The Stars Before Me

She was the tallest person on the ship, and yet she felt the smallest.

The maians moving around were constantly chatting away – to her ears, it sounded almost like animal sounds. High pitched, rapidly delivered, no identifiable words or sentence structure. It was obvious that they had a language of course, and it was just as obvious that she was in the presence of an advanced race. A race that could utilize FTL travel. A race that could build a fleet of warships capable of reducing a planet to molten slag. A race that had the willpower to do such a thing to the world it was orbiting. A world she'd been on a matter of hours ago. A world that was burning.

The skedar homeworld was ablaze.

She didn't know how to feel about that. She'd killed dozens of skedar already. She'd killed dozens of her fellow humans as well, most of them in the service of dataDyne and/or the NSA (or at least Easton's rogue faction within the organization). She hadn't enjoyed it. In the past, sure – Zhang Li, Mai Hem, even Chun Fan, to an extent. But dataDyne was the world's largest corporation. A hyper-corporation, and not even the only one. It employed millions, and she'd deducted from their number. Sometimes in the spur of the moment, sometimes not. But now, all of that seemed inconsequential to the firepower the maians were unleashing. Condemning a world and everything on it to a molten wasteland.

Maybe the skedar deserved it. Nothing they'd done on Earth had endeared her to them. Nothing they'd done on their ship or their homeworld had done anything to change her opinion on those creatures – that they were dangerous aliens, and the galaxy might indeed be better off without them. But then, so much of what she knew of them she knew from Elvis and Carrington. The maians had their side of the story. The skedar might have theirs. She'd never know. Elvis had told her that they'd take the first ship they could back to Earth, and after that…

She sat down on a chair, still towering above the maians, the seat groaning under her weight. After that, she reflected, the galaxy would keep on turning, the maians would keep on fighting, and she would…what, she wondered? The world she returned to would be changed. She could dare hope that the knowledge of alien life might change the behaviour of her species, but she doubted it. The world was divided between the haves and have-nots. Hyper-corporations continued to have more power than governments. dataDyne might have been one of them, but it wasn't the only. Humanity might look to the stars more, but earth would always be below their feet and-

Huh?

A maian was looking at her. Making all sorts of movements with its hands, making all sorts of sounds with its mouth.

"Pardon?" she asked.

The maian put a hand to its forehead, and Joanna got what that meant. And-

"Oh." She stood up. "That okay?"

The maian made a whistle – she suspected it was the equivalent of a grunt. That, or "thanks for getting out of my chair you twat." It certainly got in it at least. She watched as it swivelled around to face the darkness of space – of the skedar homeworld (still burning), and the stars beyond, hundreds, if not thousands of light years away. Still shining. Still burning.

"Joanna?"

She turned around, hitting her head on a beam. She let out a curse.

"Joanna? Are you alright?"

God damn son of a-… "Fine," she said, still holding it. She looked at Elvis – still wearing his American flag, still talking perfect English, still being…well, Elvis. The one maian on this ship who'd give her the time of day.

"Are you sure? I understand that your heads aren't as big as ours, but hitting them still hurts."

"Fine," she repeated. She smiled. "We ready?"

"Yes. Shuttle's ready." He gestured to the exit of the bridge. "Come. Come."

She did come. Reflecting on the notion of a shuttle (she'd never seen a maian shuttle, but it had to be smaller than this warship). Reflecting how Elvis managed to be so personable, even if he never smiled (he never really did anything with his mouth, it was so tiny). Reflecting that the maians on the bridge were probably glad to see the back of her. Sure, she was the human who'd killed the skedar leader and deactivated the planet's shields, but she was also a member of the race who'd killed their ambassador and sent his body to Area 51. So…50/50? Maybe?

She kept walking – while her legs were much longer than the maian leading her down the corridor, she had to keep ducking to get through the doors that they had to keep passing through. The maian ship…if she had to describe it in one word, it would be "clean." The Pelagic was undoubtedly of human design. The skedar ship had a coarseness to it, the sense that this was built by a race that valued function far more than form. The cetan ship…she couldn't even describe that. But the maian ship, it welded form and function together. The sense that this was a race that could travel the stars, and keep the dust out while doing so.

"Nearly there," said Elvis. He looked back at Joanna. "Is your head better?"

"Fine," she said.

"Fine," he said, sighing – apparently aliens sighed in the same ways that humans did. "That word can mean so many things in your language."

"Well, there are other languages on Earth…"

"I know!" Elvis exclaimed, making a movement with his arms that suggested he was laughing, even if no laughing sound came out of his mouth. "It's truly fascinating! Every other race I know of speaks only one primary language, with only a few secondary ones. But humanity has thousands. Thousands! There's more languages spoken on Earth than there are races in the galaxy."

