Bringing Stella Home (50 page)

James keyed the panel again, but to no
avail. The door was locked.

“
Hurry!” whispered
Danica.

James reached frantically for the
panel to hit it one more time, but before he could press the
button, the door hissed sharply and opened of its own
accord.

There before him stood his
sister.

Chapter 26

Sholpan blinked and stared in
disbelief.

“
James?”

A grin spread across the short Hameji
soldier’s face—a grin that was all too familiar.

“
Stella?”

“
J-James? Oh my
God!”

A cold tremor passed through her body.
A wave of dizziness came over her, and she leaned on the wall for
support.

“
Hurry!” hissed the soldier
behind him. Before Sholpan could say or do anything, the two of
them rushed into the room. Once the door was shut, Jame’s companion
shut the door and took off her helmet, revealing a head of
shoulder-length hair. She was a woman, about thirty years old—not a
Hameji soldier at all.

“
Is there a lock?” she
asked.

“
Y-yes,” said Sholpan,
still in a daze.

The woman gestured with her gun. “Then
come here and lock it.”

“
Who are you?” Sholpan
asked. She glanced from her brother to the woman and back again.
“James? Why—”

“
We don’t have much time,”
said the woman, pointing the gun at her. “Lock the door or the
guards will kill us all.”

Sholpan’s hands shook and her legs
felt numb, but she did as the woman told her.

“
Stella!” said James. He
took off his helmet and rushed up to embrace her.

“
What are you doing here?”
she asked, returning his embrace with more confusion than
enthusiasm.

“
To rescue you, of
course!”

“
What?” Her heart skipped a
beat.

“
That’s right. We’re going
to get you out!”

Her head spun. “Hold on,” she said,
groping for a chair. “I need to sit down.”

James took her by the arm and helped
her down. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “The
others—”

“
Oh, shit,” said the
woman.

James glanced up sharply. “What is
it?”

“
Sikorsky and
Ayvazyan—they’re dead.”

James’s face went white. “Are you
sure?”

“
I’m sure.” The woman
pounded her fist against the wall and swore again.

Dead? Who?

“
I’m sorry,” said Sholpan,
“but could you please tell me who you are and what’s going
on?”

“
This is Danica,” said
James. “Anya and Ilya were back with the ship, but now—”

At that moment, the door chimed.
Everyone froze.

“
Can they hear us?” Danica
asked in a hushed voice.

“
No,” said Sholpan. “Not if
we speak softly.”

“
Do they know you’re
here?”

“
I—I don’t
know.”

“
Should we
answer?”

The door chimed again. Sholpan rose to
her feet and walked to the access panel, motioning for the others
to stay still.

“
Hello?” she said in Hameji
creole, keying the intercom.

“
Lady Sholpan,” came the
voice of the guard outside. “We have a serious security breach.
Voche is dead, and the assassins are loose on this level. We must
escort you to a safe location.”

“
No,” she said. “Don’t come
in—I’m, uh, not dressed.”

“
Can you hurry, milady?
You’re in danger!”

“
I’m in the middle of a
shower,” she continued. “No one has come in here, and the doors are
locked. Can’t you just post a guard?”

For several moments, no answer came.
Then, with a short crackle, the intercom came back to
life.

“
As you wish, milady. But
do not, under any circumstances, leave your room.”

“
Of course. Thank
you.”

She leaned heavily against the wall to
catch her breath. “What’s going on?” James whispered.

“
They’re guarding the
door,” Sholpan answered, keeping her voice low. “They won’t come
in, but we’ll need to find another way out.”

“
Perfect,” said Danica,
putting on her helmet. “Where can we find a way off this
station?”

“
Wait,” said Sholpan. “I’m
still confused. How did you get here?”

“
We captured a Hameji
transport,” James said. “It’s docked in the military wing, but I
don’t think we can get to it anymore.”

Sholpan stared at her
brother in disbelief. “You did
what?
”

“
We don’t have much time,”
said Danica, cutting them off. “The Hameji are going to cut all
outbound traffic any minute, if they haven’t already. What’s the
fastest way to the docks?”

Sholpan barely heard her. “You came
all this way just to rescue me?”

“
Yes,” said James. “You and
Ben.”

“
Ben?” said Stella, her
eyes lighting up. “Where is he? Is he here?”

“
No. He…didn’t make
it.”

Something tightened in her gut.
“Didn’t make it?”

“
He died,” said James. “The
Hameji killed him.”

Sholpan felt dizzy. She had to sit
down again.

“
But don’t worry—we’re
going to get you out of here.”

“
Yes,” Danica hissed.
“Let’s go!”

Sholpan could barely
process what was happening to her. It was as if a time machine had
miraculously brought her brother into her life again—a life she had
just begun to accept.
I could go home
right now,
she realized.
I could leave ‘Sholpan’ behind and just be
‘Stella’ again.

Her heart began to race. When she
looked up, everything was somehow more vibrant, more present and
clear. She felt as if she were waking up from a bad dream—from the
nightmare of her life these past few months.

“
I know how we can get
off,” she said. “I’ve got some contacts who could help
us.”

James’s face instantly lit up.
“Really? How?”

“
Lars. He’s here with a
delegation from the Colony. They could smuggle us out.”

“
Is there another way out
of this room?” Danica asked calmly.

