Shattered Stars

by Theresa Kay

  Dad’s hand comes up, his eyes pleading. “Jax, please.”

  “No.” I shake my head and squeeze my burning eyes shut. I don’t want to see him like that. I don’t want to feel bad for him. He doesn’t deserve it. My voice wavers when I speak again. “You left us on our own and couldn’t be bothered to send word you were okay. You—”

  “You don’t understand. I—”

  “No.” The word is sharp, final. I let a cold rage wash over me. “Stop. Talking. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t know what possessed you to think I would want to spend my birthday—Jace’s birthday—celebrating with you, the man who deserted us. I don’t even want to look at you!”

  I spin around, and Lir’s hand on my arm steadies me as I make my way to the opposite side of the room and find a chair to sit in. My head is in my hands, my jaw tense as I struggle to keep the tears at bay.

  I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this is what they had planned. I thought…

  I shake my head and squeeze Lir’s hand. Not your fault.

  “So, this is awkward,” says Rym, walking up next to me. “Not sure if I should wish you a happy birthday or go hide somewhere.”

  I snort and glance up at him. “Why don’t you go find some pretty girl to turn your charms on,” I say.

  The corner of his mouth twitches upward, and his eyes dart to Lir.

  “I know they might be human, but…” My voice trails off. The two of them are looking at me in amusement. “Is it that much of an issue anymore? I mean, clearly humans and E’rikon can…”

  Rym covers his mouth with his hand as his shoulders shake with laughter.

  “What?” I turn to Lir. “What did I say?”

  Lir clears his throat and rubs at the back of his neck. “The issue is not whether or not they’re humans…”

  “What my cousin is not so eloquently trying to say is, human or not, my interest is not in females.”

  It takes a second before his meaning sinks in. “Oh,” I say. Now they’re both laughing. At me. I swat Lir on the arm and poke Rym in the leg. “Stop that. How was I supposed to know?”

  Rym holds up a hand and brings his laughter under control. “She’s right. Though the E’rikon aren’t as uptight about it as humans—by the way, the term bondmate is gender-neutral for this very reason—it’s not like we…”—he snorts—“… wear signs.” He breaks out into another round of full-on chortling.

  I send him an exaggerated scowl, but can only hold it a few seconds before a giggle bursts past my lips. Emily walks up as the three of us are sitting there cracking up.

  “Hey,” she says, a strained smile on her face. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t just your dad, though he’s the one who told me about today. I thought something happy might… I should have talked them out of this.” She nibbles at one of her fingernails.

  I wave off her apology. “It’s fine. I’m not in much of a celebrating mood, but I’ll survive. Where are Stu and Ethan? I’m surprised Stu’s not insisting on carrying you around since you just got out of the infirmary today.”

  Emily flushes. “I’m not sure. They were supposed to be here by now. They—”

  The door flies open, and Stu half jogs into the room, his eyes searching until he sees me and Emily. He pulls Ethan along behind him as he rushes over to us. “Jax. I’m not sure what’s going on, but you need to come. Now. Your brother is here.”

  THE CAMO PANTS ARE TOO baggy in the knees and not quite the same as what I’ve observed the other soldiers moving around the base wearing. But… combined with the hood of the dark-colored jacket hanging around my face, I should be disguised well enough. Not that anyone’s paying me much attention. The two so-called guards at the back gate of the base hardly notice me as I slip past them.

  I’m a few dozen feet inside the gate and nearing the corner of the first building when one of them yells a question at my back. Damn. How do I play this? If make a run for it I can easily disappear around a few corners, but then one of them will sound an alarm and I’ll lose any element of surprise I have. I close my eyes and press my lips together. This isn’t how I wanted this to go, but I’ll do what needs to be done.

  I take a deep breath.

  The knives are in my hands, pulled from an interior pocket of my jacket, by the time I exhale. On my next inhale, I spin around. Exhale. One knife gone, hitting the first guard in the eye. Inhale. Adjust my stance. Exhale. The other knife flies from my fingers and sticks in the second guard’s throat.

