by Amie Kaufman
How does she know how a Longbow’s nav systems work?
“Ytinretipmes,” she whispers. “Doogdoog.”
I hear the engines alter tone, the subtle shift of a course change. The blood’s flowing down over Aurora’s chin now, pattering on the console. She turns to face me, hand still outstretched. Her right eye aglow with a soft, warm light. My stomach’s full of ice, fear hammering in my temples. But as much as I strain, it’s like there’s some hidden weight pressing me back into the wall.
I can’t move.
I can’t fight.
I can’t even scream.
Aurora shivers, blood slicking her chin. Her brow furrows, lips moving slowly, carefully, as if she’s straining to pronounce her words.
“T-t-ttrig-ggerrrrr,” she says, pointing to herself. “Trigg—”
I hear the familiar BAMF! of a disruptor burst. Aurora’s eyes widen, and she staggers. The pressure holding me in place relaxes, and I collapse to my knees. Zila’s at the door, weapon trained squarely on Aurora.
One blast from a disruptor on Stun setting is enough to drop a full-grown Rigellian stonebull, but somehow Aurora’s still standing. She turns and Zila fires again, pistol flashing. Aurora falls to her knees, groaning, raising one hand toward our science officer. Her right eye burns like a sun. And with the kind of callousness that earned her thirty-two disciplinary citations, Zila keeps firing—
BAMF!
BAMF!
BAMF!
—until Aurora crashes face-first onto the deck.
“Zila,” I moan.
BAMF!
“Zila!”
BAMF!
Zila blinks, looks at me, finger still on the trigger.
“Yes?” she asks.
“She’s d-down,” I groan, my head splitting. “You can s-stop shooting her now.”
Zila looks at her disruptor. Down at the unconscious Aurora, sprawled on the deck. And maybe for good measure, maybe just for fun, our science officer gives the comatose girl one more blast.
BAMF!
“Interesting,” she says.
* * *
• • • • •
“We should just space this crazy slip right now,” Cat spits.
We’re gathered on the bridge, standing around the unconscious body of one Aurora O’Malley. She’s seated in one of the auxiliary stations, mag-restraints around her wrists, though I’m not sure how much good that’ll do if she wakes up. Cat, Zila, and I have our disruptors trained on her in case she decides on a repeat performance of her attack-the-gorgeous-yet-totally-down-to-earth-space-diplomat routine. I’ve got time to notice now that Zila’s wearing a new pair of earrings—these ones are small golden chains with tiny charms in the shape of weapons hanging off them. There’s a gun, a knife, a throwing star.
Did she stop for a wardrobe change before coming to my rescue?
Kal is standing silently by the doorway, a thoughtful pout on those oh-so-shapely Syldrathi lips. But at the mention of flushing Aurora, he looks at Cat.
“Do not be a fool,” he says, voice dripping with disdain. “We cannot kill her.”
“Screw you, Pixieboy,” our Ace snaps back. “She nearly flatlined Scarlett. Head out of arse, please and thanks.”
“Scar, are you sure you’re okay?” Tyler asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply. “Just a little shook up is all.”
“She really…held you in place just by looking at you?”
I nod, rubbing my neck. We’re back in the Fold, headed on whatever course Aurora locked into the navcom before Zila knocked her flat. The bruises on my wrist are a dark and ugly gray. My skin is bleached to bone in the Fold colorscape—almost as pale as the glow that spilled from Aurora’s eye as she crushed me against the wall.
“Tyler,” Cat says. “We need our heads read, keeping this girl aboard. We have to either space her right now or sedate her hard and hand her over to the authorities before they court-martial us back to the stone age.”
Kal looks ready to dish out some more insults, but before he can speak, a voice crackles over comms.
“Goldenboy, you read me okay?”
Tyler taps his uniglass. “We read, Fin, what’s your status?”
“Well, I’m down in the hold, and I gotta tell you, this is about the scariest thing I’ve seen since I walked in on my third grandparents when I was twelve.”
“Explain.”
“Well, I had a med appointment that got canceled and I came home early and found my grandmother and grandfather with a bowl of sagarine and a twelve-inch—”
“Maker’s breath, Finian, I mean explain about the hold!” Tyler snaps.
