Ignite the Stars

by Maura Milan

  “I knew you never cared,” he spat at her.

  “Shut up.” She leaned into his ear, and her voice softened. “If you want to get the cadets out, play along.”

  His eyes rose, studying her. But she didn’t give him the chance to fully process what she had said before she lugged him upward and tossed him toward Brinn.

  Ia stepped toward both of them, her voice still lowered. “I’ll give you some time. Get your people out of here.”

  He saw it finally, that look of truth. The real Ia. The hardness in her face softened with compassion, and worry, and care. It lasted only a breath—not even. But it was enough to persuade him.

  “What about you?” Brinn asked.

  Ia shook her head. “Does it matter?”

  Then Ia swiveled around, that deadly expression snapping back onto her face. She scanned the crowd of slavers gathered around shouting, cursing, cheering.

  She raised her voice. “Throw him in the pits. This one will sell high!”

  He knew it was all an act. But she was good at putting on a show.

  CHAPTER 51

  BRINN

  BRINN SCRATCHED at the short blue fuzz on top of her head. It felt different. Not in a bad way. Just different.

  The hair, the clothes, the attitude. The Armada needed to believe she was as ruthless as Ia. All Brinn had to do was pretend. And that was one of the many things she was good at.

  So she walked with her shoulders back, and her eyes fearless and proud. A guard guided them toward the pits, but she already knew where they were. She had studied the ship’s layout on the flight over, memorizing every turn, every room.

  She glanced over to her prisoner. The flight master held his head down, his blond hair shading his eyes.

  “Strong grip,” he murmured through their footsteps.

  Brinn readjusted her hold on his arm, noticing how deeply she had been digging her fingers.

  “We’re almost there,” she reassured him.

  Ahead of them, the guard slowed, angling his head toward them. “What did you say?”

  Brinn took a deep breath.

  Here goes.

  “I was telling the Bug not to piss himself before he gets to the pits.”

  “You’re cleaning it if he does.”

  “But I’m a lady,” she said with a smirk, the kind she’d seen Ia flash hundreds of times before.

  He grunted and led them around one final turn. “The pits are ahead.”

  The hallway opened up into a large expanse of a room, lined with locked hatches on the floor. Helpless, muffled screams echoed below, and Brinn fought not to drop to her knees at the sound.

  The guard stopped in front of a hatch in the center of the room. He punched a pattern onto the key sensor, and Brinn heard the click of the lock unhinge. The guard grabbed the handle to the hatch and lugged it open.

  “It’s a fresh pit,” the guard said. “VIP treatment.”

  Brinn stepped behind Knives, one hand on his handcuffs and the other pushing on his shoulder. She walked the flight master toward the gaping entrance.

  The guard smiled, showing off his yellowed teeth. “Shall I throw him in for you, or will you?”

  She let go of Knives, his handcuffs now hanging loose. “I give that honor to you.”

  The guard had no time to react. Knives buried his shoulder in the guard’s chest, driving him backward. With a stifled scream, the guard fell into the pit.

  The flight master rubbed his shoulder. “Smart thinking.”

  “You can tell Ia that. It was her plan.”

  Brinn ran over to the pit where she had heard the screams and rested her ear against the metal hatch. Voices wailed from within, like ghosts. Racing to the sensor, she mimicked the pattern the guard had tapped on the other lock.

  She waited for the clink of the lock unbarring, but there was none. She tapped in the code again. And again, nothing.

  Brinn growled, bringing her fist down so it hit metal.

  She needed to get them out of there. But how? Her mind raced through everything she had learned about starships. Reprogramming the code would take too long, but if she shorted the power circuits, then maybe…

  Her thoughts stopped on a particular memory, and her eyes widened. Of course. She knew what she had to do.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said as she backpedaled away.

  The flight master grabbed her wrist, stopping her. “Now?”

  Her eyes met his. “Remember the teamwork simulation I was in? I believe you were the one who programmed it.”

