Starbound: A Starstruck Novel (2 page)

“I thought that’s what our trip this summer is supposed to be about. Isn’t that why your mom fixed it with Aunt Theresa so I can to go ‘Ireland’—” I made air quotes— “with you guys?”

“Yeah, but now she says summer will be too late.” Sean threw the last few paper cups into the trash. “That some Royal or other might have enough support by then that it’ll be almost impossible to get you Acclaimed Sovereign. Especially since people have got used to not having one the last fifteen years. I mean, most of them hated Faxon, but now he’s out . . .” He trailed off with a shrug.

I didn’t say anything for a few minutes, carrying the trash and recyclables into the kitchen, throwing away potato chip crumbs and rinsing out the empty onion dip bowl, trying to get my confusing emotions under control.
 

A part of me was almost giddy at the thought that I might not have to do the Sovereign thing after all. At the same time I couldn’t help feeling a little betrayed, after everything I’d been told about the Nuathan people
needing
me and
wanting
me so badly. Also disappointed, mainly because I’d been looking forward to seeing not only Mars, but the all-Martian village in Ireland where Molly and Sean had lived for a year and a half before coming to Jewel.
 

 
Once or twice Rigel brushed my arm or touched my hand as we handed off bags of trash. I appreciated it, though the hints of elation coming through told me he was
totally
fine with the idea of me maybe not becoming Sovereign after all. And so was I. Of
course
I was.

Just as the last traces of the party were dealt with, right on the stroke of eleven, there was a light tap on the front door. Swallowing, wondering what other “news” I’d have to hear tonight, I opened it. The O’Garas stood on the porch.

“Happy birthday, Emileia,” Mrs. O’Gara greeted me with a smile. “Again.”

My real birthday, I’d discovered last fall, was actually a week earlier than the one I’d always celebrated—the one on my faked birth certificate. The O’Garas had thrown me a private party last weekend at their house with just them, Rigel’s family, and the two members of the Council who’d recently moved to Indiana. For three wonderful hours Rigel and I hadn’t had to pretend, which was the best present they could have given me, though I doubted they thought of it that way.

“Thanks. Do you want to come in?”

Lanky, sandy-haired Mr. O’Gara glanced past his wife toward the stairs. “Have your aunt and uncle gone to bed?”
 

Uncle Louie’s snoring was louder than ever, so I nodded.
 

“Even so, outside might be safer.”
 

“Safer, maybe, but it’s like ten degrees out there.” In fact, I was already shivering. We’d had a late cold snap yesterday, not terribly uncommon in early March in north-central Indiana. It had dropped temps by almost thirty degrees, along with a foot of snow, and the O’Garas, who’d lived in a climate-controlled underground colony their whole lives, weren’t exactly used to that.
 

“I’ve got my omni.” Sean pulled the amazing little Martian device out of his pocket.

Rigel scowled—I knew how he felt about Sean owning one while he didn’t. Rigel’s grandfather, Shim, a senior Council member, had helped draw up some guidelines for
Echtrans
new to Earth, and carrying things like omnis around was definitely discouraged.

I just said, “Will it work for this many people?” Because it
would
be safer to talk on the porch, if it was going to be about Martian stuff.

“If we’re all touching.” Mr. O’Gara didn’t seem to register Rigel’s disapproval. “All right, then, everyone outside.”

We all trooped out to the front porch and as soon as I closed the front door behind us, Sean flicked on the omni’s holographic screen, punched in the settings, then stuck it back in his pocket. He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on his mother’s, who touched Molly, etc. Rigel was on my other side. As soon as Sean touched me, the cold disappeared, of course. Personally, I thought the omni was beyond awesome, like an iPhone on steroids.

“So, did Sean and Molly have time to tell you about the change of plans?” Mrs. O’Gara loosened her scarf, revealing hair as coppery as her son’s.

“Um… That we might not go to Mars after all?”
 

“That’s not what we said,” Sean protested. “We’re still going, right, Mum?”

