Soul of Stars

by Ashley Poston

  Where had they gotten so many Metals?

  The more she saw of the dreadnought, the more she began to believe the rumors—that the HIVE was turning people into Metals, and then HIVE’ing them. But why couldn’t the HIVE just create androids without memory cores—like the androids on the Tsarina? That would’ve been a whole lot easier.

  It didn’t make sense, unless there was something she didn’t yet know.

  For the length of the corridor, she and E0S clung to the red-lit shadows, until one of the corridors finally looked familiar from when she’d first arrived. The elevator to the docking bay should be close.

  E0S turned left at another intersection—and suddenly recoiled backward, beeping furiously.

  “What—?”

  Ana barely had time to brace before someone slammed into her in the intersection, and she bit the floor hard. She gasped, trying to push whatever had attacked her off, but they straddled her and pinned her to the ground.

  In the dim red light, her attacker’s blond hair shone like copper, her cheekbones harsh, the arrows underneath her eyes darker than pitch. Wait—she knew that slant of eyebrows, the downward curve of her lips.

  “Wait!” Ana cried as the woman wound her fist back. “Viera, it’s me!”

  The woman froze. She looked down at her for a moment as if she didn’t know her. Then, slowly, she lowered her fist. “. . . Ana?”

  Ana shimmied out from underneath her, not quite believing her eyes. “You—you’re alive?”

  Slowly, Viera’s eyes widened with the same mystified look, as if they were two ghosts seeing each other in a world where ghosts did not wander. Then Viera, coming back to her senses, quickly doubled over and pressed her forehead against the ground. “Your Grace.” Her voice shook. “Your Grace, please forgive me. I did not know it was you—”

  Alarmed, Ana quickly pulled them both to their feet. “No—no don’t. Stop.”

  “But Your Grace—”

  “How’re you alive? How’d you get here?”

  Surprised, Viera looked from Ana to the bot, and then back to her. “I—I was imprisoned, but I cannot remember for how long. They were taking me somewhere. Then the lights went out and I decided to try and escape. What are you doing here? How did you survive?”

  “It’s a long story. Come on—the docking bay isn’t far—at least, I think.” She grabbed Viera by the wrist and pulled her down the hallway toward the elevator.

  But there was someone already there.

  The stranger turned around, finally hearing their footsteps, a moment before Viera launched herself at him, grabbing him by the throat, and pinned him against the closed elevator doors. In the harsh red emergency light light, Ana made out the unruly curls of brown hair, the stubble prickling against his chin. And Valerio blue eyes.

  “Mercy!” the stranger wheezed.

  Ana blinked. “Robb? Viera—it’s Robb!”

  He slapped at Viera’s wrist to get her to let go of his throat, and she did. He gasped for breath. “Goddess’s spark— Vee?”

  Viera blinked at him a moment before she responded, “Robbert. You are . . . taller.”

  “And you’re alive?”

  “If you’re here—Siege sent you?” Ana added, hopeful.

  He shot her a wounded look. “I sent myself, thank you—”

  “Then where’s the captain?”

  “She’s on her way. We need to get to the docking bay and out of here—Jax is going to meet us there,” he added, glancing back over his shoulder. “Assuming we make it there.”

  As if on cue, a patrol of Messiers came down the farthest end of the hall. Two in the front carried egg-shaped lights.

  “We should probably get moving,” he added, and she agreed.

  Together, they pulled open the elevator doors. Starlight spilled in through the crack like a beam of light after a long nightmare. It was so bright she winced. The outward wall of the elevator shaft was made of thick glass and looked out onto space to—

  . . . a fleet of schooners marked with the royal crest making their way toward the dreadnought. There were dozens of them—too many to count. And she had the worst feeling that they had come to make sure she didn’t escape.

  “How . . . did you say we were going to leave?” she asked absently, but Robb shook his head, because however they were going to leave, they definitely couldn’t now. Not with all those waiting outside.

