Our Dark Stars

by Audrey Grey

  She could see everything. The cold emptiness of space, an expanse of stars so vast she could spend years counting and never name them all. She was going to be buried inside this nothingness. Forgotten.

  Soft hissing scraped down her spine; frosty wafts of smoke filled the air, searing her lungs and burning her cheeks with cold. Stars, she would be forgotten and frozen.

  Before she could close her eyes and accept her fate, a bright light flared against the backdrop of space, a wave of tangerine flames that destroyed the last remains of her ship and any evidence of her existence.

  She comforted herself with one phrase over and over as she faded out of consciousness: They’ll come for me soon. They’ll rescue me, and we’ll make the rebels pay.

  Soon. Soon. Soon.

  Until it became barely a word, hardly a dying whisper on her lips rasped over and over and over . . .

  Until she could no longer move her lips.

  Chapter 9

  3731 AD

  Will

  Will guzzled straight from the lip of a whisky bottle Lux had nicked from the bar earlier, rolling the foul liquid around his mouth to mask the scent of blood clinging to his shirt. When finished, Will passed the bottle to Lux where she leaned, cockeyed and tight-lipped against the Odysseus’s cockpit wall. To her right, the starscreen showed the meager-lit docking bay of the Andromeda.

  “We’re leaving,” he said, wiping some of the amber liquid from his chin. “That’s final.”

  She pursed her lips. Once, Will had imagined what those lips would feel like pressed against his—except that would be like making out with a steel trap. Barbed words and taunting insults were the closest Lux ever got to flirting.

  She tilted her head back, the sharp angles of her chin catching shadows, and took a swill. By the empty sloshing sound when she handed the whiskey over, she’d nearly cleared the bottle. “Stop being a stubborn ass. The crew needs to stay somewhere off the ship tonight. Boost morale and all that crap after our dismal scavenger scores.”

  Frowning, Will held up the bottle to the light. “Thirsty much?”

  “What do you care? I stole it fair and square, so it’s mine.”

  “Yeah, thanks to my distraction.”

  “That’s what we’re calling what happened back there? O-kay. And”—she clicked her tongue as she took a seat beside him, her tone softening—“don’t change the subject. We should stay another day.”

  Will shook his head and wished he hadn’t. The room spun, swirling the steel interior of Odysseus into a maelstrom of dark grays. He’d damn near killed a man in the bar earlier, the poor flesher’s blood splattered all over that bar—over him—and no one blinked an eye.

  The incident had dredged up memories of his own time as a human, but he’d be damned if he admitted to Lux anything was wrong. “If we stay any longer, you know what’ll happen. Leo will get arrested for buying whores and not paying, your sticky-fingered brother, Dorian, will get caught thieving from a civilian, and Jane? What do you want to bet she’s embarrassed a high-ranking lieutenant at cards by now? Kinda hard to fraternize with my peers when I run with a crew full of criminals.”

  “Fancy words.” Lux chewed a fingernail. “But you forget. They’re not your peers anymore. Us criminals are.”

  He slashed a sideways glance at her. “Don’t need the reminder, Lux.”

  “Yeah. You do, Captain.” She dropped her feet to the floor, clanging the grates with boots too small to be real. Then again, most days Will forgot how tiny she actually was. Her bark and bite were giant. “I saw the way you looked at your old crew. All doe-eyed and shit. Will Perrault, you’re stuck with us. So cut the I’m-too-good-to-scavenge crap and locate some real finds with real payouts or else you’ll end up wishing you could play cards as well as Jane.”

  Will scratched the stubble of his jaw. “Already found our ticket.”

  “Not the thing again. Captain, please.” Gesturing with her hand in the direction of the cargo hold, she flowed to her feet, all four-foot-nine of her, and scoffed in his face. “I’m going to go sell it. Right now. For a—a pack of smokes for Leo.”

