by Amie Kaufman
Because that’s what Cat would want me to do.
Zila and I walk toward the Opha May, and the crowd gives us a wide berth. I bet it’s not often that agents of the Global Intelligence Agency travel this far out from the Core, but their reputation as People You Do Not Mess With ensures that even among this mob of aliens from across the ’Way, nobody messes with us. Burly Chellerian workers take one look at our uniforms and step aside. Packs of sour-faced toughs in union colors part like smoke. I swear even a loader drone scurries out of our way as we step up to the landing pad. I think about the faces of the people we found inside these uniforms, Auri’s dad and the rest, all of them totally corrupted by the Ra’haam. And part of me wonders just how far that corruption spreads.
I push the thought away for another day and look over the small group of men and bots at work on the ship in front of us. The crew is a mix of skin tones, but all of them are Terran. Which, of course, is why out of every vessel in the Emerald City dock registry, Ty picked this one.
“That’s the captain on the loading ramp,” Finian says over our uniglass link. “The shouty male with the fur-thing on his faceparts.”
“It’s called a mustache,” Tyler says.
“It’s called disgusting, Goldenboy.”
“It appears as if a skenk crawled onto his lip and expired,” Kal says.
“Right?” Finian agrees. “Human body hair, ugh.”
“Wait,” I hear Aurora say. “You mean Syldrathi don’t grow facial hair?”
“No, be’shmai.”
“…Do you grow it anywhere else?”
“Could we PLEASE,” Tyler says slowly. “Keep our minds. On this job?”
I hear a small chorus of apologies across comms, and I can’t help but smile. Dysfunctional as our little family is, at least it’s starting to feel like a family. I look around the bustling landing pad and do indeed spy a short, shouty man with what seems to be a dead caterpillar glued above his mouth. He’s dressed in a flight suit and magboots. He’s haggard, his face red from roaring at his crew, the bots helping with his cargo, and random passersby. He looks old enough to be my dad.
I mean, Dad died when we were eleven, but you know what I’m saying….
“All right.” I nod to Zila. “Let’s work some magic.”
“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC, SCARLETT,” Zila says.
“Watch and learn, my friend.”
We stride up to the Opha May’s captain, our shiny boots ringing on the deck. He doesn’t even glance up from his uniglass.
“Josef Gruber,” I say, using the name Fin hacked off the dockside servers.
“Who’s asking?” the short man replies, still not looking at me.
“By authority of the Terran Registration Act, Article 12, Section B, we are hereby commandeering your vessel.”
Now I’ve got his attention. And as he finally looks up into my face, I’m using all the years of training in the one class I didn’t sleep through to sum him up. I may not have had the best grades. I wasn’t the best shot or tactician or pilot. But Scarlett Isobel Jones is still damn good at what she does. And what she does is People.
He’s running on around four hours’ sleep. It’s been about six months since he was home, and he misses it. I can see one of his eyes is cybernetic, and from the blotching of veins on his nose, he likes a drink. Looking over his craggy face, his stance as he squares up to me, I can feel hostility. Disbelief. And a little bit of fear.
“You’re kidding me, right?” he growls.
“I assure you, Captain Gruber, we are deadly serious.”
He looks around the dock, incredulity fighting with anger.
“We’re sixty million light-years from Terra,” he spits, his lip caterpillar wobbling in fury. “What in the Maker’s name is the GIA doing out here?”
I lean in on his fear button. “As we explained, Captain, we are taking possession of your ship. You are a Terran citizen; your ship is subject to Terran law. Believe me when I say you do not want me to lodge a report of your noncompliance in my mission debrief.”
I hold out one gloved hand. It doesn’t shake. Not even a little bit.
“The passkeys, please.”
Gruber’s crew has stopped working now, gathering around us in a small, hostile semicircle. The captain is glowering up at me. I’m using the same tone of voice as every academy instructor who ever disciplined me for tardiness or chewed me out for late assignments or cited me for talking/sleeping/making out in class. All those teachers who warned me I’d never amount to anything.
