself into the chair the couple had just vacated. “What are you looking for? I’m assuming the gaming thing was just a ploy.”
“I’ll know it when I see it.” Ember strode to the screen and hit it a little too hard. It lit up quickly. She settled into the other chair and began her search, swiping past the latest news. A missing freighter on an enemy planet, a disastrous-plague warning off the edge of the Gajon Galaxy. A new Empire station’s construction announced in the twenty-third sector. Nothing about Earth or the Union. For as often as the commander mentioned his enemies, the lack of news seemed odd. How could there be no word of them when the Empire was constantly at war?
She switched to the search field and entered Mario Nicholas. Before she’d finished, two dozen articles sprang up, all with the tag Flicker. Her heart galloped in her chest as she clicked on the first one.
“You’re looking up famous flickers?” Mar asked. Her grin had faded, and she stared at the screen in disgust. She pulled a bag out of her jacket and began popping what looked like nuts into her mouth.
Ember didn’t reply. She was too busy reading the articles. They were all similar to the first—another award for excellent service in battle. Mario Nicholas Lucinello was a product of the flicker breeding program and was rarely seen in public. Some speculated whether he’d be the youngest flicker ever retired to Empyrean.
She scanned the list again, but none of the articles said anything about him going missing. Her heart soared as she realized he might not be her father after all. Then she brought the images up closer, and her shoulders slumped. The man was unmistakably a younger version of Dai. He didn’t face the crowd proudly as a military hero would. Instead, he positioned himself behind his leaders, always turned away from the camera. That fit him as well. He’d never been a sociable man.
“Hey,” Mar said. “I think I’ve heard of this guy. He was famous twenty years ago, right?”
Ember barely heard her. At the very bottom of the list was a film sequence. She clicked on it, then sat back to watch.
Dai—or Mario—stood atop a grand platform, looking down on a huge crowd. People shouted at him from down below. Commander Kane walked out and raised his arms. He called something out to those beneath him, and the crowd erupted in anger. Guards surrounded the people, Ember realized now, shoving them even closer together, herding them.
Kane lowered his arms and took a step back. His expression was murderous. He turned to Mario and said something under his breath.
Mario pressed his eyes shut, but he nodded. A deep breath, and then the screams began.
Ember hit Exit and stared at the screen in shock for a long moment.
It was true. Dai was a flare, the only documented person in history who could do what Ember could. The knowledge was supposed to make her feel better, but somehow she just felt worse. He hadn’t resisted at all.
He hadn’t even worn a collar.
Mar looked sick, a nut half chewed in her mouth. She swallowed it and rose to her feet. “Uh, that was disturbing. Did he just—just do what I think he did?”
“Stars,” a girl said behind them. “I knew it was her. Hey, Peter, the assassin’s sitting right here.”
A group had assembled at the booth’s opening. Most of the visitors kept their distance, but one pushed his way through and folded his arms. “Yep, it’s her.”
Ember stood as well, facing him. “Did you just call me an assassin?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what you are, right? We all saw what you did this morning.”
“What is he talking about?” Mar muttered.
“You must’ve just gotten here if you haven’t seen it yet,” he said to Mar. “Everybody in three galaxies has seen it multiple times.”
“It?” Ember repeated, her stomach plummeting.
The guy went to the screen and swiped a few times. Then he pulled up an article with a dark-blue star. “Want to see it again, guys?”
“Yeah,” a few of the group said, although most of them fidgeted uncomfortably.
The film sequence began. A reporter with blue hair and a long face like Talon’s announced breaking news in Common. The Empire had just deployed nearly half its forces to an undisclosed location. Sources said they had received a tip about the Union’s newest location and officials were determined to end the war once and for all.
“It has also been confirmed that the Empire has a secret weapon,” the man continued. “It could quite possibly be the rise of not a flicker, but—get this—a flare. If it’s true, the emperor’s victory over the Union is assured.”
Then the scene shifted, and Ember felt her throat tighten. A small ship surrounded by several others. It had been edited to look darker, more sinister than it really was.
Then a girl with dark-black hair, looking stern.
A shot of the woman crumpling to the floor. Another shot of herself, appearing determined and focused. The man slumping over the controls. Commander Kane’s smug smile.
The reporter continued to talk, but Ember was on her feet. She stabbed the screen off and whirled to face the group, who stared back at her like deer frozen in a hunter’s scope.
The Empire had edited out everything. The couple’s peaceful surrender. Her screaming on the floor, the man’s cries and promises for vengeance. Kane’s kick to her ribs. She had a massive black bruise under her shirt because of it.
Mar was standing too, looking very much like the others. It was an expression all too familiar to Ember now, one she should have seen in Stefan when she first entered. Shock. Horror. Revulsion.
