Page 7 of Stars on Fire

Their hellish trek had begun a little over twenty hours ago in the thick of night. When Selene had barely escaped a burning, rioting city where her name had suddenly ratcheted to number one on a ‘wanted dead or even more dead’ hit list.

It had all begun when Rina had woken Selene from a deep sleep. Rina, Colonel Rina Mendi, to be exact, was a senior member of the Planetary Security Council and her best friend. So her assessment that Selene was in imminent danger was highly credible.

The sound of distant explosions had further helped justify the dramatic nature of the sudden awakening.

Selene had sat up in bed speechless as her best friend settled beside her, took her hand and gave her a rundown of the worst news that Selene had yet to process.

That Selene’s father, Kei’Lano Munene III, The Prime and Sovereign Leader of the planet and peoples of Dunia, had been shot dead. By his own Minister of Defence.

Rina reported that the affair erupted at 1030 hours when her Security team had informed her of a skirmish at Parliament House. She’d also received reports of a coup unfolding throughout the planet. One masterminded by Massimo and underwritten by the Pegasi System’s worst nightmare - The Proxima Technocracy. A race of highly intelligent beings battling for supremacy in the known universe and going about it with a scorched earth policy. They’d landed interceptors and rattlers supported by an armada of their capital cruisers in orbit. New Malindi’s defences were soon overrun by two large battalions of their crat soldiers, fighting alongside a coalition of fighters given over to the coup.

Massimo Makori and his militia had stormed Parliament. They’d muscled their way, killed a few trusted bodyguards, and barrelled into the Prime’s office, where Kei’Lano had been working late. According to Rina, Massimo himself had coldly fired a hail of bullets into her father’s chest. Soullessly assassinating the unarmed man. From all accounts, Kei’Lano had fallen instantly, without protest.

The traitor and his entourage had then left to announce their takeover from the steps of the Senate, a few blocks away. Leaving Kei’Lano alone in his final moments.

Summoned by one of the Prime’s loyal guards who’d survived the attack, Rina had raced to the Prime’s office. Only to find Kei’Lano on the floor in a pool of his blood. She administered first aid, but it’d been too late. So she’d sadly declared his death and hastily arranged the secret transport of his body to the State Morgue. Followed by a dash across the city at midnight to spirit Selene out of the Prime’s residence and away from any possible harm.

Shaken, Selene had slipped from her bed and dressed at Rina’s urging, having no time to process her feelings because, as she’d just been informed, her enemies were hunting her down.

Rina had then placed a complete and secure lockdown of the Prime residence so that no one could enter it unbidden, and she’d also activated a powerful perimeter force field.

The pair had slipped out of the grand house with just minutes to spare. All they’d managed to retrieve was a file of critical documents, Selene’s comm tab, and some clothing stuffed into a single duffle bag.

Soon the boundary of the grand residence was swarming with Massimo’s guards, searching for the woman who was now the Prime in Waiting. But they were unable to get past its security field and sensors.

A few avenues away, Rina had bundled Selene into a waiting two-people flyer in the dark of night, and they’d winged their way to the walls of the domed city. There, they’d abandoned the craft and proceeded on foot because the tiny vessel was useless against the raging planetoid storm that had formed over the capital’s atmosphere.

Hours later, Selene still didn’t have a handle on her sudden, new reality. She was cold, exhausted and wet to the core. Her heart was a mass of emotion, and her mind churned. But all she could allow herself to do was put one frozen foot in front of the other and push forward. Even on a planet where seasons switched every couple of weeks, the rapid decline from a warm spring to an all-out planetoid monsoon was a head spin. So push on, she did, despite the tumultuous skies that raged above.

Until she almost stumbled on a root and nearly fell head-first onto the mossy, boggy forest floor.

‘Selene?’

Hands rushed to pick her up, but she waved them off. ‘Ri’, I’m OK.’

A stern face looked down at her, peering through the driving rain. ‘You’re clearlynotfine! Perhaps we should call ahead and ask them to send a raptor?’

The petite woman shook her head. ‘And risk the lives of our pilots? With The Technocracy’s interceptors still lurking? No. I’ll keep going.’

‘No quitting then, Sel?’

‘No! Not now, not ever,’ Selene said, wearily wiping the avalanche of water from her eyes.

‘Fighting words,’ came the wry reply.

Selene struggled to her feet, reached out her hand to steady herself, and fell against a tall stem of a passiflora. It seemed to lean forward to catch her fall. She sighed.Thank Dunia for its sentient care.

And thank Dunia for Rina.She glanced at the woman by her side. She couldn’t remember when she’d first met her lean, strong, opinionated best friend. They’d gone to high school together, bonded over boys, books and a love for raider bands. The ones who lived on pirate space cruisers and uploaded strangely raucous and hauntingly percussive cloud trap tunes to the System’s rogue airwaves that went on for hours at a time.

They’d applied to the same university, been selected in the same sorority and held the same low-paying jobs to pay their way. They’d double-dated, double dipped and lived like sisters for most of their lives. Now here they were, attempting to flee a murdering upstart and reverse a deadly coup together.

Righting herself, Selene tightened the strap of the duffle bag hung across her back and pushed off at a blistering pace.

‘Let’s keep going. We’ve got a planet to save,’ she said.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rina saluted. ‘Not much longer now. A few more hours and this trek will be over.’

‘Thank fokk,’ Selene sighed. ‘If you’d told me a week ago, I’d be trudging through the jungle all to save my existence and that of the planet; I’d have told you that you were high onkoko. This is hellish!’

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