Our Dark Stars

by Audrey Grey

  Talia started the jet down the open stretch of gravel courtyard. “It’s a surprise.”

  The steering wheel jolted in her hands as the ship gained speed. Last second before they rammed the wall, Talia slammed the thruster and they jerked into the air, her belly groaning.

  “Easy there,” Will soothed, his breath warm on Talia’s neck. His seat was located directly behind hers, and their cramped cockpit meant they were crammed together like the sardines Leo coveted.

  As they arced over the wall and into the sky, the bridges of people growing smaller every second, Talia’s breath evened out. “Pretty good for not flying for a hundred or so years.”

  The air traffic had thinned, probably after the explosion, leaving large chunks of sky to climb. They soared higher, maneuvering around more steel bridges interconnecting the towering skyscrapers. No longer caught beneath the buildings’ shadows, the light burgeoned, warming the cockpit and making her blink.

  At 20,000 feet, they were the only craft in sight, and she used the time to awaken her dormant skills, savoring the feel of the Starfighter as it responded to her commands. Every movement she made, however small, elicited a response. Fighting the urge to go all out, she finessed the powerful machine until her memory had fully awoken and controlling the ship was second nature.

  She eased into acceleration when they neared the tops of the highest buildings and were out of the shadows. The force gently pushed her back into the leather seat, familiar butterflies swirling below her ribcage just before a shadow flicked across the dashboard.

  On instinct, she rolled hard to the left. Shots streaked by the window, so close to their aircraft Talia could hear them zing. Each blast reverberated through her bones.

  “I see one Starfighter behind us,” Will said, his voice steady and even despite the danger. “We’re still in its shot radius.”

  She dipped the nose of the jet and banked low under a bridge. As much as she yearned to turn around and identify their attacker, all her focus had to stay on flying. Silence filled the cockpit as she performed more evasive maneuvers, diving and rolling like a horse trying to buck its rider.

  Whoever this pilot was, they were good.

  A voice suddenly floated over the radio, and Talia’s heart skipped a beat. “This brings back fun memories, doesn’t it, Tal?”

  “The queen,” she whispered to Will, even though the queen couldn’t hear them unless Talia pressed the button to talk.

  “Remember when we used to practice maneuvers over the palace just to make your mother angry?”

  “Screw you!” Despite knowing better, she snuck glances at the sky, blinking against the sun’s bright glare. Where is she?

  An outcropping of thin charcoal-gray buildings loomed ahead, and Talia shot through the tight spaces between, scouring the skies above.

  “The queen flew Starfighters with you?” Will asked in disbelief.

  They broke through the buildings, and she was about to answer when she caught movement up ahead and to the right. The jet flashed in the sun and locked in on their vessel. The queen grinned through the cockpit, her black eyes gleaming in triumph.

  Talia increased thrust and lifted, but the evasive maneuver came too late. Bullets strafed their ship, the ear-spitting thuds as they pierced the Starfighter’s hull sending pulses of panic down her spine. Talia pulled back, lifting the ship higher, and managed to pull out of the queen’s shot radius. She banked hard left, and the world flashed upside down as they completed the loop head on with the queen.

  More shots caught the tail. Talia checked the gauges, but nothing showed damage.

  “She knows my every move!” Talia growled, pitching into a steep dive that brought them back into the bowels of the city. In open space, the queen could best Talia any day of the week, but here maybe she could even the playing field.

  Sweat slicked her fingers as she guided the steering wheel, working to calm her breathing. The quiet inside the cockpit was an illusion of safety. Up above the queen stalked them from the clouds, waiting to strike.

  Talia peered up at the sky, the sun’s glare crippling her vision. “I can’t see her.”

  “Me either,” Will confirmed. Judging by his leather seat groaning, he was twisted around trying to find her. “She’s using the sun to her advantage.”

