by Maura Milan
The general noticed her glare. He crouched to face her. His rough fingers gripped her chin so she couldn’t look away. “You lost, Cōcha. What do you have to say for yourself?”
If she couldn’t escape and she couldn’t kill him, she decided to do the next best thing. Like a viper, she sprung her head forward, her aim sharp and certain. Her forehead cracked the general hard in the nose.
Seconds later, the hard grip of a pistol smacked her in the back of the head. She fell forward, catching a wonderful glimpse of blood dripping down the general’s lips and chin. Before she slipped into unconsciousness, she smiled.
If she was going down, she was going to do it one way and one way alone.
Gloriously.
CHAPTER 2
BRINN
BRINN TARVER PUSHED through the burgeoning crowd. The Provenance Day Parade was in full swing, and she wanted to get a good spot for the air show.
“Wait up,” her fifteen-year-old brother, Faren, cried out from behind.
Brinn turned and a lock of brown hair fell over her eyes. She’d dyed it last night, and the sharp smell of chemicals still lingered in its strands. Her fingers fumbled, trying to set the stray wisp of hair back in place. She waited until she spotted her brother’s unmistakably round face. Like everyone else in the crowd—and everyone celebrating the parade in the other territories—the two of them were adorned in the colors of the Olympus Commonwealth. Faren wore a red hooded sweater with a white brimmed hat, while she was dressed in a white blouse and red cardigan.
“What took you so long?” she asked as her brother neared.
Faren’s eyes were glued to his holoscreen. “The Poddi championships are about to start! I can’t miss the tip-off.”
“Celebrating the birth of our Commonwealth is way more important than that silly game.”
“Are you serious?” Faren wrinkled his forehead and looked at her like she had spouted gibberish. “Wait. Don’t even answer.”
Brinn laughed. Faren knew Provenance Day was her favorite holiday. Their mother and father had stopped going to the parades, but it had become a special day for both Brinn and her brother, one meant just for the two of them.
They wiggled their way to the front of the crowd. Brinn had noticed a couple familiar faces, fellow students from primaries, and waved politely to some of them as she passed. It was a simple, empty gesture, something that made them look at her for a second and then move on to another face.
A few feet away was Angie Everett, the most popular girl in her school. Angie seemed to have found her prey for the day, laughing at a refugee girl across the street because her long, braided hairstyle was out of fashion.
From the moment the Uranium War started until the Armistice over a year ago, the war had displaced huge populations of people all across the Fringe. Some of them chose to drift, to stay in the Fringe. But others had decided to seek sanctuary within the Commonwealth, leading to its current refugee crisis.
Judging by the refugee girl’s long, flowing attire and the markings that encircled her eyes, Brinn recognized her as a Makolian. She stood with a few other refugees around Brinn’s age. While many of them were dressed in the red and white of Olympus, they still wore clothes that were distinct from their planetary regions.
“Her outfit is so offworld,” Angie said loudly. She didn’t even have to point and laugh; her friends did it for her.
As Brinn watched, she couldn’t help but think how things could have been different for them. If the Makolian girl and her ref friends were smart about it, they’d be able to avoid detection. It was easy. Sometimes all it took was a little hair dye to blend into the crowd.
She glanced over at Faren’s brilliant brown hair, a slightly lighter shade than hers, and reached out to ruffle his coarse locks. Much to his protest, she had helped him touch up his roots two days prior. No one in their school knew that both her and her brother’s hair were a different color all together. A very different deep navy blue.
Only one refugee population was known for that color: Tawnies. Brinn wasn’t a child of the war; her mother hailed from Tawnus but had married into Citizenship before the war broke out, and Brinn and her brother had been born right here on Nova Grae. Even so, Brinn had to be careful.
