Aurora Burning: The Aurora Cycle 2

by Amie Kaufman

  “Weakling,” she whispers.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, tying off my makeshift tourniquet.

  “Wretch.”

  “Shut up,” I sigh, slinging her arm around my shoulder and standing again. “Before I forget my manners.”

  I hear heavy boots coming down the stairwell behind us. A lone Syldrathi stumbles along the smoke-filled corridor ahead, her eyes widening as she recognizes her Templar hanging limp in the arms of a shirtless Terran boy. She raises her weapon, but mine’s already up, and with a BAMF! she drops to the deck.

  I struggle on with Saedii hanging off my shoulder, moving fast as I can. We reach a junction and I demand to know the way. Saedii mumbles a reply. Those marines have gotta be right on my heels—there’s no way I can fight them off if they catch us, and there’s nowhere I can hide. I’m quickly realizing that if we’re going to make it out of this, we need something awful close to a miracle.

  And then I see her.

  Down at the end of the corridor, charging through the smoke, disruptor rifle in her arms. Flame-red hair, big eyes as blue as mine, all of it bleached gray by the Fold. Around the edges of her enviro-mask, her face is smeared with soot and grime and blood. But I’ve never seen her look as beautiful as she does right then.

  “Scarlett,” I whisper.

  Finian is beside her, crouched low. He spots me first, crying out over the alarms, the fire, the alerts.

  “There he is!”

  Shuffling, stumbling, dragging Saedii onward, I feel an idiot grin break out on my face. Scarlett bolts down the corridor toward me. My miracle, just as ordered.

  And that’s when something hits us.

  It’s not big enough to be a missile. A chunk of debris, maybe, or a fighter plowing out of control into the Andarael’s flank. The strike hits the floor above us, buckling the hull. The impact is like thunder, throwing Saedii and me into the wall. I hit with a gasp, she crashes into me, and then we’re both tumbling to the deck, my disruptor skittering from my hands. Unconsciousness beckons, offering me warmth and dark and quiet, and I shove back at it, blood in my mouth.

  I open my eyes. Alarms are screaming about an atmo breach, and beneath them I can hear the deadly hiss of gas escaping into space. Heart sinking, I see the corridor ahead has buckled—the ceiling has collapsed, the sundered electrical cables spewing live current. Beyond the wreckage, I glimpse Finian on his knees. My sister dragging herself to her feet.

  “Scarlett!” I roar. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” she coughs. “You?”

  “I’m okay,” I shout.

  “Do I even wanna ask why you’re shirtless right now?”

  “Abs like these yearn to be free, Scar.”

  She laughs at the joke, but through the wreckage, I can see the smile die on her lips almost instantly. The corridor is impassable—we can’t get to each other without a cutting torch or explosives. Atmo is leaking from the hull, and while we’re all wearing enviro-gear, if the Andarael’s triage systems are still online, the ship will seal this corridor off to prevent further loss of oxygen throughout the ship.

  “You need to get out of here, Scarlett,” I call.

  “Shut up, Tyler,” she says. “Finian, help me with this.”

  She starts tugging at the wreckage, trying to pry the gap wide enough to let me through. The severed cables spark and spit as Finian leans against the metal, exosuit whining as he puts his back into it.

  “Scar, you’re not going to be able to—”

  “I’m not leaving you!” she shouts. “Now shut up!”

  My heart twists at the tone in her voice. The tears in her eyes. Because as much as she might pretend to be, my sister isn’t simple. She knows the math here.

  And then I hear heavy boots behind me. The sound of disruptor rifles powering up. A voice, thick with reverb, speaking Terran.

  “Hands in the air!”

  I turn, see the platoon of TDF marines. Their power armor is big, bulky, graceless, decorated with the kind of graffiti grunts use to fill the time in between engagements. EAT THIS. WAR IS HELL. The lieutenant has MAN-EATER stenciled across her breastplate. The eyes in their helmets are aglow, servos whining as the laser sights on their rifles light up my chest.

  A dozen of them. One of me.

  Bad odds, even on the best days. And this is pretty far from that.

  “Get out of here, Scar,” I say quietly.