“Oh,” Finian replies. “Right. Well, I’m not sure how our little stowaway did it, but the inner doors have been peeled open like those things you dirt farmers eat. I can’t remember what they’re called…. They’re round. Orange colored.”
“You mean oranges?”
“Yeah, whatever. Point is, these doors are made from case-hardened carbite and titanium. And she bent them open like they were cardboard.”
“Flush her, Tyler,” Cat says.
Kal pushes off the wall, looming over Cat, his voice cold as ice.
“You will not hurt her.”
I suck my bottom lip, noting the calm in Kal’s voice versus the intensity in his eyes. Syldrathi body language can be tough to read beyond We are soooo much better than you, and yes, we know it, but Kal looks ready to tear Cat apart if she so much as blinks at the girl he was being a complete jackass to twelve hours ago.
Cat’s a foot shorter than Kal—maybe a little more right now, with her fauxhawk flattened by sleep. But never one to back down, our Ace squares up against our Tank. “You heard what she did in the hold, Pixieboy! In case you flunked mechaneering, our hull is built out of exactly the same material as those doors. And she buggered with my flight controls. How could she know how to do that if she’s been drifting in the Fold for two hundred years? This girl is not what she seems.”
“I agree,” Kal says simply. “Which is exactly why you will not touch her.”
Aurora groans and three disruptors immediately swing back in her direction. Kal steps in, eyes locked on Tyler.
“Sir,” he says. “If Aurora wished your sister dead, she would be dead. You saw what she did to those GIA operatives.”
“I surely did.” Tyler looks at the stirring girl, and I can practically see the cogs turning behind his eyes. “What course did she lock into the navcom, Cat?”
Our Ace blinks, lowers her weapon. Turning to her pilot’s console, she wipes off Aurora’s nose-blood with a muttered curse, stabs in a series of commands.
“Sempiternity,” she finally says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You never heard of the World Ship?” Cat blinks.
“Astrography isn’t my forte,” I reply. “I remember sleeping through most of it.”
“I remember you sleeping with—”
“SEMPITERNITY,” a small, chirpy voice twitters, and Tyler’s old uniglass lights up inside Aurora’s breast pocket. “ALSO KNOWN AS THE WORLD SHIP. LOCATED DEEP IN A NEUTRAL ZONE, SEMPITERNITY IS A TRADING HUB, OUTSIDE ANY GOVERNMENTAL JURISDICTION, RUN BY…INTERSTELLAR ENTREPRENEURS.”
“It means space pirates,” Cat offers.
“I WAS TRYING TO BE POLITE,” the device says.
“Silent mode,” Tyler growls.
“AW.”
The uniglass falls silent as Cat calls up a 3-D schematic of Sempiternity over the center console. It’s an enormous collection of hundreds of thousands of ships, all different makes and models and sizes, bolted and welded and crushed together into a vast lopsided sphere. Beautiful. Hideous. Every kind of impossible.
“Sempiternity started as a single starport,” Cat
explains. “Run by a freebooter cartel. Pirate crews would unload there, sell their spoils, head out for more. But over the past fifty years it’s accumulated more and more extensions. Ships that decide to stay and just attach themselves to the superstructure. Place goes on forever now. It’s as big as a small moon. Hence the name. The World Ship.”
I look at Aurora, still slumped in her chair. “So why does she want us to go there?”
As if she senses that I’m talking about her, Aurora groans and slowly lifts her head. Wincing with pain, she sees the three disruptors pointed at her face. Her mismatched eyes go wide, then narrow as she realizes she’s in restraints. That she can taste blood on her lips.
“Um,” she says. “If this is another vision, I’d like to wake up, please.”
“You call that an apology?” I ask.
“W-what am I apologizing for?” She winces again, slowly rolling her shoulders and neck. “And…why do I feel like I was in…a c-car accident?”
“What, you don’t remember slamming me against the wall without touching me? Or Zila hitting you with half a dozen disruptor blasts?”
A kaleidoscope of emotions cross her face. Fear. Dismay. Frustration. Genuine confusion as she looks around and realizes she’s not in the room she went to sleep in.
