Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  Her brother patted her arm, snapping her attention back to him. Kenji was smiling, just a quirk of the lips, but on Kenji that was a sign that he was ecstatic. They reached the floor-to-ceiling windows that were the western wall of the abode, and he said, “You won’t see a view like this on Earth.”

  The penthouse overlooked a park in the heart of Prime, the main city on their home world. The sky was crystalline blue, and there wasn’t a rim of smog that followed the horizon. Noa’s eyes roved over the tops of the strand of fern trees that marked an urban nature trail. She thought she could make out a complex of homes between their branches, but with the angle it was difficult to tell. Beyond the homes she saw a few buildings and then …

  “The ocean,” said Kenji, “without a large stain of sewage just offshore.”

  “You’re right, it’s nothing like Earth,” Noa said … or a shell of Noa said. She had a strange sensation as though she was here, and not here. She was half a being. Her hand instinctively went to the scars on her abdomen, still in the process of healing. At the last moment, she jerked her hand away, and nervously fidgeted with her rings instead.

  Kenji didn’t seem to notice. Still beaming, he said, “You should move back here. Exciting things are happening.” Part of her wanted to say yes. To go back to the starship where she and Tim were stationed … had been stationed … felt like a return to prison. It was the walls—the gray industrial metal walls of the whole damn ship, even the room they shared. The small three-meter-by-three-meter space that was their home hadn’t been so bleak with Tim to tease her, to smile at her, or even to shout or scream. Even their fights had been life, their life, and now it was broken. She could fill her half-life with crystal blue skies and verdant green, find a new life here in the place where she had once lived.

  Her thumb twisted the rings around her finger. The grief counselor had said not to make any decisions before the end of one Terran year. Noa closed her eyes.

  She heard a change in the conversation among the guests as at least twenty divergent conversations merged into one soft murmur.

  “My friend is here!” Kenji said. “Come, I’ll introduce you to him.”

  Before she could protest, Kenji spun her around. A man whom Noa didn’t recognize strode through the front door. His uniform and the ribbons on his chest marked him as a Captain in the Luddeccean Guard.

  “Yon is amazing,” Kenji said. “He worked his way up the ranks, and he’s not even a First.”

  That he had made it to Captain in the Guard without being a First Family member spoke volumes about his competence. But Noa couldn’t help notice that he didn’t smile as they approached. “Captain Yon, this is my sister Noa, I told you about her,” Kenji said. “She is scheduled to re-enlist in the Fleet in a few months. You should talk her out of it. She was a hero during the Belt Battles of System 6. She’s a pilot and would be a great addition to the Local Guard.”

  Yon looked down his nose at Noa. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, Kenji,” he said. His face remained completely impassive. He looked down at Noa’s hand. One of his eyebrows rose. “You’re married … what does your husband think of having a pilot for a wife?”

  And this was why Noa could never come home. Yon might have climbed the ranks on merit, he might be able to see the value of people beyond the offspring of the Firsts, but he would still have a blind eye to female talent. Even though, despite his higher rank, Noa had seen more combat, and had more genuine experience than he had or was likely ever to have.

  “I don’t have a husband,” Noa said, not surprised Kenji hadn’t bothered to mention that she was widowed. It was the sort of thing that would slip his mind, even though he had teared up at Timothy’s memorial.

  The Captain’s brow furrowed into a scowl. The corners of his lips curled down. His gaze shot to Noa’s rings, and then back to her. Maybe if she said she was a widow he’d give her a look of pity instead of a look of disdain that bordered on betrayal. She really didn’t want his pity. When his eyes met hers again, Noa gave him a tight smile.

  Not returning the smile, he excused himself, and crossed to talk with another two officers of the Guard across the room. The slight smile on Kenji’s face as Captain Yon left gave Noa pause.