  She unbuttoned the pouch at her side and grabbed the grenade Ia had taken from him. He saw it, and she could tell he instantly understood.

  “Wait here. I’ll get the doors open,” Brinn said as she took off running.

  “Is this all part of her plan too?” he called after her.

  “Nope. This one’s all me.”

  CHAPTER 52

  IA

  ALPHA CRUNCH, the leader of the Armada, led her through the corridors. This wasn’t Ia’s first time in the Armada’s fleet ship, so the walls lined with bones didn’t startle her. Nor did the smell. Like rot and piss.

  They stepped through a rusting door and onto the main deck, which was as dark and gloomy as the rest of the ship, even without the bones.

  Alpha Crunch was a large man, dwarfing her as they walked. He had become Alpha of the Armada a few years ago after he called a Hierarchy challenge and won. The frayed cape, tan like pigskin, but with finer grain, hung from his shoulders. It was made from the previous Alpha’s skin, and it swayed at his ankles as he made his way to the central platform.

  “Your brother will be happy to see you.” Alpha’s eyes shone in the dim as he regarded her.

  “Whatever Einn’s paying you, he should cut it in half. You did an awful job of finding me. Instead, I had to find you.”

  “I see your temper hasn’t changed.”

  “I’m not one for pleasantries, Alpha.”

  “Then let me see that the goods haven’t been damaged.” He snapped up her chin between his oily fingers. He smelled of dried blood and melted plastic, and his fingernails, sharpened to a point, dug into her skin. She jerked her head out of his grip, trying to rid herself of the feel of his fingers.

  She expected Einn to make his appearance, but the deck was empty except for a minion headed their way. He approached with a platter. Centered on top was a deep-green bottle of sauvignon, a drink once favored on Ancient Earth but now rare throughout the galaxies.

  “There is only one thing I love more than slaves.” Crunch grabbed the bottle off the platter and plucked out the cork. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed, savoring the scent. “Each one of these bottles is equal to the cost of one hundred premium slaves.”

  “That’s why you took the cadets? To pay for your collection?”

  Alpha Crunch bobbed his head, unfazed by her judgment.

  “But why them? You and I both know Bugs are tainted goods, the stuff that causes wars.”

  “Yet I know someone who will buy them for more than market price.”

  Ia knew the slave market. A man named Miracle was and would always remain the most affluent slave owner in the known universe, but even he knew to stay away from Commonwealth goods. “Who?”

  Crunch’s lips quirked up into a grin as he spoke. “Einn.”

  Her eyes snapped over to him, and she saw him savoring the shock on her face.

  “There’s a lot about your brother that you don’t know. Don’t you think it quite odd that RSF knew how to find you so easily after failing to capture you so many times in the past?” Crunch goaded. “Who do you think told them?”

  Ia shook her head, refusing to see the truth laid out in front of her. She staggered forward, her legs all of a sudden weak. “Where’s my brother?”

  “My dear girl, who said he would be here at all?”

  Crunch leaned forward, and his smile distorted. It grew longer and longer with each second that passed. Sh
e swayed like the floor was uneven, but it wasn’t.

  “Cōcha, you don’t look well.” His voice floated like bubbles ready to pop.

  Ia’s hands came up to her chin, her neck, anywhere Crunch had touched. Her fingertips shook upon a slight scratch, one that broke the skin enough for the sedative to scream through her bloodstream. The world flipped sideways, and her body tumbled.

  “You want to know why Einn sent us?” Crunch whispered, but her hearing faded before she could hear his answer.

  The rest of the muscles on her face froze, and she threw up a prayer, hoping her whispers would reach.

  As she breathed in, the cold snapped at her face. Ia sat up, her eyes opening to a vast canvas of textured white. Stalactites of ice hung from above. She was in a cave of some sort.

  Did they drag her back to AG-9?

  Caves had openings, ways to get out. Carefully, she navigated through the icy spikes, but no matter how hard she looked, there were no exits. Yet, there was something familiar about this place, something she couldn’t pinpoint.

