Blood of a Thousand Stars Page 5

  When he looked around, no one else seemed to react. Which could mean he was going to get his ass beat. No witnesses. Or even worse, that whoever had framed him had found him.

  Aly trembled, nearly frozen until his cube buzzed again, this time stronger, like it would when he used to get priority calls from UniForce headquarters. When he closed his eyes he saw the designation “Vestibule 17” flash across his eyelids. Running parallel to the fence, nearly flush with it, the Vestibules were dark, rectangular boxes that felt like confessional booths. They provided privacy while your ass was getting kicked by a guard, and conveniently, being penned in by an electric chain-link fence was the quickest way to remind anyone you might as well be an animal to the UniForce soldiers.

  It would get worse the longer he waited, so he slipped out of the crowd and made his way toward the meeting place. He’d been to a prison once before on Houl, but he knew what guards were like—guys who needed to feel big by treating you like taejis. Sometimes being compliant and chill wasn’t enough. Sometimes you had to act like you were excited to be ordered around; you did what you had to because your life depended on it.

  Moonlight framed the soldier. He had a small build. Compact, feet planted firmly on the ground. The guard didn’t say anything, so Aly didn’t either. Didn’t matter how small he was. With a stunner in your hand you didn’t need to be bigger. You just needed to be heartless.

  The guard came closer, and Aly took half a step back.

  “It’s me,” a girl’s voice whispered.

  Kara.

  “How?” Aly moved forward but she shook her head. In the distance, he saw another guard—a real guard—pause on his rounds. He needed to pretend he was still being bossed around by a guard, but he was nearly losing his mind with relief, happiness. But then he realized where they were, and what she’d risked. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You need to leave.”

  “Um . . . you’re welcome for coming to save you?” He couldn’t see her face in the dim moonlight, but he heard it in her voice: She was offended, and hurt.

  “I’m not messing around,” Aly said. He didn’t have time to spare her feelings. Not now. Not when there was so much at stake. He lowered his voice and looked behind him quickly. “The place is crawling with UniForce. You’re too important to be running around the moon.”

  “Couldn’t agree more. That’s why we’re leaving. Pavel is waiting for us in the market.” So the droid had found her. Fear gave way to relief. They’d been together, looked out for each other.

  Kara ducked further into the shadows and pulled back a patch of fence, squeezing through it to freedom.

  He glanced behind him. The guard had moved on. And this portion of the fence was protected from the robotic view of the daisies by the Vestibules.

  He shimmied through the opening she’d cut, and together they ran in silence across the desert swells. A hundred meters from the camp, he stopped her. He couldn’t wait any longer, though they were still close enough to be visible to the guards, if someone on the tower happened to point a scope their way.

  He took her in his arms without a word. He could feel her body heat, feel the curve of her hip through the fatigues she wore. Their mouths were so close. This was all he’d thought about for days.

  His body took over. His hands moved up to cup her face, and his mouth found hers. It didn’t matter that his lips were chapped, or that hers were.

  It wasn’t like any kiss they’d had before. It was urgent, desperate, tinged by the war and the violence and every terrible thing that had come to pass in the weeks they’d known each other—all mixing with the hope in his chest that grew and grew until everything else was cast aside. He kissed her so she’d know how grateful he was. She’d come back for him.

  Aly tilted his head and Kara pressed her hands against his cheeks, pulling him closer. He held her tight, his hands moving up her back. His lips moved away from her mouth and to her cheeks, then brushed her ear before he dragged them down her neck and felt her shudder. His lips would go everywhere. He’d go anywhere if it meant this.

  Was this love? Choirtoi. Yes. Yes, it was love. He’d tell her now. He grabbed her face and kissed her again. But Kara pulled herself away, and he felt himself sucked down into the wake of her absence. Her face caught the moonlight. Their fingers were intertwined, palm to palm, and he realized he still had the prayer beads. He slipped the bracelet from his wrist to hers.

  “Aly,” she whispered, her eyes tracking up and down his face. “Were you praying?”