If Angie or anyone else in school ever discovered her secret…She didn’t even want to think about it. All she needed was to stay off their radar for a few more days until graduation. She’d gone to huge lengths to make very careful mistakes on all her tests to hide the fact that she had an IQ beyond genius level. It wasn’t just the bullying she feared. It went beyond that. If she was ever outed as a Tawny, she could be denied admission to the universities, and no one would hire her once she was ready to enter the workforce. She might be a Citizen, but that didn’t matter—the prejudice still existed.
Around her, everyone cheered as a large holoscreen floated down the street with the portrait of Queen Lind and her wife, Queen Juo, the ruling matriarchs of the Olympus crown family. Behind that screen floated large holoportraits of the military’s celebrated leaders, including Captain Nema, the man leading the successful colonization effort in the Fringe, and General Adams, whose bloodthirsty tactics had produced several victories during the Uranium War.
“It’s the same faces on those screens every year,” Faren said with a yawn.
Brinn shushed him. “These people are the pillars of our society.”
“Maybe you should go into politics,” he joked.
Brinn laughed. “Mom would kill me.”
Their mom wanted Brinn to be a history scholar, but Brinn still had her application for Nova Grae University sitting in her drafts folder. She knew she’d be good at it. History was all about memorizing dates and names, cataloging old battles and ancient treaties. But she didn’t know if it was something she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Besides, she wanted to travel. And if she decided to study history, she’d be stuck on Nova Grae for the next four years—something she wasn’t exactly excited about.
“You know what Mom always says…” Faren took on the high-pitched tone of their mother’s voice. “You need to use that brain our ancestors gave you.”
Brinn furrowed her brow. She was always amazed at how careless Faren was about talking about their lineage. She glanced at the crowd around them and lowered her voice. “Keep it down. You don’t know who’ll hear.”
Just then, a holographic banner rounded the corner at the end of the street. Enlist in the Royal Star Force. Your strength is in the Commonwealth. In bright-yellow letters.
The RSF enlistment banner only meant one thing.
Brinn tugged at her brother’s sleeve and pointed up into the shimmering blue sky. “The air show is about to start.”
Two RSF starjets, white like doves, swooped through a plume of clouds, racing alongside each other until they were faster than sound itself. A deep boom shook the ground the moment the twin jets broke the sound barrier, causing the smaller children around Brinn and Faren to wail out.
But the noise didn’t bother Brinn. She envied the flyers in those jets. At least they were heading somewhere.
After watching the twin jets fly toward the horizon, she looked back down from the skies and noticed that no one else was watching. A chilling hush swept across the crowd as dings pulsed on people’s holowatches, and soon everyone had their eyes on their holoscreens. People were frozen, like time was standing still.
Brinn looked over to Faren, who was also gazing down at his screen. “What’s going on? Did the Poddi championship start?”
Faren tilted his head up. His eyes were round with a strange, nervous excitement, and he pointed up at the large floating displays in the middle of the parade. All of them had switched onto the same news stream with text scrolling across the screen. RSF capture outlaw I. A. Cōcha appeared in bold yellow letters. The words cycled over and over on top of footage of Commonwealth starjets circling around a black traveling ship.
The crowd erupted into a thunder of cheers. Br
inn grabbed Faren’s hand to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. And when she felt his fingers squeeze hers, she knew it wasn’t a dream at all. No, it was real. The legendary outlaw had been captured. Brinn thought about the time Cōcha destroyed their system’s interstellar gate, along with others across the Commonwealth. It caused panic all throughout the territories and a huge crash in the economic market. It was a day that everyone on Nova Grae wished to forget, watching the arches of their gate explode in the upper heights of the sky.
And today was yet another one of those momentous days. But instead of it being filled with hushed, fearful whispers, they would remember the cheers, the pride, the raised fists in the air. This was a day that would define her for the rest of her life. Energy crackled through the crowd, in the spaces between one person and the next. It was something that connected Brinn to everyone at the parade. No, bigger than that. It linked her with every Citizen in the Commonwealth.
Faren looked over at her and laughed.