  “Hello, Sister.” Her brother’s voice, richly baritone, echoed through the cavern, flowing around her like a warm specter. “I’m sorry I couldn’t welcome you in person.”

  She quickly realized she wasn’t on AG-9 at all.

  This was the White Room.

  “I like how you remodeled the place,” she said.

  Soft laughter floated toward her, and Einn stepped into her line of sight. His hair was longer than the last time she’d seen him, but it was still him, the person she had loved more than anything. Just yesterday, she would have killed to see his face again. But now she wasn’t quite so sure.

  “Is it all true? About the slaves, the Tawnies?”

  His eyes met hers. “You look so disappointed.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the tone of his voice—like he was playing a game he was certain he would win.

  “But why?” Ia asked. “What is all this for?”

  A journal flickered into his hand. “This.”

  Her eyes drifted over the familiar rich brown leather binding, the crumpled sheets of paper bundled up between its pages. “Is that the headmaster’s?”

  Einn tilted his head. “I told you that information was important.”

  She thought back to the last time they had met. Einn had brushed off every mention of the weapons she had found, but when she’d talked of the headmaster and when she’d brought up that story of Fugue, his eyes had sharpened with attention. He had played her, passing it off as if the information he was harvesting from her was nothing. Ia wondered what kind of power was hidden upon those pages. It must be something major for Einn to go through such lengths to possess it and to keep it from her.

  “I flipped through it, and you know what I found? It’s not complete. Luckily, I was already thinking a few steps ahead.” He opened to the last page of the journal so Ia could see. “Remember this?” Ia recognized it. It was a piece of paper that she had taken a photo of while she was alone in the dorm room one day. There were equations scrawled all over it. On the top of the page was a name written in graphite. Brinn Tarver.

  Ia shook her head at a flash of a memory. You want to know why Einn sent us? That was the last thing Alpha had said before she passed out. Einn didn’t order the Armada to rescue her; he wanted someone else. Her stomach lurched. “You came to Aphelion for Brinn.”

  He nodded.

  “And me? Where do I come in?”

  “You don’t.”

  He moved like a shadow, stopping only centimeters away. Warmth spread across her belly. Her arms curled around her waist in surprise, and she felt the edge of a knife protruding from her flesh. She slumped forward, her chest landing against Einn’s lean frame.

  His hand came up and stroked her hair.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered. “Shhhh.”

  Ia’s ribs rattled inside her chest. With each passing second, it got harder and harder to take another breath. Blood poured out of her center, and her fingers grew cold and numb. The pain was so great her mind had trouble staying in one place.

  Einn laid her down on the floor. She no longer had the strength to hold her head up, but Einn had propped her head up so it rested in his lap. Her eyes drifted to her brother’s face, serene and calm as if he had forgotten there was a knife stuck in her belly.

  “Every story I have is also a story of you.” His voice remained low like a lullaby. She felt a soft tickle on her hand as Einn traced the lines on her palm. “Like when you hunted down nuts from Galatin at all the Fringe markets so you could bake my favorite cookies, just the way Mom used to make them.”

  He tapped a finger against his temple. “And there’s another story that I keep playing out in my head. I’ve never told this one to you. But this is your story too.”

  A delicate smile danced upon Einn’s lips. “It starts with me sneaking out of my room in the middle of the night and peeking into your room. Father was humming softly to you while you slept. And I thought that it would be me next, so I ran back to my bed, watching my door until the sun came up.” Einn shook his head, then gazed off into the distance. “He never came.

  “That was the night he went away, the night he left behind this.” Einn’s fingers brushed against the white hearts pinned to his collar, their family symbol. “I found it that morning, next to your bed. You were still asleep.”

  Ia’s eyes widened. The white hearts were meant for her, not Einn.

  “Instead of a goodbye, he left me a lesson,” Einn said. “The only way you get what you want is to take it.”