The entire ship knew about her now. If that man was right, several galaxies did. The only reason this video would have leaked was because the Empire wanted it to. Kane hadn’t meant to keep her a secret for long. He wanted to intimidate the Union, make them surrender upon their arrival. Had Amai seen this too? Was their deal completely off now? She could imagine the Union ordering the ship’s destruction any minute now, relieved they’d managed to kill the dangerous “secret weapon” before it reached them. This video could very well have sentenced them all to death.
Ember was breathing hard now. “It said half our forces were mobilized,” she said to the staring group. “Where will the battle take place?”
Everyone looked at each other as if she’d asked them a question in Romani.
“Oh,” Mar said, her voice wobbly. “I was going to tell you tonight sometime. Um, I overheard it at the station before they sent me here.”
“Tell me what?”
“The Union made Earth their new base. The emperor has sent us to destroy every last trace of them.”
Minutes later, Ember found herself in her quarters. She remembered pushing through the staring people on the rec deck and glimpses of reckless sprinting through the hallway, but there was too much on her mind to care how she’d looked to the others. Everyone knew what she was now.
Everybody but Ember.
It made sense now. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t put it all together before. The Union had her father at their camp because they were stationed nearby. They’d probably chosen Earth becaus
e it was abandoned and barely habitable. And they knew the Empire was aware of their location. Why else would Amai insist on blowing up this particular ship? If she could take out a high commander and a dozen trained flickers in one blow, that would be a huge victory indeed.
Ember lay on her bed, staring up at the high ceiling. Her stomach was doing a strange dance with that awful alcohol burning in it. The drink had begun to take effect, giving her a faint buzz along the edges of her mind, making it hard to focus.
Ember’s choices were limited. If she somehow escaped and made it to Earth before the Empire did, she wasn’t likely to survive the Empire’s attack. But if she stayed, Kane would make her relive that public execution film sequence all over again. Probably on an even more massive scale. She’d be killing the very people trying to keep her father safe.
She thought about that man, the one she had killed today. Or had she? His light had still been there, and that movement in his hand . . . Could it be that she’d found a way to knock a person unconscious without killing them? If only she could access the ship’s records to find out what happened to the shuttle after Kane’s little demonstration.
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Lock door,” Ember commanded.
“I heard that,” Mar called through the metal. “I know you’re upset, but can I come in? I just need to ask you something.”
Fine. “Open.”
The door slid open. Mar entered silently and plopped herself onto the floor across from Ember’s bed.
This was where people usually did one of two things—judge Ember or try to use her. If that was why Mar had come, she’d order her out immediately. “Well?” Ember said after a moment of silence.
Mar ignored Ember’s impatience. “It wasn’t like that video, was it?”
Ember turned her head to examine her friend. Mar’s eyes were serious, any hint of her earlier smile gone. Her question seemed sincere. “No. It wasn’t like that at all.”
“I thought so. He forced you, didn’t he?”
She wanted to say yes, but it wasn’t completely true. He’d given her two lives and asked her to choose. Ember wasn’t a god. It wasn’t her right to save one life over another, just like it shouldn’t have been her right to take lives. And yet here she was. Despite all she’d done, all her struggles, she was exactly where the stars predicted she would be, making exactly the wrong choices.
Stars, take it from me, she pleaded. I don’t want it. I never wanted this.
“I heard you killed your attacker in phase three,” Mar said. “Was that when you figured out that you could do . . . whatever it is you do?”
No. She’d discovered it at age sixteen, when she accidentally killed her own mother.
She could see herself kneeling over her mother’s body and weeping as her father came in. She had no idea what she’d done. Dai could have explained it to her then. Why hadn’t he? Was that the moment he knew exactly what his daughter was, or were the signs apparent much earlier?
“Stefan said he could see images in the light,” Ember whispered. “But he doesn’t actually touch the light. Is that how it is for you?”
Mar nodded. “Are you saying you can? Touch it, I mean.”
Ember sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Yes. I just reach out, and it feels real to me. As real as anything I’ve touched with my fingers.” Maybe that was the key. Gripping the light and pulling removed the very soul from a person’s body. Delivering a blow to that man had felt very different.
“Holy galaxy,” Mar breathed. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“I answered your questions. Now it’s your turn to answer mine.” Ember rested her chin on her knees. “Why does the Empire hate the Union so much?”
Mar stared at her incredulously. “That’s not a question you ask on an Empire carrier, especially with a high commander on board. All you need to know is they’re the enemy.”
“But what do you know about them? And I don’t mean what the Empire force-feeds everyone. I mean facts. Who started the Union? What are they trying to accomplish?”
Mar sighed. “You aren’t going to shut up about this, are you?”
“Nope.”
