Aurora Burning: The Aurora Cycle 2

by Amie Kaufman

  Once the arena is perfectly still, she speaks in Syldrathi, and I translate softly.

  “One who was lost is found,” she says. “In thanks to the Void for my brother’s return, we shall sing the song of ruin, and dance the dance of blood. We shall feast upon the hearts of our enemies, that their strength becomes our own.”

  She points down into the pit, to a tall Syldrathi woman standing by a control panel in the wall below us. Saedii’s lips curve into a small smile.

  “Release the drakkan,” she says.

  The woman presses a button. The floor in the pit’s heart cracks and slams apart, sudden, violent, revealing a deeper lair below.

  And out of it comes a chuddering, bone-deep roar.

  “That,” I whisper, “does not sound little.”

  The Unbroken around us begin to stamp their feet, solemn, all in time, and my heart drops into my stomach as a creature claws its way up out of the lair. It’s twenty meters long, sinuous, reptilian, black as midnight—a much bigger, much angrier version of the beastie on Saedii’s shoulder. It throws back its head and bellows, fangs gleaming in the scarlet light, and I feel that roar in my chest. Its claws are as long as my arm. The sting on its tail is as long as the rest of me.

  “Maker’s breath, we’re gonna die,” Finian whispers.

  Tyler looks at me, his jaw clenched, his eyes wide as he searches for some way out of this. He’s a tactical genius, my little brother. As much as I rib him about it, as much stick as I give him, his plans have always seen us through. And even though I’m not religious, I find myself dangerously close to praying to the Maker that Ty’s got something up his sleeve.

  Saedii’s lips part in slow motion and my heart stills as she begins to speak.

  “Wait!” Tyler roars.

  The thunder of the stamping feet fades a little. Saedii looks down at Tyler and tilts her head, like he’s a dog that suddenly learned to speak.

  “Scar, translate for me,” Ty murmurs. “Everything I say. That’s an order.”

  His voice is iron, his eyes are ice, and for a second I can see so much of Dad in him it makes me want to cry.

  “Okay,” I say softly.

  Tyler turns to Saedii, arms wide. I translate as he speaks.

  “My name is Tyler Jones. I am the son of Jericho Jones!”

  A stillness falls over the arena at that, Dad’s name rippling among the warriors like flame. Just like I said, they remember the Great Man here, too.

  “My father fought your people for years in the war!” Tyler shouts. “He spilled the blood of your warriors by the thousands. And his blood flows in my veins.”

  The silence is total now, a subtle and burning anger reflected in that sea of violet eyes. They remember the defeat our father led at Kireina. The shame their entire cabal was subjected to after that loss.

  Ty looks up at Saedii, his jaw squared, stare narrowed.

  “I’m the commander of this squad. I lead, and they follow. Your brother among them. My sister isn’t a warrior. My crew aren’t warriors. So if anyone’s getting thrown down into that pit, it’s me, and me alone. The son of Jericho Jones doesn’t need help making a handbag out of some lizard.”

  I falter at that, my eyes on my brother’s. “Ty …”

  “You said these people respect fearlessness,” he says softly, still looking up at Saedii. “This is as fearless as I get. Tell them, Scar.”

  I translate, watch Saedii’s eyes narrow at Ty’s words.

  “Not them,” he tells her, pointing at his chest. “Just me.”

  The Unbroken Templar leans back in her throne, one black fingernail tracing the line of her eyebrow. Her baby drakkan wraps its tail around her arm and trills in her ear. Mama Drakkan bellows in response.

  “If you wish to die alone, Terran,” she says, “so be it.”

  Saedii nods to the guards around us, and before I can really protest, they’re shuffling us back off the gangplank. I call out as the stamping begins again, a rising thunder building with the pulse in my temples. Ty is my baby brother, the only family I have left. I’m his big sister—I’m supposed to be looking after him.

  “Tyler!”