And with a series of curses I’m far too ladylike to repeat, Captain Gruber reaches into his jacket and hands me a set of glowing passkeys.
Shows how much my teachers knew.
“Good work, Sis,” comes Tyler’s voice in my ear.
“I am a Jones.”
“What?” the angry little captain says.
“You and your men have five minutes to remove your personal belongings,” I tell him. “Please ensure the ship is fueled for departure.”
“Five minutes?” he sputters. “What about my cargo?”
“You may lodge compensation forms through the GIA webnode.”
I turn my back, already looking for Ty through the crowd.
“THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION,” Zila tells him.
I can feel the captain’s stare between my shoulder blades. His shame and anger at being taken down in front of his men. But I’ll say one thing for Terran bureaucracy—the last place in the ’Way you want to be is on its bad side. You’d have to be idiots like us to even consider it. And with another curse, Gruber barks at his men to get their things together.
I see Ty and the squad moving through the crowd toward us, and the thrill of my little triumph is warm in my chest. That went even better than I expected. As I smile behind the mirrormask, Zila sidles up to me and whispers.
“THAT WAS …”
“Magic?” I reply.
“REMARKABLE.”
“Yeah. But don’t fall in love with me, Zila. I’ll just break your heart.”
“THAT DOES SEEM CONSISTENT WITH YOUR ROMANTIC MODUS OPERANDI.” She pauses a moment before adding, “YOU ARE ALSO TOO TALL FOR ME.”
I blink at that. “Wait…you like girls?”
Zila shrugs, scanning the crowd. “NOT TALL ONES.”
I’m actually a little surprised at that. To be honest, I didn’t think Zila liked anyone much at all. But before I can ponder this new revelation, Ty and the others have reached us at the Opha May’s berth.
The grin on my bee-bro’s face makes me grin back, despite the fact that nobody can see under my helmet. As soon as Gruber and his boys get their gear together, we’ll be on our way.
“It is a nice ship,” Auri sighs through our comms channel, looking her over.
Even knowing nothing about ships, I have to agree—it’s a beauty. We’ve all had it rough in the last few weeks, but it seems like things are finally going our way. Our Trigger girl looks tired, but totally awake. For once in his life, Finian seems to have run out of sass, shooting me a goofy smile instead. Only Kal looks a touch out of sorts.
Syldrathi are a little hard for me to read beyond their genetically ingrained arrogance. I guess if I was going to live three hundred years and everyone around me would be dead in half that, I’d be a little distant, too. But this isn’t our Tank’s typical You are but mayflies attitude at work. Looking at the frown on his pretty face, the dilation of his pupils, I’d say he looks almost…nervous.
“You all right?” I murmur.
“…Kal?” Auri asks, reaching out to brush his hand with her fingertips.
He rubs his brow, looking around the docks. “I feel—”
“Hello, Kaliis.”
The voice comes from behind him. Sharp enough that it cuts through
the clamor. Something about it fills my stomach with ice-cold butterflies. And turning across the crowded dock, I see a young woman glowering at the back of Kal’s head.
I mean, she looks like a young woman. Maybe nineteen or twenty. But with Syldrathi it’s hard to tell. She’s taller even than me. She has the flawless olive skin and high cheekbones and aching, ethereal elegance of all her people. Her eyes are narrowed, dazzling, bright violet. Her hair is long, swept back over her tapered ears in ornate braids of inky black—she’s the only Syldrathi I’ve ever seen with hair that color. She’s the kind of beautiful that plucks your heart out through your ribs.
But she’s wearing black armor, daubed with white Syldrathi script. The glyf of the Warbreed Cabal is etched on her brow—three crossed blades, just like Kal’s. There’s a stripe of black paint running from temple to temple, right across her eyes. Her lips are painted black too, and there’s a cord of what might be severed thumbs strung around her neck. And as she smiles, I note she’s filed her canines into points.
I’ve seen armor like hers before. On the news feeds of the Orion Incursion. The surprise attack where Dad was killed. She’s one of the renegade cabal of militants who started the Syldrathi civil war.
