Not minutes had gone by before she heard the magnets engage and felt the ship rise off the ground. The crowd cheered. Dataran wrapped his arms around Miko and she was beaming and though Star didn’t think Miko could see her, she felt almost like they were looking at each other in that moment, and that Miko knew precisely the decision that Star had made. And she, too, knew it was the right one.
Then the thrusters engaged, and the ship was climbing up out of the hangar, over the glittering, sprawling city of New Beijing. And Dataran was gone.
Suddenly weary, Star leaned her head against the window. Her audio input dulled to a faint, distant hum as the Child of the Stars speared through the wisps of clouds, and the sky turned from bright blue to blushing pink and pale orange.
Her fan was struggling inside her torso, moving slower and slower…
Then, so suddenly she almost missed it, space opened up before her. Black and expansive and endless and filled with more stars than she could ever drink in. More stars than she could ever compute.
It was so much better than a holograph.
Her wires quivered as the last dregs of power sizzled through them. Her fingers jolted and twitched and then lay still.
She was smiling as she imagined herself as one more star in the sea of millions, and her body decided it had had enough, and she felt the exact moment when her power source gave up and the hum of electricity extinguished.
But she was already vast and bright and endless.