Aurora Burning

by Amie Kaufman

  “But how can you say you love me?” she asks, bewildered. “When you can just lie to my face like that? And how can I say I love you? When I…”

  She shakes her head. Tears shining in her lashes.

  “When I don’t even know who you are?”

  “You know me,” I plead. “You are my moon and my sun, Aurora. You are my everything.”

  Her tears do not fall. They crash, shaking the ship around me. I look to Finian, to Zila, to Scarlett, desperate for reprieve. For anything.

  “I have fought beside you. Bled for you. I have known no home since the Starslayer took mine away, save here among all of you.” I thump my fist to my heart. “Squad 312. I know I can appear cold. I know I am hard to read, and harder to get along with.” I look to each of them. “But I know my friends, and they are few. And those few, I would die for.”

  Silence rings across the bridge.

  And into that silence, Scarlett spits.

  “Tell that to Cat.”

  I feel the words as a blow to my chest.

  For a moment, I cannot even breathe.

  “Scarlett…that is not fair.”

  “Fair?”

  Bristling with fury, she stalks across the deck toward me. Finian rises to his feet, wary, but he does not step closer. Zila hugs her shins, presses her face into her knees. But Scarlett is in my face now, shouting. She only reaches my chin, but her rage makes up for her lack of stature.

  “You’re talking about fair?” she shouts. “My brother’s in the hands of the GIA because of you, you son of a bitch! How is that fair? What if they took him back to Octavia, huh? Have you even thought about that? What if they did to him what they did to C…to Ca…”

  I murmur as her voice fails.

  “If I could trade places with him, I would, Scarlett. I am so sorry.”

  “Fuck your sorry,” she snaps, raising her hand. “And fuck you, Kal.”

  She swings. Full of rage. Clumsy. The Enemy Within me flares, the violence I was born to, the violence in my blood rushing in my veins like thunder. I move, instinct and muscle memory, seizing Scarlett’s wrist so hard she cries out in pain.

  “Do not touch me,” I warn her.

  “Hey!” Finian shouts, stepping forward. “Get off her!”

  “Finian—” Zila begins.

  “Let her go!” he shouts.

  Our Gearhead plants both hands on my chest and shoves, his exosuit whirring. My whole body bristles, my every instinct aflame with threat.

  Break him, Kaliis.

  BREAK HIM.

  I step aside, smooth as water. Scarlett twists in my grip and I let her go, momentum sending her crashing into Finian and both of them to the deck. Fin cries out, leg twisted, and as I raise my hands, I feel another shove to my chest—iron-hard, midnight-blue power crackling in the air around me.

  I look up and see Aurora’s hand raised. Aimed at me. Her eye burns like a dying sun, hair whipping around her brow in the breeze of a long-lost world.

  “Don’t,” she says.

  “I would never…”

  And I see it. What everyone who has learned the truth about me has always seen. I was born of a monster, a murderer of billions. And that is what they see when they look at me now. That shadow I will never step out from, no matter how hard I try.

  Aurora looks at me, tears glittering like diamonds on her skin. I know what she will say before she says it.

  “You need to go, Kal.”

  “Aurora, no,” I plead. “No.”

  She nods. “Go.”

  I am torn. Desperate. Searching for anything that might sway her.

  “You do not know him, be’shmai,” I say, glancing at the screen where the man who made me spoke. “You cannot begin to imagine what he is like. He was a monster even before Syldra’s fall. If he has somehow become as you are, imbued with the power of the Ancients…”

  “Are you going to tell me I’ll have no chance when I face him?”

  My eyes grow hard, my voice like steel. “You do not know him, Aurora.”

  “I know one thing, Kal,” she says softly, wiping the tears from her cheek with the back of one hand. “I know I’m ready now. Truly ready, like the Eshvaren said. I am the Trigger. The Trigger is me. And when I strike at the Great Enemy, there’ll be nothing to hold me back anymore. No hurt. No rage. No fear.”

  She shakes her head.

  “No love.”

