A clear bowl-shaped shield curved around them, straining, shivering, but somehow it still held. Callista pressed her palms against it, stretching the shield out further, her fingernails digging into its flimsy surface. She would have stayed there, watching, waiting, had water suddenly not sloshed against the shield, sending her stumbling backwards. She looked back up in time to see Fayay’s pale eyes appear on the other side of the barrier. The Watine bared his teeth at her. ‘You think if you keep running we won’t find you?’
Kuja stepped forward and coolly interceded. ‘They appear to be succeeding, brother. Turns out I’m pretty good at blocking your sensing abilities, even if I am only seventy-one years old.’
‘I will bring them all against you, little one,’ Fayay said, his words tinged with the roar of distant oceans.
Callista smiled as a warm hand enveloped hers. Sandsa, now standing beside her, smirked at the god of water. ‘You are wasting your time, Fayay. Or do you want our siblings to accuse you of abandoning your duties?’
Fayay scowled and vanished.
Kuja returned to pacing the edge of the shield, tirelessly keeping the small family from harm. Callista reached out to touch his shoulder, to thank him, but the rainforest god turned bloodshot eyes towards her.
She woke before she could ask him how much longer he could last.
***
Callista smothered yet another yawn. ‘Will your brother ever let me have a decent night’s sleep?’
A muffled thud answered her. Sandsa had buried his head beneath his pillow. Callista smiled — then the silence was broken by the wail of a hungry child.
She sighed. ‘Now it’s your son keeping me up.’
The sheet flowed over and off her skin as she stood to bare her breasts. Sandsa lifted one corner of the pillow and made an appreciative noise, his blue eyes stalking her across their rented room. They were on some mining moon, one Callista had heard about years ago, and its airless surface was so barren that it did not contain any oceans, deserts, rainforests or anything a god might control. Outside the plexiglass window, rocks listed above the mining complex, some thrown there by being bounced away from the domed buildings and their bubble-shaped shields, others having drifted there uninterrupted for aeons. It was constantly night outside, but Callista found that the stars, so much closer and bigger and clearer than they had ever been on Yalsa 5, were a soothing sight.
Callista pointed at the window. ‘Look, Kieran. You can pick where we go next.’
Kieran continued to suckle her breast. He did not provide the miraculous answer she needed. Her family had already moved on three times in the past month, chased by dreams that warned them of impending discovery. She vowed not to grow too attached to this view but knew she would miss it all the same.
A warm, wet kiss that promised more touched her neck. ‘Is he done? I need to discuss important matters in bed.’
Callista grimaced. ‘Not now, Sandsa. I’m too worried, too tense. Kuja feels exhausted.’
‘You fear that he will not be able to protect us,’ Sandsa noted.
‘I’m worried he’ll end up neglecting his rainforests and get attacked for that!’
Kieran’s mouth popped away from her nipple and he made an unhappy grunt. Callista hurriedly readjusted him, but he fussed for a bit, sensing the conflict between his parents. Once she had settled him again, Callista turned back to Sandsa.
‘Kuja would not neglect his duties,’ her husband said, eyes shadowed.
‘He feels as rebellious as you do, sometimes,’ Callista commented.
Sandsa glanced at the window, as though he could see his brother’s reflection there. ‘Kuja will not renounce his place in the rainforests. He has never…never found any reason to do so.’
‘He loves you. He loved your mother. What stops him from loving someone else?’
‘I would rather speak of my love for you,’ Sandsa said and kissed her forehead. ‘Come to bed, Callista. We need not worry tonight. Kuja will last for some time yet.’
***
Cradled against her side, Kieran dozed on. As silent as him but far more attentive to the demonstration the mine supervisor was giving, Callista stared straight ahead, fascinated by the animations crawling across the large suspended vidscreen. The supervisor paused to answer a question. ‘Completely safe. All of us wear gear that’s high-vis and has markers on it so we can see where you are with both our eyes and our systems.’
Callista shifted in her hard-backed seat, one of many hundreds that filled the lecture hall. Only a smattering of them were taken, mostly by a group of young students who were too busy whispering about the latest lasball game back home to pay attention to the supervisor. She started when she heard them mention they were from Gerasnin, where the Chippers kept their galactic headquarters. It was only a short hop through space from the mining moon.
Callista raised her hand. The supervisor’s glassy eyes raked over the students instead of landing on her. He was dressed in sturdy black boots and a matching charcoal jumpsuit which seemed painfully bare without a gang logo. The bulky but manoeuvrable exoskeleton of a mine inspector stood beside him, supported by metal struts. The iridescent orange lights on the exoskeleton made it difficult to look at for too long. Callista gave the supervisor a small nudge with her powers, tipping his chin towards her. He saw her this time. ‘Yes?’