  “Tyler—”

  “Auri is all that matters.”

  “On your knees, Legionnaire Jones!” the man-eater bellows. “Slow!”

  They know my name. Briefed by Princeps to bring us in alive, I’m betting. Aurora most of all. I raise my hands, sink to the floor. Saedii curses and tries to rise, but a Stun blast knocks her back down. Isha shrieks and bares her teeth, launches herself at the marines. A dozen Kill shots ring out in the corridor, and the little drakkan crashes to the deck in a splash of dark blood.

  “NO!” Saedii screams, trying to rise again.

  Another handful of Stun blasts ring out—

  BAMF!

  BAMF!

  BAMF!

  —and the Unbroken Templar sinks down, silent and still.

  I glance over my shoulder, see my twin’s face through the wreckage, tears streaming down her cheeks. I can hear Dad’s voice in my head. Feel his hands ruffling my hair that way I hated, hear him speaking to me that way I loved. Like he was saying something Important. And I was worthy of it.

  Look after your sister.

  “Show the way, Scarlett.”

  “Tyler … ,” she whispers.

  “I said that you could find yourself doing this without me one day, remember?” I glance to the boy beside her, his face bleached a paler shade of white. “Look after her for me, Fin. That’s an order.”

  “… Yessir,” he nods. Taking gentle hold of Scarlett’s arm, he speaks to her softly. “We have to go.”

  “No,” she says, shaking her head. “No.”

  “Scar, I’m sorry, we have to go!” Finian cries.

  I feel metal hands grab me and push me to the deck, mag-restraints clap around my wrists. The marines force my face into the floor, so I don’t have to see the look on hers as her heart breaks. But I hear her sobs as my twin finally lets Finian drag her away from the only family she has left.

  “I love you, Scar!”

  A disruptor rifle hums. A finger tightens on a trigger.

  BAMF!

  And darkness comes down like a hammer.

  16

  SCARLETT

  The race back to the Zero is a blur. My eyes sting with sweat and tears. The whole ship is listing badly, the deck sloping away between us as Finian and I stumble through the smoke and carnage, toward the docking bay. The lighting is flickering, failing—even the Andarael’s emergency power systems are struggling now. The corridors are strewn with Terran and Syldrathi corpses, their blood sticky beneath our feet. This ship has become a slaughterhouse. And if we don’t get off it soon, we’re going to be dead at best, or back in the hands of the GIA at worst.

  I think of Tyler, my heart aching so hard I almost fall. For a moment, Finian is the only thing keeping me going, his arm around my shoulder, dragging me on through the swirling gray, the raining sparks, the howling alarms. I feel like I’ve betrayed Ty somehow. Like I’ve left the most important part of myself behind. But then I hear my brother’s voice inside my head, see his eyes as he spoke to me.

  Show the way, Scarlett.

  That’s what all good leaders do, according to the late, great Jericho Jones:

  Know the way.

  Show the way.

  Go the way.

  Those are the words Ty has always lived by. The reason he’s spent his whole life looking after me and everyone around him. The torch he’s carried since Dad died. I know he’s passed it to me because he can’t carry it himself anymore. He’s trusting me with it. Relying on me to see the rest of us through this.

  Show the way.

  S
o I stand taller, ease out of Finian’s hold, clutching the disruptor rifle to my chest. The enviro-mask is still fixed over my face, so I can’t wipe away my tears. But I can push them back. Lock them away for another time, another place, where the fate of the entire damn galaxy doesn’t hang in the balance.

  “You okay?” Fin asks me.

  I sniff hard, swallow harder. Tap the screen of my uniglass.

  “Kal, can you hear me?”

  “Affirmative, Scarlett,” comes the ever-cool reply. “What is your location?”

  “We’re on our way to the Zero, can you hold position?”

  “Not for long. You must be swift.”

  “Tell Zila to heat the engines, prep for launch. If we’re not down there in five minutes, or it looks like Auri is in danger, you get the hells out, understand?”

  “Understood. What is Tyler’s status?”

  I breathe deep. Push it all down into the soles of my feet.

  “Tell Zila I hope she’s as good at flying a starship as she is at piloting a van.”