“N-no,” she says.
“Computer,” I call. “Replay bridge security camera footage, 01:29 ship time.”
The computer beeps, and the central display begins to play the sec reel. Aurora watches, going perfectly still when she sees herself walk onto the bridge, lift her hand as her eye starts to glow, and slam me back into the bulkhead.
“Ezigolopai,” the recording says in that strange, warbling voice. “Emevigrof.”
“I don’t…” Aurora shakes her head, looks with growing panic to Tyler. “I don’t remember doing any of that.”
“How convenient,” Cat says.
“Very,” I say.
“Auri, why did you mess with the navcom?” Tyler asks, his voice flat and hard. “Why do you want to go to Sempiternity?”
She shakes her head and whispers, “What’s Sempiternity?”
“Wait.”
All eyes turn to Zila. She’s playing idly with the tiny knife on one of her earrings, dark stare fixed on the security footage projection.
“Computer, replay footage in reverse. Real time. Include audio.”
The computer complies with a small beep, and we watch the figure of Aurora at the pilot’s console, typing backward. The rivulets of blood run back up her chin, into her nose. My dropped disruptor springs back up into my hand. And Aurora glances up at me and speaks in that strange, warbling voice. Only this time, the audio file is playing backward.
“Forgiveme,” she says. “Iapologize.”
Zila blinks at the recording. “Computer, replay sequence 02:43 to 02:52.”
The footage skips to Aurora standing in front of me, pointing to herself, her face twisted with concentration.
“T-t-ttrig-ggerrrrr,” she says. “Trigg—”
“Trigger,” Zila repeats, head tilted.
“What does that mean?” Tyler asks her.
Our science officer turns to regard Aurora with her dark eyes.
“I have no idea, sir. But I am certain that Commander de Stoy placed Aurora in our keeping for a reason. In my opinion, we should maintain course.”
Finian pipes up over comms. “For what it’s worth, I think I agree with the tiny lunatic, Goldenboy. This is getting kinda interesting.”
“I’m sure the thought of the court-martial waiting for us back at Aurora Station has no bearing on your decision, Finian?” Tyler asks.
“None whatsoever, sir.”
Tyler sighs, turns to me. It might sound like a little thing, but this is one of the main reasons my baby brother was the best Alpha in the academy. It’s also one of the main reasons I never smothered him in his sleep. He’s never afraid to ask advice when he needs it.
I think of the peeled-open door to the makeshift brig. Of the thin hull that protects us from the black waiting outside.
“We should go back to the academy,” I say. “If we talk to Command, maybe there’s some way to salvage this. We’re in over our heads here.”
“Damn straight we are,” Cat growls. “I say give her to the G-men.”
“Need I remind you all of Commander de Stoy’s warning to us?” Kal asks. “She said, ‘The cargo you carry is more precious than any of you can know.’ ” The Syldrathi looks Ty in the eye. “Admiral Adams spoke directly to you, sir. He said you must believe. What else could he have meant, if not this?”
Tyler chews his lip in thought.
But it’s Aurora who speaks. “I want to g-go home,” she says, her voice shaking. Tears begin welling in her eyes, and though she struggles to maintain her composure, it’s crumbling anyway. She looks up at Tyler. “I’m not s-supposed to be here.”
And even though she almost killed me, looking down at this poor girl, I can’t help but feel a swell of sympathy for her. I put a hand on her shoulder, squeeze it gently as she hangs her head, tears pattering on her lap.
“It’s okay, Aurora.”
“I want to wake up,” she whispers fiercely. “I want to wake up on Octavia III l-like I was supposed to.”
Zila tilts her head. “The Hadfield expedition was bound for Lei Gong III, and—”
“No, it wasn’t!” Aurora insists, a fire lighting in her tear-filled eyes as she glares at us. “I’m telling you, we were headed for Octavia! I spent years studying every centimeter of the planet, I know which one it was! I don’t know why they’re trying to wipe away any trace of it, any trace of me, but that’s what’s happening here.”