  The Unbroken warrior who’s remained with Tyler hands him a small, ornate blade from his belt. The knife is barely big enough to cut a protein loaf, so what use it’s supposed to be against a twenty-meter-long killing machine is beyond me. The Syldrathi warrior in the pit below presses the controls again, and the doors to the drakkan’s lair slam closed. She scampers out of the pit as the beast prowls around underneath us, its roar shaking the deck beneath my feet. My stomach flips and rolls inside me. Fin reaches down to squeeze my hand. Ty looks at me and winks.

  “Throw him in,” Saedii calls.

  The Unbroken lifts his hand, but Ty’s already moving, jumping down into the pit rather than be tossed in off balance and snapped up before he can react. His boots crunch into the stones, and the drakkan roars.

  Its wings must have been clipped, because it doesn’t actually fly, instead leaping into the air and gliding down toward Ty with its fanged mouth open wide.

  Ty’s already moving, rolling behind one of those strange metallic outcroppings. The creature crashes to the ground where he stood a moment before, whipping toward him with a bellow of rage, long neck uncoiling like a snake as it strikes. But my brother’s moving again, rolling, using the barricades to protect himself, desperately scanning the arena for some way out of this.

  “Tyler, watch out!” I scream.

  I can’t believe this is happening—it doesn’t feel real, the stamping feet and trembling roars washing over me in awful black waves. Ty is fast, agile, trained by the best in the academy in hand-to-hand combat. But the thing he’s fighting doesn’t even have hands. It leaps into the air again, up over Ty’s cover, its barbed tail smashing into the dirt as my brother rolls aside. It lashes out with long arms, carving chunks out of the metal—and, yeah, apparently this thing cuts metal with its claws.

  Shards spray across the stones, some as big as Tyler’s head. It swings with its tail, smashing into Tyler and sending him sailing through the air, tumbling across the glowing stones as I scream again. My brother rolls up to his feet, one hand clutching his ribs as he stumbles away from another strike. I can see blood on his brow now, spattered at his lips. I can see how horribly, hopelessly outmatched he is.

  One direct hit, and I’m going to lose the only family I have left.

  I glance around at the Syldrathi, rage swelling in my chest.

  How can they just sit and watch this?

  Actually, there’s no just about it. They’re cheering. They’re watching this one-sided death match and reveling in it. Where’s the honor in that?

  How can this possibly be fair?

  I look up at Saedii and swear to myself, vow on Dad’s grave, if something happens to my baby brother …

  I’m going to kill you, bitch.

  Tyler’s running out of room, out of breath, out of moves—it looks like that last tail swipe hurt him bad. The drakkan charges, all sinew and muscle, serpent quick. Tyler leaps forward, desperate, diving under the snapping arc of its jaws toward the center of the pit, skidding on his stomach along those smooth, glowing stones.

  The drakkan twists around and leaps into the air, its hobbled wings spread, my brother below it. Tyler is clawing at the ground, trying to get to his feet, raising his little knife in desperation. I’m thinking maybe Ty’s maneuvered himself underneath it to strike at its underbelly, but that knife is nothing more than a toothpick.

  The drakkan shrieks in triumph and descends.

  Tyler rolls, and flings the blade—not up at the beast’s belly, like I thought, but across the pit. For a second I think he’s had all his sense knocked loose, that he’s wasted the one weapon he has, that he’s just killed himself for sure.

  But then I see the blade tumbling, arcing, end over end—a perfect, beautiful throw that sends it sailing hilt-first into the control panel on the wall.

&n
bsp; Ty is already on his feet, diving forward as the doors to the drakkan’s lair crack wide and slam apart. The drakkan bellows as the ground opens up below it, thrashing its useless wings as it plummets back down into the holding pen it crawled out of. The thing strikes the floor with a thunderous whunnnggg, its shriek of rage echoing on the metal. My heart is rising into my throat, my eyes wide. But Tyler is up on his feet, charging desperately, small stones flying as he leaps, arm outstretched toward the controls just as the monster comes lunging back out of its lair. It’s a race: Tyler versus drakkan, human versus monster, feral hunger versus the desperate, indomitable will to survive.

  Tyler wins.

  The beast leaps up, roaring. The doors slam closed. The edges catch the drakkan across its ribs as it rises, and the Unbroken are on their feet, a few of them even shouting in dismay as the pen doors crush the drakkan’s ribs, blood spilling from its mouth as it flops and thrashes.