Unbroken.
“Spirits of the Void…,” Kal breathes, looking at her.
Ty looks at him sidelong. “Kal?”
I can feel the sudden tension radiating off our Tank in waves. Every muscle flexed, hands clenching into fists. His voice drops to absolute zero.
“All of you, listen to me carefully,” he says. “Do not let her get close to you.”
The young woman is still gliding nearer, cutting through the crowd like a knife. Kal reaches out to Auri beside him, presses her back.
“Get behind me, Aurora.”
She blinks. “Kal, what’s—”
“Be’shmai.” He meets her mismatched eyes with his. “Please.”
“It is true, then.”
I turn back to the Unbroken woman. She’s stopped about ten meters away, looking at Kal with her lip curled. She’s speaking in Syldrathi, but language studies were one of the few subjects at the academy I was good at, so surprise, honey, I speak it too. One hand is propped at her hip, contempt twisting that beautiful face into something ugly and awful.
“When the adepts you thrashed in that bar brawl on the World Ship told me the tale, I could scarce believe it,” she tells Kal. “I cut their throats to silence their lies. But I should have known you were capable of sinking to any depth. Any shame.” Violet eyes flicker to Aurora. “Enough even to name a human beloved.”
Kal’s hand slips to the disruptor under his jacket.
“What do you want, Saedii?” he asks.
Hmm. They’re on a first-name basis. Interesting…
Madam Badass lowers her chin and smiles with pointed teeth.
“You know what I want, Kaliis,” she replies.
The Opha May’s crew is emerging from the ship behind us now, arms loaded with luggage, frowning in confusion at the scene in front of them. Tyler whispers a warning, and I catch glimpses of six more Unbroken fanning out in the crowd. I spot another two on the warehouse roof opposite our landing pad. They all have black armor, long silver hair, beautiful, battle-scarred faces. Warbreed glyfs on their brows and smiles on their lips and hate in those big, pretty eyes.
But as dangerous as this crew might look, these docks are way too busy for them to start any real trouble. I don’t know who these pixies are, but whatever’s going on here, I’ve had about enough of it. Time to put this uniform to work again and get the hells off this station before the real trouble arrives.
“You will refrain from coming any closer,” I say in Syldrathi, putting on my Voice of Authority again. “These individuals are in the custody of the GIA, and—”
“You are no more an officer of the Global Intelligence Agency than I am, human,” the woman sneers, her eyes never leaving Kal. “Now still your tongue before I cut it out of your head.”
“We need to go,” Kal murmurs, glancing at Tyler. “Now.”
Ty nods in agreement, eyes still on Madam Badass.
“Everybody get aboard.”
We start backing toward the Opha May’s loading ramp. The Unbroken woman tilts her head. And with zero foreplay, not even so much as a goodbye kiss, one of her chums up on the warehouse fires a damn pulse rocket at us.
It looks like a bolt of luminous green, trailing a wisp of thin smoke. Hissing as it comes. Auri shouts a warning and throws up her hands, and I see a flare of brief white light from her right eye. For a second the air around us crackles with tension, greasy and warm. But as the pulse rocket goes skimming right over our heads, I realize it’s not aimed at us.
Gruber and his crew scatter as Tyler roars at the top of his lungs.
“Everybody down!”
Kal throws himself on top of Aurora; the rest of us hit the deck as the rocket sails right through the open bay doors of my newly commandeered escape plan. The explosion rips through the Opha May’s insides and blooms out her exhaust ports. Shrapnel whizzes past my head, skims off the nanoweave armor on my back. I hear Aurora scream, Zila gasp, Fin curse. Alarms begin blaring across the docks; the crowd roars in panic. Alerts flash across the display inside my mask as a warning spills from the public address system.
“FIRE IN SECTION 12, CETA. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEAREST EXIT.”