  Neither hit will kill them, so I dash forward with a third, larger knife, and stab it into the side of the first guard’s neck. I yank it forward and down to make sure both artery and vocal cords are severed. I let the knife fall to the ground with the body and move on to the next. I use the knife already lodged in the second guard’s neck to slash a deep cut across his throat. He stumbles back a few steps before falling to his knees. The first one is already down, unmoving.

  I straighten, my breaths steady but quick. My heart is pounding, and there’s a subtle tremor in my hands.

  The kills weren’t silent. The first guard cried out in pain, and the second managed a yell as well. I don’t have time for my hands to shake. I don’t have time to fall apart. But it’s taking me precious seconds to silence the tinny scream of conscience and get moving again.

  I eye the bodies lying on the blood-soaked ground. There’s no way to hide what happened here. Too late to do anything about it now though. This isn’t going nearly as smoothly as I’d planned.

  At a near jog, I glide through the streets, my head down. Grandfather’s informant didn’t provide the exact location where the ship was being kept, only the general area, so I’ll have to search a few blocks, and potentially a warehouse or two. And as I approach the more industrial-looking section of the base, the number of uniforms increases, which means I have to be even more careful to stay out of their notice.

  I let my awareness spread out to touch some of the minds around me. No one here should sense me, but I can’t be too obvious about things, not with this many potential… problems around. What I can do is gently wash away some of their suspicion about the lanky, unknown “soldier” with a hood over his face. This is a facet of my abilities I’ve been forced to practice many times, so the process is familiar and requires little effort. And these humans have no innate defenses like most of the E’rikon do, which makes it easier.

  Down one street, up the other. I glance into every open space big enough to hold the ship, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Looks like I’ll be breaking into a warehouse. But which one? I glance at my watch again. This is taking too damn long.

  While I continue walking, I spread my awareness into a wider net and use it to target weak minds I can peek into without notice. My forays into the minds are brief—just quick, soft brushes along the surface to pull out any information I can about the location of the ship. Most of what I gather is useless: flashes of memories, internal arguments about what to have for dinner. I pull back and curse under my breath. This isn’t working. I’m going to have to push a little harder.

  This time, I target a group of three humans walking together and prompt one of them to ask a particularly inane question about the ship. He gets a few funny looks and no verbal responses, but one of the men flashes on a mental image of a gray building with an orange stripe running along the outside wall.

  That must be the one. Now I simply have to find it.

  I speed up and walk in the direction the man’s mind led me, covering the two blocks rapidly. Around the next corner I spot three warehouses to the left. But as I turn to head toward them, I barrel into someone. I stumble back a step, sending a glare at the man from under my hood. This one isn’t in uniform, and he has a child with him. He’s clearly not a soldier. So who is he, and what is he doing here?

  The man glances at my face and his brow furrows before something like recognition flickers in his eyes. He tries to hide it, washing away any expression at all. His hand tightens around the boy’s as he m
utters “sorry” and tugs the boy around me.

  Do I know him? He looks familiar, and my mind races trying to place his face. He’s not from Bridgelake, and he’s not one of the traders, so where would I have met him?

  The realization hits me like a punch to the stomach. Stu. One of those Breeder guys from Peter’s cabin. He… he…

  What the hell is he doing here?

  I turn, prepared for a fight. Stu knows who I am, surely knows I’m not supposed to be here, and… he’s walking away? Quickly. His shoulders are stiff and his hand is tight around the boy’s. The boy, however, is staring back at me with a quizzical expression on his face. The look is unnerving, more than a child’s simple curiosity. Who is he, and why is he so interested in me?

  I shake my head. There’s no time to figure out the kid. Stu is sure to sound the alarm, and it won’t be long before this place is crawling with soldiers. I might be good, but my abilities are no match for bullets. I have to find the ship now.

