by Amie Kaufman
The ones who left that for you, she continues. How could they know?
I have no clue, I admit.
How did the Terran marines not discover it? Surely they scanned you?
The heel looks shielded. Whoever put this here knew I’d need to hide it.
How? Saedii demands. How is this possible?
Doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here. I don’t know where we’re headed, but there’s literally no place the Ra’haam can have chosen that will be good news for us. And the Unbroken and TDF are probably tearing each other to pieces by now.
She glances my way for a brief moment.
Then we are at war once more, little Terran.
You can gouge out my eyes later, okay? From the look of this gremlin, it’s got a decent range. But TDF dreadnoughts are huge. When the pulse goes off, we need to move fast. Get to the launch bays and get ourselves off this ship. So be ready.
Saedi sneers.
She’s probably always ready for combat, and my warning is a little insulting. Despite the punishment she’s suffered, Saedii radiates a steel-cold will, her eyes narrowed and focused. Curling over to hide my boots from the camera, I slip my hand to the gremlin, praying to the Maker that despite all the punishment I’ve put these boots through over the last few days, it somehow still works.
My finger finds the activation stud. I meet Saedii’s eyes.
Go.
I press the button. I feel a slight vibration in my boot, a hum on the edge of hearing. And then every light in the cell dies.
The camera dies.
The magnetic lock dies.
Saedii is on her feet in a heartbeat. The emergency lighting has been knocked out—every electronic device around us that isn’t shielded is basically a paperweight now. Without the lights, it’s almost pitch-dark in here, but I catch a vague impression of her as she snatches up the wreckage of the bio-cot I smashed and jams it into the doorframe. I lunge to my feet, grab the twisted strut of metal, and give her a hand. We lean into it, Saedii silent, me grunting softly with the strain. But between the two of us, we pry the cell door open in a few seconds.
The corridor outside is almost pitch-dark too, every terminal fried. But like I said, I’ve studied Terran ships since I was a kid, and despite the black around us, I know exactly where we need to go.
I reach out in the dark, grab Saedii’s hand.
She immediately snatches it free.
“I did not give you permission to touch me, Tyler Jones,” she snarls. “Do it again at your peril.”
I glare at her in the gloom, but I can’t see her face.
“Well, how about this,” I snap back at her. “I give you permission to touch me. I know the layout of this ship like I know my own name. So you can stumble about in the dark by yourself, or we can buckle up and run.”
I hold out my hand in the black.
“Lady’s choice.”
The silence stretches between us, broken only by the thrum of the Folding engines. Rising alarms. Running boots. I see laser sights cutting the dark at the end of our corridor. I can see Saedii’s silhouette now, black curves against the distant light.
She breathes deep.
She presses her hand into mine.
And, hand in hand, we run off into the dark.
· · · · ·
Eight minutes later, Saedii and I are in a supply closet, trying to ignore each other as we strip down to our unmentionables.
The space is small and the lighting is dim, supplied by a flashlight slung under the barrel of a disruptor rifle. The male owner of the rifle, along with a tall female comrade, is in the supply closet across the hall, minus the uniforms we stole. We accosted the two marines in the middle of their security sweep, overpowering them before they could get a shot off. The element of surprise helped. Having a master of the Aen Suun fighting alongside me didn’t hurt much either. Both marines got beaten to within inches of their lives—if I hadn’t been there to stop her, Saedii would have beaten them all the way.
“Keep your eyes to yourself, Terran,” she warns me softly. “Or I will pluck them out.”
“We’re in a life-or-death situation here. I think I can keep my mind on the job.” I fix my eyes on my boots as I drag them off. “Besides, I’ve seen bras before, and trust me, yours isn’t that spectacular.”
She pauses midway through inspecting the female marine’s tac vest. “I wear the garments of an Unbroken Templar, boy. They are not meant to be spectacular.”
“Well, good,” I say, unbuttoning my cargoes. “They’re succeeding admirably.”