  “I prayed for you,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand. “We have to hurry.”

  Suddenly he felt disoriented. Confused too. He turned to look back at the camp, nestled between the giant dunes, casting lightsmear toward the stars. “What about the rest of the prisoners?”

  Kara hesitated. “We can come back . . .”

  “How?” Aly took a step away from her. “When?”

  Then, behind them, a shout. Aly saw figures silhouetted against the floodlights, gesturing in his direction. More shouting. An alarm began to sound. Kara knew to move before he did; she pulled him back and he stumbled before he could get his feet working and break out into a run.

  There was a screaming in his ears. No—a screaming in the air.

  In the sky.

  It wasn’t until way too late that he saw it: a third planetary body. A moon? he thought stupidly. It was bigger than even Kalu from where he stood, and it was getting bigger—closer. Falling from the sky. Then, it got so loud he couldn’t hear himself think; the noise crowded out everything, the shape growing even larger as it hurtled toward the camp.

  Aly grabbed Kara’s hand and double-timed it past the crest of the next dune. He dragged her over and brought her head to his chest, both of them squatting, bracing for an explosion. But though the asteroid—or whatever it was—must have hit, Aly felt nothing but a slight change in the air. A ripple. A vibration.

  Kara pushed away from him. “What—?”

  Her words were swallowed by a massive halo of light exploding across the world. He brought his hand to his face to shield his eyes. He could almost call it pretty. The sky lit up with what looked like lightning, and there was a crash like a million thunderbolts, a sound that seemed to ricochet toward them in slow motion.

  Aly felt his cube connection flicker, then cut out.

  The world went dark.

  Dark, and loud—everyone, all at once, began to shout.

  “An em-bomb?” he said to himself. It was an enormous electromagnetic pulse that would fry everything operated by electricity. They’d been banned by a decades-old treaty, but for years there had been whispers of planets hoarding em-bombs, building them, trading them. Scare tactics, Aly had always thought. Hoped.

  But when he scrabbled to the top of the dune, he saw that it was true. From where he stood, it looked like a targeted attack: portions of Nau Fruma still appeared to be unaffected, and lights twinkled from distant buildings. UniForce wouldn’t have disabled their own internment camp. Could someone be staging a coup?

  Kara staggered to her feet, reached out her hand and found his. There was sand between their palms, in their fingernails. “We need to get on a craft while we still can.”

  Aly shook his head, looking out over the dune. A prisoner ran out of the hole Kara had cut in the fence, then another and another. More streamed out behind him. If the em-bomb had succeeded, he could only imagine the chaos inside.

  “We can’t just leave them,” he said.

  An explosion went off, this time louder. There was an orange light coming from above the camp, and he knew it was fire before he saw it. He could smell the smoke. Aly peeked over and saw people streaming out of the camp now, some of them clashing with guards as they fled.

  “Aly.” She tugged on his hand before he could move. “All of this—everything that’s happening now—i
t’s all Nero’s fault. I can’t help if UniForce gets me.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Help?” His voice was unexpectedly loud. He couldn’t help but think of Houl, and all the people they’d left there. But he and Kara had had to escape because of Lydia. Because she’d been dying. They’d had no time. What was his excuse now?

  All of a sudden, everything—the internment camp, the roundups, the em-bomb, the conflict on neutral territory—coalesced into a burning pit of anger deep inside him, pulsating so hard he was afraid that he might explode, just like that bomb. All of this was the fault of those in power, using the rest of the galaxy as their pawns, like the universe was their playground to wage war as they pleased. Aly was sick of it—sick of royals and rulers making the wrong choices.

  “Because if you wanted to help, you could stop running. Announce yourself. You could take the throne.” As soon as he had spit out the words, he was surprised—but more convinced than ever it was true. Maybe Kara could change things. Change the world. “You have to try, right?” It was a solid plan. “Better than taking off on some wild quest to find the overwriter just ’cause you think Lydia wanted you to?”

  “And then what, Aly?” Kara’s voice rose sharply. “I don’t know the first thing about ruling.”