  She watched him, the edges of his face feathering out of focus as her vision dimmed. Yet she saw the darkness clouding over her brother’s eyes, that emotion so bitter and tangled there were no words to describe it. It was a side he had cleverly hidden from her all this time.

  “It’s always been me and you,” Einn whispered. “But there’s something more important now, and this time, I’m not going to share.”

  He let go of her hand, and the cold licked her fingers.

  The White Hearts meant family. Loyalty. Seeing Einn now as he was, she finally realized it. He’d never deserved it.

  The young man before her wasn’t the same brother she’d grown to love. He wasn’t the same brother she would die for, but now, it seemed like she had no choice.

  “Close your eyes now,” he told her. “I’ll stay here with you until the end.”

  The White Room was a virtual construct, meant to trick her mind into thinking every sensation, every cut and injury that occurred inside was real. So as she bled out onto the white, icy floor, she felt it entirely, and when she would finally slip into death, it would take her mind with it. In the real world, her body would no longer be hers, but an empty husk. There would be no undo button, not when it came to this.

  CHAPTER 53

  BRINN

  THE GRENADE FELT like a hot coal in her hands. Brinn kept it hidden as she prowled through the corridors. She had studied the maps for the ship before they arrived, so she knew exactly where she was going. The closest lavatory was near the flight deck. A couple more steps, and she would be there.

  As she turned the corner, an ominous sound followed her, of metal clacking against bone. She kept her shoulders squared but quickened her pace. No matter how fast she walked, he was faster. Then the scent caught her. The sweat. The grease. The dirt.

  “Hello, little Tawny,” the voice purred. She turned, cringing at the sight of him. It was the slaver who had taunted her back at Aphelion. She remembered the smell of rot on his breath and that sickening smile. A blue and purple bruise flowered on his forehead where Liam’s pipe had landed.

  “Move along.” She stood tall and pushed past him. There was a chance he wouldn’t recognize her.

  “Not so fast.” He quick-stepped into her path, smiling broadly, his teeth yellowed with grit. “I thought I told you. I’m looking for a girl.”

  He moved like lightning, his hand shooting out toward her throa
t. But she was already running. She huffed with each step, trying to make herself go faster, but his footsteps thundered after her. His hand wrapped around her wrist, so hard that the grenade slipped from her fingers. She moved to pick it up, but the slaver jerked her backward to face him, his cracked lips twisting upward at his prey.

  With curled fingers, she swiped at his face, her fingernails biting into his cheek. His hand came up, feeling the fresh blood at his skin. He returned the blow, the back of his hand striking her with so much force her head swiveled, and she fell to the ground.

  Behind her, the metal screeched underneath his footsteps, and she knew he was coming for her. She lay still, reaching slowly for the pack at her waist. Her fingers curled around the smooth metal grip of her taser, now heavy in her fist.

  She waited.

  A hand gripped her shoulder.

  Whipping around, she thrust the taser into the soft flesh of his belly. Sparks pulsed, and the slaver went stiff, his muscles growing taut all at once. His mouth twisted open before he fell unconscious to his side.

  Brinn stood still, her shoulders shaking.

  Behind her, she heard people shouting a chorus of orders. One phrase repeated among the clatter.

  “Get the Tawny.”

  She couldn’t let the fear get to her. Brinn grabbed the grenade. Outrunning them wasn’t an option, not with everyone on the ship trying to find her. Brinn had to get to a lavatory without getting caught. So her mind ran through all the possibilities, of everything she could do.

  She turned corner after corner until the answer came to her.

  Stopping by a cracked panel, Brinn’s hands dug deep into the wires buried behind the walls. All the doors had been deactivated, so each hallway opened up to the next, which was against air travel safety codes. Ships needed to be sectioned off by airtight doorways in case of a breach.

  Voices echoed through the hallways. They were nearby.

  Brinn pulled out bundle after bundle of wires, until she located the right ones. They were disconnected from the power frame. Her hands worked to reconnect them. One wire. Then another.