Her glower is almost enough to burn a hole in my chest. I do my best to ignore it and her. And I’m down to my boxers, and she’s wearing very little in the way of those Unbroken Templar garments, when the first blast strikes the ship.
Hard.
Saedii grabs hold of a supply rack to steady herself, but I’m too slow. Slung across the closet like a kid’s toy, I crash right into her. She spits a word I know has a four-letter translation in Terran, and we both go down in a heap. I find myself on my back, Saedii lying on top of me, her long black hair tumbled around us, our faces just a few centimeters apart.
“What was—”
“Silence!” she hisses, her head cocked.
We lie there for a few moments, and Maker’s breath, I’m really, really trying to ignore it, but there’s two meters of Syldrathi warrior princess lying on top of me in nothing but her underwear. And while the Aurora Legion probably doesn’t make a medal for it, I still genuinely think I deserve one for what I say next.
“Get off me.”
“Be quiet, Tyler Jones!”
I lie there in the dark with Saedii stretched out on top of me, staring at the ceiling, hands pressed firmly at my sides.
Think unsexy thoughts.
Think unsexy thoughts.
“I heard that,” she whispers, glancing at me.
“Look, I know I gave you permission to touch me, but this is pushing the—”
Another impact strikes the ship. Thunderous. Running through the metal beneath us. Saedii’s eyes find mine, lit with triumph.
“There,” she smiles.
I frown up at her, mind racing. “That sounded like a—”
“Syldrathi pulse cannon.” She presses her tongue to one sharpened canine. “They are here.”
“ALERT,” cries the shipboard PA, as if on cue. The distant wail of a siren pierces the dark. “ALERT. ALL HANDS, BATTLE STATIONS.”
I blink. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“My lieutenant Erien, I imagine,” Saedii replies. “My Paladins. Whatever remained of my adepts. It would be death for them to return to my father without me. I expect they have been tracking us through the Fold since the battle on Andarael.”
“REPEAT: ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS,” the PA shouts. “SYLDRATHI VESSEL INBOUND. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
I frown at the girl atop me. “… You knew they’d come?”
“I suspected.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I did not trust you, Tyler Jones,” she scowls. “I still do not trust you. You are Terran. The son of Jericho Jones, our great enemy. Our peoples are at war.”
“Our peoples?” I reply. “You just told me I’m half-Syldrathi, Saedii. My people are your people.”
She pauses at that. Violet eyes searching mine.
“Perhaps,” she says.
Goose bumps rise on my skin as Saedii presses her fingertips to my chest, light as feathers. Another blast rocks the ship, more alerts begin screaming, and I wince as her fingernail scratches my skin.
“What blood truly burns in these veins of yours, I wonder?”
“If we don’t get off this ship soon,” I tell her, “you’ll be able to examine my blood up close and personal. Because it’s going to be splattered all over the floor.”
Her smile comes slowly.
“Mmm.”
Another blast rocks the ship as Saedii
slides off me, twists into a crouch, and grabs for the stolen tac suit pieces, now jumbled together. I take a deep breath, then pull myself up and separate out the gear I need as the sirens continue to wail. I peek at her once while we get dressed, only to discover that Saedii is already watching me. Both of us immediately look away.
In a few minutes we’re geared up, fully armed, and encased in TDF tac armor, faces hidden behind our helmets.
“From the sound of those weapon impacts,” Saedii says, her head tilted, “the ship attacking us has four to six pulse cannon batteries.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “It’s Eidolon-class at least. A capital ship.”
“In a battle this size, the chaos will be our friend. If we can get to the escape pods, I can set the communications unit to transmit on Unbroken emergency frequencies. With fortune, my crew should be able to retrieve us.”
“Unless the TDF blasts our pods to pieces,” I say.
Saedii shrugs. “Warrior or worm, Tyler Jones?”
I heft the fallen marine’s disruptor rifle, set it to Stun.
“Let’s get moving.”
