Fractured Stars

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Junkyard!” Normally, she wouldn’t encourage him to knock her on her ass, but she was grinning too hard to care. She patted him clumsily around the wagging and licking.

  “Richter, you say?” The man had recovered and stood in the doorway again. “Did you get my message?”

  “What message?” McCall managed to push Junkyard aside long enough to clamber to her feet.

  He wouldn’t let her move very far away and plastered himself to her hip, still wagging fiercely. She was so pleased to see that he was well—maybe he’d lost a few pounds, but he appeared healthy overall—that she had a hard time focusing on the man’s words.

  “Yes, I sent one, what, the day before yesterday? I wasn’t sure where in the system you were, but I’m glad you came. I was a little scared to delay much longer. You don’t piss off cyborgs, you know. But then, you don’t want to piss off dogs that weigh more than you either.”

  “Uhm, can you explain what’s been going on? From your point of view? I haven’t gotten any messages—wait, I suppose I could have. Did you send it to my business address?” Three suns, she hadn’t checked that. She had an incognito address she used for communicating with anyone that had black-market dealings or anything less than scrupulous, and that was the one she had been monitoring.

  “I guess. It’s what’s on the documentation in the NavCom compartment on your ship. It is your ship, right?” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder and into the building.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I figured only a girl would paint her ship purple.”

  “What color did Axton want it painted?” she asked, not that it mattered. But she was curious.

  “Black.”

  “Ew.”

  “I agree. Shows an utter lack of creativity.” The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Greg.”

  McCall looked at the dog slobber on her hand, at the paint and grease smearing his hand, and decided they were equally begrimed and this somehow made the handshake fair and proper.

  “Come on in,” Greg said, though he paused and glanced behind her.

  McCall looked over her shoulder, wondering if Dash had caught up with her, but he had been letting Rose treat his blazer burn when McCall left. She’d forbidden him to follow her until he was thoroughly patched up, though she hadn’t been positive he would listen. She thought of the gouges he’d received from that robotic creature—they likely still hurt him—and hoped the Alliance let him relax and recuperate before sending him out into some battle.

  If he stayed with her on her ship, he could recuperate all he wanted, but he had to take his comrades off to their secret base. Besides, she didn’t want to encourage him to give up his mission in life. If he decided he truly wanted to, she would gladly invite him into her universe, but she would be as neutral as she could and try not to sway him one way or the other.

  “Just making sure that grumpy cyborg isn’t following you,” Greg said. “He isn’t, is he?”

  “No, he’s on another continent.”

  “I wish you’d said another planet.”

  “Sorry. But I don’t think he’s going to come after you, if that helps. We had a chat with him.”

  Technically, only Dash had done the chatting. While dodging furniture.

  “That must have been unpleasant,” Greg said.

  “Yes, my androids were mangled along with my—” McCall almost said boyfriend but hesitated. It had been so long since she’d had a boyfriend that the word didn’t flow off her tongue, and she and Dash hadn’t quite figured things out yet, so she didn’t know if she had the right to claim him as such. “My friend.”

  “Sounds like what I would expect. He roughed me up when he brought the ship in the other day because I dared ask to see provenance on it.”

  Greg led the way past a couple of offices and into the hangar bay in the back. It was sufficiently sized and equipped for anything from motorcycles and hoverboards to small ships. McCall spotted her baby in the middle and almost cried on the spot.

  “He said I was going to paint it, not sell it, and to mind my own business,” Greg added. “Like law enforcers come in every day with civilian ships and want them worked on. He didn’t even have the access code to the hatch, so he had to leave it open. Naturally, I looked inside. Is that your android out of commission on the deck too?”

  McCall had been about to rush to the open cargo hatch, but she lurched to a stop. “Scipio? What do you mean out of commission?”

  “There’s a CPU-lock on the back of his neck. I wasn’t sure what he was programmed to do, so I left him as is.”

