Stardust

     Even marshaling every scrap of willpower she had, July couldn’t find it in herself to stay away from the Amsterdam entrance the next morning. After waking up in a confused, cold tangle of sweaty sheets around three in the morning and turning from side to side restlessly for nearly forty minutes, her leg throbbing and half-delirious images of her dead sister chasing themselves around the inside of her skull, she finally gave up and dragged herself to wait for Axel on the associated subway platform.

     When she got there, neither Axel nor anyone else from the Resistance was waiting, but Aston and his girlfriend were, much to her dismay. Aston was pacing manically around the platform, hands clasped tightly behind his back and the sharp lines of his shoulders hunched up around his ears; the other one was slumped against a wall, holding a backpack between her legs. The intensity of her hot-pink shock of hair was even more jarring set against the browns and grays of the environment, washed out by the flickering fluorescent bar lights.

     The maintenance stairs up to the platform spat July out directly next to this massive tropical bird of a woman; she looked up as July passed and (even more to her dismay) asked “Are you who we’re waiting for?”

     “No,” July said, very quickly. It was too late, though; she’d caught both of their attentions and Aston was already making a beeline for her.

     “You’re that girl who passed out in the woods,” he announced as if he’d just made a genius deduction, rather than recognizing someone he’d spent an hour hiking through the woods with a couple of days ago. “You’re on the strike team, then?”

     “Be quiet,” July said, casting an uneasy glance toward the soldiers currently on watch duty; they were on the opposite end of the platform entirely, the air filters provided some background noise, and the watch pair was actually watching the stairs beyond the barricade instead of goofing off for once, but even so, Aston was being obnoxiously loud and it set her teeth on edge. She was pretty sure Tyler would find a way to stick it to her if someone overheard and started gossiping about the mysterious early-morning strike team rollout, and she really didn’t want to deal with that at the moment. “And no,” she added. “I’m waiting to say bye to my boyfriend.”

     Aston made a sound that July was pretty sure was known as a “guffaw.”

     She took a moment to give the alien a once-over. It wasn’t every day she came into contact with someone from another planet who wasn’t hell-bent on shooting her in the head as fast as possible, and Aston and his companion were just about as different from the Dusties as you could get. You could easily mistake them for humans, if you didn’t look too closely.

     Aston was short for a guy—only a couple of inches taller than July herself—and something about his proportions was slightly off in an uncanny-valley way. His cheekbones were a bit too sharp, his nose a bit too long, his eyebrows and buzzed-short hair were a dark red once you got close enough they didn’t blend in with the warm undertones of his brown skin. His most strikingly inhuman feature was his eyes, bright gold with slit pupils. Back during that original TV broadcast, where he was talking about who-knows-what political shit seemed relevant at the time, they were what fascinated July the most about his face; now, July kept feeling herself drawn back into eye contact with him, unable to stop her gaze from repeatedly flicking back to his eyes. And she tried to stop. Multiple times.

     He seemed to take her awkward, shifty silence as offense. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I just think your relational constructs are funny.”

     “Aston,” the pink-haired one said, low and warning.

     “What?” he said, a plaintive note to his voice. “It’s too early for me to remember what I’m supposed to filter out. I doubt she’s even offended. Are you offended?” The last sentence was directed back to July, complete with a too-earnest flash of a grin.

     Resigning herself to having a conversation whether she wanted to or not, July sighed. “I’m gonna be real, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

     “See? It’s fine.” There was more than a touch of smugness in his voice. The pink-haired one looked up at him with such an overwhelmingly exhausted expression that July actually felt a smidge of sympathy tugging at her heartstrings, and decided to sit down next to her.

     “Private Wright,” she said, sticking her hand out.

     The woman shook it, her hand dwarfing July's comically. “Sage.”

     She nodded, filing that away. Then, before she could stop herself, her mouth burst out with “Is that your real name?”

