Aurora Burning

by Amie Kaufman

  But now I’m in the Zero’s airlock, busy suiting up with Fin and Kal while Zila diligently checks our spacesuits. My gloves click into place, and she takes my hands in hers, turning them over to confirm the seal. Zila pins my hair back from my face—my own hands are too unwieldy in my gloves. I guess I should have thought of that in advance. I’ve had a short lecture from Tyler, and a half hour’s practice in the low gravity available in Finian’s room, which is all anyone ever needed for a space walk, right?

  That’s right. I’m about to walk.

  In.

  Space.

  The Jones twins are up front in the pilot’s and copilot’s chairs, guiding us ever closer to the Hephaestus salvage convoy, the Hadfield, and the black box inside. I can see a display of it from the long-range cams on our hull, and it’s like…well, it’s like something out of a science-fiction movie. The convoy is huge—hundreds of ships, all in various states of disrepair, from “mildly beat-up” to “let’s hope it has a good personality.” The shapes and sizes are mind-boggling: sleek and beautiful or bulky but functional or holy cake what. Each ship is being hauled by a much smaller tug, marked with the burning cogwheel of Hephaestus Incorporated.

  From what Ty said, these tugs are mostly engine, made to haul much bigger vessels across space or into starports. They don’t look too scary, but the convoy is also accompanied by a small fleet of heavily armed cruisers. I can see them on the display—wedges of gleaming silver, moving in the predictable flight patterns of pilots who’re bored out of their minds. Nobody here is expecting to get robbed. The ships they’re hauling are all broken-down pieces of junk, after all.

  And, speak of the devil, out on the fringes of the convoy, there she is.

  The Hadfield is huge, battleship-shaped, her hull blackened and torn. The last time I saw her, this ship was considered state of the art. She was the biggest Ark-class vessel Earth had ever made. She carried ten thousand colonists and the hopes of an entire planet. And now all of them are dead except for me.

  For the thousandth time, I wonder why I was the one to survive. Why, of all those innocent people, the Eshvaren picked me to be their Trigger. Looking at the derelict floating out there in all that black, I feel a shiver run down my spine, something whispering in the back of my—

  “Aurora?”

  I blink, realize Zila is looking at me expectantly. “Huh?”

  “Lean down, please.”

  I do as I’m told, then bend forward so she can ease my helmet on.

  Ty transmits from the bridge. “All right, we’re almost good to go here. The tac-comp and I have been analyzing their security flight pattern, and there’s a gap in their sweep every thirty-seven minutes.”

  “We are still twenty-five hours from the convoy’s destination at Picard VI.” Zila snaps the latches into place, her voice suddenly muffled in real life, but crystal clear over my comms system. “Their security should not be on particularly high alert.”

  “Agreed—most of them are flying on autopilot,” Tyler says. “But nobody take that as an invitation to dawdle. Get in, get what we came for, and get out. Anything else is a bonus.”

  By “anything else,” he means anything I can contribute. Fin is boarding the Hadfield to download the contents of the black box. Kal is there for our protection. And I’m there in case I see anything that reminds me of…well, anything, really. Whatever happened to me, or how. Given we’re not even sure what we’re searching for, we’ll take whatever clues we can get. But I hope that finding out what the Hadfield’s systems remember about the moment I was…transformed…will at least set us on the next steps of our path.

  “The Zero has stealth mode engaged,” Tyler continues. “And her cloaking tech is top-shelf, so we’re not going to show on any of their scopes. But these people still have eyes to spot us. So make sure you don’t draw any attention to yourselves.”

  His sister’s voice chimes in. “We’ll be in position in ninety seconds.”

  On our displays, I’m watching a tiny red dot that represents us, sidling up to the convoy through the gap in the security patrol’s flight paths. I watch us weave in and out of the fleet under Tyler’s expert hand, and my stomach is about to crawl right out of my mouth. Zila is checking Kal’s helmet seals now, up on her toes to reach.

  “You will have sixty seconds to reach the Hadfield before the security fleets adjust formation and the gap closes,” she says.