  “He’s programmed to get your coffee and answer the comm,” McCall growled and ran up the ramp.

  “In that case, I should have removed the lock right away!” Greg called after her.

  McCall didn’t respond. She ran through the cargo bay with Junkyard bounding after her, barking as if this were play time.

  “Later, buddy,” she said. “We’ll spend a night on the coast of that jungle continent, and I’ll let you tear up and down the beach.” She owed him more than a night after all this.

  “Scipio,” McCall blurted, almost tripping over him as she ran into NavCom. That big oaf Axton had left him in the middle of the deck.

  Fortunately, removing the CPU-lock was a simple enough matter since the code hadn’t been programmed in. She twisted it, punched the button, and pulled it off.

  Scipio didn’t move.

  Had he been damaged? He must have piloted the ship to Selva Moon, assuming Dash was right and Axton wasn’t a pilot himself.

  “Scipio, there’s a sale on Tasharani suits right now. You don’t want to miss it.”

  Scipio’s eyes opened, and he sat up in that mechanical not-quite-human way of his. Relief washed through McCall’s veins, and she hugged him.

  Junkyard ambled into NavCom and sniffed Scipio’s leather shoes.

  “Tasharani, you say?” Scipio asked, shifting his shoes away from the dog’s nose.

  “I’m sure there’s a sale going on somewhere in the system. If you’re hale, we can fly around and look for it.”

  “I am hale.” Scipio rose to his feet and looked around. “Is that odious cyborg here?”

  “No, Dash and I left him in the jungle after interrogating him.”

  Scipio tilted his head in Puzzled Expression Number Two. “You interrogated a cyborg?”

  “Technically, Dash—he’s a Starseer, by the way—read his mind while Axton was throwing furniture at him.”

  “Dash? Law-Enforcer Deputy Arjun Deshmukh?”

  “Yes, we’re on a first-name basis now. Technically, a nickname basis. I’ll explain it all…” She grimaced at the idea of storytelling now. As much as she’d missed Junkyard and Scipio, she needed some alone time to decompress. “In a few days,” she finished.

  “Very well.” Scipio knew her quirks and wouldn’t press her. Androids made excellent friends. “Do we have a new case? Are you in need of my piloting services at this time?”

  “No new cases yet. I need to figure out what the ramifications of all my actions are going to be first. If any. And also figure out…” She thought of Dash, but it was too much to explain simply, so she only shook her head again. “We need to get off this moon, so I will need a pilot, yes. And I’ve purchased a number of new androids who are in need of repairs. Can you download a protocol to help with fixing your own kind?”

  “New androids? Did you believe I would be destroyed by the cyborg?”

  “I was concerned about that for a while, but that’s not why I got these fellows.”

  “I am prepared to pilot and assist as needed with android repairs. I am intimately familiar with the mechanical schematics of many models.”

  “Excellent.”

  The comm panel beeped.

  McCall eyed it warily, hoping she didn’t already have law enforcers looking for her to ask a plethora of questions.

  “Yes?” she answered, half-tempted to let Scipio handle the interfacing.

&
nbsp; “It’s me.”

  “Oh,” she said in relief. “Have your injuries been healed?”

  “Not fully, but I can almost lift my arm.”

  She cringed in sympathy and wanted him to come to the ship so she could make him feel better. Somehow. If only by talking to him while he got drunk on some of her wine.

  “Hopefully, I can recover fully en route,” Dash went on. “The law enforcers are sniffing in our area again. I think they’ve got a bead on the ship. I knew I shouldn’t have flown so close to the city.”

  McCall grimaced. He had only flown as close as he had so he could drop her off near the paint shop.

  “Are you in trouble now?” she asked.

  A thud followed by a screech came over the comm.

  “Slightly. I’m going to take our new friends home.” Judging by how vague he was, Dash believed someone might be monitoring their communications. But she got the gist. He was leaving. Without her.