  Later, when they were back at Kenji’s place, her brother surprised her by saying, “I’m sure Captain Yon will offer you a better position in the Guard than you have in the Fleet.” While she was straining a splash of potent redfruit juice into two mugs of steaming soy milk, Noa looked up in alarm. “Kenji … he’s not going to offer me a position in the Guard.”

  “Of course he will,” Kenji said. “I recommended you—and after System 6 and the Belt Wars—he’d be a fool not to.”

  Noa looked down at the juice. “Well, he’d be a fool, alright.”

  “Think of it, Noa, you could come home every night to Prime.”

  Noa looked up.

  “You could have a place like this instead of the tiny one room you and Timothy had on the ship.” Kenji spread his arms, gesturing toward the admittedly expansive two-bedroom apartment. Two bedrooms and a prayer room. Noa’s eyes slid to the cross on the wall, and the Three Books below it. Kenji was an atheist, but he always said he respected the peace religion brought Luddecceans.

  “I’m not his idea of a Lieutenant Commander,” Noa said, throwing the strainer in the sink.

  “What do you mean?” Kenji asked.

  “Didn’t you see the way he looked at me, Kenji?”

  Her brother stared at her blankly.

  Noa’s heart fell. “You didn’t see, did you? Is something wrong with your app, Kenji?”

  “I must have forgotten to turn it on,” he said, meeting her eyes too firmly.

  “Why would you have turned it off to begin with?” Noa demanded.

  “Because caring what people think takes too much energy,” Kenji said. “It distracts me from my work.”

  “But with the app—”

  Kenji’s face got flat. “Did it ever occur to you that I was born the way I was for a reason? That maybe my … my focus … is a gift, not a handicap?”

  “You always said your app made you feel connected, not alone … ”

  “Sometimes people need to be alone,” Kenji said.

  “Yes, but … ”

  “I’m less alone here in all the ways that really matter,” Kenji said, taking a step toward Noa, head lowering and shoulders rising in a way that would be threatening if Noa didn’t know sixty ways to kill a man with her bare hands … Still, she found herself taken aback. She scolded herself. Kenji didn’t mean it like that.

  Halting, he ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t have to depend on the charity of my family anymore for company.”

  “It’s not charity; we love you!” Noa said.

  Closing his eyes, Kenji said, “Let me finish.”

  Noa took a breath.

  Opening his eyes, Kenji said, “I get respect here. More than that, I have friends. I go to parties like the one we went to tonight.”

  Noa hadn’t thought the atmosphere there was friendly, the focus was more to see and be seen; but she held her tongue.

  “I’m even … ” His face darkened and he looked down at the carpet. “Courting … ”

  Noa’s eyes widened and her jaw fell. “Who … what …?” Kenji had a girlfriend or two in his past. But none of his relationships seemed to last long. He blamed his app, said he had a lag.

  Kenji met her eyes, blinking slightly. “Yon’s daughter.”

  Noa felt her excitement evaporate. The daughter of Yon, she suspected, would court whomever her father told her to. She bit her tongue—this time, literally. In as civil a voice as she could manage she said, “And is it serious?”

  Kenji rubbed his neck and looked down at his feet. “I dunno, she’s pretty, and very nice … but I’m really too busy right now.” He shrugged and met Noa’s eyes. “She seems to like me, though.”

  Noa didn’t know how Kenji could verify that wit
hout his app; but, considering the other domineering men the girl had probably been exposed to, she might like the distracted genius more. “Of course she likes you.”

  Shrugging, he smiled. “Well, maybe someday. I know here it’s a possibility.” He walked over to the window. “I know it’s hard to understand, but here I can disengage my app and be treated more as a normal person than I ever could on Earth with my app engaged.”

  Noa thought to herself, if she were in his shoes, she wouldn’t get the same respect. An eccentric man could be useful; an eccentric woman, though, would not be acceptable.

  He gazed out the window. “I know you think this planet is backward, and it is in some ways, but it’s also wonderful.” She walked over to him. Turning to her, he said, “I know you face less prejudice for your appearance in our hometown than anywhere else in the galaxy.”

