The Stars Like Gods Read online

  She emerged from the bathroom wearing a white silk robe that barely grazed her shoulders and teased the top of her knees.

  Already she took his breath away. He smiled and handed her one of the glasses.

  She accepted it, but her attention drifted toward the door behind him and the living room beyond. “Don’t we need to—”

  “No. Whatever it is, I guarantee someone is taking care of it. Tomorrow, you are going to split yourself into thousands of shards and sacrifice them all for our people, but tonight is ours.”

  He watched as a fraction of the tension holding her muscles taut relaxed. “Okay.” She took a sip of the wine, then quickly another. “This tastes wonderful.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” He didn’t elaborate; tonight, she didn’t need to be reminded of all she’d lost. He set his glass on the dresser and stepped closer, bringing his left hand to her jaw. “There are some things I want to say, and now feels like a good time to say them.”

  His fingertips trailed down her neck to her collarbone and drifted to the hollow at the base of her throat. “I’ve come to realize all over again something that in my grief these last five years I had forgotten. You have the soul of an immortal. But the astonishing thing is, you also have the soul of an innocent. One forever teeming with wonder and dreams and determination. To be near it, to bask in its reflected glow…you make everything brighter. You make me better.”

  He sidled around behind her, his hand teasing the hem of her robe at her thighs while his lips grazed the slope of her shoulders. “We will all follow you into the future you’re creating, but I will follow you anywhere.” His fingers found the tie of the robe and casually tugged it loose, then drew along the fabric where it hugged the curve of her breast.

  Her back pressed into his bare chest as she trembled beneath his touch, and he struggled to slow his progress, forcing himself to enjoy every centimeter of his fingertips’ journey. When they finally reached her shoulder, he leaned in and kissed the crook of her neck as he slid the robe off and let it fall to the floor.

  She took a hurried sip of her wine then leaned away from him to set the glass on the dresser—then she spun around to face him. Her mouth met his, light as a passing breeze. “Don’t follow me anywhere. Walk there beside me.” She flattened her palms against his chest and drew them down to his waist. Her lips followed, trailing kisses all the way down, creating cool oases upon his suddenly feverish skin. “The world was cold and lonely without you in it. For the last five years, I believed the chasm in my soul was caused by my missing memories, but I was wrong.” Her knees reached the floor, and she smiled as she slowly unfastened his pants. “It was caused by the missing you.”

  A thousand dizzying sensations overwhelmed him. Her murmuring, lilting voice layered in seduction, the deliberate, insistent touch of her hands on his skin. Did she comprehend what her touch did to him? He should tell her.

  But the words lodged in his throat, and he only managed a, “You don’t know…” before they dissolved into a moan as her tongue ran down the length of his cock.

  “I have loved you in life after life after life.” Another kiss. Another sweep of her tongue. “I will never not love you.”

  “Nika….” His hand fisted in her hair as the walls swam and blurred away.

  “You said tonight is ours, but tonight is yours.” Her nails dug into the small of his back and scraped down his ass. “And if this is our last night together, I don’t want you to see tomorrow’s dawn entertaining any doubts or misconceptions about how much I love you.”

  His heart swelled until it battled with his body over which should be the first to send him tumbling into oblivion. “Stars, would you come here?”

  She swirled her tongue around him again, and he doubted he retained the strength to ask her a second time. But she returned her palms to his chest as she climbed to her feet, preventing him from wrapping her up and retaking control. They urged him back two steps, until the back of his knees hit the bed. She grinned and, with a playful fingertip, knocked him onto the covers.

  He watched, transfixed, as she crawled onto the covers after him. One knee, then the other. Aeons ticked by. He forced himself to breathe.

  She sank lower and kissed the skin where his right hip met his thigh. “No doubts.” Her lips skimmed across his abdomen. “No misconceptions.”

