by Amie Kaufman
“Good work, Legionnaire Brannock.”
“Always back your Alpha,” she says. “Always.”
The turbolift door opens, and we’re met by Dariel on the other side. He blinks in surprise, his jaw hanging open.
“Holy crap, it worked?” he asked, looking at the unconscious bodies in the lift.
“Never underestimate the element of surprise,” I say, marching past him.
We roll out into the corridor and through an airlock, heading into the docks. The place is a shambles after the gravity outage, but the cleanup crews are already at work. We move quick, Dariel shuffling alongside me, scowling and scratching his head. I’m sorry to say it, but I’m guessing Finian gets his brains from one of the other three sides of his family.
“Okay, explain it to me again,” Dariel says.
“This,” Zila notes, pulling off her helmet, “will be the third time.”
“I’m a lover not a thinker.” The Betraskan winks. “By the way, you got a number, I—”
“It was like Fin said,” I say. “There was no way to pull this off without getting caught. So once the GIA tried to flip Cat, I counted on it. The original plan was to snatch Bianchi’s code and get into his office. The GIA would hit the den at a time they arranged with Cat, arrest Fin, cut off our comms. They’d then alert Bianchi to our scam, and everyone could roll down to the office and catch us. If the GIA worded up Bianchi beforehand, we’d just get killed by his security teams and they’d get nothing. But catching us red-handed, the GIA would look like heroes.”
“And a grateful Bianchi would hand over Auri while the rest of us got shot,” Cat adds.
“But the GIA hit the den early … ,” Dariel objects. “Beat the crap out of Fin.”
“So we had to go through the ultrasaur enclosure instead.” I nod. “And Kal had to storm the flat to take out the GIA instead of waiting for them in ambush.”
“He was … kinda terrifying,” Dariel murmurs.
“Again, sorry about the mess,” Scar says.
“All that really mattered was getting hold of the GIA uniforms,” I say. “It’s hard to tell who’s actually under those masks. And Scar can sell almost anything.”
Dariel blinks. “So … you went to all that trouble … just to get caught?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “But we had to be in the office when the GIA arrived. After that, the only thing Cat and I really needed to do was get in a fistfight.”
“Take Bianchi’s eyes off the prize.” Cat nods.
“Make sure nobody was watching me,” Auri says quietly.
Dariel turns as the girl speaks. And with a triumphant smile, she reaches into the bunches of bright red tulle around her waist, and produces a three-fingered statue wrought in strange metal, a winking diamond set in the chest, its right eye a gleaming pearl.
“Classic misdirection.” I shrug. “Basic tactics, second semester.”
“How long until Bianchi notices it’s gone?” Dariel asks.
“Given the state of disarray we left his office in,” Zila says, “I would estimate another three to four minutes. Approximately.”
“And the Bellerophon is still en route to the World Ship,” Cat says. “And from the sound of things, I don’t think Mr. Princeps is going to be happy about what Kal did to the only two agents the GIA had aboard.”
“You have no idea,” Scarlett says.
Auri blinks. “So … remind me why we aren’t running?”
It’s a good question, and I can’t think of a good answer. And so we do. Dashing past the loaders and dockers, down through the tangled snarl of the World Ship berths, along the transparent umbilical leading to our Longbow. The airlock is open, and Kal’s waiting for us. His Uncle Enzo’s delivery uniform is spattered in blood, a disruptor rifle is in his hand. He sees us, and though he keeps that typical Syldrathi cool in place, his lips curl in a small smile.
Aurora meets his eyes.
His smile falls away.
“We should move, sir,” he says.
I nod, turn to Dariel and shake his hand in thanks. “I don’t know what Fin owes you, but I owe you now too, big-time. You need my help in the future, just shout.”
Scarlett kisses Dariel on the cheek and winks. “Thanks, Romeo.”
Dariel turns to Zila, a small smirk on his lips. “Do I get a kiss from you, too?”
“Thank you, goodbye,” she says, walking right past and into the ship.
Aurora produces a second artifact from the folds of her skirts—it’s a small carved figure in a greenish stone. She holds it out to Dariel. “I grabbed this for you. In case you need some relocation funds.”
He pockets it with a grin. “Probably not the worst idea,” he admits. “And thanks, those stalactites weren’t cheap.”
The rest of us hustle aboard. With a final nod to Dariel, we seal the airlock behind us, scatter up to the bridge. Finian is already in his chair. His suit seems a little worse for wear, and he’s working on the left forearm with a small photon welder, looking bruised and miserable. But he perks up when he catches sight of us. Shamrock is sitting in his lap.
Cat scowls at him as she slips into the pilot’s seat.
“That’s my dragon,” she says.
“I was just holding him for you,” Finian says, tossing the toy across.
“What for?” she asks, snatching Shamrock from the air.
“Figured we could use the luck.”
Cat grins, kissing the dragon on his head and punching commands into her console. “Shut up, Finian.”
We strap ourselves in, running through preflight check. My hands are flowing over my controls, and I don’t know what comes next. I know the Bellerophon is inbound to Sempiternity. I know they won’t stop till they have Auri in their custody. I don’t know who or what she is, or where she’s leading us. No doubt we’re being hunted by the Terran dreadnoughts that patrol the Fold, too, and I know we just made another deadly enemy in Casseldon Bianchi.