  E0S bleeped slowly.

  Suddenly, a streak of black and chrome cut through the formation like a knife, leaving pieces of skysailers in its wake.

  The Dossier.

  It had arrived.

  Robb took Ana by the hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back. “We’re getting out of here,” he assured her. Then he let go of her hand and leaped across the gap to the cable. The elevator had stopped two floors up, so it was a clean ride all the way down. Viera took a running start after him and followed.

  The sound of the patrol came closer. The beams of their flashlights reflected off the walls, turning the red emergency lights into a murky pink.

  “E0S, you go first—E0S?” Ana glanced over at the bot.

  It hovered, quiet, and then it bumped its bulbous lens against her forehead—as if to tell her not to worry, something Di had done so many times in the past—zipped down the corridor, and was gone into the shadows.

  “E0S!”

  “Ana!” Robb called up.

  She touched her forehead where E0S had bumped against her and made up her mind. E0S knew what it was doing, and she had to trust it. She jumped for the elevator cable and followed Robb and Viera down into the murky depths of the dreadnought.

  Robb

  The docking bay was a sight for sore eyes. A line of skysailers stretched out across the landing area, and through the glass windows of the gigantic bay doors, he could see a little of the firefight going on outside. The Dossier kept the schooners busy, but he wasn’t sure how long the captain could keep it up.

  Hopefully she wouldn’t need to for much longer.

  Where was Jax? He checked the holo-pad in his coat. They had less than two minutes to get out of here.

  Nervously, he tapped his comm-link. “Ma’alor?”

  There was only static.

  I shouldn’t worry. He’ll be here, he thought, and started for the closest skysailer. “You two keep a lookout while I hot-wire this thing,” he told both Ana and Viera.

  “But aren’t we gonna wait for Jax?” asked Ana, looking around again as if hoping he’d appear.

  “We are—I’m just getting a ship ready.” He hit the windshield release on the vehicle. The glass dome popped open and he hopped inside, shimmying over the passenger seat. Underneath the console was a small panel that opened up to the circuitry.

  Now he was having flashbacks to Neon City.

  Don’t think. Just cross a few wires and—

  “Is that the bridge up there?” Viera pointed toward the ceiling.

  Absently Robb drew his gaze up, and wished he hadn’t.

  From the ceiling, a chamber jutted downward and extended out to the tip of the dreadnought, windows on all sides. The bridge. Even though it was dark, he could make out two figures inside. And he’d know that silver hair anywhere.

  “Jax,” he murmured with dread.

  “And the XO,” added Viera. They watched Jax narrowly dodge the swing of a lightsword—and barely another. “He is not going to survive.”

  Fuck that.

  Robb had already watched two people he loved die. He would not watch another—not again. Not when he could help.

  From the other side of the docking bay came a loud screech. Metal hands wormed through the crack in the door, forcing it open. There wasn’t any time left. The HIVE had found them.

  He twisted two wires together. There was a spark. The console blinked to life, holo-screens reading off solar core energy and oxygen levels. A counter blinked up on the screen, counting down.

  00:08

  00:07

  00:0
6

  Until the docking bay doors open, he realized with panic. Jax must’ve initiated the command from the control room. That stupid, arrogant, insufferable—

  “Get in—NOW!” he ordered Ana and Viera, scooting over to the driver’s side again, Ana taking passenger, Viera in the back seat.

  The Messiers came swiftly, running across the landing pad, reaching for their swords and halberds and Metroids. He closed the skysailer windshield and locked it.

  “Robb!” Ana cried, “they’re coming!”

  00:03

  00:02

  He fired the thrusters.

  00:01—

  The docking bay doors sprang open and, with a terrifying exhale, flung them out into space.

