Desert Stars

by Joe Vasicek

  Strangely, he didn’t know if he would. Yes, if his parents had never crashed, he would still be with them—but what kind of a person would he be without the Najmi tribe? The thought filled him with fear, from the pit of his stomach to the ends of his fingers.

  And what about Mira? What if he’d never met her, or shared that time with her on the pilgrimage? The thought of living his life without ever knowing her filled him with a surprisingly poignant sadness.

  “Gavin?” came Nash’s voice. “Gavin, are you all right?”

  Jalil blinked and came back to the present. “Uh, yes,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You seemed a little distraught.”

  “No, I’m fine. I was just… thinking.”

  “Well, don’t think too hard. The universe can be a mind-boggling place.”

  “Yes,” Jalil said softly. “It can.”

  * * * * *

  “Why so gloomy?” Surayya asked as she helped Mira hang the laundry. “You should be happy—you’ve got a suitor, after all.”

  “I know,” said Mira, trying not to look as glum as she felt. She opened the creaky hatch of the laundry compressor and pulled out a wad of garments, clumped tightly together. Though the compressor had sucked out most of the water, it was still slightly moist to the touch—enough that she held it at arm’s length as she shook it out.

  “So why the sad look?” Surayya asked, opening the hatch to pull out a tangled clump of colorful headscarves. “I mean, I know you’re still getting over Jalil, but he left almost a month ago. You’ve got to move on sometime.”

  Mira bit her lip as she clipped the laundry to the line. The dusty wind whistled overhead, but surrounded on all sides by the tents and adobe walls of the camp, the laundry was safe from the sand.

  “I don’t know,” she said, reaching into the compressor to pull out another misshapen lump. She didn’t know why, but it felt wrong to forget Jalil so quickly.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” said Surayya, putting her hands on her hips to give her a stern, sisterly look. “Ibrahim is your first cousin—if anything, he’s the one who has claim on you, not Jalil.”

  “I know,” Mira said, not meeting her sister’s eyes. “If it weren’t for Jalil, I’d probably be marrying Ibrahim anyway. But—”

  “But what?” asked Surayya. “Jalil abandoned you, Mira. I know you had feelings for him, but you can’t let those get in the way, especially now.”

  “So that’s why you think I should marry Ibrahim?” Mira asked, her body trembling. “Because you don’t think I’ll ever get anyone else?”

  “Of course,” said Surayya. “You do realize what will happen if you refuse, don’t you?”

  Mira stared at the ground, her fists clenched in frustration by her side. Surayya set down the laundry and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I know this must be hard, but if you don’t marry Ibrahim, Father’s going to have to banish you. There’s no other way to preserve the family honor.”

  Honor? Mira screamed inwardly. What honor? The “family honor” is all a lie!

  Before Mira could answer, however, Amina slipped into the courtyard. “Hello, sisters,” she said.

  “Hello,” said Surayya. Mira remained silent.

  “I’ve got a message,” Amina said, giving Mira a mischievous wink. “It’s from you-know-who.”

  Mira frowned. “Who?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Amina, rolling her eyes. “Who do you think?”

  Ibrahim.

  “What does he say?” she asked.

  Amina glanced both ways before gleefully stepping closer. Surayya leaned in so that she could hear.

  “He wants you to meet him at Lena’s tent,” Amina whispered. “Just after dinner.”

  “Aiiee!” cried Surayya.

  Mira’s legs went weak, and her hands started to shake. “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent,” said Amina, still grinning. “He told me to bring you this.”

  She pulled out an apple—old and somewhat wrinkled, but still bright. Surayya clapped both hands over her mouth, while Mira numbly took the gift. It reminded her of the strawberries at Lena’s wedding—the strawberries she would never have.

  So it’s come to this, she thought to herself, swallowing hard as she bit her lip.

  “You’re so lucky,” said Surayya, barely holding back the squeal in her voice. “Not only does he want to marry you, but he actually likes you, too!”