But that’s the future’s problem. For now, we need to get out of here before—
“Alert,” says the PA. “Alert. All departures from the World Ship are suspended by order of Casseldon Bianchi, pending search operations. Please power down your engines and—”
“Hold on to your undies, kids!” Cat shouts.
She hits the thrusters, docking clamps shrieking as they try to stop us blasting free. But with a burst of full power, a bone-shaking tremor, and scream of metal, we tear out into the black and leave the World Ship in our wake. Momentum pushes me back into my seat and for a moment it’s hard to breathe. And then I remember how lucky I am to be breathing at all.
We’re out.
We made it.
I look around the bridge at my crew. Squad 312. This pack of losers and discipline cases and sociopaths, these misfits that nobody in the whole of Aurora Academy wanted to get paired with. And I realize the magnitude of what we just pulled off.
I think about the fact that I just asked every single one of them to walk into the mouth of the beast because they believed in me. The fact that none of them blinked. And the fact that they didn’t just walk in.
They flew.
Auri’s curled up at an auxiliary station, knees under her chin. She’s bruised and tired and bloody, but there’s a new fire in her eyes. She has the Trigger clutched in her fist, staring as if it holds all the answers to all the questions.
What am I?
Why am I here?
What is this all for?
And now that we’ve got our hands on it, I can’t help but wonder. I know we’re part of something bigger here. Something at least two centuries in the making. Maybe even more. Something the leaders of the academy knew about before we did. Something the GIA knows about, too.
I feel like a pawn being pushed from square to square. And try as I might, I can’
t see the rest of the board. But you don’t spend five years at military academy without learning a thing or two about how guns work.
And if this thing in Auri’s hand is the Trigger …
Then where’s the Weapon?
And what in the ’Way is that Weapon for?
25
Auri
We plunged into the Fold ten minutes ago, and no one has spoken since.
The colors are monochrome, black and white and shades between, bleaching the fire out of Scarlett’s hair, turning Zila’s rich brown skin a dark gunmetal gray. The ship is traveling smoothly, and I’m sitting on one of the long padded benches at the rear of the bridge. The weight of the Trigger resting in my hands.
Every part of me is aching, from my teeth to my toes, but though I’m light-headed with exhaustion, I’m alive. Not just with the adrenaline of survival but with the sense that I’m on the path I need to follow. I don’t know where it leads—I don’t even know where it goes next—but there’s an indefinable sense of rightness that comes with doing what I’m supposed to.
Supposed to? By whose rules? And for what reason?
If I follow this path, will I find out what happened to my father and the others on Octavia? Will I find out why my government wants to erase me, too?
Will I find out what I am?
I look down at the statue in my hands, running my fingers over the surface. It looks old, worn smooth with time. It feels right in my palm, like it’s supposed to be there. But I’ve got no idea what I’m supposed to do with it.
It’s Tyler who breaks the silence, unbuckling his own harness and coming to his feet. He’s still in his formal wear, the black ripped far beyond the dictates of fashion now. “We need to decide where we go next,” he says.
Then he pauses, looking around the cabin. Surveying the tired faces of Aurora Legion Squad 312. His lips curve to one of those dimpled smiles he does so well. “What I meant to say,” he corrects himself, “is that that was incredible. I couldn’t be prouder to serve with every single one of you.”
They’re the right words. I see how each of the squad sits up just a fraction straighter after he speaks.
Still, Fin sounds as he always does when he replies. “Thanks, Goldenboy. But you’re right. We need to figure out where we go from here, or the only thing we’ll be serving is time. And no way am I sharing a cell with you reprobates.”
Cat speaks without turning her head, though I wish I could see her face. “I admit I could do with some navigational input.”
I open my mouth, then close it, looking down at the Trigger in my palm again. This thing we just risked all our lives for. The squad are all staring at me now—all except Kal of course, who’s ignoring me as intently as he always does. But I can feel everyone else on the ship looking to me for answers.
I have no idea where we’re meant to go now.
I’m saved from answering by Zila, who unbuckles herself and stands. “I will provide medical treatment,” she says, in the same calm voice she always uses, as if she didn’t just help blast four Chellerian bodyguards three times her size after blowing out the gravity of an entire space station. “Scarlett, could you access the supplies? We are due to eat. And we should change our clothes.”
Everyone animates at the idea of food. So there’s a pause by mutual agreement as the Jones twins grab and distribute shake-n-heat ration packs. Mine says NotPork’n’Apple Casserole and Pie! on the foil. I’m not sure whether to worry first about the NotPork or the and Pie!, and I shake it until the foil warms to the touch, tear it along the dotted line.
A now-familiar beep sounds from inside my dress. “You realize there is nothing close to either pork or apple inside there, right?”
Squinting inside suspiciously, I suspect Magellan is right, but I shrug and chow down anyway.
“Ty, we need to talk,” Scarlett says.
“Uh oh,” Tyler replies, mouth half full. “No conversation in human history that began with those words ever ended well.”