  Jax

  “Oh yikes, looks like she’s getting away—again,” said Jax, trying to catch his breath. The skysailer carrying Robb and Ana swirled out into space, followed by the bodies of at least a dozen Messiers. He turned his back to them and tiredly leaned against the glass window. A thin rivulet of sweat slid down his neck and under his space suit collar. He just had to keep this up long enough for Robb and Ana to get away.

  That was his fate. He had seen it in the stars.

  The XO glanced out at the skysailer, then back at him silently.

  “Why didn’t you deploy all the other Messiers? The ones in those rooms? She wouldn’t have gotten away then,” he added, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm.

  The XO swirled his lightsword. “Quality is better than quantity, nan c’zar,” he replied, and there was no mistaking Di in the voice. Or what was left of him after the HIVE. He outstretched his free hand toward the skysailer Robb and Ana had escaped in. The skysailer jerked—as if Di was taking control of it.

  Ak’va. He didn’t know Di could do that.

  “No!” he cried, lurching toward the XO, not sure what he could do, but he would do something—

  A loud thud came from the ventilation shaft above them, and a small square bot shot out of the grate in the ceiling. It went careening toward the Metal and unfolded spindly arms from its side and weaseled them into the slats in the XO’s neck, into its wiring.

  E0S’s lens flared a brilliant white.

  “Hnng!” The Messier gave a jerk, its eyes flickering. It dropped its hand, and the skysailer was jettisoned out into space.

  Jax winced, shielding his eyes, as the brightness swept across the bridge.

  “Get off of me!” the Emperor in the XO cried, grabbing the bot.

  The XO threw it against the window. It sank to the floor beside Jax. He pressed himself harder against the window, wishing he could sink right through it.

  The XO twitched, electricity jumping across the badges and buttons of its uniform, as it raised its lightsword to Jax. “You.”

  This was the image he’d seen in Robb’s stars—the moment he would die. The blade would find his heart and pin him to the glass window, and there he’d bleed out. He used to wake up gasping from this nightmare, and Robb would crawl out of his bunk bed and into his and tell him it was all right.

  But it wasn’t. It never would be. Because he knew he couldn’t stop it.

  That he shouldn’t stop it.

  He winced away, bringing his obsidian wristbands up to shield his face, waiting for the pain, the slice of hotness. Di drove the sword down—

  Into E0S.

  And there the sword embedded in the window and stuck fast. His heart jumped into his throat.

  The stars had changed—but who had changed them?

  Jax tried to push himself off the window, but the glass crackled beneath him. He froze. The lightsword spread fissures in the glass around it, feathering outward like a lightning strike in all directions. A high-pitched whistling squirreled through the cracks, oxygen swirling out.

  If either of them pulled the lightsword free, the window wouldn’t hold.

  “Damned thing,” the Emperor murmured, wincing as if in pain. The XO’s eyes flickered—and its body jerked again.

  Another crack inched across the glass.

  “You won’t catch her,” he said. “She’ll always be one step ahead of you. She’ll stop you. She’ll bring you back.”

  The Emperor glanced out the window, but the skysailer was long gone. “Bring me back?” He laughed, and the body of the XO jerked again. He crawled closer to Jax, until they were only inches apart, and Jax glared at the monster looking out from behind the Messier’s glitching gaze.

  The darkness that had twisted Di.

  Ah vent’a nazu mah, it hummed in his head, a slight shift in the whisper he’d heard all those months before in the palace. Where it was a promise to come then, now it was a promise come to pass. Ah vent’a nazu morah.

  I have come from the edges, it translated. I have come from the end—

  From out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a skysailer bank upward toward the bridge.

  Robb.

  “I will let you in on a secret, nan c’zar. There is nowhere she can hide where I will not find her,” whispered the Emperor, flicking his gaze up behind Jax to the skysailer as it approached. “She is mine.”

  “Oh, metalhead”—the blue-white glow of the lightsword illuminated them, the verge of death painting them the color of a moonrise, and he looked up into the metallic face of the XO, to Di, and wished he wasn’t afraid—“you were hers, too.”

