Star Fire (2 page)

She was going to die. A scream ripped from her throat. Terror and fear gripped her as she clutched the survival pack to her chest.
Don’t be stupid.
Prising one hand from the death grip she had on her gear, Sasha pulled the rip cord on the chute.

”Hurrah!” she screamed, waiting for the outdated pack to jerk her out of freefall and slow her descent. The snaps crumbled. The straps around her torso unravelled. She watched incredulously as they flew up and away, like ribbons in the wind. The half-deployed parachute spiralled off like a grocery bag in the breeze. She continued to fall straight down. Terror struck again.
Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck!
God, the ground was coming up fast.

Twisting around in mid-air, Sasha dragged the supply and chute combo pack onto her shoulders—at least she had a backup. The wind ripped at her hair, her clothes, threatening to steal the pack as she fumbled with the cinch. She wasn’t military. She had no experience jumping from a ship with a disaster pack, save the mandatory safety seminar that Northern Star required of its captains every four years. She pulled the cord and prayed for the best.

This time the parachute exploded above her. While she watched in awe as the chute unfurled into a silvery cloud over her head, her descent suddenly paused as it filled with air, slowing to a drifting pace. She spared only a brief thought for her ship as it shrank into a speck, leaving the atmosphere. Sasha twisted and tried in vain to direct her descent around a pretty cove of leafless trees surrounding a small body of water.

She could practically weep at the irony of her mother’s e-mail that morning, telling her about the manager opening at the Orion Shipyard back home in the middle of nowhere on Earth. Normally, the idea of watching welders piece together ships she’d never fly held all the appeal of jumping out of her ship onto a primitive planet with less than the minimum of survival gear. Watching the sharp, spear-like branches get closer and closer made that manager job look better and better.

* * * *

People falling from space. It appears to be the prophecy day after all.
Kiev leaned on his spear, curiously watching the figure fall from the spaceship. The distraction took his attention from his regular mid-day task of observing the mountains and valleys for any ecological changes. The underground rumblings plaguing his homeland of late reminded him far too much of the ancient disasters that had destroyed Aros before. He’d been a different man then, a scientist named Dirrel. For him, death did not bring oblivion. It was another step in evolution.

The wind whipped the fabric of the hip-wrap around his thighs. But the fabric was belted tight at his waist and wouldn’t fly away in the mountain winds or impede drawing his sword—which to him was more for show. The taboo technology stored in his belt pouches made him feel far more secure than a balanced, pretty piece of steel used to beat offenders into submission.

For a few seconds, he’d thought the unfortunate alien would be splattered all over Shepherd Valley, but no—the alien had managed to deploy a large section of fabric to slow its descent.

“Kiev! Kiev!” Radan skidded to a halt next to Kiev. Arms flailing, the boy windmilled as his sandals threw gravel every which way. Kiev snatched the shoulder of Radan’s robe. The kid’s wooden play-sword waved under Kiev’s nose. A barely felt mini-quake shook more pebbles from the mountainside for a heart-stopping moment.

“Slow down before you fall off my cliff.” Kiev set his nephew down with a good-natured chuckle to mask the unreasonable paranoia he’d developed for the small disturbances. His imagination supplied images of the ground opening up and swallowing the entire city. No one, not even a single flying squirren, could escape the type of earthquakes that had destroyed Aros so long ago in his first incarnation as Dirrel.

Kiev forced a smile for the boy’s sake, though little gave him reason when the years behind him stretched as endlessly as the years to come. “And breathe. A warrior knows to pace himself. Excitement and fear can destroy your focus if you let it.” The reminder was a good one.

Radan was an orphan because Kiev had let his guard down. His part in the boy’s circumstance was a lesser regret, done and paid for in final blood. In fact, over the long centuries, he had overestimated his ability to save his people many times. But Radan had become his greatest joy in
this
lifetime. A reason to wake up each day.

Kiev liked watching the youngsters at this age—he always had. They were bright and amusing. Radan was no different. He nodded, sucking a lungful of air into his small, bony chest. The boy was a beautiful blend of both of his parents. Radan possessed his mother’s vivid imagination and his father’s sense of adventure. At six, the boy was too young for formal schooling and innocent enough to find everything new and exciting.

