Page 1 of Star Struck

Prologue

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Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .

The huge, helmet-headed alien moved forward, gas hissing slightly from the respiration packs on its back, but the man in the ripped shirt stood unmoving under the glare of the desert sun. He barely even blinked as the lumbering form came closer, merely held out his arms; one hand hovered close to his blaster rifle, and his trigger finger twitched ominously.

Behind them both, out of sight, out of range, Jack watched, bleary-eyed, feeling as though the back of his skull had been unscrewed and inexpertly replaced. All his muscles ached in the kind of concerted unity that meant things had been very, very bad recently and, although he vaguely understood what was going on, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what he was supposed to be doing about it.

Suddenly the alien stumbled, lurched forward under the weight of the gas tanks, and its momentum carried it onwards and downwards until it hit the ground at the feet of the armed man, where it sprawled, helmet askew, grunting with the force of the impact.

The armed man threw his head back and laughed at the sky.

There was a sudden cry of ‘Cut! For fuck’s sake!’ and a third man burst onto the scene, large and angry in a worn T-shirt. ‘Christ! Gethryn, you could at least help the poor bastard to stand up!’ But Gethryn just put both hands out in a helpless gesture, bending forward under the weight of his laughter and the now helmetless alien, revealed as a skinny guy with an encroaching bald spot, was forced to scramble to his feet via his knees, finally being helped to stand by two flustered girls who had to let go of their clipboards to assist him.

Jack watched warily, half a moment from helping. Behind his eyes pinpricks of light swung; gravity had no meaning other than to give ‘down’ and ‘up’ some kind of notional value, which his stomach was ignoring, and his ears registered a vague thrumming from some seriously heavy-duty engines somewhere off to his left. This isn’t good. In fact, this is so far out the other side of good that it’s probably circling hell.

‘Hey, Iceman!’

That’s me, thought Jack. Yeah. Fairly sure that’s me. What does he want me to do? God, my head hurts.

Angry-man walked over to him, clearly suffering a serious case of artistic strop. ‘You’re gonna have to do something about him, Ice. We can’t keep shooting the show like this, and, you know, he was four hours late onto set today. I had to shoot the battle scene first and that’s kinda thrown the timing out for tomorrow. Ice? You listening?’

Urgh. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m listening. Look . . . um . . . Scotty . . .’ Please let that be his name . . . ‘I’ll deal with it, okay?’

A pause. Angry-man . . . Scotty (probably) stared into his eyes for a second, then dropped his gaze to the dusty desert beneath his feet. ‘Okay, boss, if you say so. Just, you know, make it soon, eh? Before we get cancelled?’

Cancelled. That’s bad, I know that much. God, wish I could think straight. He squinted into the sunlight at the team of people behind Angry . . . Scotty’s shoulder. Bustling, busy, all moving with the precision of a machine, and here he stood like a loose cog. This was his machine, and it was going to break down if he didn’t fix it.

I’m a waste of a watch-strap. A hopeless, guilt-ridden drunk — I’m being offered everything that could mean something to me and if I don’t sort myself out I’m going to lose it all.

Chapter One

‘What do you want most in all the world?’

Usually my answer to this is ‘to wake up gradually’, but this clearly wasn’t the answer Felix had in mind. He’s one of those congenitally cheerful people, full of energy and enthusiasm, like a spaniel. That talks. On amphetamines.

‘Right now, Felix, I want you to go away. To Australia, preferably, but anywhere a long way away will do. Somewhere where they punish people who are jolly in the mornings. Close the door behind you.’ I turned over and pulled the duvet higher around my ears. He might be my best friend, but jolting me out of blissful sleep was no way to go about showing it. ‘I mean it.’

‘Ha. Come on, Skye. Really. The thing that you most want, ever.’ He bounced around a bit. At least, I think he was bouncing; I still had my eyes closed, but the furniture was clunking and ornaments kept falling over.

‘Still you, to go away.’ I humphed myself around in the bed and winched open my eyes. ‘You are contravening the Geneva Convention, you know, breaking into my house and waking me up.’

‘Darling, you are no fun.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, which made me feel like a hospital patient, and a rattling sound told me he’d picked up the little brown bottle from my cabinet. ‘I’ve told you about these sleepers — emergencies only.’

‘I had bad dreams,’ I muttered.

‘The doctor said occasional use only.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve got an occasional table and I use that pretty much all the time.’

Felix gave me a hard stare. ‘But still . . . Anyway, why aren’t you working? I thought you’d got a load of people wanting your—’ he coughed pointedly — ‘research skills.’

‘Research is a real job you know. It’s not like I’m running some kind of porn hotline, anyway my Internet is still down. Five days and counting, I’m going to ring them today and . . .’

‘And what? Be ineffectual at them? Skye, you need to . . .’

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