  And then he grabbed the lightsword and prayed—

  Goddess, give me light.

  —and pulled the sword out.

  The window gave. Space grabbed him by its icy fingers and pulled him out.

  At the same moment, Di grabbed his hand—

  A strange tingling sensation prickled in his belly. He knew this feeling, as the Messier’s metal fingers brushed against the thin skin of his wrist, trying to hold on—

  The sight took hold so viscerally, he convulsed, spiraling up into the galaxy far away. It was different from every other time he used his powers, a simple series of constellations, but these stars were—

  They were everywhere.

  In the past. The future.

  Galaxies far away and then so suddenly the next sun over—entire lifetimes lacing together as though they all lived in one touch. Linked together, bright and burning and . . . and alive.

  It was as if he wasn’t seeing one star—but many. Too many.

  A soul made of stars.

  He felt his powers stretch and thin, the light inside him burning away in a single bright flash, so terribly quickly it stole the breath right out of him. Images raced across his eyes, swirling up through his flesh, dancing in an intricate waltz to a song that was so loud it shrieked—

  He wanted to say good-bye to Robb. He wished he could have. He regretted not.

  But there was no time, and not enough light inside his own soul to read a thousand others. It felt like wasting away in a dark room, light leaving every pore until he could no longer breathe, no longer think, no longer exist—so quickly it was over in a flash.

  One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, and his body drifted out into the coldness of space.

  II

  Starless

  Emperor

  The Solani slipped out of his grip, his lips paled to blue, frost swirling across his skin, violet eyes wide and vacant.

  Like light bulbs burned out.

  He tried to reach out again, but space had pulled him too far away. The Solani—he—he remembered the Solani. So much younger, thirteen, sitting at a table, winning Wicked Luck rounds, grinning over his cards with a toothpick tucked into the corner of his mouth. “You wanna bet anything?” the memory asked.

  “It would not be fair,” a strange voice replied. Twisted, garbled like static—a damaged voice box. His? But . . . not.

  “Come on, metalhead! All’s fair if you use what you’re given.”

  “I was made with these traits.”

  And then the Solani grinned, wider than ever. “So was I.”

  Now that Solani
was dead.

  He was dead.

  He was dead.

  Why do you care? he asked himself. Why do you care? Why do you care he is dead? Why do you—

  A sound invaded his head. A scream—his? It tore into his programming like a white-hot dagger, and he winced away from it. Out of the XO, and into his body in the bedroom of the Iron Palace. He had just returned from Nevaeh, still clad in his diamond-embedded black robes and golden jewelry, and he was alone. The room was dark and quiet. Moonlight spilled in from between the crimson curtains, the light flaring so bright it hurt his eyes.

  Whatever that can opener had done—whatever malware it had implanted—sizzled at the back of his teeth. He curled his hand into the cloth above his chest, his fingernails embedding into his skin there. His legs gave out from under him and he fell to his knees.

  You were hers, the Solani had said.

  And now he was dead.

  The Solani was dead and he did not care. He did not care. He did c—

  His chest burned even though he did not have lungs. He opened his mouth to try to breathe, knowing he could not, that he did not, but still it felt suffocating. His vocal box gave a staticky, gasping sound. Wheezing. As he clutched his hand to his chest and tried—to—

  —Could not—

  Breathe.

  He knew the feeling, somehow. He knew it intimately well.

  It felt like dying.

  Or perhaps crying.

  Both.

  What had that can opener done to him?

  Why was he calling the bot a can opener?

  He curled his hand around the Valerio pendant clasped onto his cloak and gritted his teeth. The stitches on his cheek sizzled with electricity, crackling against his skin—and broke apart, revealing shining steel underneath, like a vein of ore through the earth—

  —And realized, with a sharp crackle of fear, that for a moment he could not hear the HIVE’s song.

  But then the melody returned, and it washed away his anguish and pain, and the Solani was dead.