by Amie Kaufman
“Look, this is a two-girl mission, Cat,” Scar says. “It’s not like I can bring Zila or Aurora with me. We just need to hook these guys long enough for me to swipe an ID card. Then we can access the Sempiternity security network.”
Finian nods. “Been looking at some schematics Dariel dug up, and poking around their system. They’re running the entire station on a reworked Occulus 19 grid with mimetic encryption. If we can get a leech into one of the main nodes, I reckon I could hack the camera network. We’d be able to see everything on the station. Including inside Bianchi’s luxury liner. Which means we can see where he’s keeping the …” Finian blinks, glancing at the display of Auri’s sculpture on one of the smaller monitors. “What’re we calling this thing, anyway?”
“The Whatchamacallit?” Scar offers.
“The Doodad?” I suggest.
“The Trigger,” Zila says quietly, not looking up from her glass.
“Well, you can all stick your trigger where your trigger isn’t s’posed to get stuck,” Cat says, scowling around the room. “I didn’t train for this crap.”
“It’ll be sixty minutes, tops,” Scar insists. “Just relax. Let your hair down.”
Cat aims a pointed glance up to her fauxhawk.
“My hair doesn’t go down.”
Scar looks to me, and I push myself off the wall, approach my Ace with considerable caution. “Cat, I know this isn’t your ideal mission. But we need intel.”
Finian nods. “Best way to get eyes inside Bianchi’s liner is the cam system.”
“Ah, we’re trusting the knucklehead who irradiated the academy propulsion labs now,” Cat scowls. “Fan-bloody-tastic.”
“Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
“Well then, you go on the double date, Finian,” Cat growls.
Fin puts his hands to his cheeks in mock horror. “But … whatever would I wear?”
Cat lunges across the room at our Gearhead and I grab her shoulders, force her back. For a second we’re touching, chest to chest, and I’m reminded of the last time we were this close. The last time I ever had a drink.
Graduation day back on Cohen IV.
“Ease off, Legionnaire Brannock,” I warn her.
She glares at Finian, but she stops trying to push past me. Straightens her clothes and then straightens her fauxhawk. She’s wearing short sleeves and I can see the Ace logo on her right arm among the other tats. Remember sitting with her in the parlor as we got inked, the liquor we used to dull the sting at the bar afterward. Looking at each other across that table as the empty glasses stacked up and knowing the mistake it’d lead to.
Because that’s what I told her afterward.
That’s what it was.
A mistake.
Cat turns her glare on Aurora, and I can see the accusations there as plain as starlight: This is your fault. Without you, Tyler would have got his golden squad and I’d be part of it and none of this would be happening.
And it’s true. Every word. And not for the first time, I hope Battle Leader de Stoy knew what she was doing when she told Auri to stow away on our ship. I hope Adams knew what he was saying when he asked me to believe. Because it’s getting harder by the minute.
“Please, Cat,” I say, soft. “We could really use your help on this.”
My Ace meets my eyes, then glances once more at Auri. The girl stares back, lifting her chin, faint challenge in her eyes. Cat clenches her jaw. But I know what she’ll say before she says it. The same thing she said the morning after, laying on those rumpled sheets when I told her a CO couldn’t date a subordinate, that an Alpha couldn’t date his Ace, that best friends who’d known each other since kindergarten shouldn’t risk that friendship to try for something more.
“Sir, yes sir,” Cat says.
•••••
“This toilet is not big enough for the five of us,” Kal says.
“It’s not my fault you’re seventeen meters tall, Pixieboy,” Finian growls.
“And it’s all we could afford,” I say. “So quit griping, they’ll be here soon.”
Me, Kal, Fin, Zila, and Auri are crowded into the small and grimy bathroom of a love motel on the lower side of the World Ship’s nightclub district. We’re pressed in like ration packs, Fin’s elbow in my ribs and Kal’s left boot in the commode. The room our bathroom is attached to has been booked under my sister’s name, and it’s a short stagger from the bar where she and Cat are hopefully working their magic. Any minute, we’ll hear them coming through the door, and then it’s game time.
But in the meantime …
“It stinks like my fourth grandmother’s underwear drawer in here,” Fin says.
“You know what your grandmother’s underwear drawer smells like?” I ask.
“My family were very cosmopolitan.”
“I do not think that word means what you think it means,” Zila murmurs.
“Um,” Auri whispers. “Sorry, but is someone touching my butt?”
“… Would you like someone to be touching your butt?” Fin asks.
Kal clears his throat. “If you wish it, I—”
“Shut up!” I hiss.
I hear the ping of the electric lock on the front door, muffled laughter. My squad falls silent as we listen to heavy footsteps, a drunken guffaw. The door slams, someone stumbles, a glass breaks.
“Oh noooooo,” says a male voice, muffled through the bathroom door. “Declan, you dropped the booze.”
“Did I?” comes a second male voice.
“You”—hic—“did.”
“Oh noooooo.”
“Declan, come over here,” someone purrs.
Scarlett.
“Lachlan, stay waaaayyyy over there,” someone growls.
Cat.
“Why are there (hic) three of you?” Declan asks.