Zila is standing by Fin, dabbing something on the cuts on his face. “We should discuss what we saw at Dariel’s flat. The information may impact our next decision.”
“Why?” Cat asks, looking between them. “What did you see?”
Kal speaks beside me, his voice low. “There was something wrong with the GIA agents. We saw it when we removed their uniforms for Scarlett and Zila to wear.”
Tyler glances across at him. “Wrong? Care to elaborate on that?”
Scarlett sets down the foil pack that holds her Just Like Fish Dumplings. “I don’t think we want to tell. This, we have to show.”
She’s still wearing gray GIA armor from the neck down, and she pops a release on the chest plate, peeling away the top half of it to reveal the sweaty upper half of her dress. She has her uniglass tucked in there, and she aims it at the cabin’s holographic central display, then transfers a picture there with a flick of her finger.
The image slides up to replace the trajectory readouts, and the whole squad goes perfectly still and silent.
Cat’s the one to break it, in a voice I’ve never heard from her before.
“Holy shit.”
It’s a picture of a woman—a human woman. She’s probably in her thirties, though it’s hard to tell at first. She’s dead, her cheeks hollowed. Her mouth is a little open, and her skin has turned a lifeless, sullen gray, rather than just the bleached colorscape of the Fold. Strangest of all, where this woman’s right eye should be there’s … a plant?
It reminds me of the succulents my mother used to grow in our apartment. Thick, juicy, diamond-shaped leaves bursting from her eye socket in a tight bouquet, none much bigger than my thumbnail. They’re a lifeless tinge that matches her skin, with a dark blush along their edges and a tracery of veins running through them.
Some kind of moss spreads out across the right-hand side of her face. It’s made up of soft fuzz and wispy tendrils and covers half her forehead, trailing down her face and neck to disappear beneath her black undershirt. The same black veins in those leaves also run beneath her skin, like spiderwebs.
It’s like she’s made of stone, and the plants and moss are growing out of her. No wonder Kal said something was wrong. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I know I’ve never seen anything more wrong. It should just be gross, out of place, but instead it’s sending my every nerve jangling, my spine prickling with panic.
“I am not well versed with human maladies,” Kal says quietly. “But I assume this is not some common condition.”
“No,” Ty says, sounding as close to shaky as I’ve ever heard him. “You’re telling me this woman was one of the GIA agents? She was walking and talking?”
I glance up at the woman’s face again. I don’t … There’s something incredibly wrong about this, but there’s something familiar as well. I hold up my hand, block out the eye that’s blooming with that unnatural plant, stare at the rest of her.
Then my gut twists, and my voice is hoarse when I speak, just a whisper.
“Tyler, I … I know her.”
Ty looks at me, his scarred eyebrow raised. “You met her on Sempiternity?”
I shake my head. “I used to know her. Before I ever got on the Hadfield.”
I feel, as much as see, the six-way glance my companions exchange.
“That’s impossible,” Scarlett says. “That would make her over two centuries old. Your cryo survival was a freak accident, Auri. Are you saying she somehow did that, too, on some other ship that never made headlines?”
“Or she really must moisturize,” Fin offers, but nobody laughs.
“I know,” I say weakly. “But this is Patrice Radke. She was a settler on Octavia III, the head of Exploration and Cartography.”
I drag my gaze away from the picture, and they’re all looking at me. Some are expectant. Some skeptical. But all of them ar
e hanging on my every word.
“She would’ve been my boss,” I whisper. “I was going to do a practical apprenticeship in Exploration and Cartography under her. She and my dad … they . .”
“Thanks for the birthday wishes, Dad.”
“Thanks for the congratulations about winning All-States again. Thanks for remembering to message Callie about her recital, which she nailed, by the way. But best of all, thanks for this. Mom couldn’t get clearance for Octavia, so what … you just replaced her? You’re not even divorced yet!”
And then I hung up on him. The last words I ever spoke to him were a list of reasons he sucked.
And now he’s dead. …
I look up into Patrice’s lifeless face, my stomach sinking.
But if she—
“Officially, there was no colony on Octavia III,” Zila says. “Records indicate that you were bound for Lei Gong.”
“Well, the records are wrong,” I reply.
Zila tilts her head, studying me in that way of hers. “And this Patrice was one of the original settlers for your expedition, some two hundred and twenty years ago.”
It doesn’t sound like she’s questioning me. Just thinking things through. The others are less certain, though nobody’s offering the flat-out disbelief I’ve seen before. I think we’re past that now.
“This sounds like I’m crazy,” I say. “But I know I’m right.”
Except that Patrice Radke has been dead for over two centuries.
Then again, I’m two hundred and thirty-seven years old myself.
On a ship full of aliens. With whom I just robbed a space station.
Nothing is impossible.
But something is very, very wrong.
26
Kal
“The other GIA agent was like this, too?” Tyler asks.
I nod affirmative. Remembering the way their bodies felt as I hit them. The sounds they made as they fell. Their flesh was … wrong under my hands. Fibrous. Wet. Bones bending like green saplings rather than breaking like dry wood.