by Amie Kaufman
“I’ve seen the Ra’haam absorb people,” I say. “Consume them. Is…is there a way to get out once you’re a part of it?”
No, says the Eshvaren quietly. The pain in its voice is a match for the sharp hurt in my chest.
“Oh,” I whisper, because it’s all I can think to say.
Such a little word.
Such a massive thought.
Not perhaps, not maybe. Just…
No.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around it as we cross a wide river, a frothing, quick-moving silver mass that tumbles over itself, crashing into rocks midstream, sending up perfect arcs of spray.
We are unlike the Ra’haam, says the Eshvaren. We believe in the sanctity of the individual above all else. This is what we fought to defend. It cost us everything, but the war was not won entirely. Though defeated, the Ra’haam did not die. It hid from us, settled into slumber, and we knew we would not live to see its next awakening. So we prepared this place, and this memory, to wait for you.
“Little bit ironic that the memories of all your species are in one body,” I observe. “When you’re the ones who believe in individuality.”
These individuals consented to this process, it replies solemnly. The Ra’haam seeks no such permission. But you are our legacy, Aurora. We died to keep alive the hope of defeating the Ra’haam. Now you must complete our work.
My voice sounds weak, even to my own ears. “But I don’t know what to do.”
We left a Weapon, it replies. If deployed before the Ra’haam fully awakens, it will destroy its nursery planets, prevent it from blooming ever again. We did not know where the Enemy slumbered when we made this place. But ages after our passing, our agents still searched for the Ra’haam’s seed worlds. They will have left clues—
“The star map!” I nod, excited. “Yes, we found it.”
We also left devices in the Fold. Probes. One of these devices must have sensed your psychic potential and activated you. It knew that in you lay the ability to wield our last weapon against the Ra’haam, and it brought that potential to the fore. Now you must train so you are prepared to use it. You must end the cycle.
All of a sudden, surrounded by perfect beauty, I feel incredibly tiny on a very big planet. The golden sky seems endless, and the crystal towers seem to reach all the way up to it.
“You mean your whole plan hinged on me going somewhere near that probe so it could sense me and activate me? What if I hadn’t been selected for the Octavia mission? What if I’d never gone anywhere near that part of space? How did you know I would? Can you see the future? If so, I have Questions.”
The Eshvaren shakes its head. You are special, Aurora, but not unique. We left many probes, suitable for many species, all searching the Fold for potentials.
“But there’s no other Triggers around,” I point out. “Or…are there?”
You are alone in here, it replies. But I am not alive. Only a collection of memories. A recording, if you will. There may have been other Triggers before you. Others who were activated, who came here to train. I do not know. The Echo will reset after you leave this place, and I will forget your passing. But you would not be here, and the Ra’haam would not still exist, if another Trigger had been successful. And if you fail, others will come after you. This task cannot go unfinished.
It’s a pretty grim prospect. “You’re not much for pep talks, are you?” I say, trying to make myself sound surer than I feel.
The Eshvaren tilts its head slightly to one side. Please define pep.
“You’re not very encouraging. You’re scaring me, is what I’m saying.”
Fear is an appropriate response, it replies serenely. Your training will be arduous. Your testing, dangerous. If you fail, it will cost you your life.
“Um,” I say. “My life?”
This responsibility is yours, it replies. Like us, you must sacrifice all.
As if its words cast a shadow, a chill goes through me. All of a sudden, despite the beauty of this place, I want nothing more than to be back on the Zero.
“Listen, I’ve been gone for hours,” I say. “My crew will be worrying—they might try something stupid. I should tell them I’m okay.”
Time moves differently in the Echo. For those outside, only moments have passed. And in this task, your crew is secondary.
“Well, they’re not secondary to me,” I reply, and finally I have a real hint of steel in my voice. “Tell me how to wake up.”
We will wake you and send you back if you wish. But when you arise, you must prepare yourself to return here. Take one full cycle of your own time, do what you must, and then touch the probe once more. We will speak again, as we have done now.
It nods.
Then your training will begin.
I open my mouth to reply, but before I can get a word out, I’m suddenly blinking awake. The endless golden sky above is replaced by the ceiling of the Zero’s docking bay and the faces of my squad.
They’re crowded around me, concern in their eyes. Finian is holding Magellan, and I can see the screen is dark, lifeless. Touching the probe must have—
“Be’shmai, are you well?” Kal asks urgently, cradling my head in his hands.
Zila’s running her uniglass over me, presumably conducting some kind of med-scan. “That was unwise, Aurora.”
“Seriously, Stowaway,” says Fin. “You can’t just go around touching every weird probe we find, you know? Who knows where it’s been.”
“She’s been somewhere,” says Scarlett softly, looking at me intently.
“Have I ever,” I reply.
“…Be’shmai?” Kal asks.
I look into his eyes, see the fear in my own.
“I’ve just met the Eshvaren.”
I wake up with the taste of blood in my mouth.