“
Yes. There’s a door behind
the bathroom that connects to the main suite. We can—”

She stopped
abruptly.
There’s a reason you’ve been put
here, in this place at this time.
As Lars’s
words came to her, the floor seemed to fall out from under
her.

She realized, in that moment, that she
had to stay.

“
I can help you both
escape,” she said quietly, “but I can’t go with you.”

James froze where he stood. “What do
you mean?”

Sholpan swallowed. Her legs turned to
water.

“
I can’t come with you. I’m
needed here.”

“
The hell you are,” said
Danica, grabbing her roughly by the arm and lifting her to her
feet. “We’re going—now.”

Before Sholpan could
protest, Danica pressed the pistol into her side and force-marched
her towards the door.
Stars of
Earth,
she thought to herself.
The woman’s gone mad.
She
glanced over her shoulder at James, pleading with her eyes for him
to do something, but he only followed.

* * * * *

Danica walked down the corridor,
briskly marching James’s sister along at gunpoint. Fortunately, the
girl was smart enough to not make a scene.

“
Take us to your contact,”
Danica whispered. “Have him meet us somewhere
inconspicuous.”

She led them through a relatively
narrow hallway that curved to the left, making it impossible to see
more than a couple dozen yards in either direction. With Danica
still gripping her arm, the girl pulled out her wrist console and
started typing with her index finger.

“
I’ve told Lars to meet us
in the garden,” she said. “There shouldn’t be too many guards
there—they’ve probably already checked it.”

“
Good,” said Danica.
“Anything else?”

“
Yes. The station is on
lockdown, but that won’t last too long. Lars should be able to hide
you until he can get out.”

“
You mean us.”

“
I’m sorry,” said the girl,
“but I can’t go with you.”

Danica jabbed the gun a little deeper
into her side, making her wince. “I didn’t sacrifice half of my
crew and two of my finest officers to leave this hell-hole
empty-handed. You’re coming with us, sister, whether you like it or
not.”

“
Would you really shoot
me?”

Ask me again, and I just
might.

“
Don’t push your
luck.”

James opened his mouth to protest, but
one sharp glance silenced him.

In less than a minute, they passed out
of the white-tiled hallway and into the garden. Giant vines and
creepers stretched out above them, spreading their monstrous leaves
and muffling the sounds in the distance. Through the enormous glass
windows beyond the foliage, the planet shone red and orange,
casting its perverse, angry light on the alien scene.

“
Lars will be here in ten
minutes,” said the girl, leading them into a secluded spot off the
main path. “But please understand, I can’t come with
you.”

“
Tough luck. You’re
coming.”

“
No, I really can’t. I have
a tracking device implanted in my foot—once they realize that I’m
missing, the guards will hunt us down and find us.”

Danica glanced down at the girl’s
ankle. “A tracking device, eh? We’ll see what we can do about
that.” From her belt, she pulled out her shock prod.

“
No,” said the girl, taking
a step back. “You can’t disable it—if you do, it will set off an
alarm. The guards will come down on us at once!”

“
We’ve gotta be able to do
something,” said James. “It’s just a microchip.”

“
Yeah,” said Danica,
replacing the shock prod and pulling out her knife. “We can
amputate the foot.”

Instantly, James was between them.
“No!” he said, eyes wide and fists clenched. “We can’t do
that!”

“
You got any other
ideas?”

“
Please listen to me,” said
the girl, pleading with her. “That’s not the only reason. If I
leave, all of our friends back home are going to die.”

Danica narrowed her eyes. “What are
you talking about?”

“
My people—our people—are
starving, and I’m the only one who can save them.”

“
How?”

“
By convincing Qasar to
give them food and aid. I’m his wife now—he listens to
me.”

James’s face went white. Danica folded
her arms and looked the girl in the eye.

“
I’m sorry about your men,”
she said, “I truly am. But please—if you want their sacrifice to
mean something, save my brother, and let me stay.”

The expression on her face was
surprisingly serene. Here was someone who had seen death and war,
and survived the dark emptiness that came from it. She wasn’t the
child she appeared—more like an old, wise woman in a young girl’s
body.

Dammit,
Danica thought angrily to herself, sheathing her
knife.
She’s right.

* * * * *

James slowly shook his
head.

“
No.”

“
I’m sorry,” said Stella,
her voice wavering. “Please try to understand. I love you, James,
but I have to do this.”

“
No!” he cried, grabbing
her by the shoulders as tears came to his eyes. “What are you
talking about? Come with us!”

“
No, James. I
can’t.”

James collapsed to his knees, weeping
at his sister’s feet. Stella lovingly put a hand on his shoulder,
but her touch did little to comfort him. Tears of pain poured out
of his eyes until the world spun around him in a blur. Nothing felt
real to him anymore—his world was falling apart, and he was
powerless to stop it.

“
Lars is coming,” said
Stella. “When he gets here, I’ll have to say goodbye.”

“
No,” said James, his voice
hoarse and drained. “Please, Stella, just come with us.”

“
I can’t. If I leave, there
won’t be anyone to save our home.”

“
But why you?” he pleaded.
“Someone else can do it.”

“
No, James. I’m Qasar’s
wife—no one else can do it but me.”

“
Qasar’s wife,” he said
contemptuously, rising to his feet. “More like his slave. Do you
love him?”

“
That’s not important,” she
said, her face deathly somber.