  I hear the Eshvaren’s words in my head then. That fateful warning it spoke on our last day in the Echo.

  Remember what is at stake here. This is more than you. More than us.

  Burn.

  Burn it all away.

  Aurora lowers her hand and breaks my heart.

  “Goodbye, Kal.”

  About four hundred light-years from Trask, there’s a star called Meridia. The star’s core is a diamond the size of Trask’s moon, estimated to be about ten decillion carats. My people built a spaceport there—a massive transit hub that’s one of the busiest in the galaxy. You can get a ride anywhere in the ’Way out of Meridia. Says a lot about Betraskans that we built a bus station around the galaxy’s biggest diamond.

  Anyway, that’s where we dump Kal.

  We’re still wanted terrorists and all, so we don’t waste time on farewells. Zila brings the Zero into one of the tertiary docks, only stopping long enough to let Kal out. Nobody’s there to say goodbye. I watch him through the bay cams, stepping out onto the station deck with a rucksack on his back. He’s wearing civi clothes—long dark coat, those ridiculous PVC pants Scarlett bought him in Emerald City, pockets stuffed with his share of the credits Adams and de Stoy left for us in the vault.

  I think he left his Legion uniform in his room.

  Bristling with anger, he squares his shoulders and stalks away.

  Nobody speaks for a while after we put Meridia behind us, tearing out of the system and back into the Fold. For my part, I just don’t know what to say. I’m scrounging for something—I know I’m meant to be the one who somehow breaks this thick, heavy, hurting silence, but I don’t know where to begin.

  Everything Betraskans do, everything we believe, everything we are is about family. And between losing Cat, leaving Tyler behind, and now Kal’s betrayal, it’s getting harder and harder to keep my gaze focused on the future. It feels like I’ve been shot, but I’m still moving. I’m on automatic, but now that the dust has settled, I just don’t know what to do next.

  The bridge feels too big—it’s just the four of us now, with Shamrock on the console and Tyler’s and Kal’s empty seats to remind us of what we’ve lost. Which, given that it’s our badass pilotry, our tactical genius, and our muscle, is no joke.

  Scarlett is hollow eyed. Just as I can’t summon up a smart-ass remark to keep us going, she can’t find anything in her Face’s book of tricks to make this sound better than it is. I know she’s blaming herself for not having seen this coming, but though her ability to read everyone she meets is nearly superhuman, there are still limits. For the first time I can remember, she looks…I’m not sure what to call it. Beaten? Scared?

  Auri’s in her own place, her gaze distant. Everything about her has changed—even her posture. She’s not the girl we’ve known anymore. She’s utterly focused now. I thought she’d be weaker without Kal’s support, but it’s as though the heat and fire we’ve just been through forged her into something stronger.

  Something unbreakable.

  It’s Zila who ends the silence. She has her back to us, piloting the Zero through the FoldGate and into black-and-white safety. Now she swings around, her face as blank as it was back when we met. I didn’t realize how many small changes I’d seen in it until they went away, along with Kal. She’s closed off again, speaking carefully and evenly, her voice flat and gray.

  “We must conside
r our next steps.”

  Auri’s response is immediate and unwavering. “We need to take control of the Weapon.”

  Scarlett nods. “Ideally, before Caersan uses it to blow up Earth. And we’re already three hours into his twelve-hour countdown.”

  Auri glances at her, gaze burning, chin up.

  “And then we have to turn it against the Ra’haam.”

  “Right,” I agree. “So that means we need to get aboard it, yeah? Past a massive Syldrathi war fleet on high alert, ready to unload its many, many guns on anything that looks remotely unfriendly.”

  Zila inclines her head. “This is an accurate summary.”

  “Do we have any advantages?” Scar asks. She’s reaching for what Tyler would do, I think. Trying desperately to fill the hole her twin has left behind.

  “They will certainly not be expecting us.”

  I wish Zila were making a joke right now, flexing that newfound sense of humor of hers. But she’s just stating the obvious. They won’t be expecting anybody to do anything this foolhardy, to take on odds this long. Because it’s suicide.