  “Well, can you blame him?” said Amina. “Mother always said she was the prettiest.” She glanced at Mira and winked.

  What am I supposed to do? Mira wondered. After Tiera’s warning, she didn’t know what to think of him anymore.

  “Mira?” said Surayya, concern flooding her voice. “Mira, are you all right? Your face is as pale as a sheet.”

  “Nervous, huh?” said Amina. “Don’t worry. Ibrahim might be a beast, but when he bites, you’ll like it.”

  Jalil would never push me like this, Mira thought to herself. He would never use my own sisters against me.

  In that moment, she knew her answer.

  “I—I can’t,” she whispered. “I, uh, have some chores to do this evening.”

  “Oh, Lord of Earth,” Surayya muttered. “You’re not thinking of running away from him, are you?”

  “She’s not running away,” said Amina. “She’s just playing hard to get. Right?”

  “Right,” Mira whispered.

  “As long as you know you can’t do that forever.”

  Mira’s head swam; that was what she was afraid of.

  Chapter 16

  Jalil stared out the forward window at the speckled blue orb of the planet below. White clouds stretched across the atmosphere like blemishes in a marble, while the boundless oceans spread out to the curvature of the horizon. The greenery where land met water reminded him of the cultivated fields and forests of Aliet Dome. Instead of the rust-red desert and craggy mountains of Gaia Nova, rivers stretched like veins from the gentle, rolling hills down to the deltas along the abundant coastline.

  Here and there, Jalil picked out the large black structures of planetary domes, but they seemed smaller than the ones at Gaia Nova—smaller and more interspersed. Instead of dominating one hemisphere of the planet like an unsightly plague, they grew out of the landscape like natural landforms. If they weren’t so uniform, he almost would have thought that they were natural.

  “Receiving a transmission,” said Nash, leaning forward in his chair. “Port authority has cleared us to dock at terminal AE-2.”

  “Copy,” said Lars. “Feeding data to the autodocking routine. Stand by.”

  Michelle leaned back and ran her fingers through her blond hair. “Man, it’s been so long,” she said. “I can’t wait to go planetside.”

  Jalil glanced over at Nash, and for the briefest moment, their eyes met. A smile came to his lips as he remembered their conversation the previous day. Godspeed, brother.

  “We’re not through yet,” said Mark. “There’s still the unloading to do.” He turned and motioned to Jalil. “Since the work is relatively straightforward, I think you shouldn’t have any problems with it. Am I right?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jalil. Out of the corner of his eye, Michelle pumped her arm and silently mouthed the word “yes.”

  “Will you need any of us to stay behind as well?” asked Nash.

  “I’ll stay,” said Lars. “Looks like some major legislation is slated to come to the General Assembly in a few hours.”

  “Then thank goodness I’ll be gone,” said Michelle. Lars shot her a dirty look, but she ignored it.

  “In that case, Lars, I’ll have you shadow Gavin on the crane,” Mark said. “‘Chelle, why don’t you help him get suited up?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She rose to her feet and motioned for Jalil to follow. “Where are we going?” he asked, hurrying to keep up with her.

  “EVA racks,” she said, palming a keypad midw
ay down the corridor. A hatch opened onto a ladder, and she stepped inside and started climbing down.

  “Ee-vee-ay? What’s that?”

  “Extra-Vehicular Activity. It means you’re going out into space.”

  Jalil’s face paled as they reached the dimly lit room at the bottom of the ladder. Half a dozen bright orange full-body suits hung in niches along the opposite wall, their thick skins and stiff outer casings making them look like oversized eggs with legs and arms.

  “Well, don’t stand there all day. Climb in.”

  Jalil stepped forward, only to find that the gravity in this part of the ship was significantly weaker. Before he could stop himself, he bounded into the wall face-first.

  “Ow!”

  “Easy does it. Use the handholds on the ceiling.”

