Aurora Burning

by Amie Kaufman

  I glance into the skies above, spot a security drone amid the swarm of loaders and lifters.

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s for us.”

  The floor below us shudders, and massive docking clamps begin rising up from the spaceport decks ahead. They cinch around the ships at berth, eliciting a spew of profanity from the crew members and workers all around us. I lay on the juice, desperately trying to get us home, but we skid to a halt near Fin just as the dock machinery locks our Longbow in place.

  Scar jumps off the skiff. As the alert continues to blare around us, I toss the damp blond from my eyes, surveying the clamps with hands on hips. Reinforced titanium, slick with grease, electromagnetic. And they’re huge.

  “No way we’ve got the thrust to blast free of those,” I say.

  Fin shakes his head. “They’ll tear the hull to pieces.”

  “Can you hack the system?” I ask. “Unlock us?”

  My Gearhead already has his uniglass out, the device lighting up with a dozen tiny holographic displays as he begins typing. “Gimme five minutes.”

  “I don’t want to alarm anyone,” Scar says. “But we don’t have five minutes.”

  I look to where my twin is pointing, heart sinking as I spot two armored hoverskiffs speeding across the docks. Their flashing lights and blaring alarms send the crowds scattering out of the way, and they’re cutting a line straight toward us.

  In the flatbed trays behind the control cabins I can see two dozen heavy Security Bots armed with disruptor cannons. Emblazoned across the truck hoods, the breastplates of the SecBots, are the words EMERALD CITY SECURITY.

  “So,” Scarlett says, looking at me. “Any more amazing ideas?”

  SUBJECT: GALACTIC ORGANIZATIONS

  ▶ BENEVOLENT

  ▼ AURORA LEGION

  FORMED OF AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN TERRA AND TRASK, AND RECENTLY JOINED BY THE FREE SYLDRATHI, THE AURORA LEGION HAS FUNCTIONED AS AN INDEPENDENT PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN THE MILKY WAY FOR OVER A CENTURY. THE LEGION MEDIATES BORDER DISPUTES, ASSISTS IN RELIEF WORK, AND HELPS BRING STABILITY TO THE GALAXY BY LIVING ITS MOTTO:

  WE THE LEGION

  WE THE LIGHT

  BURNING BRIGHT AGAINST THE NIGHT

  AURORA LEGIONNAIRES SPECIALIZE IN ONE OF SIX FIELDS:

  LEADERSHIP AND PLANNING (ALPHAS)

  DIPLOMACY AND NEGOTIATION (FACES)

  PILOTING AND TRANSPORT (ACES)

  REPAIRS, MAINTENANCE, AND MECHANICAL WORK (GEARHEADS)

  TACTICAL COMBAT AND ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY (TANKS)

  SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL DUTIES (BRAINS)

  We’re already on our feet when Fin comes charging up the ramp, limping heavily.

  “Grab your gear,” he barks. “We’re bailing.”

  Tyler and Scarlett are right on his heels, running for their bunks and lockers.

  “Twenty seconds!” hollers our squad leader as he passes Kal and me. “Twenty seconds, out the door!”

  I don’t own anything except my uniglass, Magellan—who’s stuffed in my pocket as always—and the clothes I’m wearing. So I hustle to where Fin’s frantically packing away the tool kit he and Zila were using to repair his suit.

  “Go,” I tell him. “Get your stuff. I can pack this.”

  He shoots me a grateful look and turns for the back of the ship. I don’t have time to fit any of the little tools or machinery into their snug foam beds, so I just sweep everything into the bag.

  “Ten seconds!” Ty yells from somewhere down the back.

  “Portables and valuables,” Scarlett shouts in reply. “Travel light!”

  I lift the bag with shaking hands, glancing around the cabin in search of anything else I should grab.

  Kal and I spent the last few hours sitting in the back as he tried to teach me some Syldrathi exercises he hoped would help me focus my mind. The wild power I briefly controlled on Octavia III is still lurking inside me—I can feel it there, swirling and rolling behind my ribs—but my command of it is shaky at best. If I open the valve that’s keeping it cooped up in there, I have no idea what will come out, but I know it won’t be pretty. Kal’s hope is that with training, with discipline, I can control how I use it.

