Five Glass Slippers: A Collection of Cinderella Stories

by Elisabeth Brown

  Karl groaned. “I told my father there was no keeping a secret like that.”

  “I’m not sure it should be kept secret,” Elsa replied. “I think it would give people a lot of hope, knowing that the fleet has gone back to exploration like in the early days. Everyone is sick of the war. We’re ready to set the past aside and be wide-eyed explorers again.”

  “We?” he asked again, more calmly. “Does this mean you’d like to gallivant across the galaxy in search of new worlds?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Are you inviting me?”

  “Depends. If you’re not working with propulsion, what is it that you do?”

  Elsa hesitated. The fleet crewmembers didn’t seem to look down their noses at cinders the way some of the station-dwellers did, but she was still reluctant to divulge her profession to the lieutenant. “I’m in . . . collections,” she said.

  He frowned, puzzled. “Debt?”

  She shook her head. “Ore.”

  He opened his mouth to ask a question, but before he could do so, klaxons sounded, drowning out the music. Elsa snapped her head around, looking for her crew. She caught sight of Bruno pushing his way through the crowd, and Jaq and Marraine were cutting across the floor to intercept him.

  “I have to go,” she told Karl quickly, dropping his hand and backing away.

  “What is it? What’s happening?”

  “Trouble. I have to hurry. I’m sorry!” She hitched her skirt up with one hand and took off at a run, dodging bewildered dancers.

  Karl watched her leave, eyes narrowed in thought, before pulling his commlink out of his pocket to call his ship.

  6

  Elsa caught up with her crew at the shuttle dock, where a milling group of cinders was already waiting. “What’s the trouble?” she asked Bruno. She heard the shuttle dock with a clunk.

  “Major solar flare activity,” he called over his shoulder as he moved towards the doors. The shuttle filled with cinders, still dressed in their best finery. Jaq rescued the train of Marraine’s gown from being stepped on by another miner.

  “So?” Gus continued the conversation as the cinders hastily buckled themselves into their harnesses. “Flares happen all the time.”

  “Not like this,” Bruno answered, his jaw tight. “The ensuing plasma cloud is going to be huge.”

  The voice over the intercom spoke, sounding tense. “Sensors have discovered a massive coronal ejection in the wake of recent solar flares. It’s much larger and is travelling at a much higher speed than any previously observed. We’re recalling all satellites to Tremaine Station to avoid damage, but the station itself is in serious danger due to its proximity to a storm this size. Magma rain is also expected on the planet’s surface, which is likely to halt mining for the next several days.”

  “Magma rain?” Marraine murmured. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “That part isn’t unheard of,” Elsa said distractedly. “Particularly hot spots on the planet actually cause the rock to vaporize. As it rises, it starts to condense into droplets. Eventually it falls back to Aschen’s surface.”

  Marraine shook her head, a human gesture she was trying out. “Molten rock falling from the sky? No one back home would believe people willingly work under those conditions.”

  Jaq grinned. “To be fair, it’s not always molten. Sometimes it cools enough on the way to solidify again into tiny rock particles.”

  “When that happens, we don’t mine,” Gus said.

  Bruno remained silent; Elsa knew his thoughts were elsewhere.

  “Oh, I’m glad you draw the line somewhere,” Marraine said, throwing her hands in the air. “So what exactly are we supposed to do about the plasma cloud? We can’t very well tug the station out of the way of the storm.” She paused. “Can we?”

  “No,” Elsa said, finally pulling her gaze from Bruno, “we can’t. But each coach is already equipped with shielding to handle plasma and radiation, due to the nature of our work.”

  “We link the shields together and form a larger shield to protect the station,” Jaq said, his eyes bright with excitement. “I’ve never been part of it myself,” he amended. “But I’ve been through the training.”

  “Elsa and I were part of the shield wall in ’56,” Bruno said. His face was unreadable. Jaq’s smile slowly vanished.

  “I’m sure everything will go smoothly,” Elsa said into the heavy silence that followed.