  Blushing a little from embarrassment, Jalil gently lowered his feet into the nearest suit. He half expected it to be loose and baggy, but it actually felt quite snug.

  “There,” said Michelle, fastening some clips around his waist. “Raise your hands, and I’ll pull down the top half.”

  Jalil raised his hands and closed his eyes, and Michelle slipped the top half down over his arms and torso. She reached behind him and pulled up an elastic hood, which fastened tightly over his hair.

  “Is it dangerous outside?”

  “Yeah,” said Michelle, fitting a pair of gloves to the arms of his suit and securing them at the wrists. “But don’t worry. You’ll be in the cargo bay the whole time, operating the crane. As long as you’ve got your lifeline tied in, you’ll be fine.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  She shrugged. “Worst case scenario, you’ll drift off and burn up in the atmosphere. But that won’t happen. Here, hold still while I tighten your helmet.”

  “Wait—burn up? What do you—”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.”

  * * * * *

  The EVA work wasn’t too difficult. Jalil spent most of the time tethered to the operating board of a large crane, manipulating a joystick to guide the claw around the hold. The machinery moved at the mind-numbingly slow rate of three inches per second, hauling the massive crates from their berths in the cargo bay to a point where the station’s equipment could pick them up. The only thing that kept him from dozing off from boredom was the ever-present green-blue vista of the world below him—a grim reminder of the constant danger of working in space.

  I fell once from a place like this, Jalil thought to himself as he stared at the white-speckled planetscape. I don’t want to fall again.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Lars via the shortwave. Unlike Jalil, he had no qualms about drifting halfway out the bay in his EVA suit to get a better view.

  “Yes,” said Jalil. “It’s very different from Gaia Nova.”

  “I’ve always wondered why the Patriarchs settled on Gaia Nova,” said Lars, turning himself around with the maneuvering jets on his wrist. “When they left Earth, why didn’t they find a more hospitable place to settle? Compared to Kardunash IV, that world is just a desert.”

  A beautiful desert, Jalil wanted to say. Instead, he focused his attention on his work and said nothing.

  “Ah, no matter,” said Lars. “I guess it turned out all right in the end—that is, if history has an end.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Lars laughed. “Then I guess there’s only people.”

  “How goes the work, boys?” Mark asked over the comm channel.

  “Good,” said Jalil. “We’ve only got three crates left.”

  “Great. Keep it up, and you might catch the next ferry shuttle to the surface.”

  “I doubt that,” said Lars. “The station registry is showing that it left almost twenty minutes ago.”

  “Oh,” said Mark. Static faded to silence.

  A thought occurred to Jalil, and he perked up. “What about Will Farland? Is he here yet?”

  “Hang on, let me check,” said Lars. He was silent for a few moments. “No, he’s not showing up in the registry.”

  “Did we miss him?”

  “Probably not; he’d show up if we did. Either way, he should be headed to the Colony; we’ll meet him there if not before.”

  Jalil nodded, which amounted to little more than moving his head within his oversized helmet. The crane reached the designated end point thirty meters outside the cargo bay, and he brought it to a gradual stop.

  “What the—” said Lars. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?”

  “Some kind of flash—there it is again. It’s almost as if… but no, that can’t be.”

  “What can’t be?”

  Silence. Jalil frowned.

  “Oh my God,” Mark said through the comm. “Boys, get back inside right now.”

  * * * * *

  “What’s going on?” Lars asked as they hurried onto the bridge.

  “I just got a message from the port authority,” Mark said, his face pale. “A massive fleet just jumped into orbit on the far side of the planet and attacked the planetary defense network.”

  “What? Are you kidding?”

  “No, son, I’m not.”

  “But who—”

  “The Hameji,” said Mark, looking up at him with grim eyes. “They’re here.”

  An awful silence fell between them. Outside the forward window, a small explosion flashed near the horizon of the planet, like a distant bolt of lightning.

