Stargazer

by Melanie Matthews

  “You should be too. I defeated the last one, but he had a small army. I’m afraid this one will come better prepared.”

  I grabbed my head. It was starting to hurt. He approached me, but I backed away, my shoes finding resistance in the sand.

  “If I was asleep for 1,000 years up in space how was I discovered on Earth?”

  “The guard who held you didn’t get far. His ship malfunctioned somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy. He died as his body was ejected into space. Thankfully, the ship regained some control and locked you in. It took 1,000 years, but you slowly came back to Earth, back to me. The ship plunged through the atmosphere and you landed in a containment pod. The rebels came across you first and took you with them to their camp. It was being monitored by Medusa. A Retrieval Squad went to capture the rebels.” He gave a crooked smile. “It was all a big shock when you arrived, wearing camouflage like the rebels, but with that gorgeous lavender hair of yours.”

  “They dressed me?”

  He smiled. “You were naked in the containment pod.”

  I felt my knees get weak and I crashed onto the sand. He held me up, and for some reason I let him, despite my disdain for his actions over the course of 500 years. I still loved him.

  “What’s your name?”

  He laughed as he held me in his arms. “It’s extremely long in Stellar, but you can call me Julius.”

  “What’s my name?”

  “It’s actually quite similar to ‘Ava’. It’s Avalora.” He smiled. “It sounds better in Stellar.”

  “So, John was close.”

  “Yes, Dr. John Goode.” Julius narrowed his eyes at me. “I was most displeased when you kissed him…and Loren for that matter.”

  “You-you’re supposed to be Loren’s uncle, but that’s not true, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t. I pretend to be.”

  “Why?”

  “Would you believe I desired a child? Loren’s parents were traitors and had to die, but he was all alone. I pitied him as I did John. Loren needed someone other than me to spend time with. I was overseeing a city, after all.”

  “But I felt so close to Loren. I fell in love with him. How could that be if I loved you?”

  “When Loren was ten years old, he was in the rose garden, studying bugs.” He smiled, reminiscing. “Well, he happened across a snake—a venomous snake. I thought all had been removed from the dome, but I guess it’d slithered on in, like the spy that it was. Loren was bit and he died instantly. I knew I was the only one who could save him. I injected him with my blood, which has healing and rejuvenation properties. It took several hours, but Loren was reborn.” He looked at me curiously. “I assume you’re attracted to Loren because my blood was coursing through his veins. You were drawn to him. Although, why did you kiss John?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I found him…comforting.”

  “Well, now that you know who I am, only I will be comforting you from now on.”

  He leaned in to give me another kiss, but I pulled away, fighting the urge to give into him.

  “What?” He advanced towards me in all his dark beauty.

  I held up my hands in a halt motion. “You had me tortured! You had me confined! You knew all along I was a Stargazer. You made me suffer all this time!”

  “I had to be sure. You could have been a clone, a spy sent to lure me out, sent from the Overlord.”

  “What about this supposed Sanctuary? You have people executed! What about Victor? You sent him to that Stargazer to die!”

  His eyes seemed to turn even blacker. “I have to maintain order!”

  “What about Henrietta? How can you condone slavery when you used to be one?”

  “Slaves are essential to the Corporation. There must be servitude for Utopia to exist!”

  “You accuse me of acting too human. I forgive like the humans, but you forsake compassion by adhering to a philosophy that is morally wrong!”

  He clenched his jaw, silent. Then he closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled. “I’m going to excuse what you said. You’ve been asleep for far too long. You’re confused.” He allowed himself to smile. “Now that you know the truth, you’ll stay with me, in my quarters, and then all this nonsense you’ve been throwing at me will vanish. We’ll be happy again. You’ll be my partner in Sanctuary. They will look upon you as my queen.”

  “Do you hear yourself? You’re delusional! I’m the enemy! How can you tell a society to hate me, and then love me?”

  “It’s simple. I’ll decree it.”

  “What about the rebels? Will they be pardoned like the Stargazers?”

