by Amie Kaufman
My Alpha grins and shakes his head. “The best tacticians know how to improvise. That means working with whatever comes to hand.”
“Or mouth?”
Tyler laughs. “I guess so. Good thing I brushed my teeth this morning.”
We ride in silence for a while, watching the numbers on the display rise.
“I didn’t know Syldrathi blushed with their ears,” Tyler muses.
“I am not blushing.”
“I mean, it kinda looks like you’re blushing.”
“I am not blushing.”
“Ooookay,” Tyler nods. “I sometimes have that effect on people, is all.”
“Is your request not to punch you still in effect, sir?”
My Alpha only grins in reply. And though I am still somewhat shocked, I cannot help but feel a grudging respect also. He thinks swiftly, this Tyler Jones. He does not rattle, and he does not hesitate. With everything on the line, he still sees clearly, and he does what it takes to win. He is a born leader.
The lift halts and the doors open, and as I step out into the hallway, I hear him chuckling to himself behind me.
“What is funny?” I ask.
“I was just thinking,” he grins. “Scarlett did tell us to just kiss and get it over with….”
AURORA LEGION SQUADS
▶ SQUAD MEMBERS
▼ ACES
TRAINED TO FLY ANYTHING FROM SHUTTLES TO CRUISERS, FREIGHTERS TO SHIPKILLERS, ACES ARE THE PILOTS OF AURORA LEGION SQUADS. YOU BRING THEM THE EYE OF A NEEDLE, AND AN ACE CAN THREAD IT FOR YOU WITH THE SHIP OF YOUR CHOOSING.
ACES HAVE A REP FOR BEING DARING, CONFIDENT (RECKLESS EVEN), AND ABOVE AVERAGE IN THE LOOKS DEPARTMENT. JUST ASK THEM, THEY’LL TELL YOU THEMSELVES.
BEING AN ACE REQUIRES LIGHTNING REFLEXES, QUICKER THINKING, AND REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF SOLID TITANIUM. LET’S BE REAL: THEIR JOB IS AS COOL AS THEY ARE.
ACE’S INSIGNIA
“So I have good news,” Finian declares. “Then excellent news. Then absolutely terrible news.”
Ty sinks down on the couch beside me, Scarlett on his other side. He and Kal have just got back from their job in the security hub, their power armor dumped in the love hotel with our unconscious double dates. Our illustrious leader leans down to rub a scuff off his boot, his mop of shaggy blond hair hanging in his eyes. I watch the muscles play in his arm from the corner of my eye. Pretending not to notice. Pretending not to care.
“Good news first,” Tyler says.
Finian swivels his chair to face us. His uniglass is plugged into the forearm of his exosuit, a holographic screen projected from a lens at his wrist. The light’s bright against the gloom of Dariel’s den, the image crisp. I wonder how much processing power is in that rig of his. Wonder at the kind of mind that could even make a suit like that. Finian’s an annoying little shithead for sure, but at least he doesn’t have shit for brains.
“Good news is the leech is working perfectly,” he declares. “I’m in their network, moving slow so as not to attract attention. But I have access to the infamous Casseldon Bianchi’s luxury liner, and all the security cams therein.”
He pauses, looking around the room.
“Don’t everyone applaud at once.”
“What’s the excellent news?” Scarlett asks.
Finian taps a pad on his exosuit’s other arm. His small holographic screen flickers into larger, brighter life on the white stone of the wall. He swipes the air, and the holograph flips through half a dozen screens until he finds the one he wants.
“Excellent news is I think I found our Trigger.”
From her seat in the corner, Aurora comes to her feet. Her mismatched eyes are wide, fixed on Fin’s projection. There, floating on a beam of blue light, is the sculpture she painted all over the storage room—a figure with three-fingered hands, wrought in strange metal. Doesn’t look much bigger than my own hand. The diamond in its chest and the pearl in its right eye are actually real gemstones. It’s hovering inside a transparent case of what might be glass, slowly spinning.
“Is that it?” Tyler asks.
Aurora stares. Her whisper’s almost too soft to hear.