  But as I tried to envision a slowly flickering purple flame, pushing away reality to focus on my sa-mēi—a Syldrathi concept I still don’t understand—it was hard not to peek from beneath my lashes and stare at him instead. Kal gets this little frown when he’s concentrating, and that I could happily push away reality and focus on just fine. But I think he might consider that an undignified version of training.

  I spend my final five seconds grabbing the ration packs scattered across the table and shoving them in on top of Fin’s tools, slinging the bag over my shoulder as the others come piling out from the back.

  “Let’s go,” Tyler snaps. “Kal, you’re on point. We have two armored hoverskiffs incoming, maybe thirty seconds away. Let’s be gone before they arrive.”

  “Yessir,” Kal says simply, glancing across to check my position, then leading the way down the ramp. Tyler’s straight behind him and I’m next, which means I run smack into our Alpha’s back when he pulls up short.

  “Hey, watch—”

  I lean sideways to see around him, and realize he’s stopped because Kal stopped. And Kal stopped because…

  “I think,” our Tank says quietly, “your estimate of thirty seconds was incorrect.”

  The three of us are sitting ducks on the Longbow’s loading ramp, which is bad news, because we’re not alone. Two huge floating flatbed trucks have pulled up in front of our ship, lights flashing an urgent blue. And huge, terrifying robot trooper things that look like upright metal cockroaches are jumping down from them, knees bending backward to take the impact as they hit the ground. They’re armed with guns the size of my torso, their polished armor reflecting the strobing lights.

  “ATTENTION, SUSPECTS,” one blares, though I don’t see its mouth move. “YOU ARE BEING DETAINED FOR QUESTIONING. RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH FORCE. RAISE YOUR HANDS TO INDICATE COMPLIANCE.”

  For a long moment, everything’s quiet. Even the roar of the city around us subsides, and as if I’m underwater, all I can see is the flashing blue light dancing against the armor on the cockroach robot soldiers. Kal adjusts his weight ever so slightly, using his body to shield mine. I feel a tingling on the back of my neck, adrenaline thumping in my veins. I feel the world…shift, and without warning, my mind is aswirl with images.

  Another vision.

  It’s as if I can see the next few instants play out inside my head, like I’m watching on a vidscreen. I can see the pathways we could follow, each branching away in front of me, clear as glass.

  I see them putting us in cuffs, loading us up onto one of those flatbeds, snapping the restraints onto the long bar down the middle to secure us. I see Zila’s hands twisted up behind her back, Ty’s jaw squared in defeat and frustration.

  Or, down another path, I see Kal start forward and Ty dive to the side, and I see me standing paralyzed by indecision as the troopers open up, their fire slicing through our bodies.

  Or I see…

  “Be’shmai,” says Kal softly.

  “Yes,” I say quietly, pausing for a long, slow breath. I feel my lungs expand, feel my ribs swell with the pressure inside, the thing I’ve awoken roiling and ready, wanting and demanding to be free. I lift my voice a little so all of Squad 312 will hear me. “Everyone, hit the deck in three…”

  I hear a query from behind me, the roaring already rising in my ears.

  “Two…”

  I hope the squad’s confusion won’t slow them down. That they’ll trust me, though our new trust is a fragile thing, built on heartbreak.

  “One.”

  Tyler and Kal fold to the ground, and I throw up m
y hands, letting go of every piece of myself. My body’s gone, left behind where it stands in the doorway of the Longbow, swaying in place. And I’m a tumult of midnight-blue mental energy, laced through with vicious threads of silver, exploding in every direction.

  To the rest of the world I’m invisible, or I’m back where my body is, or maybe something in between. But on the plane where I exist, I’m a roiling sphere, expanding at the speed of light to envelop the SecBots in front of me.

  It’s a wave I’m barely riding, not at all controlling, and I can’t choose my direction—I can keep the tsunami away from me, sparing the weak, fragile bodies of Kal and Tyler, the squad behind me, but it balloons outward and upward and beyond them in a millisecond.

