These Broken Stars

ELEVEN

TARVER

I TAKE CARE TO KEEP MY PACE SLOW as I start walking, breaking off branches and scuffing up the leaf litter so even a society girl should be able to tell which way I went. Important not to go too fast, otherwise she’ll never catch up to me. Part of me wants to sit down on a log to wait, maybe write something in my notebook, have a snack. Wait to enjoy the look on her face when she turns around and comes back with her tail between her legs.

This little insurrection has been coming, and though I’d rather she tried it on the plains, where I could keep an eye on her, waiting until we were out of the woods was definitely too much to ask.

The arrogance, the sheer—what is she, sixteen? Amazing that she’s had time to get through all that military survival training.

I’ve been walking ten minutes or so when I hear her. Not right behind me, where I’m expecting her to be by now. She must have stayed in the clearing, or even walked away from me, because she’s something like half a klick back.

She’s screaming.

I’m sprinting before I know I’m moving, grab bag banging against my back, Gleidel hauled out of my holster and fitting into my hand without any conscious decision to draw it. You develop instincts. Like my drill sergeant used to say: Learn fast, or don’t.

Branches whip my face and tear at my clothes as I crash through the undergrowth, churning up mud along the edge of the creek as I choose speed over caution.

I burst into the clearing without any pretense of stealth.

I see it immediately—a giant creature, some kind of wild cat, solid muscle beneath tawny fur, teeth bared in a snarl. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life—not on any planet. Long canines, dark, intelligent eyes. This thing outweighs me easily, and one bite will do for Lilac.

It’s got its front paws up against the trunk of a tree, growling low in its throat as it rakes them down the bark, leaving a row of parallel gashes. Lilac’s up the tree, screaming, though how she got up there I don’t know. I lift the Gleidel and brace it with both hands. Closing one eye, I draw a breath, wait until I steady. The shriek of the laser mixes with the frustrated yowls of the beast as the gun leaps and quivers in my hands.

The creature hits the ground with a crash, twitching and snarling as it kicks up the leaves and sends up clouds of dry dirt. It thrashes around for the count of ten and then lies still, the clearing filling with the horrible smell of burned hair and flesh. Up in the tree, Lilac’s screams descend into a series of ragged gasps. I stand and watch the cat for the count of thirty after it stops moving.

Keeping the Gleidel in one hand, I walk slowly across the clearing to where the creature lies still. There’s a moan of relief from the tree, and I realize she hasn’t been able to see me until now. I can’t focus on her yet.

“Stay up there,” I call. “It’s dead if it keeps its brain where it’s supposed to. Did it touch you?”

There’s no reply, but she hasn’t fallen out of the tree yet, so I can only suppose she’s unharmed.

I loose an extra bolt into the creature’s head for safety’s sake, the Gleidel shrieking again. I take my time over it, nudging it carefully with the toe of my boot, waiting for a response, and eventually stepping in for a closer inspection. The eyes are glassy; its side doesn’t rise or fall. Dead.

What kind of a terraformed planet is this, with a thing like that running around? There’s no reason to introduce a higher-order predator into a place like this; the felines should be a quarter this size or less. Their part in the ecosystem should be attacking small rodents, not chasing socialites up trees. This one has the same stripes around its face as the kind I’m used to, but it’s a man-eater.

So how did this thing get here? I study it for a few moments longer, then give up—it’s dead, and that’s what matters. When I look up, Lilac’s white as a sheet, clinging to the lowest branch. She stares down at me, blue eyes wide, shining. She’s not even crying, which tells me how bad the fright has been.

No kidding, Miss LaRoux, I’m pretty shaken up myself. As I stare up at her, a rush of relief overtakes me, my hand trembling where it holds the gun.

I fight the urge to drag her down from the tree. I could shake her. I could kiss her. I can’t let myself do either. I can’t believe I was so moronic as to let her go off alone after I’d seen those paw prints. I have to be smart, handle this next part carefully. I swallow, clearing my throat to make my voice even.

“That was some climb. Do you need a hand down from there?”

She ignores my offer, which reassures me more than anything else that she’s suffered no permanent damage. I’d be more concerned if she let me help her. She more falls down than climbs down, sliding sideways, dangling for a few seconds, then letting go so she can hit the ground with a thump. She crumples to sit on the dirt, then scrabbles backward away from the dead creature.

I know this moment too well, I’ve seen it in the field. Hell, I’ve been there myself. I could rub it in that I was right, and she was wrong—that I saved her life, that she needs me to survive. But there’s no point. She knows it. I’m not going to force her to come crawling back. I’m the one with field experience. I should have stopped this from happening.