  Tyler takes a few steps forward, gasping, bloodied. Watching the beast flail in agony, clawing at the metal that’s crushing it. The drakkan is beaten, but it’s not dead, and its screams make me sick to my stomach as it tries to tear itself loose, the stink of black blood filling my nostrils.

  A sizzling flash scorches the air, a Kill shot from a disruptor rifle ripping into the drakkan’s eye. The beast thrashes once more and then collapses. The whole arena is still, the legions of Unbroken shocked and dismayed. I look up and see Saedii, standing now with a disruptor rifle on her hip. She’s looking down at my brother, her face a perfect, unreadable mask.

  My heart’s thumping, my belly full of butterflies. Warbreed respect prowess in battle above anything else, but I honestly don’t know how this is going to play out. Ty just killed this crazy bitch’s pet, after all.

  Saedii aims her rifle at Tyler’s head. He looks up at her, bloodied and defiant. One squeeze of that trigger is all it’ll take.

  “Perhaps,” she finally says, “you will be of some amusement after all.”

  I sigh with relief, shoulders sagging, my whole body deflating. Saedii turns to her lieutenant, nods toward us.

  “Take them to the detention level. Lock them down hard.”

  “Your will, my hands, Templar,” he replies. “What of their Alpha?”

  Saedii looks at Tyler with narrowed eyes. “See him fed and his wounds dressed.” She purses her lips, tosses her braids back off her shoulders. “Then send him to my chambers. I wish to interrogate him personally.”

  The lieutenant bows and the Unbroken hurry to do their mistress’s bidding. I look to Tyler down in the pit, can’t help but grin and shake my head as he looks up at me and winks, pawing at the blood on his mouth. Then a handful of beautiful Unbroken goons are grabbing me, prodding me back up the stairs.

  Finian is being pushed along close behind me, looking just as bewildered as I am. We’re still in Unbroken custody, sure. Still cut off from Auri and Kal and now Ty, still wanted galactic terrorists, still being dragged back to who knows where in the keeping of Kal’s psycho sibling. We’re still in it, right up to our necklines.

  But somehow, we’re still alive.

  We’re marched down a series of dark corridors, illuminated with strips of blood-red light. Syldrathi glyfs decorate the walls, the interior design a strange collision of beautiful curves and lines with a morbid gothic vibe. The thrum of the engines is the only sound.

  We arrive at an area marked DETENTION, and without ceremony we’re pushed into a small holding cell. The walls are black, unadorned. There’s a bench along one wall for sleeping, strips of red light in the floor.

  The door slides shut without a sound. I sink onto the bench, arms wrapped around my stomach. My whole body is shaking.

  “Scar?” Fin says.

  “Yeah?” I whisper.

  “Do you think Tyler is accepting marriage proposals anytime soon?”

  I laugh, and the laugh turns into a strangled sob, and I tighten my grip around myself to hold it all in. For a minute, it’s all I can do to stop myself flying apart. The thought of almost losing Ty, of losing the only blood I have left, it’s nearly too much.

  Fin sits beside me, the smooth whine of his exosuit familiar and comforting. He puts one awkward arm around my shoulders.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he murmurs. “Ty’s okay.”

  I nod, and I sniff hard, push back the tears. I know he’s right. I know I have to keep it together, have to get us back together. We’re scattered all over this ship now: Kal in the med bay, Auri locked down somewhere heavy, Ty in Saedii’s clutches, and …

  I blink and look around the cell, and there’s an awful twisting in my gut as I realize someone else is missing.

  Oh shit …

  I can’t remember seeing her at the arena. I can’t believe I missed that she was gone, even as quiet as she is, even with all the chaos of the fight. But thinking back, my brow creased in concentration, I realize the last time I remember seeing her was aboard the Zero as we were about to disembark.

  I speak into the gloom, my voice a whisper.

  “Where the hells is Zila?”

  12

  ZILA

  The air vents aboard Saedii’s ship are summoning unpleasant memories as I crawl through them. My heart rate is elevated and my breathing quickened. Both factors are reducing my efficiency considerably.