  “If they abide by my laws, yes, they will.”

  “Were you always like this? Back on our home planet and before I was taken away?”

  He advanced towards me and I kept on walking backwards until the water from the ocean lapped my feet and lower legs.

  He noticed my distress and stopped. “You may not remember, but I do. I was a slave! I served! My fate was sealed forever in that life. You—you were the only one who saw how horrible that was to society. You accepted me for who I was.”

  “Who were you?”

  He smiled. “I was wild when I was around you. I subdued myself in front of your family, but when were alone, we danced as equals. We swam in the purple waters near twinkling forests that were alive with lights all day and all night. We loved each other under the twin moons—”

  “Stop, Julius! Just stop, will you?”

  “I loved you like no other could!” he continued with passion. “I still love you. I can give you more than John or Loren or any other miserable human on this planet!”

  “How can you talk of love when you act so cruelly, with such barbarity? When will I displease you? When will I be executed as a traitor?”

  I felt an incredible surge of strength, building up from inside, in my chest, as an immeasurable amount of hatred filled me from top to bottom. I narrowed my eyes at Julius. He must have sensed something that I didn’t know about because he looked scared—very scared.

  “Ava, please calm down!”

  I trembled as my whole body convulsed and with one loud scream, my fury was unleashed, my lavender hair whipping wildly around my face, as the sand was thrown up in the air with a great propelling speed. The water around my legs churned and I could hear the ocean loud and chaotic as it rose up in a towering tsunami, slamming down upon the forest in the distance, felling every tree and silencing the songbirds.

  Julius advanced towards me, despite my rampage. “My love, don’t do this! Please!”

  I was beyond reason at that point. I didn’t care who stood before me. I was out for total destruction, no matter who got in the way. The door to the room slid open and the android advanced towards me. The light from the hall momentarily brought me back to where I was—the Corporation. I had to get out. I had to! I ran forward, meeting the android head on. We crashed into each other. I heard metal cracking, hoses hissing, and sparks flying as we brawled down the length of the narrow passage way, until we both crashed through the wall, shattering like glass.

  We fell. He went faster than me because of his weight. I was like a feather, slowly descending upon a green plain below. I was outside the Corporation. I was aware of the dome, of Sanctuary, before me. It was a white pearl city, beautiful, despite its flaws. The android crashed onto the grass; sparks flew out from its severed remains. It twitched and popped, lying there helpless.

  Soon, I knew I would join it. I thought of Victor, Henrietta, John, Loren, and all the others trapped inside this dome, along with the rebels outside, and the Stargazers, trying to find a place in this world.

  But mostly I thought of Julius. My rage inside Quadrant Delta had brought back all the memories of my home world. It was a beautiful place, full of wonder, but it was dark with its acceptance of servitude. I remembered being appalled at the idea of a slave race—immortally bound to serve. Julius was my personal slave. I wanted to give him his freedom, but he wanted to ser
ve me, not only as his princess, but as his true love. He adored me and I adored him. I gave up everything that I knew to be with him, travel across the galaxy, to places unknown, to people who were alien—all to be with my one and only love. If I had never been torn from him, he would have stayed that wild, but gentle soul. Now, he was a monster and I was ashamed for still ardently loving him. He and I were bound.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable. It was very bright out until a dark shadow blocked my view of the sun. I opened my eyes to witness a large black ship hovering near the clouds. I knew it instantly—it was a mother ship—the vessel of the Overlord. So, he had finally arrived. Sanctuary would be destroyed. I found myself glad to be dying with my friends and even with those who didn’t accept me for being different. We would all be at peace now, even Julius.

  My last thoughts were of him and the man he used to be as a cold force stilled my beating heart. I thought I was dead. I wanted to be dead, but I opened my eyes, and found myself looking upon several beings, all with lavender hair. I was lying on a black table in a black room with dim lavender light above my eyes. The Stargazers before me were all young and looked at me with curiosity and fear, which I couldn’t understand.

