Stars & Ashes

by Teagan Kearney

  The guard turned toward her, and her muscles shivered with the effort of controlling herself.

  “These men will be executed.” The speaker announced.

  Kia’s attention jerked back to the dais. Her father was too distant to be sure, but she would swear his gaze roved the silent tense citizens, and rested on her, before passing over his people.

  A soldier walked out and stood at the edge of the platform facing the city’s Elected with his back to the captive Sestrians. He raised his phaserifle and eight soft pffs sighed through the air.

  Kia burned the image of her father slumping to the platform with a small circular mark in the middle of his forehead into her mind, and her heart broke at the knowledge that his bright intelligence and the warmhearted gaze he turned on the world and its antics were gone forever.

  Chapter Two: Exodus

  Kia sat on the hard metal floor of a transport carrier heading for Shihon, the capital of Emankora on the Northern Continent, along with the young men and women of Sestris. She shivered from the cold night air—the plane was unheated—and the vibrations from the engine made her bones ache. She clasped her arms around her knees. Her wrists and ankles were bound with monocuffs, the latter fixed to metal bars running along the floor. After the guards shot three of them for talking, everyone sat mute, and Kia kept her head down as instructed.

  She didn’t mean to sleep but had closed her eyes to shut out the misery she could see on everyone’s face. The next instant she was standing alone on the beach south of the city where her family had gone for picnics on the days when her father had no council business. The setting sun created a shimmering silver path to the horizon, and she could see a boat heading out to sea.

  “Don’t leave me here,” she cried because her father was waving to her from the boat. Next to him, her mother also waved, and the twins blew her kisses.

  The boat was moving fast, but she could hear their voices as if they were standing next to her. “We live in your heart,” her mother’s voice drifted over the water.

  “Remember everything we taught you.” Her father smiled. “You are stronger than you know.”

  She lurched sideways, knocking into the woman next to her, and woke up still half in her dream. The guards hadn’t noticed, and Kia nodded a silent apology. She didn’t cry—not because she didn’t want to, or had no tears, but because she wouldn’t give a single one of the empire’s soldiers the satisfaction seeing her breakdown. She had an ocean of tears, enough to flood the crimson deserts of the southern continent, but refused to let the tears fall. Instead, she gritted her teeth, clamped her jaw tight, clasped and unclasped her hands, once in a while letting her fingers skim the medallion underneath her tunic. When told to remove her jewelry, she’d handed over the practice hall key and pointed to her ears and wrists, showing she had none. Jewelry could be used against you in a fight with an opponent ripping an earring off, or grabbing a bracelet to immobilize an arm. She’d keep hold of her medal as long as possible. If they took it off her at a later date, in another place, the link to her family and city would be less easy to trace.

  The more the events of the preceding day sank in, the more she felt she was on the edge of a precipice and it would be easy to let go and fall. All she would have to do would be to shout or scream, and one or other of the guards would shoot her. But she knew in her heart that such a decision would disappoint her parents more than any other she would ever make. You are stronger than you know, her father’s voice echoed in her head.

  What had gone wrong with her father’s plans? The empire’s interstellar fleet had disabled the planet’s defenses, knocked out the communications and transport systems, and materialized in the skies over Emankora without any warning. There must have been an enormous number of hidden sleepers within their midst for them to succeed in the way they had. Making an example of Sestris, her beloved home town and the main trading center for the conglomeration of independent miners, would ensure the southern continent’s compliance.

  Kia had heard of the empire’s methods—who hadn’t? She suspected her father had advised his fellow electors to surrender, hoping to save lives. It wasn’t a hard decision as the superior numbers and weapons of the empire’s forces would have outnumbered the city’s small defensive capabilities. Face it, she told herself, if you’re serious about conquering a planet, you bring what you need to accomplish the mission, and the empire wasn’t known for its lighthearted approach to its expansion program.