  “Except for the Fleet,” Noa said.

  Kenji looked out at the park land as though he hadn’t heard her. In the rays of the setting sun, the lush greens were turning to rich browns and vibrant oranges. “You say you’d give your life for the Fleet,” he whispered. “I’d give my life for the people here.”

  “No,” Noa said, her avatar hunched on the floor of her brother’s apartment, clutching her head. James’s avatar sat down on his heels, unsure of what to do. In the physical world, he held his breath.

  The scene around their avatars melted, and they were lying in the dirt, in mind and in body. “No, he’d give his life for this world,” Noa whispered, in the physical world and in his mind.

  She took a breath that was ragged and too shallow. By now only James’s arm was laying on top of her, but he moved it, afraid that even that small weight was hindering her breathing. She clutched her head in her hands, dark fingers scissoring the cable that hard linked them but not pulling it out. Emotions sparked across the link, too quickly for him to sort through them all, but anger was at the forefront. “No, he wouldn’t want me to risk it.” She snarled softly. “But I can’t let them hurt him!”

  And James remembered a conversation from when he was James Sinclair, the professor, with an older colleague. The colleague had said the only thing that came close to the love for children was the love for siblings. “They can be as different from you as chalk from cheese, they can annoy the hell out of you, but you still would kill for them. It’s just as irrational.”

  James was an only child and childless, but he grasped hold of that memory, turned it around in his mind, and decided he had to convince Noa that dying for Kenji would be in Kenji’s worst interest. “Noa, they won’t harm him,” he whispered into her mind. “They haven’t hurt him yet and they won’t hurt him later. You told me he is a genius and that they need him.”

  Certainty slipped across the link from Noa. “They do need him.”

  “You might make it across the field,” James said, hoping that he was pressing an advantage. “Would Kenji? Is he strong enough to make it … what if they killed him during the escape?”

  He heard Noa suck in a breath, and he kept going, giving his imagination free reign. “No, they’d kill us, but they’d be very careful not to hurt him. They would believe he was in league with us, however.”

  Noa took another long breath that seemed to shake through her entire body.

  “You said he’d die for this world,” James said. “But he doesn’t have to. You can save your world and save your brother—but for now, that means leaving him where he is.”

  Noa trembled.

  James slowly exhaled, waiting …

  Noa took a shallow breath. “I hate this, I hate this choice … ”

  James took another careful breath. He was grateful his app didn’t show emotion. He suspected that, on principle, if she knew just how much he did not want to try and retrieve Kenji, she never would agree not to try and rescue him. As soon as he’d seen the spotlights, the rifles, and the Guard, his vision had gone black and a sense of failure had flooded every cell, nano, and fiber in his being. He’d sorted through his memories, desperately trying to find a way to convince her, and realized she’d only ever backed down from a plan for the greater good. Would appealing to her desire to save Kenji tip the scales and save her now?

  He looked at Noa. The sharp angles of her shoulders contrasted sharply with the memory of her avatar’s smooth curves, and also her breathing—

  “James, can you look at the field?” Noa said across the hard link. In the physical world, a breath rasped out of her fragile body.

  Across the hard link, Noa projected an image of herself, skirting past the spotlights to the first line of patrols, stealing a weapon, and firing until she ran out of ammo … until she succeeded or they killed her. James froze. Her body shuddered, and in the physical world her voice cracked. “That’s what I want … but I … I won’t, James.” As her physical body tensed, her avatar said coolly, “We need to leave here, but if they’ve moved the spotlights or if the teams have gotten closer, we may need to choose a different route.”

  James didn’t look out across the field. Noa’s avatar’s eyes met his, and she let sincerity cross the hard link. Words could lie, but emotions could not. She was telling the truth—the vision of her storming the patrol was just a dream—James’s body relaxed just slightly. He looked out over the field and transmitted what he saw.

