Aurora Rising

by Amie Kaufman

  There’s five of them slugging it out at the end of the hall. All young. The red stripes on their uniforms mark them all as Tanks. Four are Terran—the kind of burly lumps you’d expect to find in the academy’s Combat Division. The fifth Tank is taller. Agile and lithe. He has olive skin and his long ears taper to gentle points. Silver hair is tied back from his face in five long braids, spilling down over his shoulders. His eyes are the kind of violet you only read about in stories and his cheekbones are sharp enough to cut your fingertips on, and he’d be beautiful if it wasn’t for the blood spattered on his fists and face.

  Still, there aren’t many in the academy, so it doesn’t take long to realize…

  He’s Syldrathi.

  “Ne’lada vo esh,” he says calmly, raising his bloody hands.

  “Speak Terran, Pixieboy!”

  One of the Terrans aims a punch at the Syldrathi’s head, and I realize the fight is four on one. The Syldrathi easily blocks the strike, locks up his attacker’s arm with the sort of crunch you never want to hear your own elbow make, and flings him at a girl built like an armored troop carrier, sending them both tumbling.

  “Esh,” he says, backing up a step. “Esh ta.”

  “Hey!” Tyler shouts in his best voice of authority. “Knock it off!”

  Tyler’s voice of authority is pretty good, but still nobody listens. The Syldrathi takes a punch to his jaw, lashes out with his fingertips into his assailant’s throat. The guy drops with a gurgle, and in a move that makes even Cat wince, the Syldrathi stomps him right in the fun factory, eliciting a high-pitched scream. His face totally serene, the Syldrathi weaves below a punch, drops another cadet with a kick to his knee. And even though it’s four on one, I start to realize…

  “Maker’s breath,” Cat murmurs. “He’s winning.”

  The Syldrathi gets smashed against the bulkhead, opening up his brow. Dark purple blood spills down his face. He strikes back, moving like he’s dancing, those long silver braids streaming out behind him. Tyler roars “Break it up!” and wades in, pulling one of the bleeding Terrans back. Never one to miss a brawl, Cat jumps in as Finian helps me to my feet.

  “Well, it’s nice to know station security are on the job,” he says cheerfully.

  The brawl dissolves into chaos, flying fists, and bilingual curses. The Syldrathi drops the last Terran with a flurry of strikes to his face, chest, groin, and as the guy falls, Tyler claps a hand on the taller boy’s shoulder. It’s a rare mistake on my baby brother’s part—Syldrathi don’t like to be touched without permission, as a general rule.

  “Hey, ease up!”

  Three things happen pretty much simultaneously here.

  First up, the actual SecTeam finally arrives. They’re kitted in tac armor and armed with stun batons—affectionately known as “sicksticks,” since you tend to puke when you get shocked with one.

  Second, the Syldrathi punches Ty right in the face. Ty’s eyes widen in surprise, and he tackles the taller boy to the ground in retaliation. The pair go at it, the Syldrathi trying to knock Tyler out of his not-so-shiny boots, and my brother trying to lock him up while shouting “At ease! At ease, Maker’s sake!”

  And third, beneath the blood, I finally recognize the Syldrathi’s face.

  “Oh, this is not good,” I whisper.

  “I dunno,” Finian smiles, first studying the Syldrathi, then taking a look at me. “Looks pretty good from here.”

  “Oh, please,” I reply, rolling my eyes.

  The SecTeam guys hit everyone moving with their sicksticks. Copious vomiting ensues. As Cat protests, they start slapping combatants in mag-restraints. Finian doesn’t move from my side, and Zila stands behind us, watching with a blank expression as the team gets ready to haul everyone off to the brig.

  But holding my bruised ribs, I step forward with my best smile to defuse things. I didn’t spend my diplomacy classes sleeping, after all.

  (I took my afternoon nap in astrometrics instead.)

  “Hey, Mr. Sanderson,” I smile.

  The SecTeam leader glances up from securing Tyler.

  “I mean, Lieutenant Sanderson,” I say, smiling wider.

  “Well, well. Scarlett Jones. Should’ve known you’d be caught up in this.”