  “I understand.” She stared glumly at the comm panel, wanting to say much, much more. But if someone truly was listening in, she dared not give away anything that would help them find Dash or link him to her in the future.

  “I, uh, hope I see you again soon.”

  “I hope you do too.”

  He snorted. “Is that position you know of still available? In case… just in case.”

  It took her a moment to realize he meant the piloting job he’d asked about. She almost said yes promptly, especially since he was leaving and they hadn’t had a chance to share a real goodbye, but she caught herself, remembering her vow not to encourage him. Just to be there if he made this choice. It was possible the Alliance would reject him now that they knew about his Starseer abilities, but it wouldn’t be right of her to hope for that.

  “The employer would be happy to hire you if you find you can break away from your current engagement.” McCall hoped that made sense to him.

  “I understand. Thank you. I… will miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too,” she said quietly and tried to swallow down the feeling of bleakness that came over her. She would miss him a lot.

  Rattling sounded over the comm, and she imagined Dash trying to clear orbit with ships chasing after him.

  “Goodbye for now, McCall.”

  “Goodbye for now, Dash.”

  Not, she assured herself, goodbye forever.

  Epilogue

  Dash and the Alliance mechanic shared curses as they worked on the Striker-9 fighter in the big bay of the asteroid base. The ship was one of a dozen that had been salvaged from an imperial spaceship and airplane graveyard on Arkadius. This was one of the most promising of the craft—it had only been decommissioned thirty years ago—but Dash couldn’t help thinking he would be nuts to fly it into space. But he might have to. The Alliance was gearing up to make a push, to start an actual war with the empire, and it looked like he would be a part of it.

  It had been more than four weeks since he’d arrived at the base with Rose, Walters, and the rest of the group from the prison. He’d been swept up and put to work immediately, but he kept waiting for Admiral Walters, Rose, or another higher-ranking officer to drag him to the side and question him about his Starseer talents. At the least, he had expected another confrontation with the younger Walters. But nothing had happened. He hadn’t even seen Walters since the day they’d arrived.

  A part of him was relieved, though he kept waiting for the hammer to fall, and a part of him was disappointed. On the five-day flight from Selva Moon to the asteroid base, he’d decided that, if the Alliance rejected him, he would return to be with McCall. He could find a way to aid the Alliance from afar, from a seat beside hers on the Star Surfer.

  But nobody had rejected him. So here he was, preparing to fly into battle any day now.

  Dash missed McCall and had been on the verge of falling in love with her, but he couldn’t abandon the Alliance if they didn’t kick him out, not with war on the horizon. They needed him. And she… would probably be fine without him. He knew she cared for him, too, but she had her life back, an independent life where she relied on no one. She’d made it clear she would take him aboard her ship, but she’d never implied she would wither away and die without him.

  “Captain Dash?” a woman asked from behind him.

  He lowered his tools and turned, recognizing that voice. It was Rose. Advisor Rose Akerele, now one of the co-commanders of the base. Feelings of uncertainty assailed his gut. Had she finally come to tell him the Alliance didn’t want him?

  “Ma’am?”

  “A ship is asking for permission to land.”

  Dash looked at her in confusion and was on the verge of touching her mind when she smiled and changed her words to, “A ship is asking for your permission to land.”

  “McCall?” he whispered, seeing the familiar purple Comet Cruiser in Rose’s thoughts—and also seeing that it had taken up a position not far from the forcefield-protected entrance to the bay.

  “McCall. She flew past thousands of asteroids in the belt and straight to our location.” Rose waved toward the other asteroids visible beyond the translucent forcefield and raised her eyebrows. “Did you give her our location?”

  “No. But finding things is her specialty.”

  Rose snorted. “Indeed. I need to take another stab at recruiting her. I’m sure her skills would be helpful. Any chance that’s why she’s here? To join us? Or did you invite her for a quickie?”

  “Ma’am.”