The time for new and exciting had passed Kiev by years ago, before his sister’s death and before he had begun to carry Dirrel’s past. Kiev’s heart lurched every time the child escaped his guardians and tutor, so he supposed that was adventure enough. He was old—not in body, but certainly in soul. For a moment, the babble of Dirrel’s aeons of existence threatened to press him down.

“Did you see the alien?” Radan’s high voice pulled him from his memories. The part of him that was Dirrel snorted.
See what?—his
inner sceptic mocked.
The skewered alien that will soon be polluting the squirren’s watering hole? Niiice.

Radan followed the ill-fated alien’s descent with his finger and sure enough, as expected, Kiev gave an inward wince at the sight of the nettle tree’s limbs piercing the body. His nephew turned, excitement lighting his wide, blue eyes. “Will you take me with the search party? Do you think it has three heads or scales?” Radan rushed on, wriggling with excitement as another idea popped into his head. “Maybe it has slimy tentacles and feathers for hair? What do you think, Kiev?”

Easing them both away from the panorama where he’d seen the falling alien, Kiev tried to find the same wonder that was bubbling in his nephew. What joy was there in the death of another? A few times he’d found peace in his own death, but usually there was torment before the final release—a knife in his gut, searing laser fire cauterising his heart, poison seizing his veins. His best death yet had been the grinding teeth of the drago-lizard as it ate him alive. Kiev-Dirrel had had as many nightmares about his last death—the cursed reptile—as the shock of the searing laser fire of his first demise.

Kiev’s alter ego, Dirrel, had been a peace-loving scientist a couple of thousand years ago during the pinnacle of Aros’ age of crystal technology and all of the wonders thereof. Dirrel, or Dirrellen as he’d been known then, had helped develop the consciousness transmogrification process. They’d been so excited to discover how to use the unique crystals electromagnetic properties to capture and store a human’s psyche before death swept away the energy into the universe.

That breakthrough had preserved the intellect of Aros’ brightest and greatest when the tectonic plates had suddenly shifted, causing the greatest redistribution of landmass ever experienced. The event had destroyed their world, throwing Aros into a primitive state.

When the end of the world had killed most of the population, Dirrel’s transmogrification program had yanked back the consciousness of those scanned into the system. On the bright side, their people’s knowledge had been kept safe inside the crystal computer’s databanks. On the downside, the collected consciousnesses were alive and awake. They remembered as well.

“Why don’t we go see what Lala, the wise-woman, has to say.” Kiev’s suggestion sparked a round of giggles from Radan as they made their way down the path to the city. His brief respite from duty was officially at an end. The best things usually came with a finite expiration.

Smiling faces and respectful bows greeted him at the city gate. “Did you see the alien fall from the sky?”

Kiev ignored the undue attention. He was a warrior now, and had been in many previous lives.

“Kiev, come by tonight,” breathed an overly endowed woman. She was vaguely familiar, reminding him of the carousing he’d been fond of before acquiring Dirrel’s reserve. She bit her full, painted bottom lip in invitation, fluttering her lashes, shaded the brilliant hues of a butterfly wing. “I remember what you like.” She remembered what he had
used
to like as simply Kiev. The woman would be surprised what direction his tastes ran to now.

You shouldn’t wait so long between women. Big breasts and probably a willing
— He cut off the thought, shoving Radan through Lala’s shaded courtyard and into her receiving room. None of the wild women had interested him in a long time, not since he’d remembered the difference between love and lust.

The latter left him unsatisfied and wanting more—a no-nonsense woman who’d laughed at danger and secretly teared up at the beauty in a sunset. He could see her in his mind’s eye as if it had been yesterday instead of lifetimes ago.

Warm, feminine laughter soothed the longing in Kiev. As the one who’d prophesied the alien’s coming two summers ago, Lala should have the bulk of the fanfare. A swirling flower and spice-scented dervish descended on Radan, picking the boy up before dancing away again. “And how is my fine grandson today?” Lala pecked a kiss on Radan’s round little-boy cheek and set him down, sending the child off to the kitchen in search of a snack.

Lala turned the force of her lovely smile on Kiev. “And how is my favourite son on this fine day?” He could tell that repressing the need to wrap her affection around him about killed her. His lips twitched at the mental image of her having to bottle up all that motherly love.

