The Kinship of Stars

by Julie Ishaya

  "Kieriell, what is it?" she asked from behind him.

  Still filled with inner tremors, he listened to the distant, thin cry of seabirds or transports droning by somewhere on the other side of the manse walls. The garden below was equally secluded. A fountain trickled softly along with the tinkling of wind chimes hanging from a tree branch.

  "I didn't come here because of training," he confessed. By the break in his voice, he knew he had her attention, and the memories spilled over, out of every cell, burning in the top of his head and spiraling down into his heart. The worst of them emerged in one jagged swipe that sent him staggering. The only comfort was the memory of Siri.

  How could he have left her there?

  He felt blind, groping for her as though he might reach back through the void and grasp her, pull her through with him, but it wasn't that easy. His spread hands, damp and sticky, screeched over the glass as he slid to his knees, then Jenesaazi was there, trying to support him, to pull him back to his feet. His arms went around her waist, and he buried his face in her warm belly, moistening the front of her shirt with fresh tears.

  "Shhh," Jenesaazi soothed, a hand on her son's head as she remained standing.

  He still heard the screams nested down inside him, as if the neural flesh still held him and he could do nothing.

  A servant passing through the inner corridor tried to offer assistance, but Jenesaazi shook her head quietly and requested to be left alone with her son. Slowly she worked his arms free of her waist and slipped down to her knees before him until she could see his face.

  "Kieriell," she coaxed, "tell me what this is all about."

  Adam faced the front helm from his position on the bridge of Imperial Command. The ship had yet to reach the frontier, but the dominating view screen across from the bridge platform magnified the activity ahead. The galleon's path would bring it near the skirmish above the Torban fleet but without engaging. Too restless to sit in the command chair behind him, Adam tried not to pace. All officers in the room were busy at their stations, while the ship's captain, Sonixa Fahl'gir, maintained a position down-bridge near the weapons console.

  Adam watched Fahl'gir for a long time, noting the elite length of her black mane, while her face was hidden behind a mask that covered mainly the upper half of her face, contouring over her forehead and brow then extending partially down along the undersides of her cheek bones, leaving her small, sharp chin, full lips, and nose visible. The eyes on the mask were filled in with aqua-black lenses, cell-tech enhancements that allowed her to privately monitor other areas of the ship at neural command. Her uniform defined a tall, feminine figure in black with a blue tabard and a sash at the waist.

  Adam had admired Captain Fahl'gir since he was younger, though their paths rarely crossed due to the circumstances of his former ambassadorship and her position on the ship. He had no doubts about her authority over the crew.

  He returned his attention to the front screen, which illuminated the dark, glossy walls of the galleon's interior. The view of the frontier magnified the desperation of the Shiv swarm. The Torban fleet became entrenched, and for a time the frontier appeared to be nothing more than a spray of vicious light rays spearing out in hundreds of directions.

  As the vessel came about and settled into place, Adam straightened and folded back the shoulders of his cloak. His crown mane had been fashioned into a traditional Nexian "war" plait with the end lock encased in a conical clasp of blackened silver with smooth, blood-red jewels graduating down the center. His official's mask fastened to the side of his belt, he folded his hands behind his back and kept his eyes on the main screen.

  The wall to the side of his elevated position had a smaller screen to which was transmitted a view of the inner tabernacle where the emperor and General Kallian were also monitoring.

  On the main screen, the Torban command ship Shaytan took a pattern directly across the path of incoming Shiv bulk fighters. The Shaytan's starboard bow issued a line of ionic pulses that ignited three ships. The explosions were brilliant but quick, all-consuming flames pushing out flecks of hull and organic tissue. As soon as the air pocket within the craft had ignited and burned away, the flames collapsed, smothered out by airless space. Some Shiv fighters cut clean through the line and dispersed in various directions over the main gathering or down below it. Adam was surprised to see that their maneuvers were exceptional, easily shaking their Nexian pursuers.