  “I don’t—I—gods, Nika. I’m supposed to be doing this to you. That was the…plan.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Her lips carved a path of blissful agony up his chest. “I gathered. But I’ve let you worship me for too long, because I needed it. I needed to be shown what we were, what we could be again. I needed to learn how to believe in us. But now I do more than believe. Now I know.”

  Her hair fell across his jaw as she at last reached his mouth, and his hands fumbled along the dip at her waist to settle into the arch of her spine, so she would not escape his grasp.

  She hovered above him, bathed in a halo of moonlight and stardust as she straddled his hips and, centimeter by glorious centimeter, slid down over him. “We are forever.”

  47

  * * *

  SYNRA

  Dashiel watched an army of dynes guide an endless procession of stasis chambers into the cavernous belly of the Tabiji. From up here in the spaceport’s observation room he couldn’t see their contents, but his mind refused to let him forget what they were.

  Nika’s psyche backup had been recorded first thing this morning, then loaded eight thousand times over before the stasis chambers were brought here. If any one of the forms inside the chambers were to be woken up, they would be her.

  This was the way of his people; they’d all been the one to be awoken and had all watched as friends were in turn awoken. But spun out to its logical extreme, even if out of necessity, it felt wrong. It devalued her uniqueness and trivialized the battles she’d fought simply to continue to exist.

  Or possibly he was being a possessive prick. Wake them all up, and everyone could have their very own Nika…and he wanted to be the only one. Of course, no one truly had her, and he just happened to be the lucky man with whom she chose to share her lives.

  He probably ought to find something more useful to do with his waning time than stoking this self-flagellation routine.

  Still he watched, unable to tear his gaze away.

  The door behind him opened, and a moment later Lance Palmer appeared beside him. The man considered the procession of stasis chambers. “I stand by my initial assessment. This plan is insane.”

  “Insane enough to work?”

  Palmer shrugged. “Hells if I can say. Is Nika here?”

  “The real one, you mean?”

  “Come on, Ridani—you know that’s not how it works. The awake one.”

  Dashiel shook his head. “She won’t admit it, but I suspect seeing this firsthand would be too much, even for her.”

  “I can’t disagree. It’s disturbing as fuck. Though, I confess the idea of every soldier being your best soldier is enticing. It would’ve come in handy…once upon a time.”

  “What was she like? Back during the SAI Rebellion?”

  Palmer shot him an inscrutable look.

  “Yes, I know how old you are. It’s a simple question.”

  “I guess all the rules fly out the window when you’re staring down the apocalypse. Also, it’s not a simple question at all. In many respects she was shockingly similar to how she is now. Righteously outraged, determined to the point of zealotry, fiercely protective of her people. She could coax the skin off a snake, especially if the snake was the enemy. And in the end she was, like all of us, heartbroken when we failed. Well, most people were heartbroken. I was offended.”

  Dashiel chuckled, though it echoed dark and laden in his chest. “Been waiting to fight another war ever since?”

  “Yes. I’ll see you on the Dauntless in an hour.”

  MIRAI ONE PAVILION

  Adlai checked the bank of panes along the far wall every few minutes,
despite the fact that he understood only a fraction of the data they relayed and had even less to contribute to their review. Updates from the Dauntless and the Asterion and Taiyok fleets as they approached the Rasu stronghold, he thought, and visuals from a couple of surveillance drones Palmer had left behind during his reconnaissance visit.

  No…war, space, and most of all war in space fell well outside his purview.

  He rubbed at his eyes and studied the panes again. He felt helpless. Not because he couldn’t do anything to help the mission succeed, but because he wasn’t convinced he could do anything to help should it fail.

  How did one prepare an entire species for its end? They had no contingency plan, no refuge to flee for. Given a bit more time, they might have developed one, but the Guides’ doomed adherence to absolute secrecy had robbed them of that time.