  “… Acknowledged,” comes Kal’s soft reply.

  I tap the screen to cut transmission, meet Finian’s eyes.

  “Let’s move.”

  We dodge at least four firefights on our way downward, ducking into stairwells or circling back or just making a mad dash away from them. The Terran marines and Unbroken warriors are still cutting each other to pieces all over the ship, but it’s only a matter of time before the TDF wins through. Those marines called Ty by name—they know who we are, and I know what they’re here for. We need to get Auri out of here or all this has been for nothing.

  We dash past a turbolift shaft, and Finian drags me to a sudden halt.

  “Hold up,” he says, popping a multi-tool from his exosuit’s arm. He goes to work on the controls, prying the panel off the wall. The lighting flickers again, dropping us into blackness before struggling to life once more.

  “Emergency power’s almost dead,” I say. “We can’t ride that down.”

  He looks up from his work and winks. “Who said anything about riding?”

  I hear the clunk of a lock, the sound of grinding metal. Fin pushes his silver-clad fingers into the gap between the doors, and slowly, exo whining with the strain, he pries them apart. The doors open out into nothingness—just an empty shaft running the entire depth of the massive ship. He taps a control on his suit, and globes in his fingertips light up, cutting a bright swath through the gloom.

  “We supposed to fly down?” I ask. “I left my broomstick in my other pants.”

  Fin blinks. “Either broomsticks aren’t what I think they are, or you’re being Scarcastic with me again.”

  “How the hells are we going to get down, Fin?” I demand, my temper getting the better of me. “It’s a hundred-meter drop and there’s no power to drive the lift. Even the emergency systems are failing!”

  “And what happens when the emergency systems fail, Scar?”

  “We all suffocate and die?”

  “Well … yeah, that’s actually a good point. But before that?”

  “I have no idea!” I cry, flailing. “I spent my only class on enviro systems making out in the back row of the lecture theater!”

  (Jorge Trent. Ex-boyfriend #24. Pros: Adores musicals. Amazing dresser. Calls his mother three times a day. Cons: You see where this is going, don’t you?)

  Finian taps his temple with his forefinger and smiles.

  “Watch and learn.”

  We wait in the corridor a few moments more, listening to the clamor of distant firefights, the heavy tread of approaching boots. The overheads are flickering in time with my heartbeat, every second we waste is another closer to capture or execution, and I can’t believe we’re just standing here waiting for—

  The Andarael’s emergency system coughs its dying breath.

  The power finally stutters and dies.

  And along with it, of course, goes the artificial gravity.

  It takes me a moment to realize. But then, by the light of Finian’s glowing fingertips, I see strands of my hair sent floating with the slightest movement of my head. The sickening feeling of vertigo I always get shifting into low grav comes over me, the sensation of my insides lifting up and floating free inside my body. Suppressing the urge to puke into my enviro-mask, I manage a smile.

  “You’re an insufferable smart-ass most days, Finian de Seel,” I sigh. “But you do have your moments.”

  Finian gives an experimental kick, lifting himself off the ground before arresting his momentum with one hand against the elevator door. He pushes himself inside, moving like a fish underwater, grinning and offering his hand.

  “Milady?”

  I grab hold, his actuator-assisted fingers gripping mine ever so gently. And with that, Fin kicks off the wall and sends us soaring downward, flying along the shaft, one hand holding mine, the other held out before us to light the way. My hair billows around my face like clouds, and I feel like I’m falling and flying all at once and for just a moment I forget where and who I am.

  But not who I’m with?

  And I glance at Fin out of the corner of my eyes and …

  I hear the thudthudthud of a heavy gun somewhere below, smell fire in the rapidly thinning air. We reach the lower levels of the shaft and Fin slows our flight with taps of his hands against the wall, finally pulling us to a complete stop outside the docking bay doors. Then he’s at work with his multi-tool again, prying apart a manual release, clever fingers moving quick as the lock clunks and the doors part just a tiny crack.