“Yes.”
She drags her eyes away from the screen, over to Tyler.
“I don’t know how I know. But I know. That’s why we’re here….”
“Okay,” Tyler nods, staring at the sculpture. “Give us the bad news, Finian.”
“I never said I had bad news,” our Gearhead replies, tapping on his keyboard. “I said I had absolutely terrible news.”
“Maker’s breath,” I sigh. “Just spit it out, will you?”
Finian blows me a kiss and moves his fingers, pulling our image to a wider shot. I can see a large circular room, decked in fancy furnishings. Huge glass windows look out into what seems to be some kind of jungle. Dozens of glass cases and cabinets are arranged around the space, picked out with warm spotlights and filled with strange objects. Some are sleek and elegant, others twisted and shimmering. But all of them are pretty.
“This is Casseldon Bianchi’s office,” Finian explains. “It’s at the heart of his estate. It’s protected by the kind of security that’d wake a career criminal screaming in the night. Temperature-responsive scanners. Genetic sensors. Pressure floors reading off micro-changes in air density. And even assuming you could fool those measures, there’s only one door in or out. And there’s only one key. Which, as far as I can tell, hangs around Bianchi’s neck at all times.”
Finian flips to a picture of Bianchi dressed in a sharp suit, unveiling some piece of exotic sculpture in his museum. His grin is a row of dazzling white fangs. Around his neck, I can see a digital passkey hanging on a platinum chain.
“Polymorphic gene-coded sixty-four-digit encryption,” Finian says.
“Sounds complicated,” Tyler says.
“Complicated doesn’t even begin to describe it. His office is going to be harder to get into than my date’s boxer shorts at last year’s Genesis Day Ball.”
“Is there any way in at all?” Tyler asks.
“I honestly don’t know,” Finian sighs. “I tried poetry, I tried flowers, I—”
“I’m talking about the office, Fin. What about air vents?”
Our Gearhead shakes his head, pulling up the picture of the office again. “The vents are three centimeters wide at best. And ion shielded. So unless you’re planning on losing a lot of weight…”
“What about those huge windows?” I point out.
“They’re not windows, they’re walls,” Finian replies, swiveling three-sixty in his chair again. “Whole office is enclosed in transparent polarized silicon.”
“Why?”
“Bianchi buys trinkets and artifacts from all over the galaxy. But his main interest is in exotic life-forms. He’s got over ten thousand species in his menagerie, according to this interview I read in last month’s Galactic Gentleman.”
“People still subscribe to Galactic Gentleman?” Scarlett asks, eyebrow raised.
“I mean, I’d heard rumors…,” I mutter.
“I buy it for the articles. Anyway, Bianchi’s office”— Finian’s fingers dance, and the projection on the wall shifts to a schematic—“sits right in the center of his menagerie. And surrounding his office is the cage for his most prized exhibit.”
“Please tell me it’s a small friendly terrier named Lord Woofsly,” Tyler sighs.
“Close, Goldenboy,” Finian says, flipping his display again. “Very close.”
Projected on the wall is the most horrific…thing…I’ve ever seen. And as of one eye-gougingly accidental encounter outside the shower this morning, I’ve seen Dariel de Vinner de Seel in his underwear.
The beast is all razor teeth and lurid green eyes and rippling muscle. Its claws are broadswor
ds and its hide is horned and armored, and it’s making a shrieking, metallic noise—like two chainsaws trying to have sex.
“Fellow legionnaires, may I present the pride of Casseldon Bianchi’s menagerie,” Finian says. “The Great Ultrasaur of Abraaxis IV.”
“Amna diir,” Kal breathes, his usually cool facade cracking just a little.
“You said it, Pixieboy,” Finian nods. “I mean, I have no idea what you said, but yeah, you said it. Rumor has it Bianchi paid his fourth testicle to get his hands on this thing.”
“Why do they call it the great ultrasaur?” Aurora asks. “Does it have, like, excellent penmanship skills or something?”
“It’s the last one of its kind in the whole galaxy,” Fin says.
“What happened to the rest of them?”