  Of course she was. That was one of Ailat’s favorite tricks. Talia dove lower until she skimmed the turquoise waters around the palace. They’d made an entire loop through the city. What was the queen’s plan? Ailat had always been a better pilot, a better tactician. She could toy with them for hours until they ran out of fuel—but that wasn’t what she wanted.

  No, she needed to prove once and for all she was better than Talia.

  “Here she comes!” Will warned.

  The queen’s Starfighter dropped from above in an aerial attack, and the water below exploded in a straight line toward them as she strafed it with bullets. Ascending from this level would make the ship slow and decrease her power, so Talia cut toward the palace, hoping the queen wouldn’t sacrifice the bystanders on the bridge with those bullets.

  Talia was wrong. She flinched as the hail of firepower chased them into the courtyard, cutting down the crowds still stuck there.

  “Oh God,” Talia cried, wishing she could shut her eyes.

  “Look out!” Will shouted as they careened between two archways.

  Last second, Talia banked sideways, and the ship slipped through the opening by a whisker. The queen climbed back to her perch in the clouds, safe from Talia’s guns while waiting to swoop down again.

  The maneuver was called a high-sides gun pass, and Ailat had done it to Talia a million times before in training. Never once had she recovered after Ailat got her in this position. Growling, Talia swiped sweat-soaked hair from her forehead and then banged her fist on the dash.

  “You okay, there?” Will called.

  “We’re not going to die today!” She repeated it, louder, for good measure. No way in hell would she let the queen kill them.

  “Does this all seem familiar, Tal?” the queen purred over the com, the pleased tone in her voice riling Talia’s blood. “There’s nowhere you can hide now. No safety. You know how this ends.”

  Talia grabbed the radio. “I am Talia Starchaser. I fear nothing. I own the stars and the planets and the galaxies, and I am not afraid of you, Queen.”

  Talia slammed the com onto the dash and flew back out onto the water, her heartbeat drowning out her rapid breaths.

  “Why did you go back into the open?” Will asked, his voice muffled as if he spoke from underwater. “She’ll crush us.”

  As expected, the queen swooped down from the sky. This time, though, Talia was ready and sprang into action, lifting into a vertical climb and performing a barrel roll her instructor would have been proud of. Her belly churned as they ducked and dove. The queen stuck close behind, just out of firing range. The water shimmered below, a watery graveyard ready to swallow the quarreling ships whole.

  The queen locked onto position behind Talia, alarms blaring in the cockpit, but she went for a violent high-g roll that thrashed their spines, turning hard to draw the queen close before rolling. The sky became water, the water sky. As they flipped upside down, all the blood rushed to Talia’s face, her hair pooling on the pale ceiling like spurts of blood. The harness straps cleaved her shoulders and bit into her flesh.

  When they righted, it took a moment for the world outside to stabilize.

  “She’s still there.” Something about Will’s voice gave her the feeling he was impressed with Talia, despite the fact they were running out of maneuvers to shake their attacker. Any other time, she’d have taken satisfaction from the awe.

  No, satisfaction thrummed through her anyway.

  “Why are you even trying?” the queen demanded. “I know you better than you do. Remember, Tal, I was your shadow, your mirror image. Every move you make, I can counter. Every action I see a split second before you make it.”

>   “Then see this, Queen,” Talia growled as she turned again, dropping the nose low.

  They shot into a spiral dive, letting gravity increase their speed as the queen maneuvered to catch up. Talia’s heart fluttered against her sternum like a terrified rabbit, and her stomach flip-flopped.

  They used to perform this move so many times she’d dream about it: Ailat’s favorite.

  Except before, when it was still just a game, first one to pull up lost. The braver Ailat had always waited until right before her Starfighter hit the ground before pulling up, whereas Talia was too chicken to even come close, lifting back into a slow climb.

  “What are you doing?” Will breathed. “Talia? Pull up!”

  The water rushed up at them. She could make out the small whitecaps speckling the water, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Not yet.

  “Talia . . .”

  Not yet.