  Two of the buildings resemble the image I pulled from the man’s mind. It’s a fifty-fifty shot. After a quick mental debate, I decide on the one to the left and head straight for the door.

  I pull the slim red card from inside my jacket and slide it through the card reader. The reader beeps, the light turns green, and I push the door open and slip into the darkness of the warehouse. No light switches in sight, but my eyes adjust after a few blinks.

  The ship is sitting clear as can be in the middle of the floor. Thank God.

  It’s too soon to celebrate, though. I have to get the thing out of this building and into the air, and Grandfather wasn’t much help with instructions on how to fly it. He was never trained as a pilot and wasn’t entirely sure what type of ship I’d find here. He went over the basics for flying a ship like the one I stole for Dane months ago, but this ship is entirely different—it’s a military-style ship, not a passenger ship.

  Failure is not an option.

  I push a button on the wall, and the large garage bay door jerks into motion, moving upward on metal tracks. As it slides open, I do a quick circuit around the ship. The design is simple, but that doesn’t mean the tech is simple.

  The ship’s door isn’t hard to find, but how the hell do I open the damn thing? If there was a keypad or one of those palm reader type things I saw in the city, I’d be inside by now, but…

  I run one finger around the edges of the slim outline in the metal. Nothing. Not a single divot or hinge or anything to tell me how to get it open. I go back to staring at the stupid thing while I come up with and quickly discard ideas. I can’t break into the thing. There’s no lock to pick. What am I supposed to do?

  Grandfather said I should be able to link to the tech, but how do I do that? Maybe…

  I expand my awareness and narrow it on the ship. It’s not the same as reading a person, but I can definitely sense something—a kind of electricity tingling on the edge of my nerves.

  Open.

  Yeah, that doesn’t work.

  I run my finger along the edge again. There’s got to be something, some sort of interface. How would the E’rikon know…

  This time around I feel a slight difference in the outline on the right side of the door. The latch, maybe? Of the E’rikon tech lock-type things I’ve seen, most of them had interfaces near the latch. I flatten my palm against the metal to the right of the door, starting at the top and sliding it downward. When my hand reaches a point slightly above the latch, I feel a sudden increase in the… feedback from the ship. Here, then.

  I press my hand more firmly against the metal and try the mental command again: Open.

  This time, the door slides open. Is the hidden interface some sort of security measure or purely an aesthetic thing?

  Doesn’t matter.

  I board the ship and quickly move to the cockpit area. The instrument panel, or whatever you’d call it, is a little more promising than the invisible door-opening mechanism. A metal plate, similar to those I’d seen near doors in the city, is on the left, and there isn’t much else so it can’t be too complicated. Here’s hoping it’s as easy to fly as it looks.

  I sit in the chair and place my palm on the metal plate.

  Nothing happens.

  My right hand curls into a fist. I’m so close. I can’t fail him now. Grandfather needs this ship if… if… if what? What was I thinking about? I shake off the sudden fog of confusion and open my mind to the ship again. If the E’rikon can do this, so can I.

  Closing my eyes, I press my hand firmly onto the plate and open my mind to the ship.

  On?

  Go?

  Up?

  None of the commands work. What if it only responds to E’rikonese, or whatever language they speak? But no, that can’t be right. The door responded to my command in English. Maybe it wasn’t the command, so much as the idea behind it? The intention?

  With my eyes still closed, I command the ship to turn on and at the same time picture it powering up and lifting off the ground. There’s a humming noise, and I open my eyes to find the instrument panel has lit up and there’s some sort of holo display in the corner of the front window.

  Definite progress.

  I pull my lower lip into my mouth and bite down as I concentrate on using my mind to maneuver the ship forward and through the bay door. The movement isn’t as smooth as I’d like it to be, but the ship does move, and once I’m outside the warehouse it evens out a bit. Or maybe I’m getting used to controlling the thing.