     Sage frowned slightly, her eyes narrowing. With more than a little fascination, July realized they were the exact same as Aston’s, golden and serpentine, but they looked more natural in her face somehow—maybe it was that her jaw was square, her nose broad and flat; Aston looked like his face was stretched painfully taut over his skull, but her facial features rested solidly and comfortably on her thick frame. The bridge of her nose was splattered with freckles, which added to the friendlier impression.

     Aston squatted next to them. His hands circled each other in fidgety, spastic motions in front of his torso. “It’s been her name for over twenty years, so I think that qualifies as ‘real,’ yes.”

     “I chose it when we came here,” Sage said, her eyes still narrow and her eyebrows (bright pink!) furrowed. It seemed like she was choosing her words very carefully, or maybe she was just tired.

     “That’s what I was asking, yeah.” July started rubbing the inside of her wrist with an opposite finger surreptitiously. “Sorry. I was just thinking, like, if you guys are from somewhere else, why would you have names in English?”

     “He chose his off a car advertisement,” Sage said dryly, which made July giggle in surprise, which in turn made Sage crack a small smile and promptly look rather surprised at herself for it.

     “I thought it sounded good!” Aston said. His hand-wringing paused while he used one finger to gesture as visual punctuation. “My birth name has at least two sounds you people don’t even have orthography for, and I doubt most of you could even make them. Your vocal cords are highly underdeveloped.”

     “I wasn’t judging. I’m named after a month,” July said.

     Whatever Aston’s response to that would have been, he was interrupted by the arrival of a handful of people filing up the stairs beside them. July immediately shot to her feet and saluted Tyler as he entered the platform.

     “At ease,” he said; then, over his shoulder, “Stay here. I’m going to talk to the watch.” Without even looking at Aston or Sage, he strode off toward the other side of the platform, leaving July to stand awkwardly in-between the aliens and Teiddan and Axel.

     July didn’t bother with formalities. “Is he going?”

     “Tyler? No,” Teiddan said. “He just wanted to see us off personally.”

     Of course not; life would never be that kind to her. Axel gave her a small, weak smile, reaching out one hand to brush her knuckles, and she grabbed his hand and squeezed in response.

     “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll miss you like hell, love.”

     “Yeah,” she said.

     Him and Teiddan were in civilian day clothes, something that she didn’t get to see very often; Axel had on a bulky leather coat and a dog collar, and Teiddan was sporting unusually clean and wrinkle-free pants and a sharp wool coat which she suspected was leftover from his old university job. She wrinkled her nose at Axel.

     “What?” he said.

     “Collar?”

     “I’m young and hip,” he said, one corner of his mouth crooking up into a tired attempt at a sarcastic smirk. “I can get away with it.”

     She snorted and abruptly pulled him into a full-body hug that crushed all the air out of his lungs in an audible whoof! “Don’t draw too much attention to yourself,” she whispered in his ear fiercely.

     His palms pressed against the small of her back, slid up and started to cup the back of her head, but she pushed him away roughly.

     “I’m still mad at you,” she said. The corners of her eyes stung and felt very hot, which she steadfastly ignored.

     Axel opened his mouth, then closed it again and looked around meaningfully at the people around them. Teiddan was looking fixedly and politely at a spot on the opposite wall, but the aliens were both watching their interactions with an uncomfortable amount of interest. “Show’s over,” he said loudly. July punched him in the shoulder with just enough force to make him visibly wince.

     Aston started a sentence with “I don’t—“; presumably it was going to be something long-winded and defensive, but he was once again interrupted by Tyler’s arrival.

     “Wright!” Automatically, she straightened her spine and made eye contact with him; he didn’t quite smile, but his mouth did move in a way she’d learned to read as mild approval. “You can stay to see Ax off, but you’ll be held to the highest standard of confidentiality. That means no telling anyone about anything I say here, including Trehan.”

     “I won’t, sir,” July lied.

     He held her gaze for another few beats, his face cool and expressionless. She decided to reconsider her earlier theory that freckles made a face more approachable. Tyler’s certainly didn’t.