  The best hope for the people left behind was for them to stay alive while the resistance reformed. She clung to that thought. The empire might have snuck its agents into their system, but her people had known, long before Kia was born, that this day was bound to come, and although their first line of defense had collapsed, she was sure they must have made contingency plans.

  The prisoners still hadn’t eaten or drunk and, as a result, nobody had anything to vomit when the transport began its descent, although the smell of unwashed bodies was getting hard to ignore. After the carrier juddered to a halt, the guards moved among the prisoners removing the restraints from their feet but leaving their wrists cuffed. Their jailers herded them—some sniveling, most staring with empty or stunned gazes, but all debilitated by trauma—down a wide ramp and out onto the spaceport landing grounds.

  The noise and activity of the spaceport assaulted Kia’s senses as she moved forward. The roar of a shuttle taking off, prisoners, some milling about, others marched over to large temporary tents, orders shouted, the occasional pff of weapon’s fire, and dominating everything was the sense of unreality, of a nightmare, except there would be no waking up.

  Shihon’s spaceport was a short distance from the capital, but it looked very different from the previous time she visited. The entire family had made the trip to witness Jared’s official admission into the Trades and Alliances Collective. Kia swallowed the rising tide of emotion as she remembered the pride on her parents’ faces, followed fast by the image of her father being shot. She shuffled forward, letting her gaze rove, observed how their conqueror’s fleet flowed far beyond the normal berths allocated for commercial craft—and noted the total absence of the latter.

  “Single line,” a guard yelled, making vicious use of the butt of his phaserifle when they didn’t move fast enough. Others repeated the command until they were satisfied with some semblance of order, then ordered them toward one of a dozen smallish gray tents where lines of Emankora’s young men and women waited to enter.

  Shots were fired, and Kia heard screaming and yells from several directions as they trudged along, heads down, and looking neither to the left or right.

  “We'll shoot anyone who tries to run,” the nearest guard bellowed.

  Their line shambled forward without stopping. Not a day had gone by, and they’d already learned to do what they were told, and do it quickly.

  Kia wondered if they’d be given the choice. Sometimes the subjugated populations of annexed planets were asked if they wanted to join the empire’s troops. This entailed a certain number of cybernetic alterations, but once you had served your allocated time, you were granted your freedom. The price was high, though, because the modifications changed you into a creature with limited free will. The alternative was to retain your individuality and work as a slave until you died from exhaustion, starvation or any of the frequent disasters in the many asteroid mines. However, sometimes no option was given and whole planets were enlisted in whatever the empire’s current needs dictated.

  When Kia entered the dim interior of the tent, she kept her gaze down, waiting her turn. She raised her head a fraction and saw ahead of her a visored soldier seated at a table with a comunit, and a couple more soldiers, their weapons raised, watching the prisoners. Standing behind him and looking over his shoulder, was a fourth man dressed in a dark green uniform. The conspicuous absence of any insignia on his clothing wasn’t the only difference this soldier displayed—he wore no helmet.

  Kia was surprised at how
normal he seemed with his close-shaved light brown hair and keen pale blue eyes. It was hard to believe he was someone's son, father, or husband when they were all monsters. Occasionally he interrupted the seated soldier and asked a question.

  When her turn came, Kia stepped forward.

  “Name?”

  She blew out a quiet breath, more assured this time her identity was safe. “Kia O’Afon.”

  The man in the green uniform leaned across the seated questioner, picked up the comunit, studied it briefly before walking around the table and stopping far too close. He was a good bit taller than her, and despite the tired lines around his eyes, his gaze was sharp as he assessed her. “Says here you were in Sestris looking for work. What work do you do?”

  “Cleaning and such. Whatever I can get.” Kia addressed him with respect. She didn’t need to antagonize this man as although he had no insignia and his uniform was plain, whoever he was, he clearly outranked the other soldiers.

  “Show me your hands.”

  “What?”