‘Do you need letters of recommendation?’ she asked.
‘Oh. No. We prefer our intake to have a clean slate.’
‘Yeah, lets you pay a real shit entry-level salary,’ one of the Gerasnin students hooted.
‘We also offer competitive childcare services and shorter weeks for those who would prefer to spend more time with their families,’ the miner said, now eyeballing Callista as though she were the only oxygen tank in a sea of vacuum. ‘And if you are hardworking, we are generous with promotion opportunities.’
His lecture moved onto the privately-owned company’s relationship with the Galactic Mining Corp. As this mine was independent of the corporation, they did not care about anyone’s history with it. Callista felt her spirits rise. She had wanted a job like this for so long but somewhere along the way she had forgotten her dream.
Probably when the Creator God insisted on shackling me to Yalsa 5, she thought in disgust.
Kieran made small mumbling sounds as he woke up. Callista jogged him in her lap, willing him to keep quiet, then stared down at him when she felt rather than heard a demand for food. His blue eyes regarded her solemnly. Sighing, Callista left the hall. Once ensconced inside a booth in a nearby communications terminal, she released a breast for her hungry son.
I can do it, she realised. No one can stop me. Not anymore.
Kieran tugged a little harder than usual. Callista released a hiss of air, then forced a smile as a pair of miners entered the terminal. They struck up a conversation between themselves, clearly using the room for personal matters when they should have been working.
Callista left them to it.
***
‘I want to work here,’ Callista said the moment she entered their rented room.
Sandsa lay his techpad flat on the desk, which was a suspended piece of metal that hovered slightly too low for him to comfortably rest his elbows on it. The techpad’s small screen featured lines and lines of text informing him of a slew of planets that he might travel to with his family. This updated list had been sent by Bock, who continued to wish them well, though the young man seemed more interested in reporting on his progress with Ala. Three smiles in one day was apparently enough of an improvement that Sandsa needed to be told.
‘It is dangerous for us to remain in one place for too long,’ Sandsa said, standing to receive his son. He beamed down at Kieran. ‘But if you wish to have a job wherever we go, then do so. It is probably a good idea not to rely on the money we took from Atsa.’
Callista’s bottom lip disappeared beneath her teeth. ‘Mining contracts last an Old Earth year.’
Rubbing his thumb over Kieran’s forehead until his child’s eyes began to drift close, Sandsa tried to keep his voice even. ‘Kuja has stressed that we must move on by next week.’
‘I thought you said he could last a little longer,’ Callista said, her eyes narrowing.
‘That is a little longer,’ Sandsa replied, then winced when he felt the force of her anger slam into him. Kieran’s eyes shot open and he wailed. Sandsa hurriedly began to murmur to his son, calming him once more. He set Kieran down into the crib and turned to Callista. Her hands were glued to her hips.
‘My love,’ he began softly, ‘we will always be chased.’
‘He deserves better than that.’
Sandsa lowered a hand into the crib and stroked his son’s face. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’
Her response came in a whisper. ‘Me too.’
They enveloped each other in an embrace of blame.
***
The moment the scream pierced the air Sandsa threw off the bed covers and flew over to where his youngest brother was curled up into a ball, convulsing, lips parted as he drew tortured breaths. Over in the crib, Kieran wept and complained, his face wrinkled and red.
‘Kuja!’ Sandsa said urgently. ‘Kuja! What’s wrong?’
Kuja shook his head, as if to clear it, then grabbed Sandsa’s arm and yanked his older brother’s ear down to his lips. ‘I am too weak. I’m sorry. I’m just…just too weak.’
‘How much time do we have?’ Sandsa demanded.
‘None.’
A gust of wind passed Sandsa — he glanced up in fear, but it was just Callista pulling on her shirt on her way over to the crib. She took Kieran into her arms. His child looked so small against her.
Sandsa cleared his throat. ‘Callista…if I…if I use my…’
‘No,’ she cut in. ‘You can’t go back.’
Sandsa gripped Kuja’s shoulder. ‘Will you stand beside me, brother?’
‘Standing is all I can do,’ Kuja moaned. His body felt limp and heavy when Sandsa pulled him up to his feet.
The door squealed. Designed to withstand the vacuum of space, it gave no resistance to the handful of gods and goddesses that stood behind it. The thick metal was torn from the frame and flung down the corridor, a piece of scrap. As he entered, Fayay’s lips gaped into a smile, a terrible one that revealed every single foul and decaying tooth.