  “Are you implying I’m a troublemaker, Lieutenant?” I put a hand on my hip and pout. “Because I’m offended.”

  Relax, it’s not what you’re thinking.

  And ew, by the way.

  “How’s Jaime doing?” I ask.

  “He’s good. Back on Terra with his mom.”

  (Jaime Sanderson. Ex-boyfriend #37. Pros: good kisser. Cons: likes jazz.)

  “Tell him I said hi.”

  “Shall do.”

  “Um, so listen,” I say, glancing at my brother, the carnage around us. “None of this was Tyler’s fault. He was trying to break it up. Do you need to lock him down?”

  “Standard procedure.” The lieutenant shrugs, back to business. “Security footage of the incident will be reviewed, and if what you say is true, Squad Leader Jones here will be out in time for dinner.”

  I give Lieutenant Sanderson my best pout. “But, Lieutenant—”

  “It’s okay, Scar,” Tyler groans, trying to hold back his vomit. “I’ll be fine.”

  The officers pull everyone to their feet, careful to avoid getting puke on their uniforms. The cadet with the broken arm is whimpering with pain, the guy whose soft parts got stomped on isn’t even conscious. As Lieutenant Sanderson cuffs him, I see the Syldrathi’s pretty face is glistening with dark purple blood. Tyler’s blood is smudged on the Syldrathi’s knuckles, bright red.

  “That was a cheap shot,” Tyler says to him.

  The Syldrathi says nothing. His expression is ice-cold, and there’s not a hair out of place on his head.

  I glance between the pair, wondering if my smile looks as forced as it feels.

  “Ummm…so this is awkward….”

  “Meaning what?” Tyler blinks.

  I look pointedly at the Syldrathi. “Welllll…”

  “No,” Tyler says.

  “Afraid so, Bee-bro.”

  “Nooooo.”

  “Squad Leader Tyler Jones,” I say, glancing at my uniglass, “may I present your combat specialist, Legionnaire Kaliis Idraban Gilwraeth, firstson of Laeleth Iriltari Idraban Gilwraeth, adept of the Warbreed Cabal.”

  The Syldrathi glares at my brother with those amazing violet eyes.

  Spits a mouthful of purple blood on the floor.

  Speaks with a voice like melting chocolate.

  “It is Kal for short.”

  Hmm.

  My current situation could be adequately described as…

  …suboptimal.

  Screaming.

  Someone’s screaming right near me.

  My eyes flash open and I lurch upright, pulling my bedsheets with me.

  There’s a guy standing in the middle of my room. Glaring straight past me like he’s trying to burn a hole in the wall. He has long silver hair tied back in five braids and seems around my age, but he kind of looks like something straight out of Middle-Earth central casting. Pointy ears like a freaking elf, beautiful violet eyes, stupidly tall and stupidly graceful. There’s some kind of small tattoo on his forehead.

  “Cho’taa,” he says. “It has nothing to do with my blood.”

  “Uh, w-what?” I stammer, wincing inwardly as I stumble over just two syllables.

  I hear a loud thump, the grinding screech of metal. A cold voice.

  “I will see you in the Void, Warbreed.”

  There’s a flash of energy, violet like his eyes. The boy cries out and falls. I feel something warm on my hands and look down to see they’re covered in blood.

  Purple blood.

  I can feel a scr
eam of horror building in my throat, but a beat later it all starts to fade. Dissolving the way my visions have been. And past the surging of my heart, the ice in my stomach, I realize that’s exactly what he is—yet another vision of something I’ve never seen.

  I stare at the spot where he stood, my pulse climbing down from the ceiling.

  “What the hell…”

  When are these visions going to stop?

  Is my brain trying to recalibrate after what it went through?

  I push my knuckles into my eyes to clear the image away, waiting for my heart to stop racing. Wondering if this is another symptom of being stuck so long in cryo.

  Wondering if I’m losing it completely.

  Looking around, I realize I’m in a different room from yesterday. My glass walls are gone. Now I have four gray ones, which make a nice match for the gray carpet and the gray ceiling. My new room is small, dim light coming from hidden fixtures where the walls meet the ceiling.