  Justice squads stood prepped and ready to maintain order, should the worst come to pass. Their instructions were to respond with the minimum required force, since any violence on the part of the people wouldn’t be driven by anger or malice but by fear. By desperation. And he wouldn’t blame them one bit.

  The Justice Advisors were still arguing over whether to shut down the interplanetary d-gates if the mission failed. Harris argued doing so was an essential tool of crowd control guaranteed to make their jobs considerably easier (if nonetheless still impossible). Harris wasn’t wrong, but given the lack of a refuge to flee for, the primary reason for people to transit planets would surely be to reach their loved ones, and how dare he or anyone else deny them this one mercy?

  Spencer came through the door and headed toward him, and Adlai tried not to look too dour. “What’s up?”

  Spencer gestured back toward the entrance. “Someone scrawled ‘War Room’ on a broken screen and taped it outside the door.”

  “Eh, that sounds appropriate.” He motioned at the cadre of people working to analyze and distribute the constantly updating data from the bank of panes. “Not that these people aren’t doing an excellent job. I assume they are. But I doubt anyone begrudges us appending ‘ragtag’ to this entire effort.”

  “You think we’re going to fail.”

  “I think…” Adlai sank back in his chair to stare at the ceiling “…if there is any way in creation for us to succeed, we will. I’m just not liking those odds. Regardless, we’ll know one way or another in a few hours.” He returned his attention to his colleague and, now that he was no longer the man’s boss, friend. “You have a twitchy air about you. What’s on your mind?”

  “The former Guides have requested access to the @OpFlare nex hub. View rights only. It seems they want to watch the show.”

  He started to retort something about watching their future go down in the flaming wreckage of ships and bombs, but he stopped himself. What would happen would happen, and he wasn’t doing himself or anyone else any favors by being a mopey, defeatist grump. People he cared for had given everything of themselves to bring this mission together, and perhaps he should have a little faith in them.

  “I think it’s a grand idea for them to see their former subjects demonstrating what true leadership looks like and what Asterions are capable of accomplishing when set free of artificial strictures.”

  “I can mark you down as a ‘yes,’ then?”

  “Sure, why not. But, seriously, view rights only. Keep them out of the comm channels, for all of the reasons.”

  “No question.” Spencer glanced around the room—the ‘War Room,’ for good or ill. “How long until the fleets arrive?”

  Adlai gestured toward a timer in one corner of the room counting down inexorably toward zero.

  1:26

  “That’s for the Tabiji. The fleets are fifteen minutes behind it, and they’ll deploy in a holding pattern two parsecs outside the stellar system when they arrive.”

  Spencer nodded absently and stood. “I need to check on some worst-case scenario preparations on Synra, then I think I’ll come back here. Watch the show myself.”

  “I think you won’t be alone.”

  Spencer had barely cleared the door when Perrin came through it, her arms laden with water bottles, energy drinks and snack bags. A smile crept onto Adlai’s face despite his somber mood, as it did every single time he saw her. Today, her hair was platinum blond and woven into a curtain of braids, and she wore a carnation-hued sweater over shimmery ivory pants.

  The message could not be clearer: she would be a bright light for them all, no matter how dark the room, the mood and the future became.

  She dumped everything on the table beside him, leaned in and kissed his forehead, then nudged a couple of items his way. “Lemon water and sliced fruit, as requested.”

  “Did I request those?”

  “You were going to, or possibly silently brood on how you wished you had some lemon water and sliced fruit, but you couldn’t afford to leave the War Room to go get them.”

  Did she ever have his number. “Probably so. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She gathered back up two energy drinks and a bag of chips, then peered past him. “Where is she?”

  He tilted his head toward the far-right corner of the room, where a shoji screen had been erected to cordon off some space and provide a small measure of privacy.

  “Got it. Ping me if you need me.”

  “Perrin?”

  “Hmm?” She half-turned back to him.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Her smile lit up the entire damn War Room. “So am I.”