  “Just don’t look down, Stowaway,” Fin grins.

  Zila backs out of the airlock, closes the door. “Good luck.”

  We’re sealed inside now, only one more door between us and space. My palms are damp. I can feel a cold trickle of sweat running down my spine.

  “Opening outer door in ten seconds,” Zila reports over comms. “Secure positions. Grip the wall restraints in case of sudden movement.”

  I push both my hands through the straps, anchoring myself firmly, even though there’s no real reason I should fall out of the ship and into the endless vacuum. Still, I’m not about to pass up any safety precautions right now. I mean, I trained to travel through it, sure. But there’s a big difference between being loaded into a cryopod and shot through space, and actually, you know, walking in it.

  The outer door slides open, and son of a biscuit, that is Space right there.

  It’s really big.

  I mean, obviously it’s really big; it’s literally famous for being really big. And yet somehow, this is different from seeing it through a viewport or monitor.

  This is the first time I’ve understood that I could float through space forever.

  Kal is beside me, resting one gloved hand on my arm. His gaze is calm, his voice gentle. “All will be well, be’shmai. Finian and I will assist you.”

  It turns out Fin equaled Ty’s perfect score on his zero-grav orienteering exam—apparently the outcome of years spent sleeping in it. He nods sagely. “I’ll be right there, Stowaway. These superhero good looks aren’t just for show.” He shoots me a grin, then crouches over the launcher, all business. “Time check, please, Scar.”

  “Fifteen seconds,” she reports. “Ten, nine, eight…”

  Up on the bridge, Tyler adjusts his controls, and the endless view of space is replaced by the port side of the Hadfield, a stretch of pitted metal filling our view through the open hatch. According to the displays, we’re now flying in perfect parallel with the derelict: same speed, same heading, maybe fifty meters apart.

  I take a deep breath, checking my grip, making sure I’ll actually be able to unpeel my hands when I need to move. Small movements, I tell myself, repeating the words Fin and Tyler chanted at me over and over during my one brief training session. In zero gravity, a sudden jerk or lunge will send me off balance, and momentum will keep me helplessly spinning. Every motion needs to be precise and gentle. There’s no up in space. There’s no down. But one wrong move and I could end up falling for the rest of my life.

  Smaaaall movements.

  Scarlett is still counting down. “…three, two, one, mark.”

  Fin gazes calmly through the sights and pulls the trigger on the grappler. A metal line flies out across the gap between the Zero and the Hadfield, attaching soundlessly to the larger ship right near a massive, melted gash in her hull.

  “Line secure,” Fin whispers. “Transfer under way.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I ask.

  “I…don’t know exactly.”

  “You’re not much of a warrior, are you, Finian?” Kal teases.

  “Will you just get out there?” Fin hisses. “We’ve got mischief to make.”

  With the smallest hint of a smile curling his lips, Kal eases himself out of the airlock, pulling himself hand over hand along the metal line between the two ships. I’m next, and I can hear my breath shaking as I exit the Zero.

  Even though we’re flying at
hundreds of thousands of kilometers per minute, there’s no sensation of us actually moving, and aside from my breathing, everything around me is perfectly silent. Kal, Fin, and I are tethered to each other and the main line, and we all have jet propulsion units in our suits in case something goes wrong. But still, the void around us is so sickeningly huge and black and just nothing that I almost can’t wrap my head around it. And so I stop trying, focusing on the cable in front of me instead, whispering instructions to myself:

  “Right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand.”

  I know Fin’s behind me, ready to help if I need it. But that doesn’t change how impossibly small I feel right now. Yet somehow, instead of being frightened, I find myself…exhilarated. Feeling so tiny makes me realize just how big what we’re all a part of is. And being out here in all this emptiness somehow makes me completely aware of everything I am and have.

  These friends, who’re risking their lives for me. Our little light, shining in all this darkness. I’ve never really believed in destiny. But out in all this nothing, I’ve never been so certain of who I am and where I’m supposed to be.