  A male Stargazer approached, older, with dark purple hair, long to his shoulders. He went to one knee before me. He barked Stellar at the others. I understood what he said.

  He told them to bow to their new Overlord.

  Chapter 13

  The Stargazer vessel was mine. It was all black with dim lavender lights. The Stargazers found it difficult to survive in a bright environment. Our home planet was like a shroud compared to Earth. I told them they would get used to light after some time—I did. They only spoke Stellar to me at first, and I only spoke English to them. After a few days or weeks—no one kept me appraised of the time—everyone aboard the vessel, Calumny, conversed in English. The Stargazers were exceptional at quickly learning a new language. Some favored French; others Spanish, having studied Earth archives. I told them that English was only spoken in Sanctuary, and that it what they will learn. They obeyed me without question. I was their ruler—their Overlord. Some gave me inquisitive looks, but no one dared defied their master. Yes, I was their master, even though technically they weren’t my slaves. I would not allow slavery aboard my ship. All the slaves, immortal and dark-haired like Julius, were free and equals to the Stargazers. I overheard grumbles as to this radical decree, but none dared say anything to my face.

  The man I had met when I was first transported aboard the Calumny was the head of my royal guard. His name was really long in Stellar. I shortened it to “Jax.” He didn’t like that, but he got used to it. My Viceroy—or ruler in my absence—was a female I nicknamed “Willa.” She actually liked the name. Her heart, though, was broken, and her mind was filled with vengeance to seek justice for the death of her sister—the royal guard with the Mohawk hair who had died protecting me. Willa had Mohawk hair too. It was a family trait, I learned and not deliberate. I told Willa she would receive her vengeance only on my timetable. She was satisfied that I was at least entertaining the idea of attacking Sanctuary because for the time I had been aboard the Calumny—an apt name for her designs to be sure—I had been resisting my war council’s urge to strike the dome.

  “Your father would not have hesitated,” Jax told me after the exhaustive meeting adjourned in the dark war room near the center of the ship.

  It took me some time to adjust to all the blackness. They put me in an all black suit, conformed to my body. I accepted it only because they had no other clothes for me to wear. I refused to wear the amethyst crown, though. It was heavy, and I was against any sort of adornment. I even refused to wear the family ring, gold and silver braided, with an amethyst jewel. It was my mother’s, and even though I greatly missed her, the ring was not mine to wear. We were not on our home world of Prominence—as close as a translation I could make to English.

  “I am not my father,” I reminded Jax with a stern look, as I sat uneasily on my black throne.

  It was hard and cold. The whole ship was cold. I tolerated it for the Stargazers, but when I slept, I had the ship’s computer raise the temperature in my room. The computer, who was nothing like Medusa, was constantly confused as to my requests. It had no human interface or Stargazer features for that matter. It was just a glowing lavender orb that I placed my hands on and we telepathically communicated. It was actually simpler than Medusa, but not satisfying. I thought often of her, and would laugh, sometimes aloud, at her motions, acting mechanical and sometimes human.

  “There were many, oh Overlord, who greatly disagreed with your ascension to the throne. They felt you abandoned your home, your family, and your destiny, to run away with a slave.”

  Jax never held back with me. He was never disobedient, but he told me truths when others would have lied to my face, thinking they were pleasing me.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I did.”

  He adjusted his upper body. The twin swords against his back were heavy and he was the oldest guard member—almost 234 years old. Even though in Prominence years, I was a mere sixteen-year-old, I was technically, well over a thousand.

  We lived long, but we weren’t immortal like the once slave race, known crudely as the Dirtwalkers, for they would never ascend so high and mighty as the Stargazers. Upon my release of their bondage, they were no longer called Dirtwalkers, but they weren’t Stargazers either. I called them the “Immortalis.” There was one Immortal, Cory—I named him—who reminded me a lot of Julius, but with shorter black hair. I later discovered they were related, cousins. He wasn’t wild like Julius had been on Prominence, but very shy, and despite being free, still followed me around, desiring to be of service.