  Peering out into the dark of the bay, we quickly discover what’s making all the racket—someone’s at Zero’s controls, blasting away with its railgun at a squad of Terran marines on the other side of the docking bay. They’re returning fire with their disruptors, their shots lighting up the dark—they’re not enough to pierce the Zero’s hull, but it’s only a matter of time before they bring in something heavier.

  “Idiots,” I growl. “I told them to take off if trouble found them.”

  “I’m sure Zila is reminding them of that right now,” Fin says. “We better move.”

  “Sneak across in the dark?” I suggest.

  “Those marines will have thermographic vision in their helmets,” Finian says. “Hopefully they’re too busy avoiding getting shot to be looking out for us. But I grew up in zero grav. I can get us there.”

  I tap my uni. “Kal, this is Scar. Me and Fin are in one of the access elevators on your starboard side.”

  “Um,” Finian murmurs. “Port side, Scar.”

  “For the love of … ,” I mutter. “Elevators on your left side, Kal. Left side. Lay down as much firepower as you can and open the rear hatch. Be ready to launch.”

  “Acknowledged,” comes Kal’s reply.

  The Zero opens up with another long, continuous burst, cutting a swath through the walls and cargo. The TDF marines are hunkered behind cover, but if their heads are down, chances are they won’t see us.

  Finian grabs my hand and together we kick off the floor, sail up and out into the bay. I can see it spread out below us as we soar upward, lit only by a few rogue fires and the strobing bursts from the Zero’s forward guns.

  “Hold on to me,” Fin whispers.

  I wrap my arms tight around Fin’s waist, clinging on for dear life. We hit the roof and Fin rolls with our momentum, pirouettes in midair, and sends us sailing back down toward the Zero on the bounce. It’s an amazing stunt. Breathtaking, really. Fin’s movement is normally so considered, so labored lately. But up here, sailing through this flashing black and white free of gravity, he’s totally at home.

  We soar down from the ceiling, Fin reaching out to grab a stanchion and swing us around, releasing his grip and sending us sailing in a perfect arc toward the Zero’s rear hatchway. I hear one of the marines shout and their disruptor rifles open up, and I hold tighter, wishing I was religious enough to start praying. But though I don’t have an ounce of faith, finally, fin
ally, we hit the Zero’s rear landing, and with one last kick we sail inside.

  “Okay, punch it, Zila! Go! GO!”

  The hatchway cycles closed, and with a dull roar, we’re lifting off. Fin and I are slammed into the wall as we swing around, the Zero’s artificial gravity kicking in, and I grab desperately for something to hold on to as Kal unloads into the Andarael’s docking bay doors. A deafening explosion rips across the bay and I feel the heat through the closing doors. And then we’re rocketing free, out into the firestorm, a debris field of ruined fighters and burning hulks, a long stream of reactor exhaust spilling from the Andarael’s wounded side and into the cold black of the Fold.

  “Engines to full,” says Zila over comms. “This will be bumpy.”

  I dash out of the bay and up the corridor, Finian coming hot on my heels as the Zero shakes around us. By the time we arrive on the bridge, we’re breathless. I see Zila in the pilot’s chair, Kal on the weapons station. Auri flies out of her seat and wraps her arms around me, around Fin, tears shining in her eyes.

  “Scar, are you okay?” she breathes. “Are you—”

  “Please resume your seats,” Zila says, sounding a little miffed. “We have Terran fighters inbound.”

  Presumably those marines in Andarael’s hangar bay have given some kind of warning about our takeoff; our scopes are showing a pack of bulldog-nosed Terran fighters scrambling to intercept us. But as Auri, Fin, and I grab chairs and strap ourselves in, I see there’s still some fight left in Saedii’s dragoons. A posse of sleek Syldrathi corvettes is moving to intercept the Terrans, chasing them through the tumbling wreckage, missiles and cannon fire lighting the dark and incidentally giving us the few precious minutes we need to make our escape.

  “Stealth field engaged,” Kal reports. “We should be hidden from their radar now. We only need to get out of their line of sight.”

  “Leave that to me,” Zila murmurs.

  She looks up at Shamrock, still perched above the pilot’s station. Reaching out, she touches the fuzzy green dragon, as if for luck.

  “Everybody hold on,” she says.

  Our thrusters roar.