37
SCARLETT
The battle raging across our holo displays is the most insane thing I’ve ever been part of in my life. And I say that having once schmoozed my way through six layers of security goons to crash the launch party of multiplatinum interstellar rock band the Envied Dead, an escapade involving twelve cases of Larassian semptar, skinny-dipping on a volcanic planet, sixty-one arrests, and a brief romantic train wreck. (N1kk1 Gunzz. Ex-boyfriend #34. Pros: Rock star. Cons: Drummer.)
The dark all around us is just swarming with ships: Syldrathi, Terran, Betraskan. Pulse cannon blasts and railgun fire, missiles snaking through the dark, explosions bursting silently across that big empty. Tens of thousands of people fighting and killing and dying. And I’ve never been so scared in all my life.
“Look out!” Finian roars.
“Please lower your voice,” Zila says, twisting her flight controls. “Increased volume does not equate to increased piloting aptitude.”
“Well, pardon me all to—”
“Finian, shut up!” I shout.
Zila is hunched over her pilot’s console, her fingers moving in a blur. Fin and I are behind her, sitting side by side at the auxiliary stations, with holo displays of the ongoing battle floating above our consoles. Our ship is flying close to the Weapon, far back from the bloody, shooty outer periphery of the battle, but to be honest, it’s a miracle we’re still flying at all. The air is swarming with fighters, and Zila’s flying on the defensive, not shooting back at anyone who opens up on us, hoping the thousands of ships out there will be more interested in killing something that looks remotely dangerous. But our luck is gonna run out sooner or later.
The Weapon sort of … flickers. It’s done that once or twice now, and none of us are sure why. It’s like a flashlight in the dark, like a crystal heart beating amid the carnage. And the carnage is getting worse.
“You think Auri is okay in there?” Finian whispers, gazing at it.
“I hope so,” I sigh.
“Please fasten your safety harnesses,” Zila says.
“Are you joking?” Fin scoffs, glancing at her sidelong. “Zila, if my harness were on any tighter, I’d be married to—”
Fin shrieks as Zila slams on our thrusters, pinwheeling away from a spray of railgun fire. A missile explodes soundlessly off our wing, another right in front of us, the inertial dampeners that provide the gravity around our little ship struggling to compensate as Zila throws us into a spiraling dive. Glancing at our scopes, I realize we’ve picked up pursuers—TDF fighters, snub-nosed and angry-looking. I can’t blame them for shooting at us—we’re wearing Unbroken colors, after all. But still …
“Four bad guys coming in fast on our bow,” I report.
“Stern!” Fin winces as another missile explodes. “That’s the stern, Scar!”
“Dammit, I told you I don’t know anything about spaceships!” I shout. “They’re on our ass, okay? Four very shooty ships on our very shapely asses, Zila!”
“I see them,” Zila replies. “Hold on.”
“Shapely asses?” Fin mutters.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed, de Seel.”
We weave and roll through the chaos, the black outside us lit up like fireworks on Federation Day. And Zila is putting on an impressive show, no doubt, but she’s not an expert pilot by any stretch, and even with auto-guidance assisting her, I wonder how long all this can go on. Outside our forward blastscreens, the black is red with fire and blood. Earth is throwing everything it can at the Syldrathi fleet, but these Syldrathi are Unbroken. Trained every moment of their lives for battle. Fanatically loyal to the psychopath leading them—so much so that they were willing to sit back and applaud as he destroyed their damn sun.
And my heart is slowly sinking in my chest, because the thing of it is, we’re part of a moving battle here. Charging right toward the heart of the Terran solar system. We’re already past the Kuiper Belt, closing fast on Neptune. And I don’t know what the range on the Weapon is, but every minute that goes by, the Unbroken fleet draws closer to my homeworld and the sun it orbits.
The sun they’re going to destroy.
The Weapon flickers again, lit from within, as if there’s a heart made of pure light pulsing inside it. The glow comes from the rear of the ship, but the whole Weapon responds, lighting up like a length of crystalline optical cable.