  “Auri can flatten them with her brain bullets,” I offer. “Put that in the advantage column, I guess?”

  Aurora doesn’t even smile.

  “This is true,” Zila agrees, equally grave. “However, displays of devastating psychic power would certainly draw attention among the Syldrathi armada. If we wish to maintain our advantage of surprise, we will need to blend in.”

  Auri’s gaze flicks to Zila. “We need a Syldrathi ship.”

  I frown. “Where are we going to…”

  My voice fades as I catch the look in Scarlett’s eyes. I can see the intelligence behind them, the smarts she keeps hidden behind a mask of sass and indifference. She told me once she never even wanted to join the Legion. That she only signed up to look after Tyler. And she feels her brother’s absence worse than any of us, I know. But suddenly she’s filling his shoes just fine.

  “Raliin Kendare Aminath,” she says.

  Maker’s breath, of course. The Waywalker elder we rescued on Andarael told us to find him if there was a way he could repay his debt to us.

  Scar looks across at Zila, and our Brain nods, her fingers flying across the pilot’s console. “We can be there in four hours,” she says. “Shall I set a course?”

  Scarlett nods. “Burn as hard as you can.”

  * * *

  • • • • •

  Each of us finds a way to occupy the next four hours. Zila’s at the controls, checking the readings over and over. Auri disappears to her room and closes the door. Scarlett pulls up files in Syldrathi and starts reading.

  Me? I got nothing except trying to fix Magellan, and to be frank, hearing a relentlessly chirpy summary of how stupid I am doesn’t sound like too much fun right now. Instead, I find something to eat, and I feed Zila and Scar—Auri doesn’t answer my knock—then I pace a little. I stare at the closed door to Kal’s quarters, trying to figure out what I think of what he did. But though I’m usually a galactic-class champion at dreaming up comebacks an hour or two after the opportunity to say them has passed, this time I draw a blank. I can only be certain of how it feels now that Kal’s gone. And honestly, after all we’ve been through together, it feels like someone reached into the heart of us and ripped out a fistful.

  Eventually, on a hunch, I head back to the storage bays. Sure enough, piled in a corner behind the spare fuel cells and replacement parts are drums of thick black paint. Just what we’ll need.

  This ship really does have everything.

  Gets me thinking, that. About the note in Kal’s cigarillo box. The little metal case itself sure proved useful, and the note inside it proved right.

  So, what about the other gifts we were left in the Emerald City storage box? Zila’s earrings, Scar’s pendant, Tyler’s shiny new boots. It’s like Adams and de Stoy knew what was coming for us—where we’d be, what we’d be doing—and not for the first time, I wonder how.

  I reach into my cargoes, find the ballpoint pen they gave me. I frown at it. Wondering what in the Maker’s name it’s for. I figure if the Legion commanders did know about Kal getting shot, if they knew enough to warn him to tell the truth, maybe this thing in my hand has some magic to work in our darkest hour.

  I click the button on the end, in and out. Hoping for some kind of miracle.

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  “I got robbed,” I sigh.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  When we arrive at Tiernan Station—Zila did burn it, but the clock’s still ticking—we don’t know what the reception will be like. So we ease cautiously out through the FoldGate, color restored to the ship once more. The station’s structure is beautiful, as all Syldrathi designs are. It’s shaped like a large egg, speckled all over with lights. There’s a massive Waywalker glyf painted down one side in an elegant script, and close to a hundred fighters and cruisers are swarming around the station in graceful, sweeping arcs.

  Every single one of them locks its weapons on us as soon as we appear.

  Scar leans forward to speak very carefully into the mic. I don’t understand Syldrathi, but I can follow along with the translator on my uni, and this encounter is so important that she practiced her script with me before we arrived.

  “We are here to see Elder Raliin Kendare Aminath.”

  There’s a pause, and then the reply crackles back.

  “For what purpose?”

  Scarlett breathes deep and sighs. When you’ve got no other angle, it’s always best to run with the truth, she told me. So she presses the Transmit button and dials her earnestness up to eleven.

