Starsight

Those guns would grind me up like rat meat if I stayed exposed. I scrambled for cover, finding it just inside the doorway of an empty storefront nearby. Sweating, my heart racing like the snare beats of a marching tune, I raised my rifle and sighted on the military ship. Had it seen me?

It hovered in my direction, and let loose a barrage of shots that broke windows and ripped off chunks of the storefront. Yeah, it had seen me. Scud. If I let it pin me down in here, I’d be captured for certain. I let off a few shots from my rifle, but it was far too low-powered to be of use against a shielded enemy ship. I might as well have been tossing pebbles at—

Unexpectedly, a small rocket launched from the ground near my position and soared into the air, zipping toward the military ship. The rocket barely missed, but collided with a civilian transport flying behind. The transport went up in a flash of brilliant light, and I shielded my eyes to see the military ship backing off.

As it retreated, a second rocket that was launched from the same position hit the military ship, knocking out its shield and apparently doing some secondary damage—because the ship, now smoking, dipped down behind some buildings for an emergency landing.

What in the stars? I peeked out from my covered position—which was now littered with rubble—to find a familiar figure striding down the street, an anti-air rocket launcher on her shoulder. Brade, wearing a black flight suit with no helmet.

“I told him you’d get out,” she said with a nonchalant tone as she walked toward me. “Winzik is a brilliant tactician, but there are some things he just doesn’t understand.”

I raised my rifle, huddling down next to a piece of rubble and sighting on Brade. My ears were ringing from the rockets she’d launched. She fired on her own forces. For me?

“I have a deal for you,” she said, halting now that I had her in my sights. She set the rocket launcher down, its butt grinding rubble, and leaned against it. “For all of you on that prison planet.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“We need soldiers,” Brade said. She nodded to the side, sweeping her arm toward Starsight. “To help us rule.”

In the near distance, I saw other black military ships moving through the air. Not toward me specifically. More like they were flying to be seen. Ominously patrolling the skies. An indication that there was a new power ruling Starsight.

“Winzik is seizing control of the Superiority,” I called to her, sights still on her.

“He’s taking the opportunity offered him,” she said. “He spent years running that space station outside your planet, you know. Years in his youth, coming to realize something nobody else in the Superiority did: the value of a little violence.”

I glanced over my shoulder. How long did I have until those soldiers from the hospital caught up to me? Was Brade simply stalling?

I rose, still holding the gun on her, and began to move around her. I had to get to the building where they were holding M-Bot.

“You can lower the gun,” Brade said. “I’m unarmed.”

I kept the sights on her.

“Did you hear my offer?” Brade asked. “Soldiers. You, those humans on Detritus. You can fight. I can persuade Winzik to let you join us. How would it feel to bring down the Superiority?”

“By serving the one who kept us imprisoned?”

Brade shrugged. “It’s war. Allegiances change. We two are examples of that.”

“My allegiances have never changed,” I said. “I serve my people. Our people, Brade.”

She made a Krell sign of indifference. “Our people? What are they to me? You seem so hung up on the idea that I should owe those humans on Detritus something, just because we share a distant heritage. My opportunities are here.” She stepped toward me. “Winzik wants you dead. He rightly sees you as a threat. Your only hope is to come with me, and let me persuade him you can still be of use.”

She stepped closer, and so I shot the ground at her feet. She stopped short, and I could see—from the way she looked up at me, anxiously—that she believed I would kill her. I wasn’t so certain, but she thought I was a monster. She thought that she was a monster.

Or . . . maybe not. As she eyed me, I read something else into the words she’d said. Help us rule . . . My opportunities are here.

I’d always seen her as brainwashed. Was that maybe not giving her enough credit? Gran-Gran’s stories were full of people like her—soldiers with ambition, who yearned to rule. The younger me might have applauded what she was doing here in helping Winzik seize power.

I wasn’t that person any longer. I backed away from Brade and then, spotting soldiers chasing down the street toward me from the hospital, finally turned and ran.

“You won’t make it off the station!” Brade shouted after me. “This is the best deal you’ll get!”