“This one killed them,” the Betraskan replies simply. “It’s the last of its kind because it literally ate all the others.”
The girl blinks. “Holy cake, it what?”
“Yeah, ultrasaurs are the most infamously hostile species in the ’Way,” Finian says, running one hand through his white hair, leaving it more spiked than before. “They killed every living thing on Abraaxis IV. And when they ran out of things to kill, they killed each other.”
“Evolutionarily speaking, that makes very little sense,” Zila points out.
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Finian shrugs. “People do it all the time.”
“Why is it making that noise?” Scarlett winces.
“Mating call, I think? Eat all your potential ladyfriends, I guess you get lonely.”
“Okay, okay,” Tyler says. “I think we’ve established that going in through the menagerie isn’t an option. So, front door it is. We need that key.”
“Won’t do us any good, Goldenboy,” Finian says. “It’s a polymorphic gene-coded combination sequence. That means the combination changes every time Bianchi comes into physical contact with it. And if anyone else so much as sneezes on it, the key registers the foreign DNA and locks the whole estate down.”
I feel a sort of relief at that. This mission is looking more impossible by the second. The sooner Tyler realizes we’re wasting our time on this crap, the sooner we give up this bloody insanity.
I trace the whorls and lines of ink on my right arm with my fingertips. I do that when I get nervous. When I get angry. When I need to center myself. My tatts are from a dozen different artists, a rainbow of colors, a collage of styles, but they all have one thing in common. The one thing I’ve loved since I was a little girl.
Wings.
Dragons. Birds. Butterflies and moths. I have a hawk inked across my back and shoulder blades, just like my mum. She was a pilot in the TDF before she got sick. I still remember the smile on her face when I told her I was joining the Legion. She told me she was proud. She said the same thing the last time I spoke to her. Wheezing it, with what little breath the plague let her take.
“I’m proud of you, baby girl.”
I wonder how proud she’d be if she saw me now. A fugitive. Neck-deep in trouble. A court-martial with my name on it already sitting on someone’s desk. I know Tyler will try to take the fall for us if we get caught. I know he’ll say he ordered us to help him. But a part of me is still trying to figure out why.
He saw something aboard that TDF destroyer.
Something O’Malley did that he won’t talk to me about.
We used to talk all the time.
“And there is no way to defeat this lock without the key?” Kal asks.
“I suppose divine intervention might work,” Finian says. “But that’s not even our first problem. We can’t get close to Bianchi’s office. His estate is the most highly guarded area on the World Ship. State-of-the-art security. Hacking his cams is one thing, but we’re never getting in there without getting caught.”
Silence descends on the room. And into the quiet, Aurora finally speaks.
“I didn’t want to say anything….”
We all look at her, expectant. She’s obviously still hesitant, looking up into Pixieboy’s frozen stare, my glower. She chews her lip, finally speaks.
“But…I saw something in the shower this morning.”
“It’s disgusting in there,” Scar agrees. “The mold has mold growing on it.”
“No, I…” Little Miss Stowaway meets my stare. “I saw Cat.”
“Well, well!” Finian grins. “I didn’t know your creshcake was syruped on that side, Zero.”
“Shut up, Finian,” I growl.
“Hey, no judge here, kiddo….”
“No, I mean…” Aurora shakes her head. “I had another…vision. I was feeling a little woozy, maybe from the steam, I don’t know. So I sat on the tile and rested my head against the wall, and then…I saw Cat in a mask and fancy jumpsuit. And Scarlett and Tyler, too.” She looks between us. “You all looked like you were dressed for a…party, I guess?”
“A party in that bathroom?” Scarlett asks.
“I know it sounds like it,” Aurora replies. “But it wasn’t a dream.”
Tyler leans forward, fingers steepled at his chin as his eyes light up.
“There’s a party tomorrow night,” he says, looking around the room. “Fiftieth anniversary of the World Ship. Bianchi is putting on a masquerade ball.” He looks at Aurora and breaks into a dimpled grin. “If we get ourselves some invitations, we can just walk into his estate.”