  Dash couldn’t help but sound scandalized, more at the idea of a gray-haired female commander speaking about quickies than of having one, but he knew that wasn’t what had brought McCall here. They’d never gone beyond kissing in their too-brief time together, and he hadn’t wanted to push her for more, not like the men from her past that he’d caught her thinking about from time to time. But was it possible that she’d come here, if not for a quickie, then for him?

  “Is it all right to invite her in?” Dash asked.

  “Of course. We owe her a debt of gratitude. Though my co-commander Admiral Carey wants to ensnare her so we can add that ship to our fleet.”

  “He would have to go through her dog and her android first. They’re rather loyal, I understand.”

  “I look forward to meeting them,” Rose said, then turned to walk away.

  “Wait, Commander?”

  She turned back.

  Dash hesitated. Should he ask about his concerns? Or let sleeping dogs lie? He would continue to worry about his Starseer abilities being brought up if he didn’t find out how his superiors felt. Surely, Walters had spoken. Surely, they knew.

  “I haven’t seen Walters since we got back,” he said.

  “He was sent to another base for pilot training.”

  “Ah.” Dash lowered his voice so the mechanic wouldn’t hear. “Did he…”

  “Dash,” Rose said, also lowering her voice, “we had a meeting, and as it turns out, you are the third Starseer that has joined the Alliance.”

  “You mean it’s allowed?” He stared at her. Had all his worries been for naught?

  “I suggest you keep it to yourself, since there are a lot of people on both sides who feel the way young Walters does, but Admiral Walters said he’d rather fly with you than against you. We on the command staff have decided to consider it useful to have Starseers on our side, and you may be called upon to do more things than fly.”

  “Huh.”

  Her gray eyebrows twitched. “But oration won’t be one of them.”

  “Ma’am, are you mocking me?”

  “Possibly. You had better see if McCall and her friends will welcome you aboard.” Rose flicked her fingers in an approximation of a salute, then walked away.

  McCall’s friends. How would a reunion with them go? Dash had been an enemy the last time he had been aboard her ship, with Junkyard eager to munch on Axton’s balls and Scipio powered down in a closet.

  It was strange, but he wondered what the dog and android would t
hink of him now. Would Junkyard be willing to make friends with him without a cyborg looming nearby? Maybe he ought to run and find a meat-flavored ration bar. And what did one give an android to earn his trust? Dash remembered Scipio’s collections, but he didn’t have any ceramic eggs or hats close at hand, and the secret Alliance base lacked a gift shop.

  The sleek purple craft appeared outside the forcefield, its running lights making the dark paint gleam. The ship would be out of place among the derelicts in the bay, but it wasn’t like it was about to become part of the fleet. Dash couldn’t imagine McCall agreeing to send it into battle. It was her home.

  Rose must have told someone to give the Star Surfer permission to land, for it glided through the forcefield, the energy barrier capable of holding in the atmosphere while allowing ships transmitting the correct passcode through it.

  “I’ll be back in a few, Rodge,” Dash told the mechanic helping him and tossed his tools in the nearby bin.

  “After your quickie?” Rodge, who was even more gray-haired than Rose, asked.

  “After something,” Dash muttered, his cheeks warming. A former bounty hunter with fearsome scars and a deadly hook kick shouldn’t allow talk of sex to embarrass him, and yet his cheeks only grew hotter as someone whistled after him. Had everybody heard that part of the conversation?

  Dash hustled to the open spot the Surfer was angling toward and waited impatiently as it landed. Flawlessly. Its landing struts did not make a sound as the ship settled on the metal deck. McCall did not, Dash noted, need him when she had an android pilot.

  As soon as the cargo hatch opened and the ramp lowered, he started up it.

  “You’re assuming you’re invited into my ship?” McCall asked, stepping into view.

  She wore the exact same thing she had the first time they met, the many-pocketed baggy trousers, loose shirt, and jacket, with a stun gun hanging from a belt. He grinned because it was exactly how he’d imagined her these past weeks.

  “Well, I did invite you into my asteroid.”