     “Alright,” he said finally, and turned his attention to the strike team. Sage had already hastily clambered to her feet and hoisted her backpack over her shoulder the minute Tyler started barking orders; Teiddan and Axel were standing to attention. “You’ll be answering to Captain Testa for the duration of this mission. All three of you are considered subordinate officers until the mission objective is completed. Captain Testa has complete jurisdiction over your actions as they concern the mission objective. Compensation will be awarded dependent on access to enemy spacecraft, and at the captain’s discretion.”

     “I want a guarantee on that one,” Aston said.

     “We can’t guarantee spaceport access from the White House,” Tyler said. She was actually mildly interested in what he was saying, for once, but at that moment Axel started tugging on the back of her shirt insistently and didn’t stop until she took a few steps away from the group and looked at him.

     “Are we okay?” he asked. The skin around his eyes looked tender and swollen. For a second, July’s heart swelled, filling her chest with a soggy, dripping lump of feeling, but she quickly tamped it down and started the mental equivalent of mopping.

     “No,” she said. She looked him up-and-down, taking in his chipped fingernails, the way his curls were breaking and frizzing at the ends, the visible smear of toothpaste at the corner of his lips, and added in a rush “We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

     Axel’s eyes were empty as he nodded. That was the last thing she said to him.

###

     The first twenty-four hours of Axel-less existence turned out to be less bad than July expected; she was buoyed somewhat by her simmering frustration at the mention of his name, and Cass seemed happy to not talk about him.

     Tyler had her reporting to Captain Kahue in Teiddan’s absence—a captain who mostly oversaw the tech department, and who was much less personable than Teiddan, on top of being extremely busy. She assigned July and Cass to Lake and Jasper’s basic training, which Cass immediately said was just to keep them busy at Tyler’s request. July didn’t mind. It was something to do.

     After a confusing and rushed attempt at giving the boys a first-day orientation, during which they shadowed the girls for the entire day while Cass did most of the talking and July hung a couple of steps behind in a daze and nodded or shook her head when asked questions (all the while trying to ignore the black dots threatening to form shapes at the edges of her eyesight), she found herself somehow in charge of starting their basic munitions training after lunch the following day.

     The firing range was the only platform artificially blocked off from the tunnels; they used a combination of lumber, wire mesh, and soundproofing foam over the entrance to form a makeshift wall with a padlocked gate above the maintenance stairs. It was, of course, located in the munitions tunnel, which was filled with weapons lockers and heavily patrolled. July had to show her tags to get in, which was complicated by the fact that Jasper and Lake still had yet to be issued dog tags, but it only took a few minutes of back-and-forth and some running to check with the captains to sort it out.

     Cass was perched in a plastic folding chair by a wall, her long limbs elegantly folded over one another and her spine ramrod-straight. She’d never enjoyed shooting nearly as much as July; despite tapping out of teaching, she still watched attentively as July walked Jasper through the process of firing a pistol. This gave July a bit of a funny feeling in her gut, which she examined for a moment and chalked up to performance anxiety.

     Lake had proven himself to already be handy with a gun (which July realized retroactively shouldn’t have surprised her, given he’d already saved her ass during an active firefight); after hitting the target a sufficient number of times and letting her quiz him on gun safety, he retreated to lurk beside Cass. They occasionally muttered to each other; July could only guess it was probably friendly, given that Cass wasn’t outright getting up and walking away.

     “Use your support hand,” July reminded Jasper. “You’re swaying.”

     He scrunched up his face at her. “I’m trying.”

     She raised her own pistol, planting solidly one foot a few inches back, left hand supporting her right on the grip. “Try to mimic how I’m standing. Take your time, don’t shoot until you’re confident.”

     Jasper really was trying, she could tell, but aside from his hands wavering, he wasn’t lining up his sight with the target properly to begin with. To his credit, he didn’t shoot, even after standing there for another couple of minutes as July watched him silently.