  The greenish-metallic fighters rolled from side to side and then looped back to level behind the Nexian raiks. Ion fire erupted and the raiks were taken out in brief red-yellow bursts.

  I never realized they were so damned fast. Adam found himself standing closer to the edge of the platform.

  "They just took out four raiks." The statement bit the air with displeasure as it came from the side screen.

  Adam looked up at Asmodéus' face. "Yes. Their firepower is average, but they make up for it with speed. The bulk fighters are easier to strike, but some of their shields are harder to penetrate."

  "Maintain a watch only," Asmodéus told him. "The other consoles should be registering the emergence of the Shiv command ship at the upper rear of the movement."

  (Captain Fahl'gir,) Adam sent.

  Sonixa Fahl'gir turned from the console and looked up. (Yes, my lord?)

  (Register the Shiv command vessel.)

  Her blue-black "eyes" had the appearance of being able to see in all directions. (Registered. Diagnostics are scanning the craft's weaponry.)

  (Check shielding, too,) Adam added.

  (Diagnostics detect a series of particle beam canons along the stern and bow,) she sent when she returned to the bridge to stand beside him.

  "Not too much of a threat," Adam muttered.

  Fahl'gir remained at his side and they watched together as the view of the tactical drones, now positioned along the front line of the conflict, pivoted from side to side, laser fire issuing only when necessary, until five more Shiv fighters had disintegrated. Sparkling particles of metal drifted across the field. "They aren't quick enough for our drones," she commented.

  Adam nodded, throwing her a fragmented smile. But she had not considered another possibility. (Check over the command ship for the psionic power it would take to propel a vessel of that proportion,) he told her.

  She hastened back down to the console to work with another officer.

  Adam looked back up at the screen in time to see another Nexian fighter lose against the speed of a Shiv predator. Ahead, the Shaytan rocked against the wide-beam fire of a particle canon. "Admiral Hak'iim," Adam called to the connecting link.

  It was a moment before the Admiral's shaken voice responded. "My lord, that blast came from one of the bulk fighters. The shields are holding, but the impact left some minor confusion in the neural engine."

  "Stay your ground, Admiral," Adam replied. He turned once more to Fahl'gir's place at the console and recalled her attention with a mute sending. She looked up, her mouth drawn straight and grim. "What is it?" he asked, frowning.

  "You won't like this," she said flatly, pointing down at the screen on the console.

  Adam descended the bridge and the officer moved aside for him to stand next to the captain. He looked down at the smaller screen. The green-lined schematic of the Shiv command vessel formed a three-dimensional image that rotated. Surrounding the image, a red blur of light represented a psionic aura.

  "That's the compressed image," the captain stated.

  Taken aback, Adam felt the full weight of the new dread creep up his back and down his arms. "There is more?" he asked.

  She shrugged. "The vessel's interior structure is made up of a collected eight shaikin. That many would easily increase the intensity of the psionic field around the ship."

  "So they are the cause of the field's extensive nature?" he asked.

  "Appears that way." She pointed to a specific blue lighted area of the schematic. "But here is a concentration of a different sort of psionic power. It
's not the natural ability of the shaikin. It's been artificially enhanced."

  "As with that protein strain the Shiv injected into their neural core," Adam suggested, the event of two years ago coming back to him.

  "Right, and the Shiv have probably used similar strains to boost their ships." Before Fahl'gir went any further, she looked up at the screen to watch the Shaytan fire along the lines of a new spread of incoming fighters. Then the firing stopped at the same moment that the image of the blue field produced an amorphous arm that reached out from the command ship and enveloped the Shaytan. All fighters in its path, Shiv and Nexian alike, spun out of control. Some collided with each other, raking hulls and spilling brief-lived flames into space.

  This visual sent a surge of fresh fear around the helm, while Adam defined it, exclaiming, "That field is some kind of psionic disrupter!"