  “What happened in ’56?” Marraine whispered to Jaq.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been mining less than a year, so I wasn’t here yet. I heard there was some kind of overload. The training seminars just said there was a design flaw in the coaches that has since been remedied.”

  The shuttle docked, and the cinders poured into their respective changing rooms, slipping out of their party clothes and into their undersuits as quickly as possible. They gathered in the locker room, the sight of the entire crew carrying their dress clothes incongruous in the industrial setting. Elsa hastily tucked Marraine’s gown into the bottom of her locker, out of harm’s way.

  Bruno stood near the airlocks, arms folded, waiting for the others as they suited up. “Marraine, I know you’re new at this. The station will automatically send instructions to your coach console, but if you have questions, you just ask.”

  She nodded tentatively, as though she wasn’t quite used to the human gesture.

  Bruno caught Gus’s arm as he went by. “Keep an eye on those two,” he said, nodding to Jaq and Marraine. “Make sure they both stay safe. Jaq knows less than he thinks he does.” Gus nodded and clapped him on the shoulder.

  Elsa climbed on the bench to snag her helmet and jumped back down. She pulled it over her head as she walked to the airlocks, pressurizing the seal. Bruno checked it anyway. She gave him a look.

  “We’re going to be fine. Stop being such a mother hen,” she said, attempting to lighten the mood.

  He pretended she was successful. “Someone’s gotta do it.” He kissed the top of her helmet. “Now scoot.”

  “Yessir.”

  Elsa stepped inside the airlock, and through the view panel she saw Bruno put his own helmet on.

  Once inside the coach, she wasted no time launching. Somehow Bruno still beat her out of the gate, and his coach was waiting. The crew assembled in a loose configuration near the mining hub. Navigational data fed into their systems from the station, and the crew gradually moved into position between the station and the sun. Each coach was within sight of the others, but they were spaced as widely apart as could be and still link shields. As more coaches launched from the mining hub, they added themselves to the net, forming a growing wall in front of the station like a swarm of bees in front of their hive.

  Nothing happened. It kept happening.

  “So . . . now what?” Marraine’s voice finally broke the tense silence that had settled over the comms.

  “We wait,” Bruno said. “If we link shields now, we’ll only drain our energy unnecessarily.”

  Another long silence. The coaches hung in space. Elsa tapped her booted foot compulsively.

  “So, anyone know any good games?” Jaq said.

  Almost before the words were out of his mouth, Bruno shouted, “There!”

  They couldn’t see anything—but their sensors could. The control boards lit up with warning. The plasma cloud was coming.

  “My sensors are acting up,” Gus complained. “I’m getting ghost readings.”

  “No, you’re not,” Bruno said.

  Something in his voice made Elsa look up, startled, even though she couldn’t see him. “What?”

  “They’re not ghost readings. They’re multiple clouds coalescing.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy with dread. “This isn’t going to work.”

  The order came through from the station: Link the shields.

  Elsa closed her eyes. “Bruno,” she said, “is there another option?”

  She knew how much it was costing him to remain the calm,
strong leader in the face of his memories. Spread too thinly, the shield wall of ’56 had overloaded—and the deadly storm had savaged the cinders trying desperately to maintain the net, leaving several of them dead. Bruno had known the line couldn’t encompass the whole station, but he had obeyed the station’s order to maintain his crew’s position. Most of the station had been saved—at a cost Bruno deemed too high.

  When he spoke now, his voice was steady. “None that I know of, sweetheart. We’ll have to give it our best shot.”

  Elsa took a breath and powered up her shields as the other coaches did the same. A bright net of energy spun out between the coaches, glittering and arcing in front of the station. It looked so fragile, Elsa thought. If only there was some other way to bolster it! She looked again at her controls. She hoped the readings she saw there were wrong. If they were accurate, the net would blister and crumble.

  Unacceptable, she decided. She would not sit by and watch the same disaster happen again.

  She connected her comm line to the station. “Priscilla, Camilla, are you there?”