“Why is it doing that?” Fin whispers.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“It’s kinda scary—”
I gasp as I’m slammed back in my chair, Zila performing a barrel roll that sends us spiraling up and between two Syldrathi cruisers. The TDF fighters on our tail have picked up pursuers of their own, and two of them break off to engage. But two are still back there, chasing us like we stole their lunch money.
The Weapon pulses again. If I squint at it, the light seems to be gathering at one end. Those strange, abstract shapes at the bow (Ha! See, I can be taught!) look like they’re glowing brighter with every pulse.
“We need an alternative strategy,” Zila declares, twisting us through the firestorm.
“You mean a Plan B?” I ask her.
She glances over her shoulder and nods. “And we need it now.”
“What makes you so sure?” I ask.
“I am not. But the Eshvaren Weapon is clearly accumulating power.”
“Zila, we have eyes,” Fin says. “But that doesn’t—”
“Perhaps your eyes noticed the positions of the Unbroken vessels?” she asks. “The way their formation is shifting?”
A near-miss missile blast rocks us, and I nearly swallow my tongue. But squinting at the holo displays, the readouts from our tactical computer, I realize …
“The Unbroken fleet is moving out of its way.”
“They have been vacating the Weapon’s forward firing arc for the past three minutes,” Zila reports. “They clearly know it is preparing to fire.”
“Shit,” I breathe.
I look at our scopes, the holo displays of our little solar system. The gas giants of Neptune and Uranus. Saturn with its beautiful rings of ice, Jupiter with its great red storm, which has been raging for the past seven hundred years. Beyond the asteroid belt is Earth’s first planetary colony—the red orb of Mars. Then on to our pale blue dot, Earth, the planet where I grew up, my home, my world. Past that, scorching Venus, where it’s so hot the skies rain molten lead. Last of all, Mercury. And at the center of it, of all of this, these billions of lives, this history, this civilization, a small yellow sun. The star at the heart of my solar system.
The star Caersan is going to slay.
“What can we do?” I ask. “How can we stop it?”
“This vessel lacks sufficient firepower to damage the Weapon,” Zila says. “But we are flying Unbroken colors. We can get close to it.”
Fin blinks. “How close?”
>
Zila glances at him, twists her controls. “Very close.”
The Weapon pulses again. The light gathering, twisting inside it. It’d be beautiful if it weren’t so awful. An ending, all the colors of the rainbow.
“You mean ram it,” I breathe.
“This ship weighs over two hundred tons,” she says. “It is capable of achieving six-factor velocity with sufficient acceleration time. If we collide with the Weapon at top speed, we will impact with force equivalent to several high-yield thermonuclear devices.”
“But we can’t destroy the Weapon,” I frown. “We need it to beat the Ra’haam.”
“We cannot hope to destroy it,” Zila says. “It is too large. But an impact of that magnitude should hopefully be enough to damage or at least misalign those lenses. Perhaps buy Aurora more time.”
Finian looks at me. Back at Zila.
“That’s some Plan B, Legionnaire Madran.”
“If you have a better one, I am willing to entertain it, Legionnaire de Seel.”
And then it hits me.
There in that firestorm, with TDF fighters and Syldrathi cruisers and Betraskan dreadnoughts blowing each other to pieces around us, with the fate of my world, my entire civilization, and maybe the whole galaxy besides hanging in the balance … I remember.
I remember!
I fumble inside my uniform, Finian watching as I fish around my cleavage.
“Um … ,” he says.
“Dammit, you could lose the Great Ultrasaur of Abraaxis IV in here,” I growl.
“… Scar?” Fin asks.
“Aha!” I cry, my fingers closing around a length of silver chain. I drag my prize out from my tunic, hold it between thumb and forefinger in triumph.
A silver medallion. A medallion that waited eight years for us in that Dominion Repository vault. A vault that was coded by the commanders of Aurora Academy to open with my DNA, years before I ever joined the Legion or they had a chance to meet me.
On one side, it’s inset with a rough chunk of diamond. On the other, engraved in a curling script …
“Zila?” I say.
“Yes, Scarlett?”