  “If I have to repeat myself, one of those two,” he gestured to the soldiers behind the table, “will have to shoot you…”

  Her heart rate shot up, and she had no doubt he meant what he said despite his casual tone. She twisted her hands inside the cuffs and showed him her palms.

  He gripped her wrists, turned her hands this way and that, scrutinizing her fingernails before running his thumb over her calloused palms. “These hands don't belong to anyone who cleans for a living. It looks as if those callouses,” his finger stroked the callus between her thumb and index finger, “are from regular use of a weapon.”

  “My father, before he died, may the Gods care for his soul, taught me to use a blade.” She let herself well up, which was easy to do and glanced up at him making sure he’d notice her tears. “He wanted me to be able to protect myself.”

  A scuffle and screams had Kia turning toward the entrance. A young fellow had run, and she watched a soldier raise his phaserifle and fire. Her eyes widened as she recognized him in the shocked silence. He was older than her and she didn’t recall his name, but he’d gone to school with Jared, and she’d seen him in her neighborhood. Whatever future his parents had hoped for him, a wife, grandchildren, was snuffed out. Her lips tightened.

  “What’s this?” Her questioner wrenched her back to the present as he released his grip on her wrists, and moving quickly, reached inside the neck of her tunic, grabbed the chain of her medallion, disentangled her plait, and lifted it over her head with surprising speed.

  A cold hand squeezed her heart, and she stared at the ground. She had won that medallion through hard work and dedication, and she didn’t want him to see her fear or anger.

  “What have we here?” He studied the motif, turning the medallion over. “A srilao champion, no less. I can see why you didn’t surrender this when you were asked to hand over your valuables.” He scrutinized her. “You’re on the skinny side, but I bet you’re fast, otherwise you wouldn’t have this.” He nodded at the medallion in his hand.

  “I’ll put her choice down as the military, then? Mercenaries do real well in our system,” the guard at the table ignored her and addressed her interrogator.

  “I’m not a mercenary and I’m not for hire,” she told them both.

  The man in front of her studied her. “My boss might have a use for you.”

  She didn’t care who his boss was and realized she’d nearly missed the significance of the other soldier’s statement. “He said choice. What choice?”

  “Lucky for you, the Heir has insisted the people of Emankora get to choose, despite the need for miners. If it was up to me, you’re a prime candidate for the military, but the other option available is an all-expenses paid vacation to the mines.”

  “I’ll choose the mines.”

  “Don’t be too eager. Slip of a girl like you could survive for a year or two. If you change your mind, send a message to Nagavi—that’s me—and I’ll pull you out of whatever hell you end up in.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” The words jumped out of her mouth before she could stop them, but her questioner chuckled. “Sense of humor. Good, you’ll need it where you’re headed. Mark my words, I’ll be seeing you before the year is out, in fact, I’d bet on it. I look forward to training you. Until then, I’ll take care of this.” He pocketed her medallion, sighed as if she was a fool not to throw her lot in with the victors, made a note on his comunit, and pointed to one of two exits at the rear. “Through there.”

  Kia felt his gaze on her back and she tried not to walk too fast. If he knew who her father was, he’d order her death rather than extend an invitation, champion or not. The icy hand remained clamped around her heart even after she exited the tent.

  The subsequent hours blurred into one prolonged humiliation. Surrounded by jittery soldiers with fingers twitching on their phaserifles, Kia joined those captured from cities all over the planet as they were herded into large warehouses. Previously used for importing and exporting goods, they’d been transformed into clearing houses for the detainees. She estimated there were over a thousand in this shed alone, and there were at least half a dozen sheds. The empire was divesting Emankora of its future, and they would either be absorbed into the empire’s structure or be worked to death, thus removing any threat.

  They were ordered to strip, directed into communal showers, handed a tube of cream, and told to smear it on their scalps.

  Kia stood with the naked women who’d clustered together, although even the lustiest male among them had no thoughts of pleasure, as freezing chemshowers blasted their goose-bumped skin. She numbly watched as the depilation cream did its job, and her waist-length white blonde hair was sucked down a drain, disappearing along with everyone else’s hair.

