Beyond the Stars

by C. S. Wilde

  Chuck shifts on his feet and scratches the back of his neck. “I have a hunch, but I need data to confirm my theory.”

  My salvation is based on a hunch? A theory? A shiver courses through my body as I remember the ice and all the memories I had lost within a few moments. I lost James, Chuck, I lost myself. It was terrifying, and yet, wonderful. My attention flies to the window and the snowstorm outside. I can feel the flurries touching my skin gently, begging me to come back, to become one with them. I’m trying to ignore their call with all my strength, but their pull only increases with time.

  Chuck turns to me, his tone appeasing, quiet. He lays a hand over my arm, and for a moment, I see his bulky, white whisar hand, his long fingers pressing my skin gently, emanating care and assurance. Every time Chuck does that, no matter which body he inhabits, I’m certain that all problems, no matter how big, can be solved.

  “I’m rarely ever wrong, dear.” He winks.

  I lay a hand over his and give him a thankful smile. “You’re correct, esteemed mentor. As always.”

  Sol’ut-eh stares at Chuck with her snout contorted in an annoyed manner. “I propose a trade. My control room is yours to analyze your data. But if you do find Werhn-za’har, he’ll be mine after you’re done with him.”

  Chuck bows his head. “That’s a fair request, sister.”

  18

  -Miriam-

  The big crystal monitor occupies an entire wall of the control room, shedding blue light against the dark grey walls. Three rows of pearly black consoles similar to the one in our ship build an audience to the monitor. At least a dozen whisars sit at the consoles, their tails swinging left and right through the gap on the back of their U-shaped chairs.

  Blue hieroglyphs pop up on the giant screen, but are soon replaced by a livestream of Do’yan. Raging clouds peppered by lightning cover the atmosphere on the upper side of the planet, and a red light pops up on the side of the monitor.

  A whisar sitting on the left end of a console says in his microphone, “Storm alert level six, issue return command to vessels in sectors three and four.”

  Before I can ask Sol’ut-eh about the alert, a strong, heavy voice comes from behind. “It is an honor to meet you, Miri’et-eh.”

  I turn to see a whisar taller than Sol’ut-eh—which is a rare sight. His bulky muscles almost pop from under his skin and he stands straight with his hands crossed behind his back in the typically stiff manner of security officers.

  Sol’ut-eh smiles and pats his shoulder. “This is Mak’lo-to, my second in command.” At this, Mak’lo-to bows to us with a hand over his heart. Sol’ut-eh nods to Chuck and says, “He’ll give you all the information you need, brother.”

  “Ah’rbal-ack-to,” Mak’lo-to steps forward as if I wasn’t really here, his focus solely on Chuck. He stands that way for a moment, his snout pressed tightly, his nostrils flared and fists clenched. Finally, he lays a hand over his chest and bows. “You have paid for your crimes. It’ll be an honor to help you.”

  Chuck waves his hand in the air and starts walking to the consoles. “Show me the information I need.”

  I can’t help but giggle at the twelve-year-old bossing around a giant whisar, especially one who seems to have strong military training. Then again, Chuck was also in the military once, cycles before I met him.

  They walk toward the screen and Mak’lo-to proceeds to show Chuck something on the first tier of consoles.

  A couple of tall, humanoid iguanas approach me and Sol’ut-eh. Their blue, scaled bodies might resemble a human’s—they even walk on both feet—but their faces are completely reptilian. Their bulging yellow eyes shine gold and stay gaped for long periods, as if analyzing the entire room. Dark blue dots pepper their skin from their wattles down to their bare feet. Walking sticks, wearing ragged pieces of clothing in a way similar to ancient tribes from Earth. When they see Sol’ut-eh, they bow with their hands over their hearts. She nods and they continue on their way.

  “Do’yanian vessels, I assume,” I say once they are gone. “You’re researching the planet?”

  She shrugs in a careless manner. “We may be rebels but we’re still whisars. We love to research and analyze everything we stumble upon, don’t we?”

