Chapter 1 - The Girl Who Repaired Broken Stars
On the planet Oriah, darkness never lasted long.
Two moons moved through the sky, one silver and one pale blue. When the silver moon disappeared below the mountains, the blue moon rose from the sea. Their light covered the land almost every hour of the night.
People on Oriah said the moons watched over them.
Lena Vale did not believe that.
If the moons watched people, they were not very helpful.
They had not stopped her father’s ship from falling out of the sky. They had not warned her mother about the sickness spreading through the western cities. They had not answered Lena during the long nights when she sat alone beside the sea and begged for one small sign that she was not completely forgotten.
The moons had only continued to shine.
Beautiful.
Cold.
Useless.
Lena lay beneath the open engine of a transport shuttle, holding a light between her teeth. Oil ran down her wrist and disappeared beneath the sleeve of her grey work shirt.
“Pass me the narrow coil,” she said.
A young boy stood beside the shuttle with a box of tools.
He looked into the box.
“The silver one?”
“They are all silver, Tavi.”
“The long silver one?”
Lena removed the light from her mouth and sighed.
“The one that looks like your grandmother’s cooking spoon.”
Tavi frowned.
“My grandmother has six cooking spoons.”
“The ugly one.”
“They are all ugly.”
Lena reached out from beneath the engine.
“Just give me the box.”
Tavi handed it to her.
She found the coil herself and pushed it into the damaged power chamber. Sparks jumped across the engine. Tavi stepped back.
“Is it supposed to do that?”
“No.”
“Should I run?”
“Probably.”
Tavi ran three steps before Lena laughed.
“I’m joking.”
“That was not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
She tightened the coil and closed the chamber. The old shuttle gave a low mechanical hum.
Lena slid out from beneath it and stood.
Her dark hair was tied in a messy knot. A black line of oil crossed her cheek. She wiped her hands on her trousers, which only spread the dirt.
Tavi stared at the shuttle.
“You fixed it?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I can start it and find out.”
“What if it explodes?”
“Then we will know I did not fix it.”
Tavi’s eyes widened.
Lena laughed again.
“You worry too much for a twelve-year-old.”
“My mother says worrying keeps people alive.”
“Your mother also believes cold seaweed cures headaches.”
“It does.”
“It smells so bad that you forget about the headache. That is not the same thing.”
Tavi climbed into the shuttle and sat in the pilot’s seat. He was small for his age, with thick brown curls and bright green eyes. Lena had found him stealing power cells from her workshop two years earlier.
Instead of calling the city guards, she had offered him food.
He had returned the next day.
And the day after that.
Now he worked for her when he was not attending school or helping his mother at the harbour.
Lena leaned through the open door.
“Do not touch anything.”
“I know.”
“You touched something while saying that.”
“I only moved this switch.”
“That switch releases the landing clamps.”
A loud metallic bang came from beneath the shuttle.
Tavi slowly moved his hand away.
“Should I put it back?”
“Yes.”
He returned the switch to its original position.
Lena walked to the front of the shuttle and opened the main control panel. The machine was more than forty years old. It had once carried soldiers during the border wars. Now it belonged to a fisherman named Rusk, who used it to move frozen fish between coastal towns.
Every part of the shuttle had been repaired at least three times.
Some parts had been repaired so badly that Lena could not understand how it still flew.
She pressed the ignition control.
The engine coughed.
The lights flashed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the shuttle came alive with a strong, steady hum.
Tavi cheered.
Lena smiled despite herself.
There were few things she loved more than bringing a dead machine back to life.
Machines made sense.
A damaged fuel line leaked. A broken wire failed to carry power. A cracked navigation lens gave the wrong location. Every problem had a reason, even when the reason was difficult to find.
People were different.
People could love you and still leave.
They could promise to return and disappear forever.
They could smile while hiding things that would destroy your life.
Lena closed the control panel.
“Tell Rusk it is ready.”
“He will ask if you can lower the price.”
“He always asks.”
“What should I tell him?”
“Tell him I found three sea beetles living inside his cooling system.”
“Did you?”
“No. But he is afraid of them.”
Tavi grinned and jumped out of the shuttle.
Before he reached the workshop door, every light in the building went out.
The engine died.
Outside, the harbour lights vanished one after another.
The city of Mirren fell into darkness.
Tavi stopped moving.
“What happened?”
Lena looked toward the open workshop doors.
People were stepping out of nearby buildings. Above them, ships floated motionless over the harbour. Their engines had stopped, but emergency systems kept them in the air.
The silver moon shone above the eastern mountains.
The blue moon had just begun rising over the sea.
Both moons flickered.
Lena stared.
Moonlight should not flicker.
A deep sound rolled across the sky.
It was not thunder.
It was too slow and too heavy, like something enormous moving behind the clouds.
The air began to tremble.
Tavi came closer to Lena.
“Is it an earthquake?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the ground is not moving.”
Another sound crossed the sky.
This time, people screamed.