Joanna remained silent. By her estimate, that meant there were less than 6000 species, give or take. But less than 6000 could still mean 5999. That was a hell of a lot of aliens.

"Anyway," Elvis said, turning the corner – there were no markings in the hallways, but he clearly knew where he was going. "We're nearly there."

Of course, she reflected, did the term "alien" really apply? Couldn't anyone or anything be an "alien" in the depths of space? Wasn't she the alien aboard this ship?

The final door opened, leading out to what she could tell was a hangar deck. As different as the maians were from humans, they at least operated on the same principles of ship design. Multiple craft were here, ranging from the flying saucer they'd used to escape Area 51, to ships of all kinds of shapes and sizes – mostly circular, mind you, but triangles and rectangles hadn't been left out. And seeing the hustle and bustle of the grey aliens all around her, looking almost like children…yep. She was definitely the alien here.

"Come on," said Elvis, taking her by the hand. "We'll be using a Type-3 shuttle. Should be at Earth in just short of one of your Earth days."

"Oh," said Joanna weakly, allowing herself to be led across the deck. "Great."

It was a long walk. The Type-3 shuttle (yet another saucer, only much larger than some of the others, including the Area 51 craft) was parked close to the bay's exit. A shimmering wall of energy separated the bay from the vacuum of space, and if her sci-fi credentials counted for something, she could tell that the energy kept the air of the ship inside, but would allow maian craft to pass in and out without having to worry about pressurization. As Elvis went to talk to the shuttle pilot and began working on a hologram (apparently the maians had their own version of administration), she took a step closer to the shimmering wall. What would happen, she wondered, if she stuck a hand out? Exposed it to vacuum? Likely something very painful and very permanent, but still, hadn't she gone through painful and permanent things before? What was one more?

She didn't do that though. She wasn't suicidal. How could she be, seeing this? She didn't know if she was in the starboard or port side of the ship (did the maians even use such terms?), but either way, the skedar homeworld couldn't be seen. All that was in her view were the stars. Multitudes of them. Their light, first emitted centuries ago, entering her human eyes through an alien filter. Gingerly, she rubbed the left side of her neck.

"Joanna?"

"Hmm?" She looked at Elvis. "Are we ready?"

"Yes, but…are you in pain?"

"Pain?"

"You're rubbing your neck?"

"My…oh. Oh, no," she said, smiling. "Just…old habit."

"Ooh, is this another human habit? I wasn't aware that you rubbed your necks when-"

"It's where I used to have a tattoo," she said. "Black star, left lower neck."

"A tattoo…" Elvis put a hand to his chin – apparently, some motions were indeed universal. "That is a marking on your body, right? A thing you do for cultural reasons?"

"Sometimes…" She didn't feel like going into the history of tattoos, how most people got them to look "kewl" rather than display some kind of cultural solidarity. "But anyway, I had it removed a year or so ago."

"Oh." Elvis sounded disappointed, and as best as a maian could, looked disappointed. "A shame. I would like to have seen your tattoo."

"It was just a black star," she said, shrugging. "Nothing really there to miss." She nodded towards the shield separating the hanger from space. "Those stars, though. I mean, they're the real deal."

"Yes. The real…deal." Maybe Elvis didn't understand the term. "But yes, I agree. Those stars are real. And so many! Many are like your sun of course. Like our sun as well. It appears that wherever there is a main sequence star, and a suitable terrestrial planet, life will arise."

"That's…great," Joanna said, not sure how she felt about that notion – hopefully the life was more like the maians, less like the skedar, and not at all like the cetans. "Shall we go? Think there's a blue ball around one of those stars that needs us?"

"Ah yes. Indeed, indeed." Elvis gestured to the ship, its ramp having descended. "Come, come. Lots of room this time."

Joanna gave a small smile and began boarding.

She hadn't told him the full story of course. She'd got the black tattoo removed because of her father. Jack Dark had been a bastard, but still, he was her father. One that she'd fought to avenge, succeeded, and ended up joining the Carrington Institute in the process. He'd said it made her look cheap. Chandra had liked it, but…She frowned, glad that Elvis couldn't see her. Chandra. She didn't want to think about Chandra. Not then. Not now. Not ever again. Not when so many real stars were in the sky, and they were closer to the grasp of humanity. For good or ill.

But she was going to one of those stars now. A star that shone upon her world.

Right now, she wanted nothing else.

A/N

So where does Joanna's star tattoo go between Zero and the original Perfect Dark? Obviously the reason it isn't there in the original is that the prequel wasn't planned yet (plus creative licence), but...meh. Drabbled this up.