“This is all I can tell you,” Mar said in a hushed whisper. “The Union markets themselves as these honorable planet defenders, but that’s not true. They’re the ones attacking Empire planets, Ember. The Union leader is the emperor’s daughter. She displeased the emperor one day, so he banished her. Now she’s trying to take his throne for herself and using Union forces to do it.”
“The Daughter,” Ember muttered.
“Is that what they call her? Funny. You’d think they’d be a bit more original.” Mar shrugged. “I don’t have anything against them, personally. They’re just doing what their crazy leader tells them to do. Same thing we’re doing here.”
“If you could end it,” Ember said thoughtfully, “as in end the entire war, would you? If it meant taking lives?”
“That would require wiping out one side or the other. Since they’re both fighting for the same position, I don’t think that would change our situation much.” Mar pursed her lips. “Do you have a plan?”
“I think I might.” She turned toward the window again. They had picked up speed now. The stars barely moved as she watched, but the constellations changed every few hours. “But I’m going to need your help.”
24
Three-and-a-half days. That was all the time Ember had to plan the end of a war.
Everything was different now. She couldn’t walk anywhere without being recognized. People whispered when she passed them in the halls. They gave her a wide berth in any room. Even her instructors stopped calling on her, apparently choosing to ignore her rather than antagonize the creepy killer gypsy. In one five-minute block of time, Commander Kane had separated her from everyone else. It wasn’t hard to see herself the way they saw her—cold, heartless. An assassin.
She would have given anything to return to Eris’s racial jabs at her people. It was far better than this.
Her classes and training sessions with Talon were put on hold for now. Her guard disappeared, leaving her to roam the ship alone. For a while it seemed as if Kane had forgotten all about her. Or maybe he knew she lived in a cage of her own making. The entire ship was her guard. They all knew where she was at any given time.
The atmosphere was unusually subdued on the last evening of their journey. Ember wolfed down her dinner and exited quickly, intending to spend the night in her quarters as usual. Mar was supposed to meet her there soon, hopefully with some new information she’d gleaned from her shift today. Earth was hours away now, and Ember still didn’t know what to do.
“Ember,” Stefan called out. He’d followed her out of the cafeteria.
“I don’t have time to talk right now,” she said with a forced smile. I have to figure out how to save your life.
He ignored her brush-off. “So you’re a flare. That explains a lot.”
A new pin decorated his collar today. He’d graduated from his training, whatever it was.
“Congratulations,” she muttered. “Where’s your assignment?”
“They want me to head the new ‘Battle Anticipation Department.’ Fancy way of saying they opened up a new division for the graduated flickers. Apparently it’s hard to find good leadership there. Everyone wants to be the star, but nobody wants to do the work.”
“I bet your family is very proud.” She tried to imagine Stefan heading a group, calling out orders that meant the death of hundreds. It didn’t seem to fit him.
Stefan’s face darkened. “Actually, I’m not on speaking terms with my parents just now.”
“Oh?”
“My grandmother died in prison last night. Mom called to tell me today. She said her mother deserved it after hiding from the Empire so long.”
“Oh, Stefan.” Ember nearly reached for him before remembering herself. She stilled her hands at her sides. “I’m so sor
ry.”
He examined her for a long moment. “You are, aren’t you?”
“I know how it is to lose someone.”
He nodded. “The others pretend, but they don’t understand. My grandmother practically raised me. She’s the only one who asked me what my goals were instead of telling me, you know?” He fingered the pin on his collar. “She was disappointed that I was fine with the life of a flicker. She wanted more for me.”
“Ten hours to battle stations,” an automated voice said over the speaker. “Ten hours.”
So soon. Ember rubbed at the ache settling in her forehead. She’d looked forward to getting home for so long. Yet every minute that passed, she felt something heavy and sharp sitting in her stomach. She had to stop the Empire’s attack somehow. But how could one person take down an entire fleet?
“You’re upset,” Stefan said. “Let me walk you to your quarters, if that’s where you’re going.”
Ember nodded, not daring to speak right now. They started slowly down the corridor, side by side.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m still not sure what to think, Ember. I’ve seen so many sides of you. That first day at the market when you were in your element, you chewing me out when you woke up on the shuttle, watching you see the station with fresh eyes—it reminded me of when I first arrived as a kid, when everything was new and exciting.”
She remembered too. It hadn’t been that long ago, yet everything was different now.
“Then you progressed so quickly, and the big bombshell with you being a flare. I didn’t know who you were anymore. I told myself you’d changed. But it wasn’t you who changed, was it?”
He cut off as someone walked by. When he finally continued, his voice was barely audible.
“I always dreamed of becoming a special assistant to High Commander Kane. Pretty much all his assistants become somebody eventually. I longed for the realm to know my name. And then you came along and accidentally became everything I wanted to be.” He chuckled bitterly.
