Chance of Stardust

Stardust (ch 9)

Dawn found her sitting on the floor of the observation deck, arms wrapped around her middle, and her eyes haunted as light spilled through the clear walls to trace across the floor.


Damn Revelin anyway. She couldn’t get the images out of her head. She had always hated history and the photographic records of the holocaust victims and other atrocities committed by mankind against those they should have protected. For God’s sake, save them before snapping the picture for posterity. Now she had a feature length movie that played on the backside of her eyelids every time she closed her eyes.


She’d finally found the mark that shut off the images, but they still moved inside her head in a flickering, endless horror show.


She rose slowly, gripping her ribs hard, trying to hold herself together as she stepped to the glass and looked down at the junkyard. The yard was deserted, last night’s rain keeping even dust from moving. No lights glimmered in the windows of her home. She touched the glass, her heart full of pain as her thoughts twisted and turned.


As she watched, her parents stepped out onto the porch, her father’s arm wrapped around Laura’s waist. They didn’t speak, simply stood together, watching the sun rise. Laura turned into her husband’s arms, burying her face in his chest. His arms came around her, supporting, offering comfort as soul deep pain etched new lines into his face.


“I love you,” Cassie whispered and turned away.


The stairs seemed even narrower this morning as she made her way carefully down. The sound of voices led her past the mess hall to a large room that held the largest jungle gym she’d ever seen. She paused in the doorway, taking in the details to steady the jerky rhythm of her heart and the unsteady jitters that had taken control of her body.


Ropes hung from the ceiling where narrow beams jutted and slanted through rings and nets to the walls that appeared rippled in the light. Kyall was currently climbing a wall as easily as a cat could shimmy up an oak tree. Llyr stood below him, shouting encouragement and laughing while Leiv and Revelin stood, heads together in deep discussion.


Leiv noticed her first, breaking off midsentence. Revelin turned, his expression giving nothing away. She ignored them.


Ari leaned against the wall not far from the door. He sent her a flirty smile.


“Good morning.”


The purred greeting brushed past her awareness. Images of blood filled her mind. She moved to him, pushing his arm away from his side so she could run her hand under his scaled shirt. He jerked away from her touch but not before she felt the thick ridges of scars that covered his side. Stepping away, she wrapped her arms around herself again, dimly noticing the startled look Ari shot Revelin.


Davi entered the room from a door hidden by the climbing apparatus and joined Ari. In her mind, Cassie saw again the pale hair marred by blood and burns. Her hand trembled as she touched him, lifting the hem of his shirt. He laid a hand over hers, preventing the move. She looked up to meet his oddly pale gaze where she found understanding and the soft light of compassion. He knew what she was looking for. He shook his head.


“What did they use on you?” she whispered.


Davi shook his head again, refusing to answer.


“Laser whip,” Revelin answered, drawing her eyes. “They wanted to pit him against Ari and he refused to fight.”


Beside her, Ari looked from her to Revelin in surprise. “You showed her the Amalgamation files? Why would you do that?”


Revelin’s gaze never left her face. “Do you believe me now?”


Cassie hugged her arms tighter and jerked a nod. “I believe you.”


“Do you understand why I insist on you staying with us?”


“No.” Her lungs suddenly pulled a deep shuddering breath as if a band around her chest had snapped. “I don’t understand. I know why, but I don’t understand it. You could use me as bait, draw them to you and kill them. I’m nothing to you. Why would you care what happens to me or my family?”


“Who says I do?”


“Lie to yourself often, do you?”


His eyes narrowed. “You’re right. I could set you loose, let you go back to your family with that lovely Universal in your head. The Gurot would come and while they were distracted torturing you and your family, we could kill them all. But Llyr is with us. It’s a risk to him that I won’t take.”


Ari snarled something at Revelin but no translation came from the implant. Realization dawned.


“Stop swearing,” she snapped. Ari shot her a chagrined look but shut up. “He’s right—halfway at least.”


“I am right.”


Revelin wasn’t backing down but Cassie didn’t care. Fear had no hold on her this morning. For the first time, she thought she understood these hirrient. More than that, she agreed with them.


“Half right. At some point, you’re going to leave me here with this implant in my head. Who is to say that these Gurot won’t come after me? They know about my proscribed world now. If they catch a hint of my Universal, they might just think you left Llyr behind and come back to check.” She took a step toward him, determination pushing her beyond caution. “You can’t stay here the rest of my life to protect me and I’m not going with you when you leave.”


“You could,” Ari began but she cut him off.


“No. I can’t. My parents are here. My home is here. I don’t belong out there with you.” She took a deep breath. The choice had already been made, she realized. Somewhere in the middle of those bloody images, she had come to a decision.


“You said your ship is broken, that you can’t get home until you repair it.”


“Yes.” Revelin frowned. “Are you an engineer?”


The hesitation from her Universal told her it wasn’t a perfect translation for the word, but close enough. She shook her head.


“No. But my dad is a mechanic. He fixes these dead machines around you. I’m his favorite parts picker. If you show me what you need, there’s a good chance I can find it for you or something close enough to jury rig it.”