Cat rolls her eyes at the outburst, drumming her fingers on her console. Kal folds his arms, his customary Syldrathi callousness falling into place at the display of oh-so-human emotion. But Aurora doesn’t seem to care.
“I w-want to go ho-ome,” she repeats, the tears resurging as she abandons the attempt to hold herself together. “I want my family back. I didn’t ask for any of this! I didn’t ask for any of it and I want to go HOME!”
Tyler watches the girl break down, and I can see his heart in his throat. The questions in his eyes. Truth is, none of us know what the hells we’re doing out here. De Stoy and Adams might have sent this girl with us for a reason. But Tyler was raised to play it by the book, and I can see how badly this is eating at him. The thought that we’re wanted criminals, probably suspected of murdering our own people.
We’re in deeper than we could’ve imagined.
“Three votes in favor of pushing on. And three against. Squad leader breaks ties.” Tyler looks sadly at Aurora and sighs. “Cat, set a course for Aurora Academy. We’re going home.”
“Roger that,” Cat smiles.
Kal sighs and shakes his head, but he doesn’t dissent. Tyler drags his hand through his hair as Cat’s fingers fly over her controls.
“Okay, course locked,” she reports. “Should be back at station b—”
The Longbow shudders, sudden and violent. I reach out to steady myself when the ship bucks again, but I’m thrown into the wall, gasping in pain as I hit the titanium, then the floor. Brushing my hair from my eyes, I look around the bridge and see my squad scattered across the deck, groaning, wincing. Only Kal has managed to keep his feet. Finian’s voice crackles over comms.
“What in the Maker’s name was that?”
“Did something hit us?” Tyler demands.
“Nothing on scanners, sir,” Zila reports.
“Cat, report,” Tyler demands.
“We’ve…” Cat stabs at her console for confirmation. “Stopped?”
“Engines are offline?”
“No, I mean we’ve bloody stopped. Engines are at thrust, but it’s like…” Cat shake
s her head. “Like something is holding us in place.”
“Not something,” I breathe. “Someone.”
The rest of the squad follows my eyeline, until we’re all staring at Aurora. Our girl out of time has her head thrown back, her right eye burning with ghostly white light. Her body is trembling with effort, veins taut at her neck, in her arms. As we watch, another thin trickle of blood spills from her nose.
“Maker’s breath,” Tyler whispers.
“T-t-ttrig-ggerrrrr,” Aurora says.
Up on her knees, Cat has her disruptor aimed at Auri’s head, but smooth as silk, Kal steps in between our Ace and her target.
“Get out of the way!”
“You will not hurt her!”
Aurora turns her eyes on Tyler, her whole body shaking. The Longbow’s shaking, too, violent, terrifying, as if the whole ship is trying to tear itself apart.
“Buh-buh…,” she stutters.
“What?” Tyler breathes, leaning closer.
“B-b-belieeeve…”
Another tremor hits, knocking me back to the floor. The hull groans around us, the rivets squealing as they start to turn. Tyler looks at me. At his squad. At the ship around us, convulsing so hard it might fly to pieces. I can see the wheels spinning behind his eyes. Weighing up the danger to his crew. The warning de Stoy and Adams gave us as we left the station. His hand goes to the lump beneath his tunic—our dad’s Senate ring, hanging on the titanium chain about his neck. Ty’s always played it by the book. Ever since we were thirteen years old on New Gettysburg, signing on the dotted line.
The cargo you carry is more precious than any of you can know.
“Believe…,” Aurora whispers.
Tyler clenches his jaw. His hand slips from Dad’s ring to the Maker’s mark at his collar. As the Longbow shudders and shakes all around us, Ty crawls across the bucking floor, up to his command console. And as I watch, he logs in to the navcom, sets us a new course.
Almost immediately, the Longbow stops shaking. The engines pick up, and I feel the press of thrust through our inertial dampeners.
The light in Aurora’s eye flickers and dies like someone turned off a switch. She slumps down in her chair, blood dripping from her nose, out cold again. Zila runs to her side to check her vitals, Kal offering assistance. Cat’s eyes are narrowed, shaking hands wrapped around her disruptor’s grip. My eyes are on the navcom, the new course Ty just plugged in.