  “We’re going to put you into a kind of ‘twilight sleep.’ You’ll act as the hub of your own ceraff with your copies at the stronghold once the others are awakened, but you’ll be somewhat detached from their actions. There’s a risk that your body will react autonomously to the feedback it’s receiving from the copies, hence the semi-sleep state. The experience should feel somewhere between a dream and a simex. You’ll be aware of your existence here and, we hope, be able to communicate information about events occurring at the stronghold if you need to.”

  The med tech winced. “But none of us have ever tried this before. We’re all stumbling our way through it.”

  “Tell me about it.” Nika stretched out on the cot, which had been dressed up into the guise of a relaxing chaise. It was comfortable…but she was not.

  Dashiel and Lance were long gone. By now they’d already met up with the Taiyok fleet and were moving into position near the Rasu stellar system. Gemina should be piloting the Tabiji into the stronghold shortly to relinquish their 8,000 trojan horses into the hands of the enemy. On the other side of the shoji screen, a litany of Advisors and their officers stood ready to direct events, intervene where possible or merely to bear witness.

  In minutes, their plan would reach the point of no return; in a few short hours, she would play her role in it. Here, sedated in a corner of the War Room, and kiloparsecs away, in the heart of the enemy’s lair.

  Perrin appeared through the gap between the screen and the back wall carrying snacks and energy drinks. “I’m here! You’re not asleep yet, are you?”

  Nika sat back up and crossed her legs beneath her. “Almost. But I have time for chips, if you brought chips?”

  “Please. I made a point to bring the crinkly ones you prefer.” Perrin sat a couple of energy drinks in an empty chair and held up a little bag of said chips.

  The med tech scowled but didn’t voice a protest as Perrin brought it over and she and Nika dug in.

  When the bag was empty, Perrin eyed her hesitantly. “I don’t really know what to say. You’re crazy and wonderful and I’m so glad you’re my friend. Are you ready to virtually go kick these horrible aliens’ asses?”

  Nika laughed, but even as she did, her mind drifted to one of her precious recovered memories and the sentiment she’d given voice to at the founding of Mirai, so long ago.

  Now, being an Asterion means this. Us. Organic and synthetic fused together as one. Physical, but never-ending, for so long as on
e wishes. Then, to begin again. To learn, experience and grow, within oneself and through the world around us.

  Well, that was one way to view what was about to take place. She squeezed Perrin’s hand. “I’m ready.”

  ROOT ACCESS

  DAYS TO RASU DEADLINE: 0

  48

  * * *

  ADV TABIJI

  Rasu Stronghold

  Gemina stood at the viewport of the Tabiji.

  The landscape it presented still sent shivers along her rigid spine on this, her twenty-ninth and final visit to the Rasu stronghold.

  The others had allowed her to read up on the most current information they’d acquired on the Rasu, and she now understood a good deal more about what she was seeing, beyond ooh big scary imposing ships.

  The knowledge didn’t help, though. In fact, it made this entire experience so much worse. As she watched a medium-sized Rasu ship sail past, she imagined it morphing into a slithering serpent and wrapping itself around the Tabiji, then squeezing.

  She shuddered—and hurriedly suppressed the physical display. No emoting on the bridge. She’d always assumed the Rasu were surveilling her every move from the moment she entered their stellar system, and her newfound knowledge gave her no reason to stop assuming it now.

  She could do this. She was an accomplished ice queen, and she could sell this lie, dammit. Merely another routine delivery to the masters, in no way whatsoever the opening gambit in a full-scale assault on the enemy.

  Oh, how she wished she was back in her office on Kiyora. Or, hells, even her cell. Of course, a better cell—her home—awaited her on her return, but what were the odds she was returning?

  The enemy would know something had changed. They would detect her elevated heart rate over previous visits in the throbbing of her blood vessels beneath her skin. They would scan the stasis chambers and notice their contents were identical, or how a few deadly modifications had been added to the chambers’ chassis.