  "Imperial Command," Admiral Hak'iim's voice spilled from the connecting link.

  "We read you, Admiral," Adam answered. "What has happened to your vessel's weapons?"

  "The neural engine is not responding. We have to switch over to full manual control." Hak'iim sounded short of patience now, if not worried for the fate of his ship.

  "Admiral, turn about from that command vessel now," Adam commanded. He turned to Fahl'gir and pointed toward the main screen. "We must cover them at once."

  "My lord, the emperor commanded that we remain stationary away from the skirmish," she argued.

  Thinks he's protecting me, Adam thought. He moved upon the bridge and looked into the smaller screen. "Lord Father," he stated. When the response was slow, he raised his voice. "Lord Father, the Torban command ship has been forced to switch to manual control."

  "I have seen," Asmodéus replied, his face appearing on the screen. "The Hellan fleet is on its way."

  "It won't get here in time. Send Imperial Command to aid the Shaytan now," desperation weakened his voice. "Lord Father, now. We've got to help." He turned back to the screen.

  "My lord," Fahl'gir spoke to the emperor, "the Admiral and his crew are vulnerable."

  Canons pulsed deep within the entanglement, and an equal number of Shiv and Nexian fighters disappeared forever.

  Asmodéus finally replied, "You may engage."

  Fahl'gir was already handing out orders to the other officers, and the ship's neural responses propelled it forward, while Adam breathed only partial relief. He was still concerned about that psionic field. Every command ship in the Nexian armada was in danger of succumbing to the hidden force of the greater Shiv vessel.

  Then, just as Imperial Command began to pitch toward the skirmish, and the system acknowledged the arrival of the Hellan fleet, six Shiv bulk fighters fired a continuous stream from their plasma cannons. The beams struck the Shaytan all along its starboard bow, pushing it out of its flight path.

  Outcries sounded over the link, startled screams and roars

  Admiral Hak'iim's voice arose, deepened with a growl that indicated he had begun to shift under the stress. "The shields are splitting! They're breaking up!"

  Adam raised his eyes to the screen to see the Shaytan surrender. A fiery crack worked along the stern, and the central tachyon system speared blue light out from the top and bottom of the center. The fire proceeded to split the rest of the hull like an expanding eggshell, until the reaction reached the bow end. The final blast consumed the remaining fragments of the hull and sent out rippling shock waves of dust and radiation until there was nothing left.

  32

  Kieriell's face had paled, and his eyes were sore. He had rubbed at his lids until they were red and sticky. The chamberlain's death, the Shiv kai, the neural flesh, the experience of the slab, the dive into the fusion well—they had all come out in complete horrific detail, not the same shortened relation he had given Jarren and Maven Ahrden. He even told her about Siri, a detail which he had carefully omitted on the first telling.

  He noticed the emotion in his mother's eyes when he confessed how close to death he had come. Only for a moment did she grow angry, and she paced with her balled fists chopping the air. How could his father not tell her? she kept asking. What did Adam mean by not contacting her?

  Kieriell finally assured her that it was to save her the worry and grief. "Look at you now," he chided her gently. "I'm safe and you're ready to have Father's head because he didn't tell you what happened to me."

  She turned to him, sighing so that the tension seemed to deflate from her shoulders. "Yes, you are safe."

  He sat on the wide stone edge of one of the planters. The daystar had begun to sink from the sky, and the sunroom was now bathed in golden light. His elbows propped on his knees, his hands tucked together, he realized how much the confession—or the visions it provoked in him—had drained him. He ran a hand though his hair and sniffled, his head now thoroughly congested. "I don't even know if I can get back to Nex," he stated weakly.

  She leaned against him, clasping his arm in her hands as though she would draw him to her. "Sure you can."

  He looked at her, his thoughts linking into another realm, and he frowned. "Mother, there's something else," he began, and he knew she was expecting to hear something worse than his first story.