  Ahead of me, across the bottomless stretch of blackness, Kal reaches the gash. Slowly, carefully, he tests the edges until he finds a spot that won’t cut open his gloves. Then, with what looks like an effortless movement, he pulls himself into the pitch-black interior of the Hadfield.

  It’s my turn next, and I have to force myself to let go of the line, grab at the rip in the Hadfield’s skin. As I float into the darkness, I push too hard, and Kal saves me before I sail into the wall. He catches me in his arms, brings me down gracefully. My heart is hammering and my breath is pounding in my lungs, and now that my time outside is over, I realize all I want is to do it all over again.

  “What a rush,” I gasp.

  Kal looks down at me. “I know just what you mean.”

  My body is pressed against his, his face just inches away from mine, and the starlight reflected in his eyes is like sparks dancing inside violet flames. I swallow the lump in my throat, my heart pounding even harder than before.

  Fin pulls himself in through the gash behind us, pretending not to notice as I reluctantly push myself out of Kal’s arms.

  “Line released, Goldenboy,” he declares. “See you soon.”

  “Roger that,” Ty replies. “Good hunting.”

  I watch through the hull breach as the Zero silently peels away. She disappears behind the arc of the Hadfield’s thrusters and vanishes from sight, hiding in the convoy before the security patrols swing back. We activate our helmet lights, and I see we’re in a long plasteel hallway. It feels almost familiar. It all looks perfectly normal. Except, you know, it’s totally dark. And it opens into space.

  “All right,” Fin says. “The bridge is this way. Follow me, lovebirds.”

  Fin pushes off the ground, moving as naturally as a fish through water. With gentle touches on the wall to propel ourselves, Kal and I float after him, our headlamps illuminating the way ahead of us. Fin’s studying the map on the uniglass strapped to his left forearm. His movements are smooth and graceful.

  “Your suit seems much better, Fin,” I say.

  “I won’t be winning any dance contests soon, but it’s getting there.”

  “I’m sure you’re an amazing dancer.”

  He smiles at me sidelong. “You trying to get me to fall in love with you, too, Stowaway?”

  Kal glances Fin’s way, but with that cool I used to find so infuriating, he doesn’t ruffle. We make our way farther into the Hadfield’s belly, and everything around us is silent and dark. The ship doesn’t actually look that bad from in here, and I can almost imagine she’s still in her prime. But it’s when we round a broken bulkhead that the full scale of the damage hits me like a kick to the chest. To our right is a rip that goes all the way through the ship from the upper decks to the keel. Cables and conduits spill out of the rents between levels, metal and plastic all twisted and torn. Looks like the quantum lightning storm Ty battled his way through to reach me really did a number on the Hadfield. Or maybe she weathered lots of FoldStorms before he found me?

  We all stop for a long moment, simply staring up at this destruction, trying to absorb the scale of it. I know each of the boys is worried about me in his own way, wondering how being here might make me feel. But from the outside, at least, I mustn’t seem too rattled. Wordlessly, Fin pushes off the wall once more, and I float after him, Kal bringing up the rear.

  “Still no life signs,” Kal reports, his voice crisp.

  “Good. I didn’t get time to do my hair this morning.” Fin checks his map again. “It’s about nine hundred meters up to the bridge. Old Mr. Black Box will be in our sticky little hands in about five minutes, Tyler.”

  “Roger that,” Ty replies. “Everyone stay frosty.”

  It sounds like good advice, and I do my best to follow it, to ignore the unease I can feel growing inside my stomach. But as I follow the beam of my lamp along the dark corridor, I begin to feel a faint current tingling on my skin.

  It’s like pins and needles, or static electricity, crackling out from my chest toward my fingers and toes. I hear a snatch of conversation ahead of us, my breath catching in my throat as a group of five figures rounds the corner, walking down the hallway toward us.

  Holy cake, they’re people.

  They’re all clad in the gray jumpsuits of the Hadfield mission, and one of the women is laughing—a bright, crystal sound in the dark. The shock of seeing them is like a slap. I try to jerk to a stop, and just like I was warned, the sudden motion sends me whirling backward, head over heels, spinning right into Kal’s chest. He grunts as I slam into him, wrapping one strong arm around me and grabbing at a doorframe to steady us.