  I pause to marshal my thoughts, closing my eyes and focusing on the sensation of my lungs slowly expanding, then contracting. I remind myself that there is no connection between what happened when I was six and what is happening now. The similarities are limited to the fact that I am hiding in a ventilation system and that hostile individuals are, or soon will be, searching for me.

  And that others are relying on me to save their lives.

  Those others are not my parents this time, but my squadmates. Nevertheless, my squad is … important to me. And of course our mission is important.

  This time I will not fail, no matter what is required of me.

  By my assessment, nobody is in immediate danger. Finian and Scarlett are doubtless uncomfortable, but no more than inconvenienced by their detention cell. Aurora is sedated and likely unaware of her situation. Kal and Tyler were both to be treated well, according to the Templar’s orders.

  On this basis, I have decided to retrieve our gear before undertaking my squad’s rescue. I am more nimble by myself, and I have noticed that my squadmates often make conversation during tense moments, which I consider unhelpful.

  It is easier alone.

  · · · · ·

  I was six.

  We were living on a small survey ship called the Janeway, orbiting Gallanosa III. It was an inhospitable planet, but a prime mining candidate. The ship was not large—I could walk the length of it in approximately nine minutes and run it in three—but it was home to five research scientists, and me.

  I was only six.

  · · · · ·

  I am in the Andarael’s life-support system, a twisting maze of vents that winds below her decks and between her levels. I am looking up through a grille at seven Syldrathi technicians, all attempting to hack into our uniglasses. Aurora Academy technology is top of the line, and I am confident their efforts will be fruitless for the next seventy to eighty minutes, depending on their level of competence.

  That will be sufficient.

  At present, it appears that two of the technicians are preparing to leave on break, so I settle into my vantage point and wait. Their departure will improve my odds.

  Patience.

  · · · · ·

  Patience was required aboard the Janeway, and it did not come easily to me. We had a large digital library, a communal recreation area, an exercise rig, and a hydroponics unit. But truthfully, there was very little to do there. I was a boisterous child—I sprinted the length of the ship to burn off energy, I climbed the exercise rig in many ways it was not designed to support, and I cultivated flowers in my own tiny patch of the hydroponics bay.

  My mother was the
expedition leader, with a focus on scoping potential mining sites. My father was the corp’s token environmental officer, there to certify that nothing rare or unique would be endangered by mining operations. He had ample free time, given the nature of his job, so he handled my education as well. He had a knack for making my classes entertaining, and my intelligence meant my education was accelerated without any sense of pressure or overwork.

  I was just wrapping up my high school equivalency the day the men came.

  · · · · ·

  The men above me are bent over a transparent silicon bench, conversing in soft Syldrathi. Alongside the uniglasses they are attempting to hack, I can see the passkeys to the Zero through the glass they lean upon.

  Escape in our own ship would be the most convenient option, as we are familiar with its facilities, and they were designed to accommodate our needs. It may be possible for me to retrieve the passkeys via stealth, but I do not consider it possible to remove the uniglasses without drawing attention.

  I turn my thoughts to other plans.

  · · · · ·

  My parents had explained to me that my plans were unrealistic—a six-year-old taking classes at college level would encounter many difficulties, no matter how advanced or socially adept. Even as a small child I preferred the sciences, so my mother and father took me with them to Gallanosa III, intending to begin my higher education when the time was right.

  Although I understood at even that young age that my intelligence was unusual, they did not want me to feel isolated. They wanted me to be safe.

  They failed on both counts.

  · · · · ·

  Both senior Syldrathi technicians depart, leaving me five to deal with. I crawl beneath them, along my vent toward the junction at the far end of the lab.

  I have considered my options, running statistical analyses on each course of action as best I can with the information I have at hand.

  First step: alarms.

  · · · · ·

  The alarms had been tripped seventy-three minutes earlier, which was not out of the ordinary in our isolated location. The incoming vessel’s failure to respond to hails was more concerning, but they may have been in communications difficulty. We weren’t a prime target—we had little of value. But our doubts were erased when they force-docked with the Janeway and blasted our airlocks.