  “Better jettison the rest of the cargo,” said Mark. “I’ll undock with the station and prepare for jump.”

  “But wait,” said Lars, his hands shaking. “What about ‘Chelle and Nash? They’re still down there!”

  “What do you want me to do?” Mark asked, spinning in his chair to face them both. His forehead was creased, a frown of deep concern on his normally smiling face. “If we don’t move, and fast, we’re going to orbit right into the middle of that battle.”

  “We need to make contact with them,” said Lars. He sat down at Nash’s chair and quickly brought up the computer display.

  “I already tried, son. All the lines are jammed—”

  “Then try a private line. The Bridgette’s long range comm dish can be adjusted for shorter frequencies, and we’re already in orbit. If we can just—”

  “Lars, New Stockholm is on the other side of the planet. We’ll never reach them in time to escape.”

  “Never say never,” said Lars, his eyes focused on the screen. “By now, I’m sure they’ve gotten the news, and are doing everything they can to take off from the surface. If we can’t get a direct line of sight, we’ll just have to bounce the signal off of another source—there.”

  Mark sighed and shook his head. “Your signal will be too weak for them to pick up, broadcasting that far. I’m telling you, there’s already too much—”

  “Are you charging the jump drive?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Good—then all we need is to hold out until we make contact. We can do this, Dad!”

  Mark hesitated, clearly torn. His eyes had already reddened and begun to fill with moisture.

  “Can I help?” asked Jalil.

  “Not yet,” said Lars, “but once I adjust this—there. Put these on.”

  He held out a pair of oversized headphones. Jalil took them and stared at them for a second.

  “Have a seat. I need you to listen for a quick beeping noise. When you hear it, let me know right away. Got it?”

  “Yes,” said Jalil. He sat down and put the headphones up to his right ear, but all he heard was static.

  “Listening for an audio signal across a datalink band?” said Mark. “It’s not going to work.”

  “It’ll work,” said Lars, rising swiftly to his feet. “When ‘Chelle gets the connection error message, she’ll pull up the band and recognize the signal by sight. It’ll work.”

  Lars sat back down at the navigator’s chair, while his father sighed and turned back to his screen. Jalil took a m
oment to fasten his seat restraints across his waist; he had a feeling things were about to get rough.

  “The port authority won’t give us clearance,” said Lars. “I’m assuming we override that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about our trajectory? I can put us in an orbit that’ll bring us over New Stockholm in twenty minutes.”

  Mark took a deep breath and brought his hand to his forehead. Jalil watched as concern on the man’s face turned to agitation, while the static continued to crackle in his ear.

  “If we don’t at least try, Dad…”

  “All right,” said Mark, sitting up straight as he fastened his own restraints. “Let’s go for it.”

  Lars grinned and turned with renewed vigor to his work. Mark gripped the piloting stick and began punching buttons on his control panel.

  “Departing station,” he said. “Stand by.”

  A series of popping noises sounded through the wall, followed by a low rumble that vibrated through the floor. Outside the window, the station slowly moved away, spinning as the Bridgette banked and turned.

  “Got a rough trajectory plotted,” said Lars. “I’ll fine tune it in a second.”

  “Beginning engine burn,” said Mark. “Hold on.”

  An invisible hand pressed Jalil against his seat as the rumbling in the walls turned to a muffled roar. The whole ship began to shake, while outside, the blue-green world grew steadily larger.

  Lord of Earth, Jalil thought to himself, holding onto his armrest with a white-knuckled grip. Please don’t let us fall.

  At that moment, a weak but distinct beeping noise came through over the static.

  “Lars!” he yelled. “I’ve got something.”

  Lars nodded and punched a series of commands on his computer. “Rerouting to my station and putting on loudspeaker,” he said. “Just a second.”

  The headphones went silent, while the sound of static filled the bridge. Outside, the glowing arc of the horizon turned deep red as they passed into the night.