  Insubordinate, no good criminal . . . She’d already crossed the cabin and was making for the door. “No—”

  The ship’s hatch open notification reverberated off the walls and through Will’s spinning head, followed by shouts erupting from the corridor. On instinct, he grabbed for the antique revolver hidden beneath the console. There were only three bullets inside the chamber, each one worth five times as much as Lux’s bottle of whisky, and the recoil was a bitch. Still better than a blaster, though. Those needed to be charged for hours and jammed more often than not.

  The door burst open. Four, five . . . nine station officers stormed inside the cabin and pressed along the walls, filling the bridge with their too-perfect uniforms and unsmiling faces. One officer kicked the scrap metal table Lux had been using for dice with Jane, and it, the dice, and the tin cup went flying, the dice clinking as they slipped through the cracks and landed below deck. Will clenched his fists by his side and tamped down his murderous thoughts as he stood at attention. These were Federation officers, soldiers who worked directly for the queen and commanded a queen’s respect.

  Will leaned toward the console and slid the revolver out of sight.

  Xander was the last to enter, his hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the room with a sneer before allowing his attention to drift to Will. That sneer turned into a smirk.

  Maybe Will shouldn’t have put away the gun.

  “Where is it?” Xander’s question was a carefully crafted command, his gaze scouring the cockpit, his steps slow, in control.

  Will choked out a laugh. Like anything was here besides stale air, a near-empty bottle of whisky, and one pissed-off Lux. “Mind sharing what you’re looking for . . . Captain?”

  Xander made his way past the drove of Federation officers and over to the flight deck. He spotted Jane’s fern plant she won from an ore merchant months ago, absolutely against regulations and likely to get everyone on board killed, sitting near the starscreen. “Do you know how many violations you have on this hunk of junk?” He kicked the plant over, and the small frond broke against the pale floor, dark soil spilling out around their feet. “It’s a disgrace.”

  Will shoved a hand through his hair, wondering how he’d break the news to Jane. Her ever-worsening glitches made her emotions almost as wild as a flesher’s. “Why are you here?”

  “Don’t play dumb, you know what I’m looking for.”

  “I didn’t steal the whisky, but I know who did.”

  Lux, standing in the middle of the chaos with her hands speared on her sharp hips, shot Will a baleful look, her eyes narrowed to emerald slits.

  “I’m not here for whisky, idiot. Tell me where this is.” Xander smashed his open palm into Will’s chest, crushing something white against it.

  The napkin.

  Clenching his jaw to keep from punching his brother, Will plucked the white cocktail napkin, now barely more than a torn slip of paper, and held it up. Alarm bells were already going off inside his skull. If Xander wanted this thing . . .

  “I don’t know what this is,” Will said, shrugging as he forced his face into a bored mask.

  “Then why did you draw it?”

  “Hmm. Don’t know. I was bored?”

  Xander’s right eye twitched. If Xander were nine, that’d mean a tantrum. If he were fourteen, that’d mean he was about to pummel Will and then say Will started it. Now though . . .

  Crap.

  Sneering, Xander craned his head to look around. “Last chance to come clean before I tear up this rust bucket looking for it.”

  Some of the officers chuckled. Lux bared her teeth. She looked on the verge of slaughtering a few of the queen’s Federation, but as laughter floated in from the open door, she lost her chance. Jane and Leo marched in carrying two bulging rucksacks with all her gambling wins. The two crew members paused as they took in th
e scene.

  Slipping through the officers, Jane dropped her rucksack onto the co-pilot chair, the contents inside clanking. She didn’t even try to look guilty for bringing her illegal gambling wins on board.

  Fortunately, most of the officers ignored her, their attention saved for Leo, who towered over them. Leo raised his eyebrows at Will. “Why didn’t you tell me we were having a party?”

  “Slipped my mind,” Will said through clenched teeth.

  Xander ripped the napkin from Will’s hand and held the paper up. “Like I told these idiots, admit where you found this symbol or your ship won’t survive our search. Won’t take long, by the looks of her.”

  As soon as Jane smiled, Will’s heart lurched into his gut.

  “Oh, no reason for that.” Jane’s voice was as friendly as ever. “A captain always complies with the law. Check the third bay of the cargo hold.”

