Star pressed her fingertips against her own lips. Imagining.
Her arm weakened and she let it fall to her lap. It wouldn’t be long now. She could feel her body beginning to rebel. It was in the pain that was almost constant now, a stabbing sensation that tore through her legs even when she was only sitting. It was in the frequent loss of control in her twitching limbs. It was in the blackness that clouded in around her vision, and how she always thought this would be the last time, before, after a long, agonizing moment, she returned to consciousness again.
Footsteps thumped in the common room and paused in the doorway. Star turned her head away.
“One minute to takeoff,” said Ochida-shìfu. “Do you want to come sit with me in the cockpit?”
She shook her head and adjusted the sleeve of the silk kimono so that he was sure to see the metal plating of her arms. The synthetic skin had been easy to remove, and though seeing her android insides was disconcerting, the limb reminded her of the three-fingered prongs from her Mech6.0 body, and there was a comforting familiarity in that.
Ochida sighed heavily behind her. “I’m doing this for you, Miko. It’s better this way. And he’s just a boy—you’ll get over this.”
When Star didn’t respond, he huffed and withdrew from the doorway.
“Fine. Be angry. Throw your tantrum if you have to. Just put your skingraft back on before you snag that material. Whatever point you’re trying to make, it isn’t working. The reminder of what you are just further convinces me that I’m making the right decision.”
Then he was gone.
Star returned her gaze to the window, the hangar, the crowd. Hundreds of mech-droids lined up against the charging wall. Miko. And Dataran.
Not minutes had gone by before she heard the magnets engage and felt the ship rise off the ground. The crowd cheered. Dataran wrapped his arms around Miko and she was beaming. Though Star didn’t think Miko could see her, she felt almost like they were looking at each other in that moment, and that Miko knew precisely the decision that Star had made. And she, too, knew it was the right one.
Then the thrusters engaged, and the ship was climbing up out of the hangar, over the glittering, sprawling city of New Beijing. And Dataran was gone.
Suddenly weary, Star leaned her head against the window. Her audio input dulled to a faint, distant hum as the Child of the Stars speared through the wisps of clouds and the sky turned from bright blue to blushing pink and pale orange.
Her fan was struggling inside her torso, moving slower and slower …
Then, so suddenly she almost missed it, space opened up before her. Black and expansive and endless and filled with more stars than she could ever drink in. More stars than she could ever compute.
It was so much better than a holograph.
Her wires quivered as the last dregs of power sizzled through them. Her fingers jolted and twitched and then lay still.
She was smiling as she imagined herself as one more star in the sea of millions, and her body decided it had had enough, and she felt the exact moment when her power source gave up and the hum of electricity extinguished.
But she was already vast and bright and endless.
The Mechanic
The hover was waiting outside the palace’s northwest gate. Kai feigned nonchalance as he made his way through the garden’s path, Nainsi’s lightweight android body tucked under one arm and a pack carrying a hooded sweatshirt slung over his opposite shoulder. He didn’t hurry, but he wasn’t meandering, either. He pretended that he was unconcerned about being noticed. It wasn’t like he couldn’t be tracked. He had not one but two identity chips hidden beneath his skin, and his security team were experts at keeping tabs on him.
It wasn’t a secret that he was leaving.
But he didn’t want it to be public knowledge either.
The day was hotter than it had been all week and the humidity made his hair cling to the back of his neck. The garden gate opened without a sound, though he could feel the security camera overhead following his movements. He ignored it and approached the hover with the same straight-spined confidence he’d learned to do every task with, no matter how trivial. He waved his ID-embedded wrist over the hover’s scanner and the door whispered open, revealing a spacious interior behind the tinted-glass windows. Hidden speakers emitted the soothing notes of a flautist. Though the air inside had been cooled to a pleasant temperature, an ice bucket in the corner was still slick with condensation. It displayed an assortment of flavored waters and cold teas.
Kai pushed Nainsi in first before settling onto one of the upholstered benches. The door shut, and he realized that, despite the tranquility of the hover’s interior, his heart had started to pound.
“Good afternoon, Your Imperial Highness. What is your destination?” the hover asked in an artificially feminine voice.