  “Indeed.” The researcher in me is clapping her hands in excitement. I’ve never worked with such a rudimentary civ level. The academy only provides study opportunities on civs three and above. Oh, the things I could learn here. “It must be fascinating to study such a primitive form of life.”

  “Not entirely.” She focuses on Chuck across the room as if she were trying to lip read what he tells Mak’lo-to. “Do you know how conscious life really starts?”

  I shake my head.

  She turns to me and says, “With beasts and carnage.”

  The Do’yanian vessels stand some ten steps from our left, talking with a group of whisars. All too frequently they glance at me, a glint of hope and pride in their eyes. Now I realize that a great deal of the whisars in this room do the same. When I stare back at them, arms crossed and a displeased frown, they apologetically look away.

  “You must forgive them,” Sol’ut-eh says. “You’re a celebrity to us.”

  “Not by choice.”

  “And yet, here we are.” She grins. “Would you at least consider—”

  “I just want to live with James.” I blow out a weary sigh. “I’m happy on Earth, with him. I don’t want to meddle in rebellions and power plots. I just want to go home.”

  She cranes her head a little to the left. “Is that so?”

  Blood flushes to my cheeks as I search through all my mental barriers, looking for a breach. There’s none, so how did she know that a part of me wants to say yes? That ever since I found out about what really happened on Famda Seven, I’ve been wanting to join the rebels? I was given a choice, a limited one, granted, but a choice. None of them had the same luxury.

  My kind deserves a choice.

  I shift on my feet. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Sol’ut-eh raises her hands, a soft smile on her lips. “As you wish.”

  Chuck returns accompanied by Mak’lo-to. My former mentor wears an expression that says he was right all along. “Wer—”

  “Mak’lo-to,” Sol’ut-eh cuts in, ignoring Chuck completely. “You’re dismissed.”

  “But primary chief officer, I—”

  She doesn’t utter a word, just glares at him. Mak’lo-to steps back, bows quickly and then turns away.

  “I thought he was your second in command,” Chuck says with a quiet voice. “You don’t trust him?”

  “With my life, but his mate and offspring were in Famda Seven. A lot of our crew had loved ones in that colony. Sixty million lives, brother.” Her voice fails as her eyes dart around the room. “Famda Seven might have stopped a civil war, only because nearly the entire population of rebels was disintegrated by that star.”

  I gasp and step back. Most whisars here are descendants, family or friends of those who died on Famda Seven, and if not, at least they heard the stories. It was their people who died in that massacre. If they find out where Werhn-za’har is, they’d do everything in their power to end him. And they wouldn’t be wrong.

  “Thank you, sister,” Chuck bows to her before walking closer. His voice rings in our minds, “We’ll be safer this way.” He hands us a tablet with a map of Do’yan’s yellow grounds and points at the screen. “Five days ago, a fallen meteorite entered the atmosphere through this spot.”

  Sol’ut-eh shrugs. “That’s nothing out of the ordinary, especially in a system like this.”

  He swipes the screen and the map fades into black space showing the meteor’s perfectly circular orbit in blue lines, and then an abrupt fall towards the planet. Like a fly, dropping to the ground. “A natural meteorite would never behave this way.”

  “A ship?” I murmur.

  He nods, his voice echoing in my mind. “By its shape, probably Pothraki.”

  Sol’ut-eh glares at h
im, the veins in her arms bulging a little. “You mean he’s on Don-yan? Right under my watch this entire time?”

  “Very likely. What better place to hide than in a solar system with insignificant life and insignificant value, watched by the smallest base of all?” He snorts. “It’s brilliant, actually.”

  A light, warm feeling akin to summer days on Earth takes over my body. There’s still a chance for me.

  “Werhn-za’har must know I’m the leader of this base,” Sol’ut-eh thinks to herself as if Chuck and I weren’t here. “He’s mocking me, after all he did!” Her voice thunders in our minds, radiating so much hate that it seeps under my skin, red shades of wrath and pain.

  “You’re not that important to him, sister,” Chuck says with pity in his tone.

