Page 170 of Star Bringer
Of course I didn’t. I just forgot for a minute, and now I’m here. All fucked up with no one to fight. It’s a bad situation for all of us.
“We’ll see her again, Ian.” Max sounds so confident. “When this is over and we’ve got Milla—”
“I don’t ever want to see Kali again,” I tell him. And because I want him to hear the absolute fucking truth in those words, I don’t even growl them.
It must work, because he doesn’t try to talk anymore. He just leaves me to brood and plot the princess’s downfall. Not that there will be a downfall, because I’m never going to see her again. But if I was, I’d definitely make sure to—
“Ian.” It’s Merrick, standing in the doorway, looking rumpled from sleeping late but also like he ran here at top speed. “Rain just told me Kali left?”
“She sure as shit did,” I snarl. “And she’s never coming back.”
“We have to find her,” he snarls right back at me.“Now.”
Over my dead body. “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen, so you should probably come up with another wish for your fairy godmother.”
“That isn’t a wish. It’s a necessity—we have to get to her before it’s too late.”
“Oh, well. That sounds nice and dire, but she’s not my problem anymore,” I tell him, doing my best to sound as unconcerned as I feel. “She’s on her own now.”
“What do you mean?” Beckett asks. “Is Kali in danger?”
I want to ask her when she started to care, but I’m too busy listening for Merrick’s answer. Not that I give a fuck what happens to her—she could fall into a black hole for all the shits I give—but I probably should know what’s going on. Just in case it affects the rest of us. Or Milla.
“The whole system’s in danger,” Merrick says.
“I should go get Rain,” Beckett adds, standing. “Everyone should be here for this together.” She rushes out toward the bedrooms.
“Merrick, you’re going to have to give me more than that,” I prod.
“The heptosphere,” he says. “It’s a weapon. The heptosphere is a weapon—”
“I don’t give a shit about that hunk of metal,” I retort. Then nearly kick myself. I’m not even supposed to be listening, let alone caring what he’s saying. I busy myself with studying the buttons on the captain’s chair that I have never once figured out—might as well start now.
Merrick sighs. “It’s a weapon—one they think is powerful enough to revitalize the dying sun.”
“Well that sounds convenient,” Max tells him. “Isn’t that what we need?”
“Yes and no,” Merrick answers. “Do you know why a sun dies?”
“No,” I say. “Why don’t you educate me.”
Merrick looks at me dubiously, but when I narrow my eyes, he starts talking.
“I think to understand how a sun dies, we need to go back to how they’re formed,” he says. “At its simplest, stars are formed when clouds of dust—nebulas—get dense enough to have a gravitational pull. Under pressure, the temperature inside the nebula increases until it’s millions of degrees, and at that point nuclear fusion occurs.”
“And that’s what makes the sun burn,” I clarify. “And it keeps happening over and over again, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what keeps the star alive,” Max adds.
I nod. “So it dies because there’s no more nuclear fusion?” When Merrick agrees, I continue. “What makes the nuclear fusion stop?”
“Stars are in balance—gravity pulling inward, energy pushing outward,” Merrick explains. “But as the nuclear fusion continues, helium is turned into carbon, oxygen, neon, and so on. Finally, the core turns to iron.
“When that happens, there’s no more hydrogen. No more hydrogen, no more fusion, no more energy. Gravity takes over, pulling it inward, so the core becomes denser, but at the same time the outer layers expand. The star becomes unstable and pulsates, sending out energy.”
“Which is where we are now?” I ask.
“Yes. The Dying Sun is unstable, shooting out flares, the core getting hotter and the outer layers expanding—soon they’ll engulf the inner planets completely.” He frowns. “The thing is, usually this takes millions of years, but for some reason our sun is going through an accelerated process. And it’s taking decades instead.