  The ripple of force explodes in three hundred and sixty degrees, and I’m dimly aware of the Longbow crumpling in the same instant the bots do. My silver threads wrap around them, grip deathly tight, and delight roars through me as I squeeze, as I crush, as their metal crumples and their circuits flare and die.

  Everything is silent and the roar is deafening, and I’m part of my midnight-blue cloud, I’m gripping them with my silver threads, and I’m snapping back into my body like a piece of elastic stretched too far, and suddenly…

  …it’s over.

  And once more I’m an infinitely fragile thing, standing on two shaking legs, and all around me are screams and alarms, and in front of me is the wreckage of the hoverskiffs and the SecBots, and around me is the ruin of our Longbow, and I’m swaying again, and my knees want to bend backward like the robots’ did when they jumped from the flatbeds, and there’s blood on my lips, and I’m moving, and I’m falling, and then the ground is rushing up to meet me.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  When I wake, Kal is leaning over me, his hand gentle at my cheek. His violet eyes are wide and beautiful, his long silver hair is framed by a fuzzy halo of light.

  “You look like an angel,” I murmur.

  “What is an angel?” he asks, curling his hand around mine. His expression is as grave as ever, but I can see the concern in his eyes. I can feel the restraint he’s exercising to avoid crushing my grip in his.

  “It’s a dirtchild with wings,” Finian says from somewhere behind him.

  Kal’s brows rise. “Humans do not have wings.”

  “How would you know?” Fin asks. “Ever seen one naked?”

  Kal’s brows rise higher and his ears are starting to blush when Scarlett steps in to save him. “Be nice, Finian. You alive over there, Auri? That was some kaboom.”

  She and Tyler come into view, looming over Kal’s shoulder, and I realize nobody’s wearing a halo—we’re just inside, and they’re backlit by the lamps set into the ceiling. I feel like a human shape made out of noodles, my limbs weak and uncooperative, but slowly my vision’s clearing. Zila gently shifts Kal to one side and starts running a med-scanner over me.

  “Where are we?” I try.

  “Hotel on the Emerald City underside,” Tyler says. “The low-rent and ask-no-questions kind. I booked it as a backup before the deal with the gremps, just in case things went really south.”

  “Which is weird,” his sister says, bumping his shoulder. “Because I thought all your ideas were amazing. Lucky that you knew we’d need a fallback position.”

  “Almost like I studied tactics,” he says, bumping her back.

  “You are well,” Zila pronounces, looking at me. “Brain-wave activity is still slightly elevated, but bio-readings are normalizing.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “You lost consciousness,” Kal replies.

  “After reducing a pile of SecBots to scrap metal and dragging their hoverskiffs out of the sky,” Fin supplies. “It was pretty hot. Though could we maybe work on you learning to aim this thing? If we hadn’t ducked…”

  “We did duck,” Scarlett says. “And Auri’s force-sphere saved our shapely behinds, so thank you, Auri.”

  Our squad’s Face helps me sit up against the wafer-thin pillows, and I get a better view of the dingy hotel room. It’s the same kind of sticky-floor decor that I guess never goes out of style on a certain budget. There’s a holo display taking up one wall, and two beds—I’m occupying one, with the squad around me. Fin’s on the other, working on his suit again, his tool kit scattered across the mattress. There’s a single smudgy window, our stuff piled up underneath it.

  Tyler answers without being asked.

  “I checked in alone after we hightailed it from the docks,” he explains. “Pulled the rest of you in the window. Less chance anyone’ll remember us that way. We should be safe here for a while. I paid with unmarked creds.”

  “So we have a little time.” Scarlett sinks down to the edge of my bed. “We can afford to take a breath.”

  She glances around the room, studying us each in turn, and I realize that the big-sister protectiveness she used to keep for Tyler is growing to encompass all of us. Zila is back to helping Fin with his suit, and he’s wincing every time she moves his knee. Kal’s a statue by my side, and Tyler’s lost in thought. Or memory.

  I know he’s thinking about Cat every few heartbeats. We all are.

  This defeat is a victory, she told me before she vanished forever into the hive mind of the Ra’haam.

  But it doesn’t feel at all like that right now. We’re on the run from the Terran and Betraskan governments—even the legion that bears my name is against us now. We’ve lost our most valuable asset in the Longbow, we’ve got almost no weapons and even less money, and we have no idea where to turn next.