  Dammit, Jane. He forced a tight grin. “Oh, yeah. That. Nothing more than recycling.”

  Ugly face sheened with excitement, Xander turned to the officers closest to him, pointed at the stairs, and ordered, “Go!”

  Xander followed the Federation as they funneled out of the cabin, their boots pounding the metal floor. Will grabbed the revolver and did the same. Lux noticed, and she shook her head, muttering under her breath, but he paid her no attention, not even when Leo shot Lux a Will’s-trying-to-kill-us-again look.

  “Let’s go,” Will said, shoving the gun into his waistband. “Told you this find was worth something.”

  “Yeah . . . our lives,” Leo muttered, but he and Lux begrudgingly obeyed the order, and they made their way toward the commotion, leaving Jane behind to pick up the pieces of her plant she’d just noticed had been destroyed.

  The largest of the three cargo holds was sandwiched between engineering and what used to be the holo-map chamber, before the thing broke. Without the main engine running, this part of the ship was cold and dim, lit only by the emergency track lighting running along the narrow corridor walkways.

  Leo broke off to the side to flank Will as he counted the officers again, searching for the biggest threat. Still scowling, Lux wrapped around the other side of the group. On his signal, she’d take out as many as possible. If they were going to fight, the dim hallways would give them the best advantage. The Odysseus’s crew could walk these halls blindfolded.

  A chill descended as they entered the middle cargo hold. Like the corridors, shadows pooled along the corners and layered the empty space in illusions. The soft purr of the backup generator that regulated oxygen and heat muffled the stillness. Their breath came out cloudy puffs.

  Xander whistled. “Kinda empty, isn’t it? If it wasn’t for that glitchy co-captain’s luck at cards, you’d all have starved by now.”

  “There, sir,” an officer near the front said, pointing toward the shiny thing in the middle of the room, right where the Odysseus’s crew had dropped it. Soft red light flickered inside its surface. Water puddled around it, looking black in the faint light.

  Will’s heart punched into his throat. This thing—whatever it was—was his key to reinstatement. He knew it the same way he knew how far he could enter a black hole and exit safely. A feeling. Deep in the gut. Xander couldn’t take whatever this was.

  But what could Will do? The second he pulled the gun, they’d be outlaws. Criminals . . . more so than they already were. Impressing the queen would be pointless if she executed everyone afterward.

  But it had to be him who presented the queen with the thing.

  Grinding his teeth, he followed close behind Xander. Leo and Lux mirrored their captain on either side. Xander was too cocky to actually think they’d be stupid enough to fight. Besides, his gaze was glued to the thing.

  Xander reached out, slowly, and ran two fingers over its sleek facets and sharp angles. Then he knelt and examined the symbol that had gotten the crew into this mess in the first place. A smile spread across his face, his breathing fast and hard. “Message the queen and tell her I have it.”

  The gun was cold, heavy. Lux shook her head at Will, her eyes wide inside the dimness. Blood rushed inside his skull, drowning out the more rational thoughts rattling his brain. Suicide. Stupid. Impulsive.

  Gripping the smooth handle, Will lifted the gun from his pocket—

  Jane stepped from behind and caught his arm. “A captain always complies with the law, Captain.”

  As if waking from a trance, Will shook his head. This was madness. Treason. Fighting against imperial officers would make him an enemy of the queen.

  He’d lost.

  Lux’s shoulders sagged as Will shoved the revolver back into his pants. Leo heaved a sigh.

  “Good,” Jane said. “Now, who wants cookies?”

  Will couldn’t watch the Federation officers cart the key to his salvation away, so he retreated to the bridge to sulk. He wanted to be ready to leave the second they were off his ship, so he busied himself with the warm-up procedure. Usually the growl of the main engine coming to life instilled a sense of pleasure inside. But, now, each flip of a switch was but another reminder Xander won. The bastard would already be setting a course for Calisto, the home planet of the queen. He’d probably already informed her what he had—whereas Will would have presented it to her personally.

  Idiot had no sense of presentation.