The walls, the floors, the smudge I wipe off my lips, all of them are different shades of gray, which tells me we’re still Folding. I’m lying on a bio-cot, staring up at the ceiling, feeling an engine’s low thrum in my aching chest. From the tone, I can immediately tell I’m aboard a Terran carrier. A Mark VII-b, I think, with the new epsilon fusion intakes and 9-Series inertial dampeners.
Hey, I like ships, okay?
Point is, this is a TDF ship. Which means I’m in TDF custody. Which means I’m in every kind of trouble in the galaxy. But I guess I’m not dead?
Could be worse, Jones.
I risk moving, rewarded with stabs of pain all over my body. Looking down at myself, I can see I’ve received some first aid—the worst of my gouges and cuts are dressed in medi-wraps to stimulate healing, and there’s a chill-pack tapped to my bare, bruised chest to kill the swelling. I’m still wearing my Aurora Legion cargo pants and the boots I got in my package from the Dominion Repository, but nobody’s seen fit to replace my shirt. For a second I panic, reaching up to my neck…but I find the silver chain, my dad’s Senate ring still attached to it.
Dad…
What would he make of all this? What would he tell me to do? News about the battle between the TDF and the Unbroken has probably gotten out by now. The whole galaxy could be at war. And Scar, Auri, and the others…they’re out there alone.
I can’t protect them anymore.
I sit up, wincing at the pain as I look around the room. In news that surprises nobody, I’m in a detention cell. The door is sealed, the camera above it live, the temperature just lower than comfortable—all as expected.
What I don’t expect is that I’m not in here alone.
She’s laid out on another bio-cot along the opposite wall. Wearing her Unbroken dress uniform from the waist up and nothing but a pair of black briefs from the waist down. Her thighs are dressed in medi-wraps, bruises darkening the olive skin beneath. At some point she was plugged into an IV drip, but she’s torn it out, blood d
ripping from her wrist, spattered on the floor. She’s on her back, black braids, black lips, black heart, staring pure murder at the ceiling.
Saedii.
“Finally awake,” she says quietly. “I trust you enjoyed your rest?”
“…How long was I out?”
“Hours.” She shakes her head. “You Terrans are such…weaklings.”
“You’re in Terran custody,” I point out. “So what’s that make you?”
“A prisoner of war.” She turns her head, fixes me with her withering gaze. “One you cannot hope to win.”
“I warned you,” I scowl. “You played right into their hands, Saedii. You gave them exactly what they wanted.”
“A conflict in which there can be no victory? The enmity of an Archon who destroys suns?” Saedii sits up slow, swings her bare legs around, and places her feet on the floor. There’s only the slightest trace of pain in her eyes, despite her injuries. “If your people wanted annihilation, then yes. I have given them that.”
“It’s not my people behind this mess.”
“That pathetic Aurora Legion badge you cower beneath will not spare you the Starslayer’s vengeance. Caersan will draw no distinction between the TDF and your fellow legionnaires.” Her black lips curl, pointed canines glinting. “He will slaughter all of you. Your suns will collapse. Your systems will be swallowed. Your entire race consigned to the dust of history. All of you.”
“You sound upset,” I say.
Her eyes narrow behind the strip of black paint across her temples. But that infuriating Syldrathi cool slips into place like a well-worn glove.
“You are a fool, Tyler Jones,” she says. “And you will die a fool’s death.”
“I’m not the fool spitting threats for the whole ship to hear.” I point to the small black dot above the doorframe. “You realize we’re under surveillance, right? That they can hear everything you say? See everything you do?”
“I am a Templar of the Unbroken.” She tosses her braids back off her shoulders, pointing to the three blades scribed on her forehead. “Warbreed by birth and troth. Anointed by the blood of Archon Caersan himself. I have nothing to fear from your people.”
“I keep telling you, the folks running this show aren’t my people. There’s things going on here you can’t possibly understand. But believe me when I say, Saedii, birth, troth, blood, whatever. You’re in way over your head here.”
I lie back down on the cot, wincing as I paw at the bruises on my bare chest.
“So be careful you don’t run your mouth right off your face.”
Placing my hands behind my head, I stare at the ceiling, feeling Saedii’s burning gaze roaming my body. I can tell she wants to kill me—I can feel the threat and rage radiating off her in waves. But I know she’s not stupid enough to try anything with those cams on her, and besides, her wounds are still far from healed. And so, trying to push thoughts of Templar Saedii Gilwraeth from my mind, I start wondering how on Earth I’m gonna escape this cell.
Aside from what I’m wearing, I’ve got nothing in the way of gear. I realize they’ve even taken my uniglass off me, and I feel a sudden pang at losing the last physical object of Cat’s I had left.
I guess I’ll always have the tattoo we got together….
I find myself thinking about her. Missing her. She was someone who always had my back. For a moment, I find my thoughts drifting to that night on shore leave, running my finger over the ink on my bicep, thinking about the way she felt, the way she shivered as I—
You are pathetic.
I blink. Sitting up carefully, I peer at Saedii, who’s still watching me with those narrowed, hateful eyes.
“Did you…?”
Call you pathetic? Yes. Fantasizing about a dead lover at a time like this?
I blink again. Realizing that Saedii is talking to me without moving her lips.