“There’s just one of me,” Scar laughs. “You’re tipsy, come sit.”
“I kinda (hic) like the idea of three of you.”
“Believe me, handsome, one of me is way more than you can handle.”
“I think … I’m gonna be sick,” Lachlan declares.
“I know the feeling,” Cat sighs.
“No, seriously,” he burps. “Where’s the … bathroom?”
Inside said bathroom, the five of us exchange a brief, horrified glance.
“Can’t feel my feet,” Declan mumbles.
“All the more reason to get you off them,” Scar purrs. “Come on, come sit on the bed with me.”
“Seriousssly, I can’t feel’em,” he giggles. “What was in that las’drink?”
“Approximately twelve milliliters of benzothelemene,” I hear Zila whisper behind me. “If Scarlett followed my directions precisely.”
I hear a heavy thud, followed closely by another.
“Sounds like she did.” I smile, opening the bathroom door.
Sure enough, laid out flat—one on the floor, one on the bed—are the two security guards from the museum earlier today. Sitting on the bed beside Blondie is my sister, looking vaguely disappointed. Cat’s sitting on the second bed looking vaguely annoyed, her boots resting on the bigger goon at her feet.
“Okay, let’s do this,” I say.
Fin leans down to inspect Cat’s trophy. “If you’d told me he was this hot, I would have gone on the date for sure.”
“Shut up, Finian,” she replies.
We strip the sleeping guards and haul them into bed naked. Kal and I then pull on their power armor and loop their ID badges around our necks. Finian stares first at the photo on my badge, then up into my face.
“I gotta admit, the likeness is pretty uncanny,” he says.
I glance at the unconscious goon in the bed. “We look nothing alike.”
My Gearhead shrugs, hands me a small device. “All
you dirtchildren look the same to me, Goldenboy. Now you need to plant this in the uplink nodes. Centr—”
“I heard you the first seven times, thanks.”
Kal finishes suiting up, smooths back his braids, gives me the nod. He cuts a pretty impressive figure, I’ve gotta admit. Good thing Lachlan here was so tall.
“The dosage will keep them sleeping for at least six hours,” Zila says, looking at the slumbering SecBoys. “They will remember very little.”
“Just make sure you have their armor back here by dawn,” Scar says.
She sits on the bed beside the sleeping blonde, and without further ceremony, clamps her lips onto his neck and starts to suck.
“Holy cake,” Auri whispers, watching with wide eyes. “Please don’t tell me that on top of everything else, vampires are real?”
“Evidence.” Scarlett comes up for air with a smirk, and I can see the angry, red love bite she’s left on the goon’s neck. Unclasping her bra, she tugs it out through her sleeve and drapes it over the bedside lamp, then writes thanks xxx on the wall in deep red lipstick. “Can’t have a crime without leaving some evidence.”
Cat makes a face. “If you think I’m leaving my bra behind in this dump, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“There’s enough of mine to go around.”
“Touché.” Cat nods sadly.
“You ready for this, Kal?” I ask.
My Tank adjusts the ID badge around his neck and gives me a small bow.
“I am always ready,” he replies.
We turn toward the door, but Aurora’s voice stops us.
“Hey … wait …”
She looks at me as Kal and I turn back to her. Dragging her hand through her bone-white bangs, she chews her lip, looking for the words.
“Thanks,” she says, glancing about. “I know how weird this is. I know none of us really know what’s going on here. And I don’t like sitting on the bench while you risk your necks for me. So I want you to know … I appreciate it.”
I look around the room. Her thanks are met with a nod from Zila, a small smile from Fin. But I can tell Scar’s still uncertain about this girl. Cat barely gives her a glance. And Kal just stares.
I see Aurora’s shoulders slump a little. Her lips tighten, she looks at the floor. She probably didn’t expect everyone to be turning cartwheels, but still …
“You’re welcome,” I say.
She looks up at that. I pat her shoulder, a little awkward in the power armor. Cat’s eyes narrow a little, but Aurora manages a weak smile.
This can’t be easy for her. Two hundred years out of time. Everyone she knew, everything she had, gone. I don’t know many people who’d still be on their feet after that. But not only is she up and moving, she’s fighting too. Clawing for answers the only way she knows how. She’s got heart, this girl. Even without Admiral Adams’s message about our precious cargo, that counts for a lot with me.
“We’ll be fine, Auri,” I say, trying to calm her fears. “This is what we do. Just stick with Scar, we’ll see you back at Dariel’s place, all right?”
“… All right.”
“We are wasting time, sir,” Kal murmurs behind me, his voice cold.
“Yeah, okay,” I sigh.
I really need to talk to him about this girl.
I nod to Scar. She nods back.
“Be careful.”
And without another word, we’re gone.
17
Kal
My jaw aches from the elbow I took in the bar yesterday.
My ribs are bruised where one of the Unbroken adepts kicked me, and I can feel the faint swelling of the knuckles in my left hand from a clumsy punch.
That was careless of you, the Enemy Within whispers.
Weak.
