Andrea Höst - And All the Stars

"It is a faint chance," he went on, apologetically. "When the Spire’s shield is down, but it is no longer functioning as a portal – as it will be in the moments immediately after the Core returns – the Spire is vulnerable. A pulse, an application of carefully timed blows of force, will paralyse it, preventing the raising of the shield. If this is followed by a continued attack, there is a chance we could kill it, but more likely it will withdraw."

"Kill it?" That was Nash, startled. "It’s alive?"

"The Spires – all the Spires – are a single, living construct. A grander creature than the Hunters and the Aerials, but sharing the same origin."

Only the leech Blues reacted with surprise. Curled in a corner of one of the room’s couches, Madeleine considered the faces of the Musketeers among the crowd of freed Blues. Pan, Min, Noi, and Emily, each having looked through a window at an alien world and culture. The knowledge alone would always separate them, and the experience had marked them in other ways. They were all so bruised. Pan tried to disguise it with his usual frenetic energy, but drooped when there was no-one to bounce off. Emily hadn’t spoken, not once, while Min’s few words had been sharp, full of edges. Noi’s eyes were shadowed.

Three days since they had danced barefoot. Every one of them silently wounded.

Madeleine glanced at Fisher, who did not drop his eyes quite quickly enough to hide that he’d been watching her. His face was drawn, the lids drooping with exhaustion, and despite her determination to not deal with her feelings until after the coming battle, she had to check an impulse to wait until he looked again. He continued to take a deliberately businesslike tone to everything, giving her little chance to gain a sense of him, but already there’d been glimpses of a different person to the one she’d known. A hint of impatience, a touch of sarcasm. More often brief glances rather than those calm, unhurried surveys. The connection, the rapport she’d thought she had with Fisher – had it all been Théoden?

Too much noise to think. Forty freed Blues, each with their own opinions, making it impossible to simply issue peremptory commands without explanation. Madeleine closed her eyes on the debate, then opened them to check again on Noi, subdued and contained, holding an icepack to Emily’s shoulder. Now that all the Musketeers were free, Madeleine had lost her immediate drive. Incapable of celebrating, unable to mourn.

She shifted so she could see Tyler’s profile. Always distant in his own way, yet conjuring a sense of comfort, safety, the certainty of family. He would always be her cousin, no matter what happened. But even with Tyler she could not find any way to explain her confusion, or her need to have Théoden’s sacrifice acknowledged, could only tell herself over and over that now was the wrong time. Everyone had their own hurts, their own struggle with the coming battle. She shut her eyes again, trying to listen without feeling.

The crux of the debate was the consequences of failure. If the Spire remained functional, then the united clan response would mean the deaths of most, if not all the freed Blues who had mustered to fight, followed by a release of dust to create more Blues around Sydney. Even if they succeeded, they would be facing the Core and two Quarters – and a dragon.

"Eight years."

Noi hadn’t raised her voice, but her flat tone still managed to cut through the noise.

"The gap before the next cycle of primacy will be eight Earth years," she continued. "Why are we even discussing this? You mightn’t have been hosting one of the Reborn, but it still must be obvious to you all that there’s no question of passing up this chance, or of making sure the information we have is spread as far and wide as possible."

"A cycle." Nash had straightened in dismay. "Of course. That has always been there, right in front of us. A cycle suggests repetition."

"They’ll come back," Noi said. "Until there’s not enough people left on Earth to make it worth their while. And then they’ll skip our planet for a few cycles, until we’ve built up a big enough population for them to care. Over, and over, and again. Unless we stop them."

There was no argument after that.

A small command group – primarily the Musketeers and the leech Blues – woke Madeleine a third time, returning to the North’s suite for a strategy meeting after the rest of the hotel had been cleared. Of the three hundred and fifty-odd possessed Blues in Sydney, they had now freed a hundred and eight. There were as many Greens in the building, posing such a technical difficulty for the freed Blues that any suggestion of rescuing Blues in other hotels was quickly shut down.

"It will have to wait until after we’ve faced the Core. If the Spire withdraws, the Greens will recover themselves in…" Noi shrugged, her eyes still flat and dark. "The North didn’t know the exact timing. A day or a week – long enough that we’ll be either fighting, avoiding, or have our hands full helping them. The most we can do beforehand is try to limit Green involvement with the initial battle, and then deal with them after, along with any Moths which attack us."

"Any guesses how many will?" Nash asked.

"While the Spire stands, and the Core’s alive, all of them will come. That’s not an option for them. The longer the battle lasts, the more we’ll have to fight." Noi nodded at the television, where an endless series of battles between possessed Blues was being waged. "Less than two hours till dawn, and we’ll want to be in place well before, in case that wraps up early. Let’s get this recording done."

"I’ll wake Fish," Pan said, picking up one of a pair of compact video cameras Fisher had produced from his backpack.

"No, we’ll do the technical sections first." Noi glanced at Madeleine, not Fisher collapsed on the couch opposite. "Everyone should get as much rest as they can."

Drowsy, but no longer numbingly exhausted, Madeleine stayed curled up, watching as Noi explained the process of freeing and reviving Blues, and the best techniques for fighting Moths and their creatures. Then Haron set out the plan to bring down the Spires, in the hopes that if they failed another city would be able to carry it out.

While they talked, Madeleine watched Fisher sleep. The mouth she had kissed, the hands which had touched her. Beneath the jacket and shirt, comets. She squeezed shut her eyes, and when she opened them again he was looking back, and did not shift away. Half the room between them, and identical unhappy expressions.

Haron finished, and Noi grimly checked the time on the television. "Ready to do the history, Fisher?"

He nodded and sat up, pausing to run his fingers through his hair, trying to tame sleep-born excesses.

"You want me to hunt you out a comb?" Pan asked, still determinedly upbeat in defiance of the subdued focus which had settled on everyone else. "A mirror? How about some cucumber slices for the circles under your eyes?"

"Maybe later." Fisher’s gaze was level. "You’ll want to save your primping for yourself – you’ll be doing a closing recording."

"Me? Why?"

"If we bring down the Spires, the Moths will be furious, desperate. Worse, if we fail, and the Moths are alertly on guard, holding the threat of dust over their cities, any free Blues are going to be facing tremendous hurdles. We’ve had the advantage of surprise. Picture trying to work out how to spirit punch, then heading into Moth territory hoping to free a possessed Blue, with the knowledge that the response might be the deaths of thousands of uninfected. We need an Agincourt speech."

"And you expect one from me?" Pan held the camera before him in protest. "You write me something and I’ll perform it, but I’m no good with my own words."