  “You’d figure it out, Kara.” He put his palm to her cheek. He’d memorized every feature, every expression—but Kara’s face was different now. It was so slight he might not have noticed, but the time apart made it clear, and it made him feel disoriented, dizzy, like the ground was shifting under him. “You don’t need the overwriter to be able to help other people. You do that just fine on your own.”

  “I need the overwriter because it’s dangerous. Lydia said as much—she practically told me to destroy it—for a reason.” She wrenched away from him. Worry notched up his throat. “You don’t even know the half of it. What it can do. We might be the only people who know it really exists.”

  “I’m not coming with you to watch you get killed,” Aly said. “I think you’re scared of ruling.”

  “So that’s what you’re concerned with all of a sudden? Putting me on the throne?” Kara spat out. Those eyes, swirling with color, out of control. “You just want to give up on finding the overwriter?”

  “It’s not giving up! Look around you—the galaxy is at war!” Aly knew better, but he couldn’t stop. “Look. How about we go straight to the capital, find your sister, tell her who you are. Make a game plan for finding the overwriter once we’re safe.”

  “Or maybe they’ll accuse me of being an imposter, and stun me on sight!” Kara’s voice had risen to a shout. “People have made decisions for me my whole life. Lydia decided that she’d wipe my memory for my safety. You’re telling me I should leave you here for my safety.” She’d said the last part like she was bitter, scorn smeared all over her face. “But other people’s decisions are the reason I’m here. When do I get to choose?”

  Aly’s jaw clenched. “And what would you choose, Kara? You want to live a lie, pretend you’re someone else? Run off to be a hermit in Luris while the world around you burns?”

  She actually gasped. Kara had told him once that the beach in Luris was her “happy place,” and he’d thought it was so sweet and optimistic. At the time he had wanted to fold up the idea and put it in a pocket over his heart. And now here he was, throwing it in her face.

  “Taejis, Kara, I didn’t mean anything by it . . .” He trailed off. “I know all there is about living a lie, pretending you’re someone else because it’s easier. Because being you is scary, or because it scares everyone else.” He thought of passing for Kalusian, and how hard it was, and how it never ended up being worth it. “What I’m trying to say is, if you don’t want to live a lie, it’s up to you to change the truth.”

  He couldn’t read her face, but he thought maybe he’d gotten through to her. Or at least she wouldn’t be super pissed at him.

  “Kara?” he said at the same exact moment a huge thunderclap struck. It was crazy loud. Deafening. His voice—the sound of her name on his tongue—dissolved in the noise.

  The gates of the hangar exploded—and people came gushing from all directions as if everyone had woken up from a bad dream at the same time and the anguished cry had woken with them. Through the rise of bright dust, the detainees were all breaking out now, streaming down the hill like a burst volcano.

  He made brief eye contact with another Wraetan woman and saw the fear in her eyes.

  “What’s happening?” She grabbed him and squeezed, like a vise closing around his forearm. Aly felt her anger melting into fear. Her knuckles turned white.

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything but a truth born of long experience: When people ran, there was usually good reason to follow their lead.

  The crowd surged and then pummeled them forward with it. They barreled over the dunes, past the scrap heap at the edges of the city, funneling into the chaos of streets half-dark and wiped of network. In the distance, through the dust-filled air, he thought he saw the summer palace. Here the crowd was thickening, crushing. They reached a shuttered shop, and Aly hoisted Kara up toward the roof, suddenly afraid of a stampede, of being threshed beneath all those stumbling bodies. The shouting—and screaming—was getting louder. Kara made it onto the roof. He was about to follow—

  Then another flash of light. Brighter than the first. Impossible. The ground pulsed once, and an invisible force threw them sky-high. Aly tried to grab for Kara’s hand, but there was nothing except air. He was blind and deaf, suspended . . . until he crashed to the ground and felt pain like a single note playing again and again through his body.

  Then, abruptly, it fell silent, and Aly fell into the dark.