  “Talia, please—”

  Now! She cut the power and extended the speedbrakes, and they jerked back as if a large hand smacked the ship, her body snapping violently with the change in position. A groan fled her lips, but a flash of silver and the queen overshot them. Without missing a beat, Talia flipped the power back on, aimed her sights on the center of the queen’s jet, and hit the bitch with both guns.

  The bullets seemed to hit the Starfighter in slow-motion, each one punching a fist-sized hole in the metal as the queen tried to lift into a climb. But she was too late. Bullets punctured the engine, the fuel tanks. The cockpit shattered, and Talia gasped as the queen jumped as if she’d been struck.

  Shock, that violent jolt was shock, but the voice that came over the radio sounded as Ailat always had, calm, collected. “I won, Tal. I won.”

  Then her Starfighter spun on its side like an animal rolling over to die and plummeted to the water below, pale-gray smoke streaming from the engine. The ship hit the surface with a giant splash.

  Talia struggled to breathe as she circled once, twice, until the vessel finally sank. Hot tears blurred her eyes. When her vision cleared, there was nothing in the water’s surface to mark Ailat’s grave. No sign of her death.

  The back of Talia’s throat burned with grief. In some strange way, Ailat had been the only family Talia had left, and the mock queen’s death meant Talia was finally, truly alone.

  The last Starchaser.

  “Why didn’t she pull first?” Will’s breathless voice reminded her he was still with her.

  “She had to win, just like always.” Talia pressed her palm flat against the windshield, warm from the sun’s kiss, and took one last look down at her friend entombed inside the waters she used to love. Ironic that as much as she hated humans, in the end a human emotion killed her. “I should have fought for you, friend.”

  “Who was she to you?” Will tipped forward into the front seat, the leather creaking, his eyes soft with concern. The day’s horrible events were written all over his weary, battered, and soot-stained face. But in this light, with the sun’s glare highlighting the ambers and reds inside his coppery hair and his lips curved into a smile, he was gorgeous.

  Talia thought about explaining everything, but the truth was Ailat died that day one hundred years ago just the same as if Talia had followed through with Prince Cassius’s cruel demand. She had to believe the Ailat trapped inside that monstrous queen was at peace now.

  “A ghost.” Talia hit the thrusters and streaked toward the place where the Athena waited, piercing the dark funnel of smoke from the Odysseus still choking the sky. “An old friend’s waiting for you.”

  That was the thing about old friends. They reappeared when you least expected them.

  Will chuckled. “I kind of like my new friends.”

  Epilogue

  Talia

  Talia jogged down the crudely carved stone steps winding through the mountainside, her secretary and retinue of personal guards trailing behind. Their shouts for her to stop went wholly ignored as she slipped over loose rocks and barely managed some of the more treacherous turns that could send her plummeting to her death.

  There were faster, safer ways down the steep range, but she enjoyed the feel of her muscles burning as they grew more powerful. In the past three months since she emerged from cryosleep, her body had transformed from flimsy and weak to athletic and strong.

  The Athena glimmered three hundred yards below, its silver, metallic hull a stark contrast against the vibrant green of the valley. As soon as the Darkstar landed, she’d rushed straight out of a meeting with the mock and human senators and cut down the hillside.

  Her crew waited down there. So did Will.

  A robin’s-egg-blue sky hung above. Puffs of yellow wildflowers Talia couldn’t begin to name dotted the crags and bluffs, growing thicker as she neared the valley below. Two condors glided to her right, playfully circling on a gusty breeze.

  She glanced back at the council building where the senators undoubtedly still waited, carved into the highest peak and flanked by residences for all the important Alliance members. The entire city was ensconced up here, the last vestiges of humanity, accessible only by hover and these hazardous steps, and invisible from space.

  Not that any Federation ships had been spotted over this airspace. And odds were they would never discover this tiny planet, technically a moon, one of three that hid the Alliance. Located on the cusp of the Outer Fringes, their habitable moon orbited a gaseous exoplanet that, from Talia’s perch high on the mountain, was a faint orange-and-yellow sphere painting the sky.