  I grab Sol’ut-eh’s arm, nostrils flared and heart beating out of my sternum, because dimensions be damned, I’m not letting her ruin my only chance. “I need to know right now if you can control yourself.”

  Sol’ut-eh stares at me, her chest heaving up and down. She swallows and closes her eyes, her entire body trembling. Finally, she takes a deep breath and her shoulders relax. “I will help you get your answers, but once you do, get out of my way. Or else, you too will burn.”

  19

  -Miriam-

  The pod reminds me of something out of a museum. It doesn’t display the whiteness of Class A ships, or the sleekness of the silver stars. It’s simply a giant ball made of grayish panels. It floats above the hangar’s floor thanks to its anti-gravity boosters, which hum quietly in the background as if crooning a lullaby. A few cracks decorate the pod’s surface, assuring me that the ship will dismantle any time now.

  Not again…

  A ramp extends from the ship’s entrance, granting us access.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” I mutter, but Sol’ut-eh and Chuck have already walked inside.

  Three giant u-shaped seats lined in a triangle wait for us in the cockpit, facing the front window. Sol’ut-eh sits in the first chair, but Chuck taps her shoulder and shakes his head.

  She blows air through her nostrils. “I’m a perfectly capable pilot.”

  “Of course.” He grins in the manner of a mischievous child. “But I’m better.”

  I squirm in my seat, feeling the gap of the U-shaped chair along the length of my back. “Are these seats safe for us? If we hit something, my spine will likely fling out of my body.”

  Sol’ut-eh taps the side of her forehead twice before pressing the side of my chair. Metal strips weave one atop the other until the gap is filled. At least now I can lean on the big chair’s backrest.

  Two seatbelts birth from the chair’s sides and wrap me in a loose X. Sol’ut-eh fits her entire arm between the seatbelt and my body, then clicks her tongue. “Well, if we hit something, losing your spine will be the least of your worries.”

  She winks and then straps herself to the seat on my left.

  I swallow dry. Damned the dimensions.

  “She’s just trying to scare you, dear,” Chuck says from the pilot’s chair. I can only see the last third of his head. “The pod has fifty percent inertial dampeners. That should be enough.”

  “Only fifty?” I yelp.

  “Well, it would be enough, if we weren’t heading for a storm level six,” Sol’ut-eh says with an amused grin. “We had to evacuate all our local vessels back to the base because of it.”

  I suddenly remember the red warning back at the control room and grip the edges of my seat. “What?”

  “Sol’ut-eh, unless you want Miriam to break this entire pod, I suggest you stop.” Chuck’s voice softens as he says, “The landing site is on the opposite hemisphere. We’ll be perfectly safe.”

  He proceeds to turn on the pod. The door of the hangar opens to the storm outside on Do’zun.

  Leaving one storm, heading to the next.

  “But Chuck—” I’m slammed against my seat as we boost out of the hangar.

  Do’yan soon approaches beyond the front window. Rumbling clouds thrash and swirl across the northern hemisphere of the planet. Space has no sound, and yet, the roaring thunders and flesh-cutting winds echo at the back of my head, calling for me, much like the ice back on Do’zun did. My own words echo in my mind, we’re all moving and thinking space dust, until the day we stop moving and thinking, and then we’re space dust again. Me, the ice, the storm, we’re all the same. One universe, one fabric.

  Do’yan now covers all of the pod’s front window.

  “We’re landing a little below the equator,” Chuck says. “That’s the spot with stable weather, and wisely, the route Werhn-za’har chose.” He points to the storm. “That hurricane will last some good dratas until it vanishes.”

  “Five and a half, actually,” Sol’ut-eh adds in an uninterested manner.

  I barely capture what they say because the rumbling at the back of my head now reverberates underneath my skin, travelling throughout my body, assuring me all this power can be mine, its tone barking and purring at the same time, begging to become one with me. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing.

  I’m coming home, James, I promise.

  We pierce the atmosphere, and it goes smoothly until the pod free-falls. Red light floods the cockpit and a loud siren echoes loudly, making my ears hurt.