  “They want to remove every trace of who we are,” a woman said. “The trouble with hair, though, is it doesn’t stop growing.”

  The woman was right, but Kia added this degradation to her list of insults and hardening desire for revenge.

  After being issued with thick black coveralls and a pair of rough rope sandals, they were allowed five minutes to chew a tough tasteless condensed wafer and drink a plasbulb of water before soldiers funneled them in groups aboard the waiting shuttles.

  Strapped into the shuttle’s metal seat, Kia glanced around and didn’t recognize a single face. During the processing, she had somehow become separated from her group from Sestris, and a sliver of panic twisted her gut. At least if she was with people from Sestris, she stood a chance of finding others who had knowledge of the resistance. A tall young man sat down a few rows in front, and she unwound a bit as she recognized him as the same person who’d stood by her side during her father’s execution. He could be an ally, and she determined she’d try to stay close to him.

  The shuttle rattled, and her ears rang as it blasted off. After docking beside a larger ship, the soldiers channeled their charges along gray metal corridors and down into the belly of the spaceship. Kia dropped back until no more than a few people separated her from the young man.

  “First four in here,” the soldier ordered, waving his weapon at the open door. He pressed a button outside the cell and the door slid shut. “Next four,” he said, and the procedure was repeated as they moved along the corridor.

  Kia was near the end of the line, and she did a quick check. Waiting until the guard’s attention was elsewhere, she took a chance and turned to the woman behind her. “Could I swap places with you?” Kia whispered. “Please, I want to be with my friend.” She nodded at the tall youth.

  “Sure,” the woman replied. “A little comfort goes far in times like this.”

  Kia smiled her thanks as they slid past each other.

  “Hi, I’m Shanyi. How are you doing?” The young man muttered in her ear as they shuffled forward.

  “Still breathing. You?” she murmured. “I wasn’t sure you’d seen me.”

  “The southern continent’s reigning srilao
champion is hard to miss,” he said softly, “even without that recognizable hair.”

  “Don’t say that,” she hissed. “If they—”

  “Don’t worry. Nobody from Sestris will say anything.”

  Kia's estimate was correct, and when their turn came she and Shanyi were the first two into the next empty cell. The small narrow room contained four bunks, two on either side, with scarcely enough room to turn sideways. Another couple were shoved in after them; one was a bigger, older man and the other, a lad not yet out of school.

  The instant the door shut, a basic srilao tenet sprang to mind. Take the initiative if you can, followed by an upper position is often, but not always, more advantageous. In this case, she figured it most definitely was. “We’ll take the top,” she said, clambering up the nearest ladder, nodding at the other top bunk as she met Shanyi’s gaze.

  Resentment flitted across the older man’s face, but he said nothing and sat on the lower bunk underneath Kia.

  “On your bunks,” an impersonal voice commanded over the ship’s tannoy. “You are under surveillance at all times and refusal to comply will result in severe disciplinary action.”

  Shanyi and the younger lad were lying down before the instruction ended.

  “Lie flat on your backs with your legs straight and your arms by your side.”

  Kia and Shanyi lay as instructed and gazed at each other across the tiny space, their puzzlement clearing as a rigid restraint emerged from the wall, arched over their chests, adjusted to their size, and locked with a solid clunk into a slot on the edge of the bunks. Another restraint across their calves followed.

  “What’s happening?” The lad below Shanyi asked, a tremor in his voice.

  “Once we’ve passed through the wormhole, your restraints will be removed, but you are locked in here until we arrive at our destination,” the tannoy announced.

  Wormhole? Kia stared at the gray metal ceiling as the reality of the preceding days bored into her mind. She closed her eyes, and the chasm beckoned. Everything she’d known, her family, her friends, her pupils, her city, her life, was gone. Instead, she was leaving her planet and heading for a future that was grim and desperate—if she was lucky.