Sandsa counted his siblings. There were fewer of them than he expected, but it was still more than two chipless humans and one exhausted god could handle.
‘We are here to restore Father’s grand design,’ Fayay declared.
‘Bullshit,’ Callista said. Despite himself, Sandsa smiled, finding her more beautiful than ever. A lasgun filled the hand that wasn’t supporting his son. ‘You don’t care about that. You’re more worried about what the Ine will do to you if you stray. He’ll concoct one of his plans for you, of course he will, but those plans aren’t without casualties. Or pain. Your father doesn’t care about you, only what he needs you to do.’
Several pairs of feet shifted behind Fayay. No one could keep their eyes on Callista for long. Kuja swung an amazed look at Sandsa. She speaks as if she knows the Ine better than any of us.
I think she does, Sandsa said, meaning it.
‘You could leave, as I have,’ he told his siblings out loud. ‘He can’t punish us if we all stand against him.’
Fayay’s laugh was low and sibilant. ‘Leave? And neuter myself as well as my powers? Never.’
‘Then you will never be as happy,’ Callista countered, then lifted an eyebrow when a blast of water smacked the floor at her feet. ‘Even I could deflect that!’
The next wave was a mix of powers, fast and furious. Kuja tried to fight back, Sandsa felt him, but then the Rforine staggered backwards, gasping for breath. Callista’s lasgun sent glowing red streaks towards the gods and goddesses opposing them. But they had been born with telekinesis to rival, even surpass, her own. The lasbolts slowed, then turned back towards their origin.
Sandsa watched the hypnotic swirl of sand that began at Callista’s feet before rising to form a shaky vortex, a surprisingly strong effort given that it was summoned by a mere infant. Her son’s shield merged with Callista’s own and together they deflected the bolts, successful even without the help of a fully grown god. Fayay scowled and hurled a ball of turgid water that shattered Kieran’s shields, both physical and mental. The child screamed.
I will not let my son protect us in my place, Sandsa thought.
He pushed out in front of the people he loved, arms spread either side of him.
Fayay took a step back.
Sandsa grinned. ‘You’re only second best, Fayay.’
He dove for the coil of power he had stowed away inside himself. And found it. He felt his strength return like hot, molten liquid seeping through his pores and veins, contaminating him, taking hold in every cell.
Sandsa threw himself among his siblings and brawled like he had been taught to in Atsa City, clipping the unprotected chins and temples of gods unused to physical attacks, all the while throwing every iota of power he had at them. They slapped their faces, trying to bat the sand away, but it burrowed into their noses and mouths, choking them.
Sandsa, I cannot watch this…not again… Callista pleaded.
The Alcazaar Clan Leader had once stood before him, accepting the end before he died inside a sandy tornado thrown from the Desine’s own hand. Sandsa pushed the images of that night away as soon as she sent them. He would not let Callista distract him. Not now.
Sandsa staggered under the assault of two gods he had missed. One of them was Fayay, who had not gone down as easily as he had hoped. But the Watine was barely a century younger than him and Finara, the goddess of fire, was only a handful of decades Fayay’s junior. Flames blistered the skin on Sandsa’s forearm and he cried out in pain when salt water ran over the injury, scrubbing it raw. He dug deeper into the wellspring of his powers — and became the desert. He was made of sand. He had no form to hurt, to wound, to maim.
When Sandsa came to himself, he realised he was kneeling on the Watine’s back. He smirked and said, ‘You will have to do better than that, Fayay.’
He slapped the ground beside his brother’s head. Droplets of water showered out of Sandsa’s palm and gathered into a puddle the floor, growing with each tug that he felt in his navel. Sandsa ripped his hand away and flexed his fingers until he cupped sand instead. He let the grains trickle over Fayay’s half-turned face.
‘I will return,’ Fayay said, snapping his teeth.
Sandsa laughed. ‘I will be waiting.’
The grin that curled the water god’s lips made something squirm inside Sandsa’s suddenly very human stomach. ‘Welcome back, Desine.’
Fayay collapsed into a puddle of water, causing Sandsa’s knees to hit the floor. Around him, his siblings vanished as well, their deed done. Sandsa glanced up — Kuja was leaning against a wall and Callista was standing over her husband, Kieran in one arm while the other was stretched towards him. Sandsa took her hand, the scar on her palm sliding along the one on his as she helped him stand, then he kissed her, drawing her bottom lip into his mouth. He felt her relax under his touch —
— and then everything went black.