They looked confused for a moment and she realized that the colloquialism probably didn’t translate well.


“Show me what’s broken,” she demanded. No one moved. “This is your last chance, boys. I know this world. I know our technology. If anyone can help you find what you need, it’s me. But I’m only going to offer once.”


Everyone looked at Revelin. He studied her for a long moment and then nodded.


“Kyall? Leiv? Show her the engines.”


“She’s proscribed,” Leiv argued. “It against the Amalgamation mandate to introduce proscribed indigenous people to higher technology.”


“And you were hunter/gatherers,” she interjected before Revelin could speak. “My people are right now more technologically advanced than yours were when your world was destroyed. Someone showed you, now you get to show me.”


Davi laughed. His soft chuckle brought her gaze around and he tugged her braid, still smiling. Up the wall, Kyall joined in the laughter. Cassie felt her lips twitch and then caught her breath as he leapt, executed a neat flip to land in a crouch on the floor beside Llyr.


“Come with me, Cassie. Let me introduce you to possibilities.”


She went. Behind her, she could hear Leiv and Revelin arguing in low tones. Stiffening her spine, she lifted her chin. To hell with them. She was going to find them the parts they needed and then they could get the hell out of her life. She had a final to study for and a life to find.


The engine room lay in the belly of the ship. The halls narrowed, the ceilings dropping until she had to duck to walk and Kyall was practically crawling. Kyall ducked through a sqarish opening barely large enough for his bulk to fit through and shifted to the side, motioning her to follow him.


The engine was bigger than she and Kyall put together. Two long cylindrical engines lay side by side across the floor. Power arced in an intermittent crackle, lighting the dips and crevices in the metal. Kyall jerked his head toward the far end and she followed him, crawling over random bits of metal and tubing.


“The engines themselves are fine,” Kyall told her. “They produce flying power and we have enough to break atmosphere. The problem is the crossover. Without the power boost it provides, we can’t enter spatial flux. It would take decades to get home if we can’t enter flux.”


Cassie edged between his body and the length of the engine. She peered over the thing, her head brushing the ceiling and Kyall’s hand on her hip steadied her.


“Thanks,” she said absently, her mind already on the mechanical apparatus in front of her.


She’d never seen anything like it. Not that it was a big surprise but she’d been hoping for something a little more familiar. It was metal. The power source appeared to be electrical of some kind. Beyond that, she might as well have been trying to figure out a nuclear reactor.


“The spiraling piece that links the two engines is the problem.”


She found the part he was talking about. A burned out hole in the side and char marks over the dusty brushed metal of the corkscrewing bridge. A power linkage? Someone had already loosened it and she lifted it free, making note of where she’d gotten it from. Sitting, she leaned back into Kyall, studying the foot long piece of alien technology.


“It has to be able to shove power into the second engine,” she guessed. “Something happened to overload the metal and blew it out.”


“Double cannon strike when we were breaking the Gurot outer lines around Gael space.” Kyall took the piece from her and turned it over. “This crossover is only one piece to the flux system but without it, the system is useless. It pushes the power through as you guessed but there is another of these crossovers on the other end and they create a feedback loop that amplifies the power output.”


“A resonance loop.” She took back the piece and crawled back over the engine to set it back into place. Shimmying out, she settled on the floor again, sorting through what she knew. “You’re talking exponential power increase.”


“You know of such things?”


He looked surprised and she had to smile. “I read science fiction. So far, the idea of resonance feedback is a theory in the minds of creative writers, but that’s where a lot of my world’s best technology has come from.”


“Once a people can imagine it, it is only a matter of time before they build it,” he agreed. He motioned her out and she went, moving down the hall until she could stand upright again. They walked in silence back to the gym room.


“And?” Leiv demanded as soon as they appeared.


“Oh, stow it,” she snapped, turning her attention to Revelin. “I don’t know where you can find something like that but I do know where you’re not going to find it. This junkyard has nothing like it. These are basic internal combustion engines.”


“Then you can’t help us.”


“Leiv.” Revelin cut him off. “Do you have any idea where we might find something even remotely similar to the crossover?”


She crossed her arms. There was no backing down now.


“I do but I want your word of honor that when we find it, you’ll let me go and leave.”


“On my honor?” Anger darkened his face. “You doubt my word?”


“On your honor,” she insisted.


A snarl curled his lips, exposing his sharp canine teeth. “Insult me at your peril, little one.”


“Bite me,” she shot back. Stepping closer, she poked a finger into his chest, ignoring the little voice screaming at her to run away. “I’m not insulting you, Revelin. I’m trusting in your honor, after all. You have honor. I know it. I’ve seen it. I need you to promise me.”


He stared down at her, fierce and intimidating, but the snarl faded, the anger melting away slowly.


“You have my word of honor, Cassie. Find us a new crossover and you will go free.”


For the first time since the whole mess had begun, she felt a sense of peace steal over her. She nodded and stepped back.


“How good are you guys at capturing local signals? If you can’t link me up to some WiFi, one of you will need to steal me a computer.”