“Okay?” Scarlett says. “And how do we manage that?”
Tyler rubs his chin, staring at the schematic as he leans back in his chair. “I’m working on it. We’ve got a few advantages here.”
Ty’s twin raises her eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Well, for starters, a gangster as murderous as Bianchi isn’t going to be expecting to get robbed. No one’s stupid enough to cross him.”
“Except us, apparently,” I growl.
Ty winks at me. “Never underestimate the element of surprise.”
“Great,” Finian says. “So we get onto the grounds. Then all we have to do is steal a key from around the neck of the most dangerous criminal in the sector, in full view of a party full of guests and his guard detail, without setting off the genetic alarms. Which will happen as soon as one of us touches the key.”
I’m watching Ty’s eyes. Watching his lips. The glow of the vines plays across his face in the dim light, and I can see his dimples just waiting in the wings. He was the golden boy at Aurora for a reason. Sure, he aced every exam. But his favorite subject was always tactics. When we were out gaming or drinking or cruising, Ty would be sitting in his room studying old dead generals. Sun Tzu. Hannibal. Napoleon. Eisenhower. Tankian. Giáp. Osweyo.
Most boys want to grow up to be jetball players or firemen.
Ty wanted to grow up to be Marcus Agrippa.
“And then there’s the security systems in the actual office to deal with,” Scarlett points out. “Unless we just snatch and grab the Trigger, in which case, we’ll have the whole station on our tails.”
And finally, I see Ty’s dimples come out to play.
“Sounds like a challenge to me,” he says.
I feel my answer surging in my chest. I try to fight it. Try to hold it in. Ty is my squad leader. I go where he says, I do what I’m told. That’s what they teach you at the academy. Always back your Alpha.
Always.
“No,” I hear myself say. “No bloody way.”
My squad looks at me as I stand, fists balled up tight.
“Seriously, enough of this crap.”
“Do you have something to say, Legionnaire Brannock?” Ty asks.
“You bet your damn tailpipe I do,” I say, letting the anger fill my voice. I’m so furious at him right now, I can barely stop myself from screaming. “This has gone way beyond stupid and all the way into brain-dead.
It was bad enough being on the run from our own people, attacking Terran personnel, risking all our lives. Now you want us crossing the deadliest criminal in the sector for the sake of a trinket this crazy skirt saw in a dream?”
I gesture at O’Malley, still glaring at Tyler.
“For real, Ty, have you gone all the way sideways?”
“There’s more than dreams going on here, Cat,” Tyler says. “And you know it. You saw what Auri did to the Longbow. When I first found her in the Fold, I was close to drowning inside my suit and she moved us. She got us to safety. And you heard what de Stoy and Adams told us at the start of this mission.”
“This isn’t a bloody mission!” I shout. “It’s a robbery! And for what? To satisfy this headcase’s delusions? Am I the only one who sees how spaceloops this is?”
“Don’t call me a headcase,” O’Malley shoots back.
“Oh, she speaks!” I say, dropping into a low bow. “We are not worthy. And what advice do you have for us, O mighty prophet?”
Kal raises one silver eyebrow at me. “You are embarrassing yourself, Zero.”
“Jam it up your arse, Pixieboy!”
“Look, I don’t pretend to know what’s happening here,” O’Malley says. “But something is happening. I’m seeing things before they happen. I’m seeing—”
“Are you seeing any way we pull this off without ending up dead, Little Miss Visionthing?” I demand. “Do you see any way for us to get in and out of Casseldon Bianchi’s private office without getting caught?”
She squares her jaw. Glances at the schematic on the wall.
“No,” she says quietly.
“Well, color me all the way shocked.”
“Cat,” Tyler says. “Put a lid on it.”
“Maybe she’s right, Tyler.”
All eyes turn to Scarlett. She’s looking at her brother, her voice soft, her tone the kind of gentle that only comes with the delivery of bad news.
Tyler breathes deep, looks at his twin. “Scar?”
“All I’m saying is, we’re a long way into the weeds here. Before we go any further, maybe we should stop and ask ourselves where this road leads.”