“You lot are, along with your dad. I need to stay here to deal with things at this end. The Council feels that could be important.” Mrs. O’Gara had replaced her brother Allister on the
Echtran
Council when he was booted off.

I glanced at Sean, confused. “But you said that by summer the other guys will already have all their, um, political machinery in place. It sounded like there wouldn’t be much point in me going.”

“By summer, possibly,” Mr. O’Gara agreed. “That’s why the Council believes the timetable should be moved up. They want you to leave on the very first transport rather than a later one.”

“The summer dates were chosen to interfere with your school year as little as possible.” Mrs. O’Gara spoke briskly now. “But these new developments outweigh that in importance.”

Sure, all of this was way more important than school—I’d realized that a while ago. But it would still cause a lot of questions, both at school and at home, to leave before the semester was over.
 

“Can two or three weeks really make that much difference?” I knew from my longtime astronomy hobby (with an extra focus on Mars these past few months) that launch windows between Earth and Mars only happened every twenty-six months, and only lasted a month or so.
 

“You’re thinking of Earth ships.” Mr. O’s smile was almost—but not quite—patronizing. “Ours travel much faster, giving us a longer window of opportunity for launching.”

Oh. I hadn’t studied much about the Martian space program yet, but I should have guessed that, as advanced as they were. “Then when
would
we leave?”

“The first transport is scheduled to leave around the start of your spring break, three weeks from now.”

“Three
weeks?
” I practically squeaked. I’d been excited about leaving in three
months
, but— “That’s…that’s crazy. Isn’t it? I mean, the politics on Mars can’t change
that
fast, can they?”

Mrs. O’Gara leaned forward and caught my eye, then turned to the others. “I need to discuss a bit of private Council business with Emileia. Would you all mind waiting in the car? It will only take a moment, and then we’ll take you home, Rigel.”

Though Sean and Molly looked surprised and Rigel looked worried, no one argued. Mrs. O waited until they were inside the van with the door closed to put a hand on my shoulder—which I appreciated, since she now had Sean’s omni.

“It’s important for you to know that there’s much more at stake here than mere politics.” Her blue eyes held mine, her voice deadly serious. “None of the others, not even my husband, are aware of the larger issue, but you should be.”

Breathing suddenly became harder. “You mean…the Grentl?” I’d gotten in the habit of
never
thinking about that race of potentially hostile, super-advanced aliens, since it was such a huge secret I’d promised not to tell even Rigel.
 

Mrs. O nodded. “A message has come from them—the first since Faxon’s overthrow—and no one on Mars can decipher or respond to it. Our hope—our
fervent
hope—is that you will be able to do both, as soon as possible. The fates of both Mars and Earth may depend upon it.”

Sean O’Gara
(shawn oh-GAYR-uh):
Son of Quinn and Lily O’Gara; destined Cheile Rioga
(
Royal Consort) to Princess Emileia

Sean

“So, what was that last bit about?” I ask when Mum joins us in the minivan.

She raises an eyebrow at me, the way she does. “Council business, as I said, and none of your concern.”

I glance over at Rigel, on Molly’s other side. “You mean something
he’s
not allowed to know about?” I can’t resist the dig. I saw how he acted the second M’s aunt went up to bed, like he wanted to drag M off to some corner and make out with her. Plus M seemed just a little too happy at the idea of not becoming Sovereign after all, and I know Rigel’s the reason why.

“No, something that concerns
only
the Council and the Princess.” Mum gives me one of her looks and I know better than to push it.
 

I remember when she first replaced Uncle Allister on the
Echtran
Council back in December, there were a couple of meetings so secret she couldn’t even tell Dad what they were about, even though she was clearly upset after that second one.
 

“So, Rigel, are you excited that we’re leaving for Mars so soon?” Molly obviously wants to change the subject before I can take my bad mood out on Rigel again. “I can’t wait to get back and show you and M around and all.”

He shrugs. “I guess.” Then, to my parents, “These Royals who don’t want M to become Sovereign, they won’t do anything worse than campaign, will they? I mean, could she be in any actual danger?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” my dad says, with a quick glance at Mum.