  FIVE

  RHIANNON

  “TAEJIS,” Rhee murmured for the hundredth time as she exited her quarters. She should have seen it coming. It was classic Nero, she realized: capitalizing fast, within twenty-four hours of her return home, and using Rhee’s homecoming as a deflection, to distract the rest of the galaxy from what was happening on Nau Fruma.

  Tai Reyanna stood at the center of the antechamber, her body tense as she pressed her finger to her cube. Rhee felt anxious on multiple levels—she was too scared to turn her cube on, but frustrated having to rely on everyone else for up-to-date information. Even Tai Reyanna using her cube put Rhee on edge, but her caretaker had refused to power down. The Tai’s stiff, formal white robes folded around her like thick swaths of snow. On the holo before them, the news was projected: The UniForce and the Wraetan-Fontisian Coalition, a vigilante army, were engaged in combat on the neutral moon of Nau Fruma. And it was all because of Nero.

  He’d done the unthinkable: While she was supposedly dead, he’d rounded up Wraetans and Fontisians on Nau Fruma soil and interned them illegally using UniForce soldiers.

  The WFC had run a rescue mission to free the detainees, claiming the camp was a violation of Nau Fruma’s neutrality. They dropped an em-bomb to break open the camp’s gates and render anything using electricity useless—even cubes. In retaliation, UniForce dropped a real bomb. Now the two armies were going head-to-head, and the ground combat on Nau Fruma had already claimed too many casualties on either side. The rest of the galaxy was in a panic. If neutrality couldn’t be respected, nowhere was safe.

  And everything had been documented on the holos. Except that DroneVision had never covered the internment on Nau Fruma in the first place. Funny, how Nero had made sure that the subsequent “attack” by the WFC was getting plenty of airtime.

  “Have you gotten through?” Rhee asked. She sat down on an ornate chair and then stood up immediately. Her throat was dry, and she couldn’t stay still.

  Her Tai glanced sideways, giving a small, irritated shake of her head. It was worrisome that no one had briefed Rhee. Tai Reyanna couldn’t get through to the UniForce commander on Nau Fruma.

  “Their comms mu
st still be out as a result of the em-bomb,” Tai Reyanna offered unhelpfully. “And the most recent update might have slowed down communications.” But even as she said it, the Tai didn’t sound at all convinced. They didn’t need to speak the most likely truth: Nero had UniForce’s loyalty. The ones stationed here in the capital had barely lifted a finger to protect Rhee when the riots broke out upon her arrival, and Rhee wouldn’t dare reach out to any of them now.

  In spite of the war in her territories, and the fact that so far Josselyn hadn’t come forward—Rhee didn’t know whether this was a good or a bad sign—Rhee’s thoughts kept returning to Julian. Was he still on Nau Fruma, and was he okay? Did he know she’d killed Veyron, and would he die thinking she had betrayed him? She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screen.

  Rhee was already running through the various scenarios in her head. The order would assist, surely. Maybe that’s what Nero wanted—to push her closer to Fontis, paint her as out of touch. A traitor. But she couldn’t think about that when people were dying. She’d release a broadcast to the Kalusian territories too, urging them to organize, to gather supplies. Any medical staff in proximity would need to make themselves available to travel to the moon. Perhaps she could go herself . . .

  “If we can’t get through to UniForce, we need to send help.”

  “Help, ahn ouck?” the Tai asked. She fell into a chair; her head scarf came loose, and graying black hair escaped from her temple.

  Rhee used to resent the term. It meant child, and when she’d heard it she would revert back to the child she was at six. A lonely orphan, a brat, a girl unworthy of her name. But now it reminded Rhee of her family, and tied her closer to the Tai.

  “We need help, Rhiannon,” she sighed. “We’re at the mercy of a madman.”

  “I’m not at anyone’s mercy,” Rhee insisted as she began to pace the length of a tasseled rug. She’d refused all of Nero’s attempts to contact her; there’d been a deluge of comms. “And if I want to establish peace, establish trust, I’ll need to neutralize the threat on Nau Fruma.”