     “I’m still not confident,” he said finally, dropping his arms to his sides. His sheepish grin was awfully charming.

     Suddenly, Lake was standing beside him. July was impressed; she hadn’t heard him get up or walk over, and even with her earplugs in to dull the sound of gunshots, sneaking around her was nothing to scoff at.

     “Let me help,” he said. Jasper assumed the position again, and Lake reached out and adjusted his arms and hands with a few deft movements. “I find it easier when I stop thinking,” he said as he did. One hand went to Jasper’s back and gave it a few reassuring pats. “Not that easy, I know. I’ll bet Rhea would be better at this.”

     Jasper snorted, his grin turning from self-aware and shameful to relaxed and easy. The tension in his shoulders visibly let go.

     “Rhea?” July asked.

     “My, uh. My sister.” Jasper cut off any further conversation by letting off three shots; he took the recoil better than she’d expected, but after the third one he stumbled slightly.

     She ambled over to peer at the target (a repurposed couch cushion) down the platform. There were three holes in the painted upholstery; two in the red outer ring, another in the white ring just inside it. “Not bad.”

     “Don’t baby him,” Lake said jovially. As she turned back around, she caught him giving Jasper a friendly slug on the arm.

     “I’m not! It’s not bad for his first try.” She tried her best at an encouraging smile, but she had the feeling that it came off as more of a grimace, from how stiff and awkward her face felt. “So, you have family?”

     As conversation starters went, that one wasn’t her best work. Jasper bit his lip so hard it briefly turned pink before saying “She’s… not here.”

     July’s ears suddenly felt very hot. She shifted from foot to foot, glancing over at Cass briefly, who offered her absolutely nothing. “… May her memory be a blessing,” she finally said, lamely.

     Jasper’s eyebrows raised.

     “I lost a sister, too,” she said hurriedly. “I should have—“

     “No, it’s fine,” he said. Then he grinned widely, much to her confusion. “You’re Jewish?”

     “My mom was,” she said. “She’s not around anymore, though. Why?”

      “I’m sorry.” It seemed like he was trying and failing to repress his smile, which was at least kind of endearing. “I’ve been on the ship for a few years and I was the only one there, so—I grew up going to shul and shit, you know? It’s been weird, being the only one.”

     “His social skills are seriously lacking after four years only speaking to a handful of other people and a Dusty,” Lake said. “Forgive him.”

     “Didn’t you just say not to baby him?” July found herself actually smiling this time.

     Instead of answering, Lake said “You have a really nice smile, you know,” which caused July’s brain to disconnect the language center and leave her sputtering. Instead of trying to save the conversation from the absolute wreck she’d made of it, she stalked over to Cass, who wasn’t bothering to suppress a shit-eating grin.

     “Your turn,” she told her friend, voice tight and ears burning hotter than before.

###

     “He’s got the cheekbones of a Greek god,” Cass said affably as July rummaged through their locker for a clean pair of sweats to sleep in.

     “Well.” July carefully focused on examining the locker door. There was a small scuff on the inner left corner. “That’s your opinion.”

     There was some shifting from Cass’s bunk, which July chose to not look at. “It certainly is. I’m not interested, though.”

     “And you think I am?” July licked her thumb and rubbed it over the scuff mark.

     “I think that you have a boyfriend, that you have only ever had one boyfriend, and that you have one of the most pernicious attachment complexes I have had the misfortune to encounter.” Cass exhaled in a way that July wasn’t sure how to read. It was sharp, heavy—maybe she’d just forgotten to breathe. “How long have you been with Axel again?”

     The scuff mark was not coming off despite July’s best efforts. “You know that.”

     “Remind me.”

     July grunted. Then, “Four years. Maybe five?”

     “The point in question.”

     The scuff wasn’t fucking budging. July suddenly whirled around to face Cass and discovered she was hanging half-off the ladder of her bunk, smirking upside-down at July with heavy-lidded eyes. “That can’t be comfortable,” July informed her.