She shakes her head. “We certainly don’t expect that, though of course, as her Bodyguard, you’ll be told if we hear anything along those lines.”

Bodyguard. Right. It’s all I can do not to laugh. Rigel’s a year younger than I am, just a sophomore, nowhere near old enough to be a proper Bodyguard to our next Sovereign. But that’s one of the conditions M insisted on when she made her deal with the Council back in December.
 

Molly starts talking about Mars again, and Bailerealta, where we lived for almost two years before moving to Jewel, but I’m really not paying attention. It’s taking all my self-control not to say any of the stuff I want to say to Rigel while M’s not here to stop me.

Because while I’ve done my best to ignore the truth for the past two months, it’s always there, niggling at me: M is no closer to being my girlfriend now than she ever was. It’s still purely an act, a part she only plays because the Council says she has to. Not that she’s been doing a great a job of it. Hell, she usually avoids touching me at all, because of that tingle we both get. The one she refuses to acknowledge. It must be as obvious to everybody else as it is to me that we’re not really a couple, that her heart isn’t in it.

And that’s what hurts. Because my heart definitely is.
 

During all those years everybody believed Princess Emileia was dead, I clung to a hope—a wish, really—that they were wrong. Even though I couldn’t remember her, could barely remember a time before she was presumed dead, I grew up thinking about her, thinking about what my life would be like if she was still around. I thought about her so much I practically conjured her. For a few years, when I was little, I actually believed she—or maybe her ghost—was always with me. That we were friends.
Best
friends, even though nobody could sense her but me.
 

I outgrew that particular fantasy by the time I was nine or ten, but I still thought about her a lot. When word came last fall that Princess Emileia really was alive, I was beyond happy. It was like every wish I’d ever made had come true. When Uncle Allister suggested we move to Jewel so she and I could get to know each other, I wanted to leave on the very next plane.
 

But dear Uncle Allister didn’t bother to mention that Emileia was already dating another
Echtran
. Sure, the whole Stuart family was mentioned in reports of the big battle with Faxon’s people that came so close to killing our Princess for real, but only in passing,. So I knew Rigel Stuart existed, but it wasn’t until my first day at Jewel High that I had
any
inkling something was going on between them. It’s possible I overreacted a little when I found out. But who could blame me?

Anyway, ever since that first two or three weeks, when I was still struggling to reconcile the real Emileia—M—with my fantasy version, I’ve behaved pretty decently to Stuart, all things considered. I mean, not only is he dating the girl
I’m
supposed to be with, but he manages to form some stupid genetic anomaly
bond
with her, which is totally not okay. Then he puts her in danger all over again, not to mention risking every Martian on Mars and Earth, by running off with her! The worst is, she acts like he didn’t do anything wrong at all.

Meanwhile, no matter how well I play basketball, no matter how much every
other
dumb girl in Jewel flirts with me, I can’t even get M to notice me. At all.

So yeah, I have lots of reasons to hate Rigel Stuart. But because M wants me to, I try to act like we’re friends. In spite of how much he’s screwed things up for me, for Mars, for the future of the whole damned human race. About the
only
good thing I can say about him is that he seems to love M almost as much as I do. And, much as it kills me to admit it, M loves him back.

Which will make it a lot harder to convince her that
I’m
the one who’s her ultimate destiny. Still, I’m not giving up. Ever. There’s way too much at stake, and not only for me.
 

I just have to get smarter about it.

Grentl
(GREN-tuhl)
: advanced non-human alien race from an unknown part of the galaxy; likely founders of underground human colony on Mars

Sitting in church the next day I still felt dazed. How could I possibly be leaving the
planet
in just three weeks? Maybe to save the
world
?
 

By now I was almost used to these disorienting, living-in-a-sci-fi-novel moments. But the idea that the fate of two worlds might rest on
my
totally unprepared, inexperienced, inadequate shoulders went beyond disorienting to downright terrifying.