The Last Starmachine
When modern problems require ancient solutions.
Title: The Last Starmachine
Author: @litzing
Word Count: 1513
The ceiling, emblazoned with a fractal map of the universe that must have taken thousands of cycles to complete, hangs over me like a midnight sky as I cross the grand cavern to the very last Starmachine. With tears in my eyes and a smile on my lips, I gaze up at the culmination of my life’s work, a tall, mysterious cylinder covered in carved runes that looms over the cavern like a monument to the heavens. I reach out to touch the structure, but I hesitate right before my fingertips can brush the stone and withdraw my hand. There’s more to be done before I can enjoy my discovery.
“Is that it?” asks Masza in accented Common. He approaches the Starmachine, regarding it with awe. I’m fishing in my knapsack when I look up to see him about to touch the cylinder with one large, scaled hand.
“Don’t!” I blurt out, and Masza freezes with his palm mere inches from the Starmachine. “Don’t touch that. You could turn it on.”
He lowers his hand. “I thought it had a key?”
“It does. But one can never be too sure.”
I produce the key from my knapsack, wrapped in an expensive Ssarrhan fabric. Masza leans closer to see. It’s a sandy brown stone sphere about the size of my fist. Runes similar to those on the Starmachine are etched into the surface. A long, jagged rod extends from the top. Not much to look at; the antiques dealer I bought it from was using it as a paperweight.
“This is incredible! Oh, I am so excited. Imagine what we can do with the last Starmachine, Masza!” I can’t hide the way my eyes light up, nor how my speech quickens. “We can salvage civilizations! Light up skies! We can create new worlds capable of life! How amazing!”
Masza clears his throat. My smile fades when I raise my eyes to see him looking disgruntled.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Am I getting paid or what?”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” I dig deeper in my knapsack, then pass him a wad of bills. “As promised. Thank you for guiding me, Masza, I greatly appreciate your assistance.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He counts the bills. “Just hurry up. It’s hot in here, Ilamiria.”
“I apologize, but we could be here for a long time.” I’m already setting down my lantern and flipping through the tiny notebook I keep in my pocket at all times, stuffed full of important information I’ve gathered about the Starmachine. To the left is a control panel of sorts, a cluster of stone dials that correspond with cosmic coordinates, and I wander over as I’m talking to nobody in particular.
“These must be the tuning dials. I wonder if I can turn them? Surely the stone has deteriorated over time, perhaps even cracked in some places...”
All of the dials have keyholes on the left side. The key fits like a glove in the largest dial, and it turns with ease. Once I’m certain nothing terrible will happen, I start twisting the dials according to my notes.
“Ah, I see... So this is—And this small one here determines—Hmmm... Maybe this big dial... Yes!”
“Should I be listening to you?” Masza questions, ambling around the cavern, his thick tail swishing along after him. There isn’t much to look at beyond the map on the ceiling and the Starmachine.
“No, no...” I wave a hand vaguely in his direction. “Don’t mind me. But please don’t break anything.”
“Wasn’t planning on it...” he grumbles.
Referencing my notes, I arrange the dials in a very precise way. They must be correct, or I could cause catastrophic damage to the universe. If I don’t use specific coordinates...
“... I could destroy worlds,” I murmur.
“What?” Masza’s voice is close behind me. “Is that what we’re doing?”
“Ah, no, of course not. Just talking to myself,” I reply. I’m busy with the dials. So busy, in fact, that I don’t hear Masza pull out his blaster until the barrel is pressed against the back of my head. I pause, hands still on the dials just as I’ve set the right coordinates.
“Masza?”
“Y’know, Ilamiria,” he begins, and I hear him flick his blaster from stun to kill. “I think we should destroy some worlds.”
“I’m sorry?” I turn, and I find myself face to face with the business end of Masza’s blaster. “Oh! Masza, why—?”
“I have a buyer from Talroch that’s very interested in the last Starmachine. They say it’s some kind of weapon?”
“A weapon!? Of course not! Masza, Starmachines are the closest thing to gods this universe has! They create life! And we found one! This is the archaeological discovery of the millennium. You can’t possibly sell it to some warlord!”
“Money talks. I listen.” He extends his hand. “I’m gonna need you to hand over that key.”
“I’ll pay you more. My parents are wealthy aristocrats on Tikka. I can afford it. I’ll double your money!”
“It’s a lot of money, kid.” Masza beckons with one clawed finger. “The key.”
“But you don’t know how to use it!” I exclaim, desperate. “Masza, you could kill us all. You could take billions of lives. Trillions!”
“Guess I’ll need your notes, too. Hand ‘em over. I won’t ask again.”
I can see in his dark green eyes he’s not messing around. Maybe hiring a guide from a bar on Ssarrha was a bad move. I glance up at the Starmachine, my beloved, and chew my lip in thought. Is my sense of self-preservation strong enough to outweigh my morals? Turning over my research to this thug will put trillions of lives in jeopardy. Could I do that to save my own skin?
No. I found the last Starmachine. I won’t let anyone take that away from me. And I sure as hell won’t let anyone use it as a weapon.
I duck under Masza’s blaster and ram my shoulder into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. He stumbles and falls with a surprised yelp, his blaster slipping from his fingers and clattering off to the side. I dive for the blaster, but Masza catches me by the ankle and hauls me towards him. I try in vain to claw my way forward, my nails scrabbling against the stone until they split and bleed. Masza’s grip on my ankle is bruising, and he’s so much stronger than me. Gasping for breath, Masza drags me closer and flips me over so he can straddle my waist and hold me down. After a swift punch to the face that must have broken my nose, his rough hands find my throat, and he squeezes.
“Fucking brat!” he spits, glaring at me with narrowed eyes and slitted pupils, sharp teeth bared like an animal. “You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you? If you really were some kinda kid genius, you’d have handed over your shit and died easy. Now you’re gonna die—“ His grip tightens on my throat. “—slow.”
I kick my feet and try to pry his hands away, but it’s futile. Thinking fast, I grab the knife sheathed on Masza’s belt and drive it into his gut as deep as I can, piercing his soft underbelly. Pale blue Ssarrhan blood bursts from the wound when I rip the knife out, and Masza shrieks in pain, releasing my neck to try to stop the bleeding with both hands. I scramble out from under him and snatch the key from where I’d left it on the panel, and without a second thought, I force the key into the ignition and twist it to the right.
The cavern rumbles. I watch in awe as a brilliant golden glow creeps through the runes carved into the Starmachine, lighting up every crevice from bottom to top. A large panel in the ceiling above the Starmachine slides open, exposing the night sky. As the glow reaches the top of the cylinder, I feel electricity in the air, a crackling static that raises my hackles and stings my eyes.
After a deafening silence, the Starmachine roars to life. It sounds like the wind howling in a hurricane. I feel myself being pulled towards the cylinder, and I grab the control panel to keep steady. Masza is not so lucky. The Starmachine reels him in from where he’s groaning in pain on the ground, and the moment he touches the white-hot cylinder, he’s lit up in flames. His agonized screams will haunt me for the rest of my life, but soon, he is nothing more than a pile of ash.
With an explosion that leaves my ears ringing, the Starmachine ejects some sort of projectile into the sky. It’s gone in a blink, breaking out of the atmosphere. Then the glow fades, the dials spin back to their default position, and all is quiet, save for the panel on the roof sliding shut.
But before it can close, I see a prick of light in the sky that was not always there.