  “They haven’t,” Noa’s avatar said smoothly. In the real world, she shook. He looked down and saw her face was wet. Her avatar continued without emotion. “We need to go back to the Manuels’ before they do move.” In the real world, she ripped some small plants out of the ground and her lip curled as tears dropped from her chin.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to push herself up, but in that breath James heard something that made him grip her more tightly.

  “What?” her avatar said. In the physical world she hissed.

  “I need to listen,” James replied. Like he had needed to follow her here, like he had needed to pull the trigger in the forest. He pressed his flesh-and-blood ear to her back.

  “What are you doing?” Noa’s avatar protested. He didn’t want her to be repulsed, but he had to hear her lungs. Instead of explaining with words, he let the concern slip across the hard link. Her whole body went rigid. She took a deep breath—and he heard a distinct crackle. His body went cold.

  “What was that?” she said.

  “You have some sort of lung infection,” James replied. Movement caught his eyes. Raising his head, he saw the Guard team moving across the field. He sent the vision across the link, and then yanked out the cord, and helped Noa to her feet.

  Panting, Noa said, “That isn’t … what I … meant.” But she didn’t explain.

  14

  “Exhale,” Hisha said, pressing a plastic mask over Noa’s mouth and nose. Sitting on the side of the bed, Noa did as she was bid. The deflation of her lungs burned.

  The trip back to the Manuels’ home had gone completely without incident. Part of her had wanted to run into a patrol. She’d been filled with rage that had no outlet—rage at what the Guard were doing to Kenji, at the impossible choice she’d had to make, and at herself. She was leaving Kenji, Ashley, and a thousand faces without names behind, not knowing if she was doing the right thing. She’d felt rage at James, too—because she’d been weak and shaky, breathing too hard, and he’d asked if he should carry her as her pace had lagged. It had been humiliating. More humiliating, she had almost said yes.

  She glanced past Hisha. James was standing in the door frame. The townhome was old, probably almost as old as the colony, and it was built when materials were scarce. The hallways and doorways were narrower than a starship’s. James’s head almost brushed the top of the door frame and he made the place look like a dollhouse. He was leaning in the doorway, arms casually crossed, and his face showed no concern; but he’d nagged her like a mother hen to wake Hisha as soon as they’d returned last night. It was Noa who had insisted they wait until morning.

  He’d relented, but as soon as he’
d heard Hisha stir when the baby woke, he’d gone off to tell her about Noa’s condition. Hisha, being doctorly, had immediately insisted on examining her. Noa’s eyes went to the crack beneath the blinds. It was barely even light yet.

  “Breathe in and exhale again,” said Hisha. In the doorway James shifted so his body filled the entire frame, as though he expected her to bolt. Noa had no intention of doing that. She knew when it was time to admit she was sick—most of the time, anyway. She did as she was bid, but glared at him on principle. His eyes narrowed. Over the doctor’s shoulder, James stuck out his tongue—just as she had done last night, the third time he’d offered to carry her. Not very professional on her part, though in her defense, she had apparently been oxygen starved at the time. Seeing James stick out his tongue while he maintained an expression of gravitas in the eye and brow region, Noa laughed uncontrollably and so suddenly that it triggered a burning cough. A slight beeping came from the mask. Hisha pulled it away. As Noa’s hacking subsided, Hisha said, “You have a cryssallis infection in your lungs.”

  Noa groaned. Cryssallis was a type of Luddeccean fungus that occasionally set up residence inside human and other mammalian lungs. It was fatal if not treated. The treatment wasn’t painful, but it was long and cumbersome. James was suddenly standing next to Hisha, looking down at Noa. He wasn’t frowning, but his jaw shifted, and his sudden proximity … he was concerned. Noa ducked her head, remembering the sudden flash of emotion he’d hit her with over the link, so strong it briefly incapacitated her.