“What?”
“That look on your face.” Faren flicked his holowatch and brought up a camera screen, turning the view so that the two of them were on the display. “I don’t even have to tell you to smile,” he teased as he clicked the capture button.
He slid the photo over to her, and she studied it. The joy on her face. Usually, it would make her feel self-conscious. But today, it only made her smile wider, so her teeth showed, and she laughed.
Faren was better with humor and emotion than she was. He was an open book. But unrestrained feeling was difficult for her. It was something she’d inherited from her mother. It connected her to the Tawnies, to the unwanted history that flowed through her veins. But the smile on her face showed that she could break away from that. That there was a different part of her. She had always wanted that sense of brotherhood with her fellow Citizens. To completely belong. And she felt it now.
The news anchor’s voice rang crystal clear throughout the street. “We’ve just received a report that RSF has released new footage.”
Everyone quieted, and like the people around her, Brinn held her breath so she could take in every detail, etching all the images into her memory. The screen cut to black. Brinn edged forward, squinting as she tried to make out the images on the darkened display. The iris on the media Eyes adjusted, and details bled in. In the center of the frame was a girl with black hair, disheveled and cut short to her shoulders. A purpling bruise bloomed on her forehead, but despite that, the girl looked confident and strong, her mouth set in a grimace, as if she was about to spit into the camera lens itself.
Was this girl…
No way. Brinn always had a specific image of I. A. Cōcha in her mind. A tall man with a face full of a scars, a mouthful of missing teeth. And much, much older. Not a girl just like her.
“Deus,” Faren said breathlessly. “Are those Tawnies?”
On screen, the Eyes flashed their lights on the people in the background, sitting behind I. A. Cōcha. The bright lights washed out their faces, but despite the dirt and grime, the color of their hair was unmistakable. Different. A Tawny blue. Just like her mother’s.
Brinn’s eyes fell to the group of refugees across the street, and her heart dropped when she saw there were also Tawnies in the crowd. This wasn’t going to be good.
Soon, she noticed people staring at them with eyes narrowing into angry slits, transferring their rage from the screens above to what was standing before them.
“Criminals!” someone cried. “Dirty Mungbringers!”
Brinn flinched. Mungbringers. A cruel nickname that people had called Tawnies since the start of the Uranium War. The war began when the Tawnies had refused to accept the Olympus Commonwealth’s invitation to become a part of their territories. The Commonwealth invaded, and the surrounding Fringe planets retaliated. War broke out, with huge losses on both sides. And though the Commonwealth prevailed, everyone still faulted the Tawnies, which was the main reason that Brinn hid her lineage.
“Go back to where you came from, Mungbringers!”
“You Mungbringers started the war,” another yelled. “And now this!”
What started as a celebration was now turning into an angry mob.
People pushed closer, and Brinn was pulled along with them. She grabbed Faren’s shoulder, trying to protect him from the surge of the crowd. “We need to get out of here.”
Faren turned to face her. “Should we do something to help them?”
She cast one last look at the fear in the Tawnies’ eyes, matched in the expressions of the Tawny outlaws being projected on the screens above.
Brinn shook her head. “No.”
And she pulled him away from the crowd.
They walked down the sidewalks. Their house came into view, angular and gray like all the other cube houses in their residential sector. The door was already open, their father, Charles, standing in the doorway. The expression on his face was fraught with worry. Their mother, Brinn noticed, was absent from his side.
Their father ushered them inside and closed the door, blocking out the excited clamor spilling in from the streets. Their mother, Ana, swept toward them. Her navy-blue hair was pinned up into an elegant updo. When Brinn was a young child, she remembered her mother’s hair dyed a rich mahogany, but before Brinn started early primaries, her mom decided to let it grow for some reason. It started with her roots, and now every strand bore the unmistakable navy of Tawnus.