Chaos breaks loose on the docks. Black smoke rolls in the air. Fire and explosions aboard a suborbital station are rarely a good thing, and all around us the mob begins scattering toward the transit tubes, babbling, trampling, desperate. Nozzles open up in the deck, spraying chemicals onto the Opha May’s burning shell.
I squint through the smoke and see the Unbroken stalking toward us through the panicking crowd. The young woman is in the lead, violet stare still fixed on Kal. Our Tank has his arms around Auri, and I see blood spilling from a shrapnel gash on her brow. Her jaw is slack, her eyelashes fluttering.
“Aurora?” he cries, touching her face. “Aurora!”
“M-mothercustard…,” she groans.
I stagger to my feet, shaking my head to clear it. But the GIA armor has protected me from the worst of the blast, and I drag my disruptor pistol from its holster, aim at the oncoming Syldrathi woman.
“Freeze,” I tell her.
She stops for a moment. Perfectly still. And then she moves.
Now, I’ve seen Kal dismantle a room full of Terran Defense Force troopers in seconds. He took down two GIA agents without breaking a sweat. But Madam Badass gives a new meaning to the word fast. One moment I’m drawing a bead on her head, and the next she’s standing in front of me, her fist colliding with my chest. My breath sprays from between my lips; I feel myself lifted off the plasteel. I hear something rip, see black stars, taste blood. And then I’m flat on my back, gasping, clutching my bits.
“Scar!” Tyler roars.
“Owwww,” I groan.
“Maker’s breath, are you okay?” Finian gasps, on his knees beside me.
“No.” A low moan escapes my lips. “She p-punched me…in the ladies….”
See what I mean about these things being a bitch to own?
I’m only dimly aware of my brother rising to his feet, aiming his disruptor at the woman who just whomped me in the ta-tas. But in a heartbeat, she slips aside from his blasts, stepping up to him in a black blur. I see her hands clap down on Ty’s shoulders. I hear an ugly crunch, an off-key squeal of pain, as her knee collides with my twin brother’s fun factory so hard I can almost feel it in our shared DNA.
Poor Bee-bro…
She grabs Ty’s arm and flips him over her shoulder, slamming him onto the deck with a force that shakes the plasteel. His wrist is still locked in her grip as she crouches low, open palm drawn back to slam into my brother’s head.
I blink hard, watch Kal rise up from beside a semiconscious Aurora. There’s a shrapnel nick in his cheek, a thin line of purple blood spilling from the wound.
A long strand of silver hair has come loose from one of his braids, drifting across his eyes in the burning updraft.
His fingertips are wet with Auri’s blood. His beautiful face is twisted with a fury that’s all the way terrifying.
“Saedii, stop this,” he spits.
“Only you have the power to stop this, Kaliis. You belong with us.”
“No,” he says. “I am not like you.”
I look from the glyf on her brow to the identical glyf on his. The hate in his eyes, reflected in her own. The other Unbroken have gathered around us now, black armor aglow in the light of the Opha May’s wreckage. The two on the rooftops have climbed down, approaching us with more pulse rockets at the ready. Fin is crouched beside me, hand on my shoulder; Zila is next to Auri, checking over the groaning girl with a med-scanner. And I’m wondering how deep the hole we’re in can actually go when one of the Syldrathi steps up to Kal with hand outstretched.
“Come with us, comrade.”
In a flash almost too quick to track, Kal seizes the man’s wrist, bends it backward with a bright snapping sound. The man screams and Kal twists; I hear another crunch as the guy’s elbow bends in entirely the wrong direction. The other Unbroken step forward, but with a hiss, the young woman called Saedii holds them still. And as I watch, horrified, Kal sweeps the warrior’s feet out from under him and starts slamming his fist into his face. His features are twisted. Silver braids hanging about his face. Lips peeled back from his teeth. Eyes burning.
Crunch.
“Great Maker,” Fin breathes.
Crunch.
“Kal, stop,” I whisper.
Crunch.
Kal stands up when he’s done. Purple blood dripping from his knuckles. Spattered across those prettyboy cheeks. The woman looks at him with triumph.