“Let’s go,” I say, listening to her ragged breathing. “We can cover a little more ground before we have to make camp.”

A part of me wants to reach down and take her hands, and hold them until she feels safe. But I can’t. If I do, she’ll start crying, and she won’t stop. I need her to stay tough. It’s the best thing I can do for her. So I speak again. “Are you ready?”

She nods, climbing to her feet, not even bothering to dust off her hands. I’m aching, and I hate this, but damned if I’m not getting this girl to the crash site. She can hate me for the rest of her life once we’re rescued—at least she’ll be alive to hate me.

We leave the big cat behind and slowly backtrack to gather up her abandoned supplies. From her path, she would’ve caught up with me if she’d kept running. The beast was chasing her toward me—if it had chased her the other way, I might not have reached her in time.

I hope Lilac doesn’t realize this. That it was only a coincidence that saved her life. She’s already jumping at shadows as we walk—now and then she looks over her shoulder as though she’s hearing things, seeing things. It doesn’t seem to comfort her that there’s nothing there. I hope she’s not thinking about what other impossible creatures could be out there, just beyond the trees.

And I really hope that thing doesn’t have a mate.

When we make camp by a creek, I estimate we’ve spent the better part of the day walking and taking breaks, and we’ve made it maybe ten klicks. So if we’re lucky, we’re halfway to the edge of the trees. After we make it to the plains, we’ll have to cross them and get over the mountain range somehow before we reach the Icarus.

Lilac is lying on the blanket I spread for her, arms out to each side, staring up at the slowly darkening sky through a gap in the canopy. I wonder what she makes of the sky. I’ve never seen these stars, and I’ve memorized the charts for all the colonies. That’s my only hope—that the rescue might be taking a little longer because the Icarus wasn’t where she was supposed to be when she crashed.

I shake my head, trying to get rid of the creeping sensation of wrongness. Rescue will still come. This place is terraformed, however distorted it seems. The people must be somewhere, and they can’t have missed the destruction of a ship like the Icarus.

Lilac’s been silent since the incident with the cat beast, and against all logic I find myself missing the sound of her voice, even when it’s insulting me. At least being annoyed at her is invigorating—this new quiet hopelessness is infectious.

“Not exactly the five-star accommodations you’re used to,” I call, in the cheerful voice that infuriates her so. She doesn’t move—nothing. I retrieve the canteen, set aside earlier to filter water collected from the creek. “I’ll give you a comment card when this is all over so you can complain to someone.”

She stirs, propping herself up on her elbows. She glares wearily at me for a long moment. “I do hope you’re assembling two beds, Major.” Her voice is tired, but there’s still a hint of that edge in it.

Fighting the brief and insane impulse to smile, I duck my head and start dividing the leaf litter I’m gathering into two piles. Too quickly, she lapses back into silence and stillness. And without her there to aggravate me, my mind wanders to places it shouldn’t go.

I can’t let myself think of home for too long. I can’t let myself imagine my mother hearing about the Icarus, the way my father will try to find something to say.

I remember how the air was thick with grief after they told us about Alec, how the three of us made it from one day to the next without ever exchanging more than a handful of words. My mother didn’t write a poem for months, and my father stared uncomprehendingly at the piles of food the neighbors dropped around. I skipped school and went out every day to risk my neck climbing forbidden cliffs, forcing my way through overgrown forest until I was lost and exhausted. Though never quite exhausted enough to sleep at night.

Slowly we learned how to talk about him—sometimes—with something other than sadness. Mom picked up her pen, and even though her poetry was irrevocably changed, she was writing again. Dad went back to his classroom, and I went back to mine.

I waited impatiently for my sixteenth birthday, so I could enlist, as though somehow by getting into uniform and doing what my big brother couldn’t, surviving the trenches, I could bring him back.

I still don’t know if he believed in what he was doing—if he felt like he was making a difference, controlling rebellions in a new colony every few months. I don’t know if he thought the rebels had a point—occasionally I do—or if he just liked the rush, or wanted to see new places. I was too young to think to ask those things when he went, and once he was on assignment, we just wrote back and forth about trivial, everyday things. You don’t mention death when it’s hovering near someone you love. You don’t want to attract the reaper’s attention.

My parents and I fought when I told them what I wanted to do, and though we negotiated a kind of peace around my decision, I know they still wait for my message every week, for the words that will tell them I’m still alive.

I have to get home.

I can’t listen to the part of my mind that points out I might not make it back.

I can’t let this happen to them again.

“At that stage had you reached the plains?”

“No, we camped in the woods that night. We didn’t make much progress those first few days. Can I get something to eat?”

“In good time, Major. How was Miss LaRoux’s emotional state?”

“Still stable.”