by Amie Kaufman
The soldiers part like a comb’s running through them, and with heavy, deliberate footsteps, five tall figures make their way to the front.
What the … ?
They’re clad head to toe in charcoal gray, and their faces are completely hidden behind featureless masks, like elongated grav-bike helmets. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Just a dully reflective surface, concealing even the smallest hint of the individual behind it. With their electronic voices, you can’t even guess at their age or gender.
“Holy shit,” Scarlett whispers. “They’re GIA.”
I wonder if this would be a bad time to revisit that conversation with her about a spare pair of pants, because I might not be a Terran, but even I know operatives of the Global Intelligence Agency are not folks you mess with.
“They’ve got no faces.”
And here they are.
The five GIA agents are all perfectly identical except the one leading the pack. The leader is dressed in pure white instead of gray, so spotless and crisp it’s actually a little eerie. And I’m a Betraskan, so when I find too much white intimidating, you know it’s really doing a job.
I figure maybe the lack of color is some marker of rank, because Goldenboy gives it a smart salute and stands to attention like he’s on parade.
“Legionnaire Tyler Jones reporting.”
The figure surveys us, breath hissing softly. I can’t see its eyes, but I can tell it’s looking right at our stowaway, addressing Goldenboy like an afterthought.
“You will refer to me as Princeps.”
Tyler clears his throat, finally looking a little out of his depth. “Princeps, I don’t mean to tell you your business, but if those Unbroken get—”
“Bellerophon has dispatched two full fighter wings,” it interrupts, its voice flat and dead. “The Syldrathi wraith will be incinerated. There will be no evidence of Terra’s involvement in this … incident.”
“Forgive me for asking, Princeps, but how did you get to us so fast? We had no notification of a Terran vessel in this sector.”
He’s pressing just a fraction, and I can see Scarlett tense almost imperceptibly as she watches him. The operative turns to look Tyler in the face.
“The Global Intelligence Agency has one thousand eyes, Legionnaire Jones.”
It holds out its hand to our stowaway.
“Aurora,” it says. “We’ve come to escort you home.”
“They’ve got no faces.” “And they’re going to wipe all this away, they’re going to make it clean, they’re going to paint it black.”
“Don’t make me go,” she pleads.
She’s looking at Tyler, Goldenboy, our fearless leader. Tears in her eyes and blood on her mouth.
“Please, Tyler,” she whispers. “Don’t let them take me.”
Tyler glances at the TDF troopers, those blank GIA faces. He might be a Legionnaire, but underneath it all, he’s still a Terran. I can see it in his eyes. All those years of military training, all those years of yes sir, no sir, may I have another, sir. You don’t get to be top Alpha in the academy by rocking the boat. You don’t get to be the Goldenboy by not following orders.
“You should go with them, Auri,” he says.
Kal steps forward, hand on his sidearm as he stares the Princeps down. “This station is under Syldrathi control, Terran. You have no authorit—”
The TDF troopers raise their weapons. Two dozen targeting lasers light up Kal like it’s Federation Day.
“Control your man, Legionnaire Jones,” Princeps says.
“Legionnaire Gilwraeth,” Tyler says softly. “Stand down.”
“Kii’ne dō all’iavesh ishi,” the Syldrathi says, a flash of anger breaking through the ice. “I will—”
“That’s an order!” Ty snaps.
Kal smolders, but Syldrathi arrogance aside, the guns aimed right at that pretty face seem to give him pause. He backs down.
Auri looks around the group, tears in her eyes, but it’s clear nobody else is going to step forward. No way I’m going to, anyway. Betraskans think in terms of the negotiation. The deal. And with a trade this bad, the smart move is to just walk away. My fellow Legionnaires seem content to follow Tyler’s lead, and he’s not stepping in to save her, either. He risked everything for this girl once already, after all. And look where it got him.
Out here.
With us.
And so she lifts her chin, and walks forward to join her escort like she’s going to her execution.