  “We need his help saving the galaxy.”

  * * *

  • • • • •

  About half an hour later, I’m standing in one of the landing bays of Tiernan Station, carefully daubing Syldrathi glyfs down the side of an elderly shuttle. The Unbroken sigils are beautiful, elegant…but possessed of a savagery somehow. Some hint of the violence the Starslayer’s warriors adore so much. I’m following a visual guide Scar sent to my uniglass, watched by a number of very dubious Waywalkers.

  Zila’s inside the shuttle, having a piloting lesson.

  Auri has finally emerged from her quarters and is walking a slow lap of the landing bay. She moves with a kind of grace that I associate more with Kal, and she reminds me of a restless predator. She seems unaware of the rest of us. But the Waywalkers we rescued from their imprisonment on the Andarael are fascinated by her, tracking her progress back and forth. All Waywalkers have some kind of low-grade psychic ability. They’re empaths. Resonants. I’ve heard rumor some can even speak telepathically to each other. Maybe they’re sensing her new brain muscles.

  Scar is talking to the elder, who looks deeply concerned about her life choices. Though his accent is terrible, he’s speaking in fractured Terran for Auri’s benefit.

  “We cannot aid you in this,” he tells the girls. “Caersan—Void curse his name—has already destroyed our world. It has taken us many cycles to gather this enclave. We cannot risk his ire, young Terrans.”

  “I understand,” Scarlett says.

  Raliin smiles gently. “Your lie is appreciated. And we owe you a debt for our rescue aboard the Andarael, no doubt. But we Waywalkers were the smallest cabal among my people, even before our world was destroyed. And since Syldra’s fall, Caersan’s agents have been hunting us ceaselessly.”

  Auri’s eyes narrow at that. She stops her pacing, looks Raliin in the eye.

  “What were they hunting you for?”

  Syldrathi nod instead of bowing, so when the elder pauses and nods for a long, slow moment before replying, I realize these people must have some small inkling of what she is. What she’s about to do.

  “We do not
pretend to know the designs of a madman,” he replies. “We know only that we few have gathered here carefully, secretly. We cannot call attention to ourselves.” He gestures to the ship I’m repainting. “But as I said, our rescue from among the Unbroken will not go unrewarded. This is the swiftest vessel we have that is capable of being crewed by four people. And the ident codes we have given you were taken very recently by the few intelligence operatives we still have in the field. With the grace of the Void, the sheer size of the Starslayer’s armada, and the thrill of the upcoming attack, the Unbroken may not detect you.”

  “Thank you, Elder Raliin.” Scar nods deeply in respect. “If we haven’t contacted you within a day, the Zero is yours. No matter what safety you think you have here, I suggest you use her and the rest of your fleet to run. If we don’t pull this off, the Unbroken are going to be the least of the galaxy’s problems.”

  To be honest, a day sounds kind of optimistic to me. It’s now two and a half hours until the Starslayer drops into the Terran system to rearrange the furniture. And given that we’re heading straight toward him to try and stop him, the odds are good it’s two and a half hours until Caersan rearranges us as well.

  There are a lot of things I wish I’d done or said.

  But the truth is, I can’t think of anywhere I’d want to be except right here.

  Ra’haam.

  Saedii stares at me across the detention cell, her lips pursed. In the time it’s taken for me to lay it out for her—Aurora, the Eshvaren, the Ra’haam, Octavia III, Cat, the locker on Emerald City, the GIA, all of it—her blood has dried on her face, on the floor between us. She hasn’t thrown a single thought into my mind. Her expression only changed once—a quick flicker, eyes narrowing, when I mentioned the Weapon, which even now I hope the others have found without me.

  Scarlett.

  Auri.

  Great Maker, I hope they’re all okay….

  Saedii sits there in the aftermath of my confession. I expect her to laugh. To call me a liar and a lunatic, to react the way any normal person might when you tell them that an ancient plant-being that lost a war against a race of ancient psychics is set to wake up after a million-year dirt-nap and nom down on the entire galaxy.