  “Sovereign,” her secretary called, breathing hard as he struggled to catch up. “We insist you . . . wait for the royal hover.”

  “No time!”

  Talia hadn’t seen Will and her friends in a month. Bloody stars, she wasn’t going to wait a second longer. Even if, as her human secretary and advisors liked to remind her, the Sovereign couldn’t be seen favoring mocks over humans.

  Sovereign. After three months, the word still filled Talia with both a sense of panic and pride. Sometimes, whenever she heard the title, she would look around for her father before remembering the position belonged to her. Those moments were when she missed him the most. When she understood just how much responsibility had weighed down his shoulders—and now hers too.

  Proving herself to the Alliance and her people would be a monumental task, especially with all the work required to even get mocks and humans to sit together. Ill will and distrust ran bone deep, rightly so after centuries of division. They had separate councils, separate living areas, separate leaders, and both sides accused the other of receiving favoritism.

  Hopefully she could help change that, though it would likely take a lifetime or two.

  Talia bounded down the last few steps and spilled into the valley, enjoying the feel of the knee-high grass tickling her palms. Grasshopper songs filled the meadow as she sprinted, hardly out of breath, through tangles of exotic lavender-and-white wildflowers that swarmed the basin. The first time she’d raced down these stairs, she nearly vomited at the bottom. But now she was used to the high altitude and long sun-cycles—twelve days of sun and twelve of night. She even looked forward to the stellar eclipses at noon that drenched this side of the moon in darkness.

  The Athena rested near a long curve of forest that stretched for miles, backdropped by more smooth granite mountains and verdant foliage. Halfway to the ship, Talia stopped, and her guards finally caught up and formed a half-moon around her, as if the hunting party now emerging from the forest was a surge of enemies. Whatever the men carried on their shoulders would be her dinner, not a five-course meal made from the most exotic foods from around the galaxies, but just as good.

  “Unless the grasshoppers are armed with blasters,” she snapped, her voice breathless with impatience, “I think I’m safe.”

  “Please, Sovereign,” her secretary implored, straightening the lapel of his ridiculous yellow linen suit. “Your schedule is packed with meetings. Can this . . . this mock crew not
wait like everyone else?”

  “This crew is comprised of valuable Alliance members, and they’re my friends.” She gave a chilly smile, one of many in her new arsenal. “The rest can wait.”

  She blinked and Will appeared just inside the open hatch, his navy jumpsuit turning his eyes into topaz-blue gemstones. A golden tint flushed his skin, courtesy of whatever planet he and the crew had last visited while searching for more rebels to join the cause. A dangerous job. One she pleaded with him to let someone else do. But no one was as capable as Will when it came to evading the Federation’s battalions in deep space, and she needed a bigger army before the Alliance could even think of making war on the Federation.

  Still, every time her friends returned, she breathed easier.

  Now, at the sight of him, her body softened with relief, all her responsibilities melting away as anticipation warmed her belly. She was no longer Sovereign. No longer the girl with a million meetings, whose every move had to be thought out and calculated. Who didn’t dare laugh for fear of accidentally bestowing favor on one senator over another, and whose every action had a ripple effect across the galaxies.

  She was just Talia—and sometimes, when Will was feeling particularly cheeky, flesher princess.

  Her boots made rattling thumps on the grated metal as she darted up the ramp, stopping just short of slamming into the captain. Grinning, Will winked at her secretary and hit the button to close the hatch.

  The second it groaned shut, Talia jumped into Will’s arms, wrapping her legs around his trim waist. Will turned and pressed her back against the wall, gently. One of his hands was tangled in her hair. The other gripped her chin.

  She didn’t even blink at his metal fingers, cold against the flesh of her face. Will’s new arm was made from outdated technology—the best the Alliance could provide—and Will had chosen to leave the metal exposed. He said he couldn’t bear the fake plastic skin older mocks used. But secretly she thought the metal was a reminder to himself of what he was.