  “That can’t be good,” Sol’ut-eh mutters.

  20

  -James-

  Zed’s face turns grave as a warning pops up on the console.

  “We’re here.” He presses a few keys, his red nails clacking against the surface. The white dashes outside are replaced by a purple moon, not far from a yellow and blue planet that looks remarkably similar to Earth.

  “The ion traces were extremely faint,” Zed says with his silky female voice. “However, there’s a seventy percent chance that they went to Do’zun.” He points to the purple moon, and his stare tells me nothing good. “We’ll find a whisar base there.”

  Air gets stuck midway in my lungs. “Why would they go to a base?”

  Zed shakes his head, the blond hair in his pony swooshing against the back of his neck. “I have no clue. Miri’et-eh’s face is quite famous. Why Ah’rbal-ack-to thought he could get her inside and remain unscathed is a mystery to me.”

  My hands shake, and I fist them into balls to control my panic. I need to find my wife, now. “You can pretend you caught me, right? That I left the Earth to find her and that you chased and stopped me.”

  “It’ll increase their suspicion, Miri’et-eh and her mate in such a short space of time...” His brow furrows. “I’ve heard that the primary chief officer here is one of the coldest in all the quadrants. But I suppose we have no choice.”

  Zed presses a dot on the console and a little case pops out, containing a familiar metal box. He opens it, revealing something akin to a contact lens. “This is a blocker. It can hide your thoughts—”

  “Yeah, I know.” I tuck the lens under my collar.

  He nods, his red lips tightly pressed before he tips down the ship.

  Entering this moon’s atmosphere is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen, a dance of purple and blue blazes caressing the screen. Almost like diving into purple fire. As the lights fade, a freezing wasteland appears below, broken by blasting flurries. The ship shakes and jumps, but Zed remains focused on steering our way, not a hint of fear in him. I’m in awe of whisar younglings.

  Soon the shaking stops and the console zooms into the surface, showing four blocks in the distance, a structure that looks like World War II bunkers.

  “This is it?” I curl my upper lip. “It looks different than the usual whisar stuff.”

  Zed nods. “It’s a very old base. Besides, no one cares about this sector enough to invest in it.”

  As soon as we land, raising a cloud of ice around us, an umbilical cord extends from the concrete. The ship bounces left and right as the cord connects to the door, then all is still.

  “The cord is an automated process,
” Zed mutters, paying attention to every sound. “But whisars will be waiting for us at the end.” He grabs his rucksack and stuffs a tablet in it, then he fixes the backpack on his shoulder and turns to me. “Are you ready?”

  I put on my backpack and inhale a deep breath. “Nope.”

  Zed’s putting himself in a lot of danger, and he may say it’s because he wants to study all of us and become Chuck’s apprentice, but it doesn’t matter. He’s helping me and he might get hurt because of it.

  I squeeze his shoulder and say, “What you’ve done, it’s…” I clear my throat. “If it all goes wrong, I—”

  “It won’t,” he says without looking at me, his attention fixed at the ship’s entrance. “And if it does, remember that I chose to help you.”

  A green light pops up over the ship’s entrance and a monotone voice says, “Exit to door one cleared.”

  After crossing the cord, we step into a room that resembles a trash can, with dirty green walls mossy at the edges, a stuffed, moist smell wafting from everywhere.

  “Are you sure this is a whisar base?” I whisper, trying to hold my breath.

  Before Zed can answer, the dark metal door slides open, and a huge whisar comes in, followed by five others, all carrying bulky guns that belong in a sci-fi movie.

  Shit, security officers. The worst kind of whisar we could stumble upon.

  The leader’s voice booms in our minds. “State your business.”

  Good thing about telepathy: thinking has no language. It’s meanings, images, and sensations. Our brain translates these basic stimuli to words. So he’s probably speaking in his native tongue, but still, I can understand him.

  Zed bows calmly as if there weren’t a bunch of guns pointed at us. “Greetings. My name is Zed’phir-lack, I’m a security officer based on Earth—”

  The leader snorts. “You do not resemble a security officer.”