  “So what do we do now?” I ask softly.

  Tyler’s staring at the floor, scarred eyebrow curved in a deep frown. I can see he’s trying so hard to lead us, and I ache for him every second. But sometimes it feels like the only reason we’re still moving is that none of us realizes we’ve already been mortally wounded. We haven’t realized we’re supposed to fall down.

  “Food,” says Scarlett, clapping her hands together in the uncomfortable silence. “When in doubt, eat your way out.”

  “I like the way you think,” I sigh.

  Scar unearths the meals I packed, and with a pretty convincing show of fake cheer she bustles around, dubiously reading out the names on the sachets and distributing them with a flourish. I score a foil pack of Beef “Stew”-n-MashTM, with no explanation on the packet of the quotes around the Stew.

  “WOULD YOU LIKE A NUTRITIONAL ANALYSIS OF THAT?” comes Magellan’s voice from my pocket. “BECAUSE IN SOME CULTURES, A MEAL LIKE THAT WOULD BE CONSIDERED AN ACT OF WAR, ESPECIALLY—”

  “Silent mode,” we chorus, and it’s enough to raise a ghost of a smile all around.

  Fin shakes his head. “I know those old model unis were a little buggy, but that thing really wins the prize.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler sighs. “It was never the same after Scar installed that persona beta off DealNet.”

  Kal blinks at Scarlett. “You accessed upgrades for your uniglass from a shopping channel?”

  “No,” Tyler says. “She accessed upgrades for my uniglass from a shopping channel.”

  “It came with a free handbag.” Scar shrugs. “And it was your old unit anyway, you baby.”

  Tyler rolls his eyes and changes the subject. “How’s the exosuit, Fin?”

  “Fine,” he says.

  “This summation is incorrect,” Zila says almost immediately. “Fin’s suit took significant damage on Octavia III and is still in need of serious repair. Further, Finian himself requires time in low or zero gravity to rest and recover. He has pushed his body several days past his usual limits.”

  Fin’s got his mouth open by the time she’s halfway through her speech, but nothing’s coming out. Finally, he manages to speak through gritted teeth.

  “I’m fine. I can handle it. And maybe
you should mind your own business.”

  Though it’s sometimes a little hard to read his expression through those black contact lenses he wears, there’s no mistaking the death glare Fin is shooting Zila right now. Our squad’s Brain studies our Gearhead for a long moment, then turns to Tyler, her face as blank as ever. But there’s something in the way she blinks and tugs at her dangly gold earring—today’s are shaped like gremps—that’s a little less bulletproof than it used to be.

  I mean, we’re all a little less bulletproof than we used to be. But for Zila, this hint of a thaw has to be unnerving.

  “I am the team science officer and medic,” she says, addressing Ty directly. “It is appropriate for me to report to my Alpha on the condition of team members.”

  “It’s okay,” says Ty, gentle. “Thanks, Zila.”

  Finian, however, seems to be completely ignoring Zila’s advice for bed rest. He yanks a tool from her hand, takes a slurp of his prepackaged meal, and gets to work on his suit again without another word. After a glance at Ty, Scarlett rises from beside me, settles down beside Fin.

  “If you get Just Like Real TacosTM in your circuits, that stuff’s never coming out,” she informs him softly.

  “I need to fix this,” he insists around his mouthful.

  “Give it a moment, Fin.” Scarlett puts her hand over his. “Eat. Breathe.”

  He meets her eyes for a second, somehow chewing and pouting at the same time. But a hint of tension goes out of his shoulders as he swallows, as if he’s conceding something other than the possibility of frying his suit.

  “Yeah, okay,” he sighs.

  We all fall quiet for a little, finishing our meals. I’m concentrating on getting food into my mouth, and leaning against Kal’s shoulder where he sits against the headboard with me. Sore as I am, I’m aware of every tiny shift, of each of his breaths. He spent so much time avoiding touching me after we first met, restraining any hint of the Pull he’s feeling, that when he allows himself the luxury now, it sends sparks through me. That he gives me this, when he’s still so careful around everyone else…I know it’s not the place for it.