  My memory’s a patchwork of doctors coming and going, and somewhere in there is a meal that was surprisingly normal. Of course, that’s the only normal thing I can really point to today. Because it’s the future. And I’m two hundred years old. And I’m seeing things. And there are freaking aliens here, wherever here is.

  I think I’d like to be unconscious again, please.

  I’m lying in a bed, still tangled in soft white sheets, and as I sit up, I find I feel a little better. My heart’s still pounding, but I’m not dizzy, or fuzzy. And score, there are clothes waiting for me at the bottom of the bed, folded in a neat gray pile.

  I lean toward them, and with a soft patter, two drops of red land on my perfectly white sheets.

  Blood.

  I touch my nose, bring my fingers away smudged with red. There’s a mirror over a small sink in the corner, and I wobble over to it to clean up. There’s blood smeared across my upper lip in a gross mustache, and…

  …holy cake, what’s happened to my hair?

  The cut’s still the same messy pixie as it’s always been, but looking at my reflection, I can see there’s a wide streak of white through my bangs. I run my fingers through it, wondering if maybe it’s another symptom of my long-term cryo. Wondering if I’m sick. Maybe I should mention it to someone. Though I suppose it’ll be a miracle if I get out of two centuries in suspended animation on a malfunctioning ship with nothing more than a bloody nose and a few white hairs.

  Well, a bloody nose and a few white hairs and hallucinations.

  I wash my face, then focus on getting dressed. I trade my white pajamas for what looks like a cross between a school uniform and some kind of sports gear. There’s underwear, a bra that’s a little optimistic given my assets, leggings, and a long-sleeved tunic with a logo I don’t recognize on the chest.

  I spot a pair of boots by the door, which is when I notice a small red light on a panel beside it. I allow myself a minute to wonder if that means it’s locked and debate whether there’s any value in confirming this.

  Not really. Where would I go?

  Up in the corner is a second red light, probably a camera. As I’m looking at it, there’s a soft knock at the door, and when it slides open, it reveals Captain Hotness—the guy who rescued me from the Hadfield. He’s in the same blue gray as me and my imaginary visitor from earlier, and he’s got a faint bruise along his jawline, just a shadow. He’s carrying a little red package with a bow on top, the only real spot of color in the room. Unless you count my blood, I mean.

  It’s the gift that makes me think he’s probably another hallucination, because it’s so out of place. At least no one’s bleeding or screaming in this one, I guess. I wonder if I’ll get to find out what he brought me before he fades away.

  “Can I come in?” he asks.

  When I don’t answer, he makes his way to the end of the bed and sits, keeping a polite distance between us. I’m staring at him and he’s staring back, looking a little bit worried. My heart’s going thud-thud-thud in my throat, and I’m going to panic if I’m not careful.

  The visions are getting more frequent, and more real.

  “…Are you okay?” he asks. “It’s Tyler, remember?”

  “I remember,” I say. “Are you going to vanish, or what?”

  His brows lift, and he looks over his shoulder toward the door, like he’s checking if I’m talking to someone else. “Um, vanish?”

  And that’s when I realize the mattress is bending a little under his weight.

  Wait, is he real?

  I poke at his chest, encountering solid muscle. I yank my finger back, scrambling for an explanation and desperately hoping I got rid of every last trace of the creepy cannibal blood mustache.

  “What the hell are you keeping under that shirt? Rocks?”

  Oh, son of a biscuit, did I just say that out loud?

  “I brought you a present,” he says, saving me from myself, and holds out the package. “I figured you might be ready for something to break the monotony.”

  Peeling the wrapping away—the fact that he’s gone to the trouble to wrap it makes the gesture extra sweet—I find a slim plate of tempered glass about the size of my palm, edges rounded.

  I turn it over in my hands, then hold it up to the light to look through it. “I think I’m going to need an instruction manual,” I admit.

  “It’s a uniglass. Portable computer, hooked into the station net,” he says, holding out his hand for it. “I’m going to hold it up to your eye so it can register that you’re its new user.”

  He lifts it level with my face, and I stare as a thin red line travels down its length. A message flashes to life in the same red on the glass.

  RETINA SCAN COMPLETE.