  I tolerated him because I felt sorry for him. He still wanted to be a slave and didn’t know how to handle being free. When I gave orders it was as the Overlord, not as a master. I never made him do anything that was obscene or dangerous to his health. After awhile, he became more relaxed in my presence, and would often joke with me in Stellar. I laughed, remembering the funny tales back from our home planet—stories that humans of Earth were incapable of understanding. We both mourned for our planet—destroyed not through war, but of a dying star. When would that happen to Earth?

  Cory stood by my side now, as Jax uneasily relayed the recent intelligence.

  “We were almost through the dome, but it quickly solidified, repairing the damage.”

  When I’d awaken aboard the vessel, after thinking I’d fallen to my death from Quadrant Delta, the Calumny had been able to penetrate the dome, enough to transport me aboard, before Medusa quickly put a halt to their plans of attack.

  They had been trying to break through the dome again, but not to attack. I’d specifically forbidden any assault until I could get a coded message to Loren, hoping his rebel tech could decipher it—if he was even still alive…

  I worried about John and Henrietta. I also worried about the many of innocent citizens, the billons of people, who were under Julius’s thrall. They didn’t deserve to die. As we orbited in space above Earth, I looked down upon the dome as often as I could from a large clear screen that was the floor of my chambers. In the event of a mutiny or some sort of malfunction of the ship, my room ejected as an escape pod and landed on the nearest habitable planet. I was tempted many times to tell the computer to eject me, so that I could come back to the dome and see my friends again. It was a stupid, foolish idea, but I didn’t think logically like a Stargazer. I had too many human characteristics embedded in my soul.

  I thought always of Julius, even in my dreams. At times he was angry with me, cursing at me; and at other times, he was smiling at me, kissing me, and holding me under the twin moons of Prominence. Even when he yelled at me, I still loved him. I loved John and Loren too, but Julius was a part of me from across the universe. We had been bound across space and time and that was a feeling that couldn’t be easily undone, despite how horrible he had
become.

  When I told Jax and Willa of Julius and what sort of brutal empire he had created, Jax, being antagonistic towards the Immortalis didn’t seem surprised. Willa was angry, but I believed this was more directed in the execution of her sister, which Julius was responsible for, even if he didn’t pull the trigger.

  “Those slaves were always trouble,” Jax had said, despite Cory being with me.

  Cory paid no attention to Jax. He viewed the elder royal guard as a man with one foot in the grave, who babbled about history as if it were currently happening, and forgetting simple events such as recent conversations about supplies or atmospheric conditions of the ship.

  “It’s who the man becomes, not who he was born to be,” I had reminded him.

  Jax had merely bowed. “Yes, my Overlord.”

  Willa never said much, but she was lethal with swords and had superior strength and speed. She was anxious to show me her abilities, lobbying to be head of the royal guard, replacing Jax. It was suggested to me by Cory that Jax should be Viceroy instead. He would govern the ship while I, Cory, and Willa, transported to the planet.

  I had been thinking about rallying the Resistance to our cause, and using their technology, as well as our own, to break down the dome once and for all. But I didn’t want an all out war upon Sanctuary. I just wanted a way in, so I could get Julius to step down—peacefully—and then with me, an interim ruler, I could dismantle his cruel city and free everyone from his mental persuasion. I knew I would encounter resistance—most notably from the Red Woman—if she was still alive. Julius had threatened her before, but I was sure the Madam Secretary begged and pleaded and probably did more to show her loyalty to him.

  I found myself jealous at the thought of any woman seducing Julius. I felt like he was still mine—my immortal love. When we’d first landed on Earth, I told him of my concerns: that I would die before him. What would he do then? He assured me that if I were to die, he would as well through a spiritual process known as “Deliverance,” when his soul, through his will, is released and delivered up into that starry realm above the layers of black space, where he would be forever intertwined with me. It was sort of like Heaven. We had no Hell. No one was tortured because of their sins. They just merely died, placed in the ground, and never entered that starry realm.