That somehow, she’s…
Are you…in my mind?
She huffs softly in contempt.
If it can be called such.
What…how are you doing that?
So very weak.
I frown deeper, trying to figure out what in the Maker’s name is going on here. Whether I’m hallucinating or have a concussion or maybe just dreaming this whole thing. But finally, I recall talking with Kal on Emerald City. Remember his warning that Saedii would be able to track him…because she could feel him.
I look at Saedii. Realization crystalizing in my mind.
Your mother was a Waywalker….
I feel a spark of fury, dark and twisted, crackling like live current between us.
Do not speak of my mother ever again, Terran.
I shake my head. Thoughts racing.
Kal said you inherited some of her…some of the Waywalker gifts. I knew Waywalkers were empathic. That they could read moods. Maybe even surface thoughts. But I never knew they could talk to people telepathically?
She looks me over, cool and contemptuous.
There is apparently much you do not know, Tyler Jones.
…What’s that supposed to mean?
She sneers. That you are indeed your father’s son.
I feel a flash of rage at that, as dark and deep as her own. My hand creeps involuntarily to the chain about my neck, the ring at the end of it.
How about we take mothers and fathers off the table for discussion?
Laughter, echoing in my skull. You are a fool.
If you stuck your head into mine just to insult me, you can get out again.
I “stuck my head in,” as you so eloquently put it, because I could feel your aphrodisia splashing all over the walls, and I wished to discern the source. She looks pointedly down at her bare legs and briefs. If I was the focus of your fantasies, I was going to cut your thumbs off.
I scoff. Don’t flatter yourself.
I flatter no one. That is what I do to males who seek to woo me, Tyler Jones. Her fingers drift to the cord of severed, desiccated thumbs still strung around her neck. They are given the opportunity to best me in combat. And if they fail…
I look her over, softly shaking my head.
Great Maker, you really are a psychopath, aren’t you?
All the more reason to keep thoughts of me out of your head, little Terran.
I’ll try to contain myself.
She places her hands on her knees, bending forward. Her braids tumble around her cheeks as she stretches, languid, running her black fingernails all the way down over her shins to the tips of her toes. Her movements are sensual, almost seductive, but she’s obviously just doing it to goad me. As she looks up into my eyes, I can feel the malice in her.
You had best do more than try, boy.
Listen, how about you just—
My thought is cut off by the cell door hissing open. I sit up again, wincing, as half a dozen TDF troopers in light tactical armor march into the cell. Saedii glowers, her hands balling into fists. But the troopers have their eyes on me. I see the ship ident KUSANAGI on their uniforms and realize I must be on the same ship as…
The lieutenant leading the posse waves a disruptor in my face.
“Princeps wants to talk to you, Legionnaire Jones.”
She is afraid.
I can feel it, like a shadow behind her, looming cold and dark. Like a damp black coat around her shoulders, making her shiver with its chill. I can feel her disappointment in herself.
She knows that the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake.
She knows what will happen if she fails.
And still, she fears.
She is in her quarters, every color around her a shade of gray. She stands at a small viewport, staring out at the colorless tides of the Fold. The space beyond is an infinity, awash with light. A cosmic ballet, billions of years in the making. A beauty
as indescribable as any in creation.
And all of it dims to a candle flame beside her.
“Be’shmai?”
She looks over her shoulder at me, the white of her iris catching the light and making my heart stutter. I stand at the doorway, and I watch her wrap her arms around herself as if she were cold. And I know then, deep in my bones, I would do anything to take this burden from her.
“Come in,” she says, soft.
The door whispers shut behind me as I step inside. Glancing around, I can see there is very little in this room to mark it as Aurora’s own. Finian’s cabin is equipped to deal with his condition. My own is complete with a small lias flower in a silver urn, and even a siif that I could play if the mood took me. But Aurora’s room is bare of adornment, save for a single candle scribed with what I recognize as her father’s language. I only know it because the Chinese calligraphy bears no small resemblance to Syldrathi script. I remember the first time I saw it at the academy. It surprised me that humans could produce something approaching the beauty of my own culture.
It does not surprise me now.
The candle sits alone in the room, apart from the girl who must have lit it. It is almost as if Adams and de Stoy knew this place would not be her home for long. And it saddens me to see how adrift she is.
“Finian reports that the damage to Magellan is not critical,” I tell her. “Touching the probe did indeed overload its circuits, but with time, he can repair it.”
Aurora simply nods, staring out the viewport. I suspect updates about broken electronic devices are not what she needs from me right now.
And so I step up behind her, and I wrap my arms around her. She pushes back against me, closes her eyes, and sighs, as if in my arms she is finally, finally, somewhere close to home.
I look at our reflection in the viewport, me behind, us together. I realize how well we fit. Like two pieces of the strangest puzzle. Like she is the piece that has been missing all my life. The Want in me is almost deafening, but I hold it still, breathing deep and bringing some calm to the tempest inside. Because beyond the adoration reflected in her eyes, I can see the words she wishes to say, long before she finally musters the courage to give them voice.