The TDF troopers motion with their guns for us to follow.
Yeah, I don’t feel good about this at all.
11
Auri
I’m stumbling down a long hallway of burnished steel, the white-clad figure in front of me, the others in gray following behind. They walk in unison, their steps landing in the same instant on the metal grille, like soldiers on parade. I’m in the middle, messy and out of place, hurrying along to keep to their pace. My right eye is aching like there’s glass in it. I can taste my blood on my lips.
And I’m repeating Kal’s words to myself, whispered in my ear as he eased the gun out of my hand.
Go with dignity. You are more than this.
Though he spoke them like a rebuke, his words are enough to stiffen my spine. I spent years at competitions and championships, pushing myself, proving myself worthy of an Octavia berth. Now, I reach with desperation for the composure that carried me through those times, though I can feel it slipping through my fingers as quickly as I grasp it.
The white figure stops outside a heavy sealed door, turns to the figures behind me. There’s a short, uncomfortable pause and then, though no words were spoken, two of the agents nod and walk back the way we came. My head is aching, my eye is still burning. And looking at my dull reflection in that featureless helmet, I can see my right iris has gone completely white.
I want my mom. I want my dad. I want to run as far and as fast as I can, and hide somewhere safe, and never come out.
“Please,” I whisper. “P … Pri …”
“Princeps,” the one in white replies, brushing imaginary dust off its lapel.
I can feel tears burning my eyes. “I w-want to go home.”
“You are going home, Aurora. I am about to report that you are on your way.” Princeps waves one spotless gloved hand at the agents behind me. “My colleagues will see to your needs until I return.”
The white figure turns and marches down the hallway. One of the gray suits behind me touches a panel, and the heavy door beside us slides open with a whisper.
I begin to follow the agent through the doorway, then jerk to a halt two steps in, so suddenly that the faceless agent behind me nearly collides with me.
That stumble is the first truly human moment I’ve had from any of them.
I’ve seen this room before, and the shock of recognition was so strong, it stopped me in my tracks. An image of it flashed into my mind back in the cargo bay, the moment I heard the words Terran Defense Force. Another vision, arriving with a terror that completely displaced my panic about having thrown that Syldrathi girl into a wall with what I’m pretty sure was the power of my mind.
What the hell is happening to me?
I saw the same steel-gray walls I’m seeing now, the same burning lights, the same single chair in the exact center of the floor, and me seated on it. My hands were bound in front of me with gray cuffs the same shade as my interrogators’ suits, and the pain that was coming from those cuffs—the very memory of it has me trembling. It was melt-your-flesh-off-your-bones pain, cut-off-your-hands-to-escape pain, and on pure instinct I try to back up, bumping into my captor.
Two gray-gauntleted hands land on my shoulders, squeezing until my bones are fit to crack and fuse together, and my knees give, my vision swimming.
Those same hands grab my biceps and stee
r me, stumbling, toward the chair, twisting me around and dumping me in it. I remember that Syldrathi girl, remember throwing up my hands and pushing her away without ever touching her, and I stare up at my captors, half-blinded by pain and tears, desperately probing my mind for the part that knows how to throw them across a room, scrambling for anything that might help, and coming up short.
This was my vision. The cuffs, the pain, and the same words screamed over and over in a voice so hoarse I could barely recognize it as my own.
“I don’t know. Please, I don’t know.”
It’s only when two helmets tilt to look down at me that I realize I’m already whispering my reply. I’m already pleading, and they haven’t even asked me the first of their impossible questions yet.
“Ms. O’Malley,” one says quietly, voice perfectly even, perfectly neutral, cold as the vacuum outside the thin walls of this ship. “Believe us when we say we’d prefer to do this the easy way.”
12
Tyler
“Well, isn’t this cozy.”
I glance up at Finian. He’s leaning against the burnished steel wall, black eyes fixed on me. His exosuit gleams silver in the light of the fluorescents overhead, humming softly as he reaches down to the water cooler beside him.