A line of white fire appeared between the moons.
It grew wider.
The clouds around it twisted as if pulled toward an invisible hole.
Lena stepped outside.
The white line opened.
Something fell through.
At first, it looked like a star.
Then Lena saw the shape of a ship.
It was long and black, surrounded by burning pieces of metal. It moved too fast, crossing half the sky in seconds.
The ship turned.
Its engines flashed once.
It was trying to slow down.
It failed.
The burning vessel disappeared behind the hills north of Mirren.
A few seconds later, the night became bright as day.
A silent flash rose beyond the hills.
Then the sound came.
The explosion struck the city like a physical force.
Windows shattered.
Lena grabbed Tavi and pulled him down as glass flew through the workshop. Tools fell from the walls. The old shuttle rocked on its landing supports.
The blast passed.
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then alarms began ringing throughout the harbour.
Tavi lifted his head.
“What was that?”
Lena looked north.
A column of blue fire rose behind the hills.
“I don’t know.”
Her workshop lights returned.
The city came alive again.
But high above Oriah, the white tear between the moons remained open.
And something inside it was moving.
The city guards closed the northern road within an hour.
That did not stop half of Mirren from trying to reach the crash site.
People gathered at the road barriers, talking loudly and pointing toward the glow beyond the hills. News screens showed unclear images of the fallen ship. Some reporters claimed it was a military vessel. Others said it had come from another star system.
One old man shouted that the gods had finally arrived.
Another man asked why the gods had crashed.
Lena watched the crowd from the roof of her workshop.
Tavi sat beside her with a blanket around his shoulders.
“You should go home,” Lena said.
“My mother is working at the medical station.”
“Then go to your aunt.”
“She will make me clean fish.”
“It builds character.”
“It builds a bad smell.”
Lena smiled.
Below them, military vehicles moved through the streets. Their blue lights reflected on the wet stone buildings.
Oriah had not seen a major war for almost twenty years. Most soldiers spent their time controlling storms, rescuing lost ships or helping towns after earthquakes.
Tonight, every military unit near Mirren was moving north.
Tavi looked at Lena.
“You want to go there.”
“No.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The face you make when you see a machine you want to open.”
“I do not have a machine-opening face.”
“You do.”
Lena looked back toward the hills.
He was right.
Everything inside her wanted to know what had fallen from the sky.
Not because it might be dangerous.
Not because it had crossed through a hole between the moons.
Because it was a ship.
A ship unlike anything built on Oriah.
And it was broken.
“I am only curious,” Lena said.
“My mother says curiosity is how people lose fingers.”
“Your mother has many useful sayings.”
“She has all her fingers.”
A military aircraft passed above them.
Lena watched it fly north.
Then she noticed something moving behind the workshop.
A weak blue light flashed near the edge of the sea.
Once.
Twice.
Then it disappeared.
Lena stood.
“What is it?” Tavi asked.
“Stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“You are going toward the strange light, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
Lena climbed down the roof ladder.
Tavi followed.
“I told you to stay.”
“You also told me the shuttle might explode.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was joking then.”
They moved behind the workshop, where a narrow path led down to the rocky shore. The tide was low. Blue water moved slowly between dark stones.
The strange light flashed again.
It came from a small metal object lying near the water.
Lena approached carefully.
The object was shaped like a seed, smooth and black, no longer than her hand. A blue line ran across its surface.
Tavi whispered, “Is it from the ship?”
“Probably.”
“Should we touch it?”
“No.”
Lena crouched and touched it.
Tavi sighed.
The black surface opened.
Lena jumped back.
Light rose from the object and formed a human face in the air.
A man’s face.
He looked young, perhaps thirty. His hair was dark. Blood ran from a cut above his left eye. He was breathing hard.
The image shook.
“If anyone receives this,” the man said, “do not allow the military to enter the main vessel.”
Lena and Tavi stared at the floating face.
“The breach was not an accident,” he continued. “The ship is carrying a living core. It is frightened. If they attempt to remove it, thousands will die.”
The image flickered.
“My name is Cael Arven. I survived the descent. I am located—”
The message broke into static.
Then the blue line on the object pointed inland.
Toward the crash site.
Tavi looked at Lena.
“You definitely have the face now.”
“What face?”
“The one where you are about to do something stupid.”
Lena picked up the object.
“Go home, Tavi.”
“Are you going to find him?”
“No.”
“You are still a terrible liar.”
She looked at him.
“This may be dangerous.”
“So was stealing power cells from you.”
“You were nine.”
“I was desperate.”
“And now you are twelve, which is still too young to follow a stranger into a military crash site.”
“You are also a stranger.”
“I have known you for two years.”
“You still do not tell me anything about yourself.”
Lena did not answer.
Tavi crossed his arms.
“I am coming.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I know a way past the northern road.”
Lena paused.
Tavi smiled.
“I knew that would work.”
I’m so excited to see what happens next! Who is that man, and will they manage to find him?