  Movement on the street below draws my eyes. A group of soldiers is running around the corner and gathering in the open space below the ship. I grin. They aren’t going to get me up here, no matter how many guns they point at me.

  Does this ship have weapons? I could demolish them all.

  My smile widens as I imagine the carnage and chaos I could cause for these pathetic humans…

  A flash of red jerks me out of my reverie, and I stare in shock as my sister jogs into view. What’s she doing here? She isn’t supposed to—

  My eyes fly to the green-haired erk beside her. Her… her…

  The one who turned her against me. The one who blocked me out.

  White-hot rage stirs in my chest. The ship bobs in the air as my mind shifts all its attention to coalescing that anger into a hardened bolt and aiming at him. This is not a skill I’ve practiced, and I’ve never used it at this kind of distance, but—

  A flash of gold. Vitrad. Forget the green. I put the force of my hatred into the blast I send toward the erk who tied me down and tortured me. The one who started all this with his meddling and his thirst for power.

  Behind Jax, Vitrad falls to his knees, palms plastered to his temples. Satisfaction curls my lips into a smile even as my head spins and pain stabs into my temples. Too much. I used too much.

  The nose of the ship dips.

  Jax spins on one foot and goes back to the fallen erk. But why? He tortured her too. I’m protecting her. I’m—

  What did you do? My sister’s voice forces its way into my head. But not purposefully—more like she couldn’t control her horror and her absolute terror… of me.

  It’s enough of a connection for me to latch on to. He hurt you. I had to protect you.

  Her voice is hesitant. Jace? From below, her eyes meet mine.

  A painful, foreign rage roars through my mind. She is dead to you. She is dead to you. She is dead to you.

  NO! Some wall in my head cracks for the split second of that syllable. A second where I can’t miss the silent plea in my sister’s eyes, a plea I understand, one that I’m sure is mirrored in my own, one I wish I could give in to.

  But I won’t.

  Because she is dead to me.

  I pull my eyes away and pilot the ship over the wall and toward the horizon.

  THE SHIP—AND JACE!—HAVE disappeared into the distance, and I’m frozen in a jumble of fear, confusion, frustration, and something like longing. The sound of his voice, even as laced with menace as it
was, brought a sense of guilty relief. I’m stupidly relieved he’s alive, relieved he’s whole, and relieved that somewhere inside him he’s still my brother. I couldn’t hear it, but I felt it, that single moment of… something. Struggle, maybe? I can’t even explain it to myself, so I have no idea how the hell I’m going to explain it to anyone else. Not that I actually plan to try.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, turning to Rym, who’s on his knees with pain written across his features, his forehead resting in his palms. There’s a lump in my throat and my eyes are burning. “He thought you were your father. He… thought he was protecting me. I shouldn’t have let you come—either of you. I know he hates you and—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Rym says firmly. When I don’t respond, he continues, “Even my cousin and I had no idea it was possible to use the shikiza quite like that, so none of us were aware of the dangers. You can’t blame yourself for your brother’s actions.” He rises to his feet and drags a hand down his face. “Besides, he’s… not in control of himself. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

  Stu comes running up, slightly out of breath. “What happened? Did you find him?”

  I nod. “Found him. And lost him. Jace walked right in and stole the ship out from under our noses.”

  Lir lets out a long, slow breath and shakes his head, frustration dripping off of him like rain.

  “These idiot humans practically handed Jastren the ship. They did not have any blasted security here. None,” Rym snaps, his voice sharper than I’ve ever heard it before.

  “Something isn’t right.” Stu rubs his chin. “It was too damn easy. The timing of it, your brother getting in undetected… he must have had some inside information. From what I’ve seen, they run a pretty tight ship around here.”

  He has an interesting point. How did Jace know where the ship was? How did he know it was here at all? “What did he say when he ran into you?” I ask Stu.

  “Nothing. He just glared at me.” His eyes dart to the side. “He seemed a little too interested in Ethan, and… I just wanted to get out of there.”