“The decor’s a little sparse for a meeting room, though,” he continues, sipping from a disposable cup and looking around. “I know you Terrans aren’t the most stylish race in the Milky Way, but I swear this looks more like a holding cell.”
“Oh, do go on,” Scarlett says, leaning forward on our bench and batting her eyelashes. “Honestly, I could just listen to you bitch and moan all day, Finian.”
Finian takes a bench and sighs. “I’m too old for this crap.”
Zila tilts her head. “You are barely nineteen, Legionnaire de Seel.”
“Yeah. And I’m too old for this crap.”
“Knock it off,” I growl. “All of you.”
We’re in a square room, five meters a side, benches running along the walls. Scarlett’s sitting beside me, Zila opposite, Kal as far as he can be from all of us and pouting like a goldfish. Everyone’s on edge after almost getting flatlined by those Unbroken, and I’ve gotta keep a lid on it. But the thing of it is, I’m close to the edge myself. Finian’s right. When they hustled us aboard the Bellerophon, a dozen troopers escorted us to a room to “await debriefing.” But with the locked door and the blank walls, the box they’ve tossed us in does look an awful lot like a detention room.
I can feel the destroyer’s engines thrumming through the seat beneath me, the massive ship plunging through the black, back toward the FoldGate. I’m trying not to remember the way Auri looked at me as they dragged her away, one white eye and one brown, both fixed on me like I was her last hope.
“Please, Tyler. Don’t let them take me.”
Poor kid. Everyone knows staying too long in the Fold is bad for your brain, but I’ve never heard of exposure changing someone’s eye color before. Whatever’s happening to her, I didn’t quite realize how bad she’d got it.
I hope they can help her somehow.
Maker knows I couldn’t. …
“Get your bloody hands off me, you gremp-fondling sack of—”
The door hisses open, and a couple of TDF goons in full tac armor shove my Ace into the room, swearing all the way. Our escort told us she’d be brought to join us once she and the Longbow docked, and it doesn’t look like it was an easy ride. Cat’s red-faced, her fauxhawk mussed. She has her stuffed dragon, Shamrock, stowed inside her flight jacket, and she’s looking about as mad as I’ve ever seen her. As she steps up to the bigger trooper, he slaps the door control and seals her in with the rest of us. Her boot leaves a scuff on the plasteel as she kicks it, shouting at the top of her voice.
“Yeah, you better run, you gutless prick!”
“Cat?” Scar asks, rising to her feet. “You okay?”
“Do I look okay?” she snaps. “No, I look ready to kick the crap out of the next”—another kick hits the door—“TDF goonbag who pops up on my scopes!”
“Cat,” I say, standing up. “Take a breath.”
“They flatlined them, Tyler!” she shouts, whirling on me.
I blink. “What? Who?”
“The refugees!” Cat snaps, arm flailing at the door. “Taneth and the rest! As soon as I docked in the Longbow, the TDF obliterated the entire station. It’s gone!”
Finian’s voice is a whisper. “Great Maker …”
I blink again, trying to make sense of what Cat is saying. Scarlett sinks back down to the bench, her face pale.
All eyes turn to Kal.
Out Tank’s traditional Syldrathi cool doesn’t shatter, but the line of his jaw is tense as steel as he stands and prowls across the room. He braces his hands against the wall, hangs his head, muttering beneath his breath. I don’t speak Syldrathi half as well as Scar, but I know the words he’s using are curses.
“Kal?” Scar asks quietly. “Are you okay?”
I can see the anger in his eyes as he turns on her. I can see the struggle inside him. But his voice is as empty and cold as the vacuum outside.
“A hundred of my people,” he says. “A hundred songs now silenced. A hundred lives and thousands of years, lost to the Void. Not content to let us be butchered by our own kin, now Earth joins the Unbroken in our slaughter?”
“I’m sure there’s some explanation,” Scarlett says.
“They were Waywalkers,” Kal says, stepping closer to my sister. “Sages and scholars. What explanation is there for that?”