  The reply came in chorus. “Yes, how can we help you?”

  “This is Elsa. Get me the Sovereign immediately,” she ordered. “I need you to put me through to their bridge. And patch in Bruno too,” she added.

  “But you have to go through the proper channels, at least five sublevel communication protocols. You can’t just talk to the bridge, Elsa!” one clone said, scandalized.

  “Priscilla,” Elsa said quickly, taking a guess and figuring she had a fifty-fifty chance of being right, “I heard about how you two hacked into the station comm system as a prank during the holiday party last year. I know you know how to bypass all of those codes. Now unless you want every circuit on the station to fry, and probably some of us in the process, put me through to the bridge.”

  A pause. One of the clones cleared her throat. “Right away.”

  Elsa exhaled.

  “And this is Camilla, by the way,” the clone said, sounding annoyed. “Okay. You and Bruno are both hooked up to the Sovereign’s bridge now.”

  Suddenly nervous, Elsa grimaced, simultaneously praying that a senior officer would be on the bridge, someone other than the captain. Tango or not, he was still intimidating, and she didn’t know how likely he would be to take orders from a cinder.

  “Attention, Sovereign,” she said, striking what she hoped was a note of respectful authority. “We request your assistance immediately at the shield wall.”

  She heard a strangled sound from Bruno as he realized what sort of conversation he was listening to. She pressed on, ignoring him. “Your sensors probably haven’t detected it yet since you’re docked on the far side of the station,” she continued, glancing at her own controls, “but there is a combined plasma cloud heading towards the station. The coach shield wall will not be sufficient to protect Tremaine Station. We, ah, respectfully request that you—”

  The voice that interrupted her did not belong to the King. “Bring us in to the shield wall,” Karl ordered to someone else on the bridge. “You want us to shore up the shield wall, yes?” he asked Elsa.

  “Yes,” she said, exhaling again. Bless him, he caught on fast. “Yes, we do, Lieutenant.”

  “Where do you need us?”

  “Bruno, where would they do the most good?”

  She could all but hear Bruno scrambling for a suitable response. “Below the shield wall. You can focus your dorsal shielding to expand and overlap the net. Uh, sir.”

  Elsa glanced through her viewscreen. She could see the plasma cloud with her own eyes, and it was moving rapidly.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to be sharp about it,” she warned. “We’re out of time. Priscilla, Camilla, still on the line?”

  “Of course,” they said.

  “Pass the word through the shield wall. Make sure they know what we’re about to try. Everyone will have to maintain their positions precisely.” It wouldn’t be easy, she knew; when the storm hit, the turbulence would be intense.

  “Already done,” they said.

  “Is there anything else you suggest?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Aside from prayer?” one of the clones whispered.

  “No, Prince—er, no, sir,” Bruno said, tangling his words. “Just get into position quickly. We can’t hold it without you, and if the wall fails—”

  “Understood,” the lieutenant replied crisply.

  Considering the unprecedented size of the storm, no one needed to be reminded. Aside from the probable annihilation of the cinders, the first line of defense, the station would suffer terrible damage; the outer sections and their inhabitants would likely be destroyed.

  Elsa tried to control her breathing, tried not to think about the past, and willed the Sovereign to hurry. From here she couldn’t see the frigate leave its dock, and she resisted the temptation to ask if anyone else could see it approaching. The lieutenant knows the danger, she told herself. He’ll get the ship into position as quickly as he can.

  Then she caught a glimpse of shining white hull rising into the lower corner of her viewscreen, and she began to believe this just might work. The Sovereign’s dorsal shield reached out to the shield wall like a tentative hand, linking tightly and binding them all together.

  “Cutting it a little fine,” Elsa muttered. She had just enough time to brace herself.

  The plasma cloud slammed into the shield wall, and Elsa’s coach rocked with the impact. Energy blazed across the shield wall. The viewscreens on the coaches darkened to prevent ocular damage, but even so, Elsa could barely see out against the glare as she fought to maintain her position.