We are riding the elevator in our stolen tactical armor, preparing to infiltrate the World Ship’s security levels. It will not be easy, and my mind should be on the mission. But instead, I am thinking about the brawl with the Unbroken yesterday. The disdain in their eyes. Their blood on my knuckles.
I am not thinking about Aurora.
I focus on the pain as my father taught me. Those endless lessons in the Aen Suun—the Wave Way—drilled into me since the day I was born. I remember the two of us standing beneath the lias trees on Syldra before it burned. His hand on my arm, guiding my strikes. His voice in my ear. He was Warbreed like I am. Proud. Fearless. Peerless. But all his training and all his skill were worth nothing in the end.
And so I allow myself to feel the hurt.
The places I allowed my enemies to touch me.
Vowing they will never touch me again.
“You all right?”
I look across the turbolift at my Alpha as he speaks. Tyler Jones is watching me with those cool blue eyes, and I can feel his mind at work behind them. He is wondering how he ended up so close to the edge so quickly. He is wondering if there is any way out of this. And though he would deny it with every fiber of his being if I accused him of it, he is wondering if he can trust me.
I cannot blame him. He was quick to assist in the bar yesterday, but that was mere muscle memory—an Alpha stepping to the defense of a squad mate.
I wonder what he truly thinks of me in the dark and quiet hours.
I could see the pain in his eyes yesterday when he spoke of his father. Even Syldrathi know of the great Jericho Jones. A Terran Defense Force commander who slew thousands of my people in the war, then suddenly turned pacifist. He became the loudest voice in the Terran senate, arguing for peace between our peoples. It was Jericho Jones who brokered the first round of peace talks between Terra and Syldra. It was his negotiations that opened the way for the ceasefire in 2370.
And when the Starslayer and his Unbroken took advantage of the lull in hostilities to attack the Orion shipyards, Jericho Jones was among those who answered the call for reservists. He had not flown a fighter in thirteen years. He had two children waiting back on Terra for him to return.
And he did not.
I wonder how much of Tyler Jones blames me for that. I wonder if he looks at the glyf on my forehead and sees what everyone else sees.
Warbreed.
Betrayer.
Killer.
I’na Sai’nuit.
“I am fine, sir,” I reply. “I thank you for asking.”
Tyler licks his lip, the small split he earned in the brawl yesterday.
“Listen, I’m not sure how to bring this up,” he says. “And maybe it’s none of my concern. But you’re my Tank, and I’m responsible for you.”
“You are my Alpha. Ask what you will.”
“Auri,” he says. “Aurora.”
The sound of her name is like music. I actually feel my belly flutter, my skin prickle beneath the power armor I am wearing. I picture her eyes, pupils of bottomless black, one ringed in seventeen different shades of brown, the other encircled by a white as pale as starlight. I think of her lips, and I—
“What’s the deal between you two?” Tyler asks.
A surge of sudden enmity roars through me. Territoriality. Aggression. I know that primal instinct has no place here and I fight it, as I have fought it since the moment I laid eyes on her in that cargo bay and she spoke words I will never forget.
“I’ve seen you before. …”
I blink hard. Focus my mind as my mother taught me.
“There is no deal between Aurora and I,” I say.
“You called her be’shmai,” Tyler replies. “In the bar before the fight.”
I feel the anger surging again. The war in my blood, entwined with the overwhelming desire of the Pull. The Enemy Within, whispering in my ear. Digging fingers into my spine. I stamp him down. Push him away. Clear my thoughts.
This conversation will not end well.
I clear my thr
oat, keep my voice calm. “Sir, with all due respect, I believe you were correct. This is not your concern.”
“I don’t speak Syldrathi as well as Scar, but I know what ‘be’shmai’ means.”
A bitter smile curls my lips. “No, sir. You do not.”
“I’ve never heard of the Pull happening between a Syldrathi and a human before. Is that what’s happening here? Have you told Aurora?”
“No,” I say, horrified at the thought. “Of course not.”
“Look, I want you to know I respect you. I respect where you’re from. But if you’re going to lose your head at some critical moment because of some Syldrathi mating instinct, then I—”
“The Pull is no mere mating instinct,” I say, steel slipping into my voice. “And explaining it to a human would be like trying to describe the color of a rainbow to a blind man. You do not … you cannot understand.”
I swallow the steel. The taste of anger in my mouth.
“Sir,” I add.
“The Pull is usually reciprocal, right?” he asks, head tilted. “What happens—”
“You need not concern yourself.” I scowl, uncomfortable even discussing this with a Terran. “I assure you I have it under control.”
“You certainly lost it quick against those Unbroken yesterday.”
“I lost nothing. I knew exactly what I was doing. The violence was necessary.”
“Because they threatened Auri?”
“Because you spoke my name.”
He blinks at that. “What’s your name got to do with it?”
I fold my arms and say nothing, signaling that I wish the conversation to end. But Tyler Jones keeps at it, like a keddai on a corpse.
“Look, I know it can’t be easy, Kal. I know I can’t really understand it. But you need to understand how close to the edge we are here. We can’t afford these kinds of entanglements right now. I need you to keep a lid on it.”
“I might say the same about you. Sir.”
Tyler blinks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I see the way Legionnaire Brannock looks at you.”