“Ease off, Legionnaire,” I warn.
“De’sai!” he hisses, looking between me and Scar. “De’sai si alamm tiir’na!”
My jaw clenches as I recognize a few words. “Did he just say what I …”
“Shame,” Gilwraeth translates, trembling with anger. “Shame to your father’s house.”
And that’s it. The final straw. Losing my spot in the Draft. This nowhere mission. This nowhere squad. Being lied to by Command and the look in Auri’s eyes as they led her away and now this pixieboy sucker puncher talking about my dad.
That’s the spark that starts the inferno.
He blocks my first punch—turns out he’s way faster than me. But I lock him up and hook his leg and we go down in a tumble where his speed will count for less, and Maker help me, when my second punch splits his lip I find my own curling in a smile. All the frustration of the last couple of days boils up inside me as we wrestle and spit, as Cat shouts at me to stop, as Fin offers a small round of applause, as Zila begins typing into her uniglass as if bored to death. Kal’s fingers close around my throat, I reach for his—
Cold water hits us, crashing over the back of my head. I sputter and gasp, pulling Kal’s hands away from my neck. Looking up, I see Scarlett standing over us, emptying the upturned water cooler tank onto our heads. She shakes the last few drops onto us for emphasis before tossing the tank aside.
“Grow up,” she says. “Sir.”
My sister marches back to the bench, sits down with her legs crossed and her arms folded. Finian speaks into the quiet, one eyebrow raised.
“They teach you that in diplomacy class?”
“I improvised.” Scarlett glowers.
Cat offers me her hand and I take it, standing with a grunt. Water puddles about my feet, soaking hair hanging in my eyes. My Ace looks up at me with a wry grin, shaking her head. Kal seems to glide back upright behind me, his uniform sodden, his eyes still full of fury, purple blood on his lip. He’d probably tear me to pieces now that I don’t have the element of surprise, and I wonder if he’s prepping for round two, when our uniglasses all ping simultaneously.
I look down at the device on my belt. A single line of text glows on the display.
Incoming message, squad chat. Sender: Zila M, Science Officer.
Scar and the rest of us tap our screens to open the message.
Zila M: I am assuming the TDF have not yet cracked our squad network’s encryption. They will certainly be trying to now. We should speak quickly.
Cat looks at Zila like she’s completely sideways.
“Um, something wrong with your tongue?”
Madran types some more, and moments later, my uniglass pings again.
Zila M: This room is doubtlessly under visual and audio surveillance. Speaking openly will only prompt them to murder us sooner. We must get out of this cell and rescue Aurora from her detainment. Or we are all going to die.
I frown, opening my mouth to speak. But Zila shakes her head in warning, setting her big, gold hoop earrings jangling, and something in her eyes sets me typing instead.
Tyler J: What in the Maker’s name are you talking about?
Zila M: I estimate we have only a few moments before the TDF arrive to take you away for “debriefing,” sir. At the end of your interrogation, you will be killed. And one by one, they will then interrogate and kill the rest of us.
Fin types quickly, eyes on Zila.
Finian dS: Did you forget to take your happy pills this morning?
Zila M: No. I am always like this.
Tyler J: Fin, put a lid on it. Zila, what are you saying?
Zila sighs, and begins typing in a flurry.
Zila M: The Bellerophon’s crew just liquidated one hundred innocent Syldrathi refugees. Presumably they also destroyed the Unbroken Wraith, Legionnaire Brannock?
Cat nods in reply.
Zila M: Ergo, we are the only witnesses left alive.
I type quickly, scowling in disbelief.
Tyler J: You’re saying they’re going to flatline us to cover up the fact that they violated Terran neutrality with the Unbroken? Not that I don’t value your input, Zila, but that makes no sense. Why save us only to kill us right afterward?
Zila M: They are not only covering up their violation of neutrality, sir. They are silencing anybody who may know Aurora O’Malley is in their custody.