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Cinta has never really seen stars before. Not from a planet surface. Not until they are on Aldhani and the sky is open and wide and crowded with tiny echoes of gold.
'There,' Vel says, flat out on the crushed grass, 'a shooting star.'
Beside her, Cinta stares upwards and watches it flash across the sky. It flickers, screaming across the darkness like a starship on its way to save the universe.
'Make a wish,' Vel says, quietly.
Cinta swallows. She is too old for wishes.
They have known each other for exactly four months. They are the only ones here, right now. The mission will come, and the others will arrive. But, right now, here they are.
Cinta, hands folded on her chest, and Vel, hand extended as if she wants to reach out and hold the stars themselves.
This moment stretches outwards, towards the sky. It will fade, of course. And time will pass. Still, sometimes, if you turn back at the right second, you might see them there.
Two ghosts in the gloom, making wishes.
…
The braid is tricky but her hands remember.
Up, over, through and close the loop. Learned long ago.
Vel squirms, no good at sitting still. Cinta rests a hand on her shoulder and she stops.
It was a simple question. Vel, one night in the hut, propped up on one shoulder. Still alone, but not for much longer.
'Tell me something about your home,' she asked, and her eyes were wide and ready.
'Can I show you, instead?' Cinta replied.
Vel pressed a kiss to her cheek.
'Of course.'
And now, Vel sits on the wooden stool with her feet crossed like a child. Cinta stands behind her, her hands running through Vel's hair. Dark at the roots, the memory of a different person.
'Did your mother teach you to braid?' Vel asks.
'Yes.'
It is not a conscious thought. Her hands move under their own power. She thought she had forgotten it, but her body knows better.
The history of this is long and quiet and nearly, now, lost. Her family, one in front of the other, a seemingly endless line. Back and back and back.
Unbroken, until -
The braid is not something you can do to yourself. She has grown up and away from her past. Changed herself. Adapted. Made new. History is sentimentality and there is no time for that anymore.
And now there is Vel. There is Aldhani. Waiting. Rain and mud and plans, spiralling in her mind.
In the vast array of this view, there are two women and the mountain and the limitless silence of the valley. It is as if they are the last people in the whole galaxy. The survivors of it all.
For a while, at least, Cinta lets herself remember. She plaits methodically, twisting and layering and watching the shape of it appear.
‘You’ll have to teach me how to do the braid,’ Vel says.
‘Yes,’ Cinta nods, ‘one day.’
Cinta, who can take apart a blaster in fifteen seconds flat, braids the hair with soft, open palms. It is as if the world has dwindled to just this room. The cold air sweeping in is a mere distraction. It means nothing. It is just her, with Vel’s hair between her fingers.
The universe is on fire. The galaxy is being destroyed.
And Cinta Kaz, the warrior, stands by her lover and shows her something of home.
…
They met in a fire fight. A hanger bay somewhere deep on Coruscant, the way all good love stories start.
Girl meets girl, shoots a few blaster bolts. A couple of dead Imps and home in time for dinner.
Cinta didn’t get a name, not that first day. The other woman was just one of Luthen’s projects; a convert to the cause, a livewire trying to prove a point. Pretty. Nice eyes.
A neutral observation, of course.
‘You could’ve got yourself killed,’ Cinta said, as they stood in the rubble of their small, insignificant victory.
‘Good,’ the woman without a name said.
‘You’re no use to anyone dead.’
‘Why do you care?’
Cinta didn’t reply. She thought they would never see each other again. If Luthen wanted to go around sending suicidal, somewhat proficient, rebels her way that was his business. Cinta just did what she was told.
The missions were what mattered. Nothing else.
She was stupid, of course. There was a first time for everything.
Two days later, Luthen’s shop.
Girl meets girl, again.
‘I’m Vel, by the way,’ the woman with the nice eyes said. Cinta stayed quiet.
Her heart was beating so fast she swore everyone in the room could hear it.
And that was that. The blink of an eye, the world tilting on its axis.
Love, pointless, infuriating love.
It made her feel alive.
…
There’s a story, somewhere. A version, at least.
Lovestruck, dangerous. Beautiful. Vel and Cinta and the whole galaxy in their grasp.
They go away, after Aldhani. They are cowards but they are alive.
They are together.
Growing old in the shadow of the empire. Under the derisive gaze of a rebellion unspooling at the seams.
Think of somewhere peaceful. Somewhere quiet.
No. Can’t see it?
Cinta can’t either.
She traces history like lines on her palm. It is on her. Every mark of it.
There is no story but this story.
…
Later. Darkness entombs them in its own private world.
They are expecting new arrivals tomorrow. Cinta knows no details except they won’t be alone anymore.
They’ve done enough scouting and planning and whispering their plans. Enough weaving themselves into the landscape.