Brinn had begged her to keep away from their schools, so her father was the only person who came to Parents’ Day. Her mother knew her natural hair color would mark her in public, that she’d be heckled and cursed even during a short trip to the grocery store, so she usually stayed home. Despite all this, her mother kept her hair blue anyway.
Brinn had asked her mother once why she never dyed it back to brown. So I can remember, her mother had replied. To this day, Brinn never understood.
Maybe it was because Brinn had no idea what Tawnus was like. She had never seen it. She didn’t even know its history, because it wasn’t hers. Her father had dragged their family to the museums and historical sites of Nova Grae every summer since they were toddlers. The history she knew was that of the Olympus Commonwealth—of its monuments and heroes. And she couldn’t name a popular Tawny figure, even if her life depended on it. Instead, she grew up watching famous Olympus stream stars like actioneer Gava Gable and Faren’s favorite, Kinna Downton.
Brinn was technically half-Tawny, but in her eyes, she was a Commonwealth Citizen through and through. Only a Commonwealth Citizen.
“Thank Deus, you’re safe.” Her mother exhaled. “There might be a riot.”
“Did you look outside? It’s not a riot. It’s a celebration.” Tension crackled in the air between them. It was just like her mother to see today as a day of warning.
Sensing the shift in tone, her father stepped in between them. “Everyone’s tired. Maybe it’s time we all get to bed…”
But Brinn ignored him.
“The Royal Star Force just captured the most wanted criminal in the known territories,” she explained to her mother.
“And we should applaud them?” her mother asked, scoffing. “For capturing a child.”
“That girl is the same person who held High Governor Malo for ransom, the same person who destroyed our nearest gate so we didn’t have supplies for weeks.”
Brinn felt Faren at her side, tugging her sleeve so she would stop, to ground her from all the anger charging up inside her. But it wasn’t enough.
“And what about them?” Her mother pointed to the holoscreen in the living area, replaying the footage from Ia’s capture, showing Tawnies taking up arms. “Are you so quick to condemn them? Those are my people.” Her gaze shifted to Faren and then landed on Brinn. “They’re our people.”
Brinn almost wanted to laugh. Being Tawny was the reason why she needed to be careful every day of her life, the reason she pretended to be someone else entirely. And now the Tawnies were harboring the most
wanted criminal in the universe and killing Star Force officers?
The smile that Brinn wore on the streets had been soured, replaced with an expression more defiant. She felt like there was a line between her and her mother, something that could never be erased.
The words spilled out of her mouth. “They’re criminals, Mom.”
Brinn’s mother was not a violent person. That was why it surprised Brinn when her mother’s hand came down across Brinn’s cheek with such force that she fell to the ground.
Faren knelt to help her up, but Brinn pushed him away. She massaged the sting on her cheek, feeling the pain resonate from the surface of her skin to deep inside her core.
Her father was at her mother’s side, whispering into her ear to try to calm her down.
But he couldn’t undo what had been done.
At that moment, a deep boom shook the ground. Brinn recognized the sound, and she looked out through the windows at the night sky crackling with fireworks, blazing red and white with hope. She saw the two twin jets from the air show earlier, flying through the clouds, ready to break the sound barrier once again. Brinn thought back to the overwhelming pride and camaraderie she’d felt when they had announced I. A. Cōcha’s capture. If the Royal Star Force was able to catch the most fearsome criminal in the known universe, then there was no limit to what they could accomplish.
Her mind calmed with realization. There was a reason why her application to Nova Grae University was still sitting unsent. Being a history scholar was her mother’s dream for Brinn, but it wasn’t her own. History was an examination of the past, but there was no hope in the past, only sadness and despair. All she wanted to do was look ahead where the future was bright and blinding. And hers.
Without taking her gaze from the sky, Brinn spoke the words so everyone could hear, “It’s not perfect, but I believe in our Commonwealth.” Then she looked back at her mother, eyes brimming with a new sense of purpose. “I’m joining the Star Force.”