  The thing lights up like someone dropped a match on a pile of fireworks. Holographic menus are projected to either side of it, data scrolls across the screen, displays spring to life and vanish again. I can see a list of offerings across the bottom of the glass plate.

  DIRECTORY STORAGE NETWORK

  MESSENGER MAP SCHEDULE

  “Happy birthday.” He grins, and heaven help me, those dimples of his should have their own fan sites. “I mean, I know today’s not technically the date you were born, but I figured you deserved a present. Seeing as how you’ve missed a few.”

  My birthday.

  My dad forgot to wish me a happy birthday.

  That was the last thing I said to him. I basically told him he was the worst and hung up on him.

  And now he’s—

  But I’m not ready to think about that yet—about what I’ve lost. On top of everything else that’s happened, it’s just too much. So I push the thought away, take the uniglass. I turn the device over to rest on one palm, and the displays flip so they’re still facing me. I try pressing the lit-up section labeled MAP, because once a cartography nerd, always a cartography nerd.

  A detailed holographic display flickers to life above the uniglass, showing several floors above and below me, my own location marked with a blinking red beacon. A little icon says DIRECTIONS?

  The detail is amazing, and I’m left gawking. I saw prototypes of stuff like this when I went to trade shows with my father in Shanghai, but compared to this thing, they were tricycles alongside a Harley.

  “Wow,” I say. “Thank you.”

  The glass beeps at me three times, then speaks in a high-pitched, robotic voice. “YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET.”

  I nearly drop it, juggling wildly for a second, then grabbing hold of it with both hands. I only barely resist the urge to say, Did that thing just speak to me?

  Auri, you’re an ambassador for your whole century. Captain Hotness probably thinks you’re a complete bumpkin. Get it together.

  “This thing might be smarter than I am,” I murmur.

  “AW, DON’T FEEL BAD, BOSS. YOU’RE ONL
Y HUMAN.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “I’M TOP-OF-THE-LINE, NEW-GEN UNIGLASS TECHNOLOGY, AVAILABLE NOWHERE OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY,” it shoots back. “I’M SEVENTEEN TIMES SMARTER THAN HIM. AND THREE TIMES BETTER-LOOKING. YOU SHOULD BE TALKING TO ME—”

  “Silent mode,” Tyler orders.

  The uniglass falls quiet, and I look at the boy sitting on the end of my bed.

  “It’s my old unit,” he explains with one of those killer smiles. “It only has access to info in the academy archives, but it’s better than nothing.”

  “It’s amazing,” I say. “Do they all…talk at you like that?”

  “Not like that, exactly. The older models came equipped with a ‘persona’ in the operating matrix. They don’t do that anymore—the techs never got it right. So, fair warning, these models were a little buggy. And sort of…unrelentingly chirpy.”

  “I think we’ll get along,” I say. “I—I really appreciate it.”

  A kind gesture when you don’t know anybody—it’s water in the desert, I’m realizing. He chews his lip, a little uncertain.

  “So, how are you doing with it all?” he asks.

  I stare down at my uniglass, at the blinking box that says DIRECTIONS?

  “I’m okay,” I say eventually.

  I’m deciding to focus on the physical, because I don’t think we know each other well enough to go with I’m scared and alone, and as if I don’t have enough to deal with in reality, my brain’s conjuring up its own version as well, and I’m having trouble telling them apart.

  That’s more a third- or fourth-date disclosure, right?

  “I feel a little weak,” I say, sitting on the bed beside him. “Tired. I guess I was on the Hadfield so long, nobody really knows how I’m meant to be doing. I don’t know if it’s still dangerous, but back when we launched, we couldn’t spend a long time in the Fold. You’d start hallucinating, get paranoid…”

  I trail off, because of course hallucinating is exactly what I’ve been doing.

  Is paranoia next?

  “It’s still dangerous,” Tyler nods. “Though it turns out Fold travel affects young minds far less. Our technology is a little different from your day, too. Back when the Hadfield launched, humans could only travel through naturally occurring gates. Weak spots in the Fold. Now we can build our own entry and exit points anywhere we like. There’s a big one right outside the station we’re on, matter of fact.”