“I am your only son, Lala, and the head of your House Guard.” Relieved, but still on edge, he strode to the window. Beyond the walls of the house, people were already gathering for the wise-woman’s word on their skewered visitor from the stars. “The day wasn’t so fine for the alien. It used a sheet to float from the sky and into the nettle tree grove.” Inside, he sneered at the alien’s lack of technology. A species with space-faring technology and the alien had had to leap with what amounted to bed linins to break its fall? Despite his people’s lack of faith in machinery, Kiev made sure to outfit his men with useful gadgets pertinent to protecting the city’s most prominent lady.

Lala delicately touched her lips with the ends of her fingers, no doubt remembering Kiev’s similar death a few years ago. Going over the cliff with his enemy hadn’t been a bad death, in either Kiev’s or Dirrel’s opinion. Kiev had broken the assassin’s neck mid-fall and, personally, he hadn’t felt much after the first impact until his resurrection. The sacrifice had been worth it—the assassin had never had a chance to touch Lala.

Her skin paled. Kiev wished he could spare her the pain of her grief. She swallowed, gathering up the long layers of her scarf-dress. “Then we must hurry to our guest. Fate offers a second chance to only a few.”

“The alien is dead.” Softening his harsh tone, Kiev sighed. Lala took her visions seriously, and so did the people, for good reason. While the scientist in him had balked, he’d still done a study and calculated her at ninety-six per cent accuracy for the wise woman’s visions. The other four per cent could be a margin error for faulty interpretation. “I do not know whether it is even human, much less the woman from the stars that you predicted.
It
might have scales and tentacles instead of arms.” He shook his head, frustrated with his own thoughts. Visions, psychic ability, and conferring with the gods had no real basis in science. He regretted the words instantly—now spoken, they couldn’t be taken back.

He tensed, waiting for the expressions of old friends and family that said he’d revealed too much of what he had become.
The host.
Guardian of the Past.
He was the representative of the technology that had failed their planet long ago. His people both feared and revered him.

Kiev could have laughed. If only they knew the real truth of it.

“I would pray for human, my son.” Lala brushed by him, taking her cloak from the hook by the door. She slanted a long glance over her shoulder. Her soft, sweet smile said that she knew who and what he was. And accepted him. “Because it would be unfortunate for my future grandchildren to have to slither about like garden snakes.”

Chapter Two

Distractions loom ahead. Don’t lose sight of the end goal.

Love on the rocks. The future of a relationship will be endangered if you can’t let go of old hurts.

Sasha regained consciousness slowly. She held herself still against the pain she knew would strike again.

“Are you going to just lie there? Because we do not have eternity.”

Sasha’s eyes flew open at the rich, accented voice and she saw…feet. Translucent feet that belonged to an equally see-through, uniformed woman. Sasha frowned. At least, she thought the high-necked unitard was utilitarian enough to be a uniform.

Easing herself up was surprisingly painless and she cast her gaze beyond her greeter to the ghostly crowd watching her.

She sighed and spoke out loud, testing her abilities.

“Well, damn. I’d kind of hoped I’d live through that.” Standing, Sasha nodded a polite hello at the crowd and brought her hand up to inspect her own ghostliness. Sure enough, her form lacked its usual solidity. “My horoscope was looking up until this mess.”

Too bad she’d bit the big one. That was decidedly unlucky. Maybe she could haunt that ass, Hobbs, for tossing her off her own ship. Though technically she’d jumped, Sasha was sure turning traitor was a big, black mark on Hobbs’s karma. She certainly wasn’t counting her death as a suicide.

“Ahem,” the ghost in the unitard said.

“Aren’t they supposed to bring us the brightest and bravest?” sniped one of the ghost women. “She doesn’t look very smart.”

Sasha frowned. Great, she was stuck in alien heaven—she supposed it could be hell—with a bunch of biddies.

Unitard Woman crossed her arms over her chest and shot a silencing glare at the heckler. Even in death, Unitard’s titties were stupendous. Sasha noted that her own miserly assets would apparently follow her to death and beyond. The woman even had amazing hair, dark and straight. Sasha bet the locks were silky smooth without one frizzy end. A bit uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were leading, she scanned over the crowd of onlookers. Not one of them had the same intensity or beauty as the woman before her.