     “Eh.” Cass tilted her head to one side slightly, then abruptly curled in on herself, hoisting her torso up in one fluid motion. It wasn’t even a particularly impressive show of core strength, but the asshole moved like a ballerina, every gesture planned and measured to the nth degree.

     July turned her back and busied herself with undoing her belt.

     “So you’ve been with him since you were, what, fourteen, and--”

     “Will you back off?” July snapped. She roughly pulled her belt through the last loop and folded it in half, snapped it against her hand. “I get it. You hate Axel. You don’t have to--”

     “I don’t hate Axel.” Cass’s voice was suddenly soft.

     “Whatever. We have better things to do than talk about who I’m fucking.”

     “Oh, so you and Axel fuck?”

     July closed her eyes. She wasn’t interested in talking about how, when, and where Axel ate her out, especially not after the other night’s disaster. Although the revelation that the answer was occasionally “on Cass’s bed, while she was busy with a shift or whatever” would be a really funny one to drop casually.

     There was silence for a while, during which July finished undressing and fished her hairbrush out of her locker to start yanking it through her tangles.

     “I’m sorry,” Cass said quietly.

     July sighed, pulling her brush through an especially nasty snarl. The sound of tearing hair made her wince. “You didn’t say anything bad. I just… We weren’t on good terms when he left.”

     She put her brush away and slammed her locker shut. When she looked back up at Cass, she was leaning against the railing of her top bunk, staring down at July with a weird expression—something halfway between worry and something else, something sadder that July couldn’t quite pin down.

     “That wasn’t the first time you’ve woken me up by fighting,” Cass said. She tilted her head to the side, ran an absentminded hand over the short dark fluff of her hair a few times. “I don’t hate him, I promise. But I also don’t like seeing you in pain, Jules.”

     July started to say that it was fine, she’d talk to him when he got back, but Cass interrupted her. “I shouldn’t have joked about Lake. It was noxiously juvenile of me, and there’s nothing wrong with being friends with the opposite sex. Still—we've had so much taken from us—I only hope that someday I get to see you grab an opportunity by the throat and claim it for yourself.”

     With that, Cass lay down. July’s head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. She didn’t want to think about what Cass had just said, and she didn’t want to go to bed and immerse herself in another nightmare full of fire and gargantuan mouths with too many teeth, and to top it off her leg throbbed in time with her head. Despite all this, she forced herself to turn the floor lamp off.

     “Goodnight,” she managed.

     Cass’s voice was already slurred with sleep. “Night.”

     “Goodnight,” June said.

###

     You lay in a brilliantly sun-drenched meadow, golden hair spread out around you, sun baking deep into your skin, tinting the backs of your closed eyelids a glowing crimson. You had been there for a long time, so long you no longer remembered climbing the brick walls of the walled garden and tumbling from their heights into the grass, so long the scrapes on your baby-pink knees had healed over.

     It was an eternity and a half before a shadow cast over your face. In the time you lay there, if seasons could change, they would have. If years could pass, they would have done so with abandon. But the meadow was glitteringly and beautifully unchanging, and so the first shadow to cast itself on your eyelids also struck a dissonant chord in your chest.

     You opened your eyes.

     The pink-haired woman, the one you still thought of as alien, leaned over you, sunshine glinting off her deep brown skin in a way that brought out its coppery undertones. Her eyes struck you deeply, as they had before and as they would continue to—a vibrant color, reminiscent of a cooked egg yolk. A color that twisted your guts around each other in a decidedly uncomfortable way when it bore into you like that.

     “I liked your style,” she said, quietly.

     You folded your hands over your breast. “Are you staying?”

     “I wasn’t planning on it.” Her eyes roamed over your entire body, but what she was searching for, you couldn’t tell. “But then again—I’ve never been able to outrun a haunting.”

     This didn’t satisfy you, but you nodded and closed your eyes again anyway.