  “Okay there, Auri?” Fin asks, twisting back to see what happened.

  Pulse thumping in my temples, I realize the people are gone.

  And I realize none of them were wearing spacesuits.

  And I could hear them, even though we’re in a vacuum.

  And they were walking, when there’s no gravity.

  They were…ghosts?

  No, no, that’s not right. There’s a tingle in my fingers now, a buildup of static electricity. Just like when I crushed that ship in the Emerald City docks. Just like when I dream things that come true. I can feel my powers at work if I close my eyes—midnight blue and bottomless beneath my skin. But this feels less like one of my visions, and more like…one of the Hadfield’s memories come to life?

  “Are you well?” Kal asks, looking intently into my eyes.

  I blink at the spot where I saw the people, shaking my head. “I…”

  “Did you see something, be’shmai?”

  “I…” I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “I don’t know….”

  The boys exchange a glance, neither one really believing me, but both too polite to call me out. Fin tries to lighten the darkening mood.

  “What did we forget, Stowaway?” he asks.

  “We forgot the golden rule.” I try to make my voice sound cheerful, but I know I don’t succeed. Still, Fin is a good sport and chants my lesson with me again:

  “Smaaaaall movements.”

  We continue on toward the bridge, and there’s a definite sense of wrongness, of foreboding, building up behind my eyes. Being back here now, seeing this place…I mean, it’s not that I didn’t know I was more than two centuries into the future. Of course I did. Everything around me tells me so—the aliens, the tech, the complete absence of anything familiar. But somehow, that’s different from seeing something I knew, shiny and new just a few weeks ago, now so ancient. So utterly dead.

  I’m just so sad for the Hadfield.

  Zila speaks over comms. “Aurora, your vitals are spiking. Are you in distress?”

  “I’m okay,” I lie, but there’
s still a shake to my voice.

  “We’re nearly at the bridge,” Fin says. “There’s an elevator shaft over here. If it’s not blocked, we can float all the way up through it, past the cryo levels.”

  The cryo levels. Where I went to sleep, expecting to wake up on a new world, with a new life. Where Tyler found me, surrounded by the corpses of everyone I’d set out with. My heart’s thumping, my ears are buzzing, and I make myself speak.

  “I’m going to…I want to see them.”

  “Be’shmai?” Kal asks, watching me uncertainly in the gloom.

  “If I’m going to remember…if I’m going to learn anything, it’ll probably be there.” I swallow. “Where it…where it happened.”

  It sounds almost reasonable coming out of my mouth. As if I’m being scientific about it, instead of being drawn to the place I survived, like a moth to a flame. I don’t want to tell the boys, I don’t want to say anything that makes me sound crazy, but the whole corridor around us is alive now. Full of people hurrying along, laughing and talking. I can feel them. I can see them. I can hear them.

  But all of them are dead. Echoes, imprinted on the ship like old bloodstains.

  “Do you wish me to accompany you?” Kal asks softly.

  I nod silently, staring at the figures around me.

  I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more in my life.

  “Goldenboy?” asks Fin. “We’ve got no life signs over here, and I’ll only be a few hundred meters above them. Okay for me to proceed to the bridge alone?”

  There’s a long pause before Tyler replies. “Permission granted. But keep your comms open at all times. Auri, Kal, I want constant updates, understood?”

  “Yessir,” Kal replies.

  With a grunt of effort, Kal pries apart the elevator doors, allowing us to push inside. The shaft is huge and dark, stretching down from the ship’s upper levels, but at least there’s none of those ghostly echoes inside here. We push our way up, Fin leading the way, Kal close beside me. I know it’s my imagination, but as we sail upward, I swear I can feel the warmth of his body through his suit. Despite the echoes around me, I can remember what he felt like, pressed up against me. And somehow, just the knowledge that he’s there makes it a little easier to breathe.