  "Yes?" She grew anxious again, sitting up straight and watching his lips as though to catch every word that tumbled from his mouth.

  "The Shiv managed to create a model of my genes to examine the expression of the gridcode. I had never considered where it came from, and neither had Father. One would easily assume it came from him, since there have been other rare records of Nexian transcendants."

  "I did wonder once why you and Adam didn't look into it, or Asmodéus—surely he would be interested in knowing."

  "Well, that's beside the point. The expression for the code didn't come from Father. It came from you."

  "Oh." She smiled, trying to make light of it. "At least there's a little of me left in you, my Nexian son."

  He returned a smile at this and glanced away, then he looked back, deeper into her eyes. "The gridcode is from you, Mother."

  She straightened. "Really," she stated rather than asked.

  "Yes, I inherited it from you."

  A small chuckle shook her, and she rolled her eyes upward and then back down with a wholesome smile, shaking her head. "I don't believe it," she whispered.

  "Believe it," he insisted impatiently, "I saw the gene sample myself."

  She reached up and pinched his ear just enough for him to wince. "Don't get smart," she warned him. "I tamed your father, I'll see that you don't develop too much mouth."

  "You're a little late on that." He tried to remove her fingers from his ear, but then her hand trailed along his jaw line and detached gracefully to lay back in her lap. "It's not so hard to believe," he began again. "You know, I'll bet that with the right meditation and training, like at the school, you could learn to teleport too." The idea was not at all impractical to him, though she had lived for years without trying to tap her psionic potential let alone find the ability to teleport. "In time, we could travel together. You could see Father more that way."

  "Kieriell," she said softly, "I am happy where I am, as I am."

  "But, we're the same, Mother, you and I."

  "You were always insistent, but this—" she commented and held his face in her hands. "I am a member of the Nallian aristocracy," she reminded him. "My duties here are few, but I feel my place in them. I still represent Nall in many dealings with Nex. My marriage to your father is part of that. I am happy living in one world, Kieriell. Besides, look what living in two realms did to your father."

  Her last attempt at humor flew past Kieriell. He couldn't understand her feelings in the matter. "You are happy?" he asked. "Even when you miss my father, or me, you are still happy here alone?"

  "I'm not alone." She gestured out at the view of the white city spires against the peaceful atmosphere of the dimming sky and the arc of pale moons appearing in their various phases. "What is there not to be happy abou
t?"

  He looked past her, admiring the man-created beauty juxtaposed with nature, and found his argument falling short. With a sigh, he resigned and nodded. "I see."

  He stood and walked over to the glass, and a moment later she followed to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder. Once more he looked out to the flicker of the wall. The barrier was right there, just on the horizon, and yet somehow Nex seemed so far away to him. He swallowed hard and grasped the most important matter at hand. No more distractions. His mother's personal truth left him feeling that his time was up. "I could try to teleport back, but I'm not sure I can do it voluntarily. The first time happened out of total desperation. Transcend or die," he added acidly.

  "You can do it," she told him. "I believe that. Just think back on how you did it." Slowly he turned to her, staring as he contemplated. "You won't know until you try," Jenesaazi continued. "You of all people should understand that."

  He wondered if she knew what kind of risk it really required for him to try. And if he succeeded one more time, then what about the next time? Or the time after that? He had tried to motivate his own psyche with romantic notions of teaching her how to teleport. But how shallow of me, he thought, leaving out the complexity of the void. It wasn't exactly an easy concept to just explain in words.

  "You are needed on Nex, Kieriell," she said more sternly, her eyes losing their soft appeal and darkening. "Find your father before his worry over you grows into something he can't control. If you transcended before out of desperation, then don't you think this is a desperate matter?"

  That last statement jolted him. He knew she was right.

  "Please, Kieriell, go," Jenesaazi said more stressfully so that he felt her dread. She didn't have to be able to send for him to know how much she loved his father. "Do it now."