  The shield wall held against the onslaught, deflecting the energy away from the station. Elsa could only imagine what the light show looked like from aboard Tremaine Station, surrounded by coruscating fire. She shaded her eyes with a hand as she checked her controls.

  “Everything is holding steady so far,” she said.

  “Looks good on our end too,” the lieutenant said.

  She had forgotten the line was still open. The crew members were quiet as they rode the storm for nearly an hour, saving their energy to wrestle the coaches as they bucked and twisted in the energy blast.

  Suddenly Jaq yelped, shattering their intense concentration. His coach spun out of the net, gyrating wildly. The edges of the coach shields on either side grew together to close the gap . . . but Jaq was on the outside, caught in the cloud.

  7

  Jaq blinked groggily, his head aching from where he’d smacked it against the back of his helmet during his spin. Judging by the amount of shouting over the comm lines, he had blacked out for a few seconds.

  “Jaq?” Elsa called, sounding as panic-stricken as he had ever heard her. “Jaq!”

  He tried to focus on his controls, but without the buffer of the energy shield, his coach was being flung about by the plasma storm, making diagnosis of the problem difficult. “My shield emitter overloaded,” he replied, voice shaky.

  “Good to hear your voice,” Gus said, sounding nearly as unsteady.

  Jaq tried a few maneuvers. “My navigation is fried. Must have blown out all primary systems.” He kept his reply brief so the others wouldn’t hear the terror he was trying to mask. His stomach already roiled with nausea, one of the first symptoms of radiation sickness. He tried not to think about how much radiation was hitting him every second he was unprotected outside the shield wall.

  Bruno cursed viciously. He was nearly at the opposite end of the wall, too far away to do anything personally.

  “I’ll get him,” Gus said quickly, but before he could do so, Jaq saw another coach flit out of the formation.

  “No, I’ve got him,” Marraine’s cool voice murmured in his ear through the comm line.

  “Marraine, Jaq may have already received a lethal dose,” Bruno said, holding the desperation in his voice tightly in check. “If your shield blows too—”

  “You forget,” Marraine said, her
voice calm and alien, “I’m a fay. We have a higher resistance to these things.”

  A combination of panic and bile rising in his throat made it hard for Jaq to speak. “No!” he finally managed to croak. “Get behind the wall.”

  “Don’t order me about, Jaq Perrault,” Marraine said briskly.

  He sat there, completely helpless, as his coach continued to jostle alarmingly. He willed her to hurry at the same time that he wished she would turn back. He wondered if she had lied about her radiation resistance just to make him feel better, and then he wished the thought hadn’t occurred to him. If she died because of him—he, who was probably as good as dead anyway . . .

  He blinked quickly, unable to rub his eyes because of his helmet, and did not permit himself to finish that thought.

  Her coach reached him in moments—their positions had been close to one another in the net—and Marraine extended her shield around his coach, gently drawing him closer with her coach’s energy field. She tugged him back to the wall, but it was slow going. The shields weren’t designed for towing, especially under these conditions.

  Jaq promised himself he would not throw up inside of his suit, but the vow was becoming increasingly difficult to keep as the radiation sickness symptoms intensified.

  Over his comm line, he heard someone’s gloved fingers tapping on the console in an agony of impatience. “Sovereign?” he heard Elsa ask.

  “I’m here,” the lieutenant answered.

  “Can our people come to your sickbay? It’s closer than the station’s infirmary, and they’re going to need immediate medical attention.”

  “Of course.” Jaq heard him snap an order at someone else to prepare the sickbay for radiation patients.

  At last Marraine and Jaq moved through the shield wall, which was still glittering with lightning tracery as the plasma storm continued to rage.

  “Jaq?” Bruno said. “Can you hear us?”

  Jaq muttered a reply, focusing more on his rebellious stomach than on his enunciation.

  “Say again, Jaq?”

  “He says you cluck like a mother hen, Bruno,” Marraine said, laughing.