Lying on the ground, side by side, a single blanket across them. They didn’t talk about it. Sharing. Vel said it was for warmth. But it’s not. After a while it became a habit that is too hard to break.
Vel is facing away, curled into herself. The soft murmur of half sleep. Cinta watches her, the eyes of a protector.
‘Wake me when it’s second shift,’ Vel breathes, so quiet that Cinta almost misses it.
‘Okay.’
Cinta has no intention of waking Vel. Not tonight. She will stay awake for the whole time, memorising the way Vel is when she sleeps. Hands curled into fists, holding onto the fabric of Cinta’s shirtsleeve. Holding so tight. The fear in that grip.
It is important to remember this, Vel laying next to her and not a soul for miles. No danger here in this single, spanning second. If Cinta could choose a moment to last forever it would be this. To be trapped in the time between heartbeats, marooned in the instant between Vel’s breaths.
Though she never says, Cinta is never as happy as she is right then, Vel in her arms, as the Aldhani night swallows them whole. The weight of it, on her chest, like something physical.
Love is this. Holding ground. Out of time. She runs a hand up Vel’s side. She stirs, ever so slightly, a smile on her lips.
Cinta counts her lover’s ribs, one by one: the rise of her collar bone, the swell of her hip, her hair, still carrying the braid.
Remember this.
Forever in a hundred seconds. Her life is nothing but the cold in her bones, and the warmth of Vel at her side. The contrast of it. Of feeling so alive when she is so afraid of dying.
When dawn breaks, the Fondor will appear in the sky like a portent, disrupting their almost-peace. Cinta is prepared. She has been ready from the moment they arrived. It has all been a waiting game - play pretending at an easy life. At a future they now have to fight for.
There has been little information about the rag-tag team that has been put together. They have been promised a pilot, but Cinta has no idea what to expect. She doesn't like it and she hopes, for their sakes, that they understand the importance of the cause. It will be easy to get rid of them if they don't.
‘Nothing will change,’ Cinta says.
‘Everything will change,’ Vel whispers back. ‘It has to.’
There is little else to say. Not tortured declarations, no affirmations of the importance of their mission. No hollow promises to survive.
No, l love you.
Instead Vel twists round and kisses her. Cinta reaches up - hand on Vel’s cheek and they crash together like they are lost in each other’s orbit. Closer and closer, until in the darkness they are one person, not two.
Everything that cannot say is in that single action.
And still, Vel holding onto Cinta’s shirtsleeve, tighter and tighter.
Oh, the fear in letting go.
…
They walk for a mile, maybe, away from camp. The final night on Aldhani. Everyone is frayed with nerves.
And the two of them, trekking into the abyss. Into the dark for a moment’s peace.
Vel, walking in time with Cinta’s footsteps. Aimless. They are only trying to find a place where they can talk and not be overheard. Cinta is sick of the looks the men give each other. They try to hide it, but she knows.
One blanket. It’s not a secret. She doesn’t care, but Vel does.
They lie on the grass again, like they did when they first arrived. It is cloudy; a dust storm before the great, explosive meteor shower that will come tomorrow.
It is so cold that Cinta cannot feel her hands. Not until Vel reaches across and takes them in her own. A small fire of heat, radiating from the other woman.
‘Sorry there aren’t any stars,’ Vel says.
‘You don’t have to say sorry.’
‘Still.’
They don’t talk about after. There is only now. Only the plan, and their parts within it. A great mechanism of resistance, coming from them. Pouring out of every cell in their bodies.
There is the two of them, lying on the grass, not watching the stars.
‘What did you wish?’ Vel asks. ‘When we were first here.’
‘Wishes aren’t real,’ Cinta replies.
‘I know.’
‘So?’
‘What did you wish, Cinta?’
The world stops. It freezes dead and waits for the reply. In the darkness, they cannot see each other’s faces. They can’t see anything, but the faintest glimmer of light, bleeding through the cloud cover. Almost imperceptible. A spectre of the galaxy, glowing weakly.
‘I wished that the mission would be a success,’ she says.
‘Oh.’
Cinta shrugs. They both know she is lying. Neither of them mentions it.
And what she really wished for, back when they were new to this planet and not bone tired with it, hangs in the silence.
One day, when they have got off this godforsaken, awe-inspiring planet, Cinta will tell Vel the truth. She will.
She will tell her that on a clear night, before the mud and the dying and the secrets, that all she wished for was this:
That love is enough.
But wishes are dreams, that’s all. The world turns. Meteors burn up in the atmosphere and we call them lucky.
Cinta sits up and pulls her knees into her chest. Vel does the same. They hold each other.
…
Years pass.
And love, still, after everything.
There is Vel, decades down the line, standing by a mirror in some reconstructed city, running her hands through her own hair. And the braid, which Cinta taught her, in her hair.
Careful and soft, twisted once, twice, three times.
Love is what we leave behind.
It is enough.