Period 4

The far edge of the Midground Industrial District.

A Worn hangar sits here, four stars painted on its shutter.

Three of the stars have faded, and only one is freshly painted.

Inside the hangar. Morgan sits, the mechanical wings grafted to her back spread wide.

Wiping them down with a dry cloth. Every seam. For a long time.

One wall of the hangar is covered in drawings. Stars in crayon. Stars. Stars.

Thank you for the stars

Please come back next year

We watched from the hill by the lake

Five years' worth of drawings. Every year, once the Festival was over, they were left outside the hangar.

No one knows who leaves them.

Once the wings are clean, the same order every time.

Morgan turns to face three empty places at the back of the hangar. Three spaces with nothing in them.

A salute.

No answer. Five years now, and still none.

Five years ago. The Defence Force display team, Stardust.

Just three days a year, the military's wings came out in front of civilians.

Four pairs of wings, opening the sky over the Festival, Mid's great celebration.

The sky over Midground is always day. An artificial sky where the sun never sets.

So the children of Midground have never seen a star.

Night comes just three days a year. Only during the Festival do the lights of the manufactured sky go out.

And in that night sky, Stardust drew stars with trails of light.

They were the only stars Midground's children ever knew.

Stardust always finished on a star. Something the Commander taught on day one.

That year's Festival was Stardust's last flight.

The star was finished, and they were coming in to land when the old joint in Two's wing snapped.

The audience never knew. The star was already complete.

Number Two hurt its leg, and never spread its wings again.

Hospital room. Unit 2 takes Morgan's hand.

That answer became a promise.

Worn wings. An accident. And budget cuts.

The disbandment order, dissolving the unit and scattering its crew, came in under two months.

The last transmission. It was the Commander's voice.

Three's reply came in. From a hospital bed, Two answered briefly too.

Only Four couldn't press the reply key. And the channel closed.

The order from the military said disbanded.

To the very end, the Commander chose to say dismissed.

Disbanded is something done to you. Dismissed is something you order.

Everything the unit owned was sold off. The wings were the one thing that couldn't be.

A Jagear grafted onto your back is part of your body.

The crew scattered, each of them still wearing their wings.

A company up in Air Ground took Three.

Every Festival night after that, one pair of wings went up into the sky.

One flyer, holding a formation of four, the three empty places counted in.

Alone, the star could never be finished. Morgan flew anyway.

Only people who know the sky recognised it.

"That's formation positions. On her own."

And then, this year. The terminal sounds. Festival operations.

[Flight application: rejected]

[Reason 1: no registered organisation. Unaffiliated aircraft may not enter]

[Reason 2: below formation minimum. Solo aerobatics prohibited]

Until last year, they had looked the other way. From this year, it was by the book.

On paper, belonging to nothing is an offence.

Morgan looks at it for a long time.

Said nothing to be done, and cleaned the wings again.

With the hands of somebody already working out what could be done.

The Dynamite Blue agency. Morgan stands straight and salutes before anything else.

Morgan holds out a terminal without a word. The fee is on the screen.

Lilly didn't ask anything else. She hugged Kupper, her little robot dog, tight instead.

Lilly spent three nights reading the rulebook and the registry. And she found two things.

Lilly straps a camera drone onto Kupper's back. The propellers spin, and Kupper's four paws leave the floor.

[Aircraft registration - Stardust no. 2: camera drone (passenger: Kupper)]

It went through. The clerk at operations reportedly read it three times before stamping it.

Morgan salutes Kupper.

Hovering in midair, Kupper wagged its tail and did something close enough to a salute.

Morgan stares at the registry screen for a long time.

Civilian Flight Group Stardust - Status: Active

Representative: Commander / Registered Aircraft: 4

Registration Date: Day after unit disbandment

Morgan finally dials the number left uncalled for five years.

Silence. A long one, on the other end of the line.

Morgan holds the receiver and can't say a word.

Five years of thinking it was a solo flight.

A single form, filed the day after the disbandment, had kept the formation alive all five years.

The first night of the Festival. The lights of the manufactured sky go out. Banners across the streets.

Morgan buckles on the flight harness.

Tightens the straps. Shoulder, chest, waist. In order.

Straightens the beret.

The wings open. Cleaned every day for five years without missing one.

(control) Civilian flight group Stardust. Registration confirmed.

(control) ...The former Defence Force display team, is that correct.

(control) Stardust, formation of two. You are cleared.

And then. A callsign unheard for five years cuts into the control channel.

And one more voice. The ground line. The voice from that last transmission, five years ago.

Morgan's hand freezes over the reply button. The button left unpressed five years ago.

And presses it.

The reply came five years late. No one called it late.

Launch. Off the ramp, and the wings cut through the night sky.

Two pairs of wings, and Kupper with a drone strapped on, climb into the sky.

Three are flying. But the formation is a formation of four.

One's place left open, Kupper flying in Two's.

Three and Four fall in wing to wing. Their paths are plotted around the empty slot too.

The trails of light draw four strokes. Empty One's stroke included.

A star is five strokes. The last one is joined by the eyes looking up.

Night opens in Mid's sky, where the sun never set.

The children tip their heads all the way back to look.

A night sky that comes only three days a year. And stars in it.

Beside the children stands a man on crutches.

Someone who stood in this spot every year, only ever looking up.

The man raises a hand.

Fingers together, angled up at the sky.

A formation hand signal. Ready to climb.

The crayon drawings were his request to the children. Every year, for five years.

After losing his wings, he couldn't bring himself to face Morgan.

So that was the only way he had of writing back.

Touchdown. The hangar roof. Unit 3 doesn't fold its wings.

Unit 3's wings vanish into the sky toward Air Ground.

Morgan steps up onto the launch platform.

Not facing the empty places, but the wings that just left.

A salute.

The first salute in five years given to a person, not an empty place.

The next day. Four stars on the hangar shutter.

One more of them had been freshly repainted.

A drawing had been left in front of the shutter.

A star in crayon, all five strokes drawn in one unbroken line.

And a single line in a grown-up's handwriting.

"Good work, rookie. - Unit 2"

The unit was disbanded five years ago.

But from the very next day, its name never died. Not once.

Affiliation: Stardust Civilian Air Wing.

Military record: none. Formation: yes. Missing numbers: none.