  A sweet, nostalgic smell drew his attention toward the door. Jane stood half-inside the cabin, a tray of leftover cookies—white-chocolate macadamia nut, by the aroma—held high. For once they were reasonably unburnt.

  “No cookies right now.” He waved his hand to shoo her away. “Just give me a few minutes before we act like my future didn’t just swirl down the drain.”

  Nibbling a cookie, she crossed the room and settled beside him in her chair, next to which sat her potted plant, the terra cotta held together by duct tape. The harsh lights above made the furrows around Jane’s mouth and forehead seem deeper than normal. “What do you think it feels like every time I sit next to you in my old chair?”

  He stared down at his knuckles.

  “I mean, I know why I can’t be captain. One glitch is all it’d take to . . .” Her words trailed away. “Anyway, have a cookie. It will cheer you up.”

  The cookie was warm and gooey and tasted like heaven. Definitely not synthetic like all her previous batches. How in the universe did she find real flour and eggs? He hardly dared to ask as he crunched a nut between his teeth and sighed.

  “And when you’re done, why don’t you take some cookies to the girl in the kitchen?”

  He paused, mid-crunch. “Girl? You mean Lux?”

  Sighing, Jane leaned forward and pulled up security video of the cargo bay. At first, Will thought she was showing current time, since he hadn’t set the logs to record in months. Except the thing was still there, clearly visible in the middle of the floor. Squinting, he leaned closer. The video was grainy, the flickering bulbs along the floors providing barely enough light to see.

  “A good captain protects his cargo. That’s why I turned on the motion recording setting for the security cameras in that sector.”

  Movement. The lid to the thing popped open—it had a lid—and something slid over the side and fell onto the floor.

  A girl. Thin and delicate. With long, wet hair, bare feet, and a gown that glittered like the stars.

  The lid clamped shut, and while checking over her shoulders, she stumbled into the shadows of the ship.

  Chapter 10

  3731 AD

  Talia

  Talia hunkered beneath a metal range glommed with old grease and tried to get her bearings. Long milky breaths spilled from her hiding place into what she guessed was a really shoddy galley. On one end stacked dirty dishes, and a dull pot sat next to a stainless-steel sink. A locked door was on her right—probably the pantry. She’d tried it already, but the padlock hadn’t budged. A few opened cans of synthetic corn sat atop the island in the middle of the tiny room. They were empty—she’d ch
ecked those too.

  The smell of stale grease and something long burned riled her barren stomach. Her body was weak and hollow, her muscles already aching from her trek to the galley. She wiggled her bare toes, half frozen already. They were numb.

  Where was she? Inside some sort of ship, that much was clear. Through the viewscreens she’d passed, rows of spaceships appeared. Clunkers, some of them patched together with what looked to be the hulls of cargo ships and mining vessels.

  Her current ship wasn’t much better. The thermoregulation barely worked in some spots, ice beginning to frost the hull. Rivets and bolts were missing from the walls, and when her fingers brushed the sides of the tight hallway earlier, they came away wet and rusty.

  Was this the allied ship her parents promised would save her? If so, it needed some serious upgrades. Maybe they’d been attacked too and had to scrounge, or this was a cover ship. Because, obviously, none of the Starchaser’s planetary allies would travel in this junk heap.

  Perhaps that was what happened earlier. Once she’d woken up and gotten her bearings, she’d left to find the captain. But then the sounds of arguing and loud noises frightened her, and fearing the rebels had somehow discovered her right after being rescued, she’d hidden here to wait them out.

  By the time she’d gotten the nerve to even think about venturing out again, she felt the ship detaching from port. Whatever happened earlier was resolved.

  Now she needed to face whoever captained this ship. Her parents needed her. If a full week since the attack had truly passed, their allies would be desperate to find her.

  For a heartbeat, the flames of her cruiseship flashed across her vision. Bright, so bright. Her mouth went dry, her heart lurching into her stomach.

  That could have been a dream. Or a hallucination. Who knew the effects cryosleep had on the mind? Besides, in the week or so she’d been asleep, her dreams had become jumbled and warped. There was no way to ascertain what was real and what was fiction.