Aurora Rising

by Amie Kaufman

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  I’m feeling a little naked without my uniglass, but presumably it’s somewhere in that ultrasaur’s stomach and I’m not about to wade through the mess to get it back.

  Pushing myself off the broken foliage, I sail across the enclosure and gently scoop up Auri’s limp body. She stirs, frowning at the shift in momentum as I bring myself to rest at the edge of the wall to Bianchi’s office. The polarized silicon has been cracked wide. Fragments of glass drift in the air above the pressure-sensitive floor—luckily, whatever else Aurora did, she seems to have killed the power in Bianchi’s office and the alarms along with it.

  Whatever else she did?

  Call it what it was, Tyler.

  Telekinesis.

  I touch her cheek, speaking softly. “Auri, can you hear me?”

  Cat comes to rest next to me, bloodstained and dirty, looking as shaken as I feel. But as terrifying as what we both just saw might have been, her voice doesn’t tremble.

  “She okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, glancing through the broken glass wall. “But we have to move, security has got to be on their way by now. Look after her for me.”

  I leave Cat cradling Aurora and push through the crack into Bianchi’s office. The spotlights are dead, the air filled with floating pieces of sculpture, objets d’art, alien artifacts, all knocked off his shelves by the force of Auri’s blast. A wide desk is ringed by large chairs, glass cases arranged in a widening spiral around the huge room. My heart surges when I see our target—the three-fingered statue wrought in strange metal—floating inside a tall glass case.

  The Trigger.

  I glance back to Aurora, watch her stir again in Cat’s arms. The power she’s displaying—this small, frail girl out of time—is like nothing I’ve ever seen. If I wasn’t a believer before—if Admiral Adams’s and Battle Leader de Stoy’s warnings, what happened on the Bellerophon, and Auri’s visions of the future hadn’t been enough to convince me that we’re caught up in something way bigger than ourselves, the way she squeezed that ultrasaur like a zit sure would’ve been.

  Looking into Cat’s wide eyes, I can finally see it, same as mine.

  Belief.

  I hope it hasn’t come too late.

  Cat pushes herself into the office, floating above the ground with Aurora in her arms. Auri groans and opens her eyes, blinking hard. She takes a long, slow moment to focus, to find me, to remember where she is. But then her mismatched eyes fix on the Trigger, and she tenses, coming suddenly, completely awake. Breathing quicker, jaw clenching. She looks at the sculpture, looks at me. Her voice is hoarse, as if she’s been screaming.

  “That’s it,” she whispers.

  I draw my disruptor, fire it into another of Bianchi’s display cases. Splintered silicon sprays across the room, the four-headed statue inside goes crashing into the wall. Lowering the setting, I shoot another case and watch the glass crack but not shatter.

  Better.

  I turn to the Trigger’s case, fire into the glass. A thousand cracks spread out across the surface like spiderwebs. I lift my disruptor and give it a gentle tap with the butt, and the glass shatters at the precise moment the gravity kicks back in.

  We all drop to the ground suddenly, off guard, me on my belly in a hail of glittering splinters. Cat and Auri hit the floor nearby, my Ace grunting as she lands. There’s a long, disgusting splash as the insides of the ultrasaur hit the ground outside, followed by a heavy, wet thump as the rest of its body follows. I push myself onto my knees, shaking the glass fragments from my hair.

  Bianchi’s techs must’ve engaged the secondary grav-generators.

  We had to run out of time eventually.

  I hear a series of electronic beeps at my back. The sound of heavy locks sliding away. My heart lurches at the small, somber hiss of the office door opening.

  I already know what I’ll see when I turn around, and still, my gut is full of butterflies as I glance over my shoulder. I let my disruptor fall from my fingers to the polished boards as a bloodcurdling scream of rage fills the air.

  So close.

  Casseldon Bianchi storms into the room, surrounded on all sides by his bodyguards. They’re Chellerian, every one—big as small cars and armed to the teeth. Bianchi’s four eyes are wide with rage, fangs bared in a snarl as he stalks into his office. But it’s not the smashed cases, the scene of chaos, the antiques scattered among the broken glass on the floor that make him raise his fists and scream again. It’s the long slick of gore outside the glass. The sight of his most prized pet—the rarest beast in the galaxy—reduced to the consistency of the soup of the day.

  “Skaa taa ve benn!” he roars.

  And turning on me, all four of his red eyes narrow to paper cuts.

  “Hoo-maaan,” he hisses.

  His punch lifts me off the ground, sends me back into the wall. I hit the deck on my knees, jagged pain in my gut, blood in my mouth. Bianchi grabs a disruptor from one of his goons, points it at my head. Auri screams my name, Cat raises her weapon as Bianchi’s goons all draw on her.

  “NO FIRING IN HERE PLEASE, GENTLEMEN,” comes a sexless electronic voice.

  I glance up, clutching my aching belly, breath rasping through my teeth. A GIA operative in a featureless gray suit steps into the room, flanked by a second.

  Bianchi bellows in Chellerian. He points to the splattered remains of his ultrasaur with three arms while waving his weapon at me with the other.

  “AND I APPRECIATE THAT, MR. BIANCHI,” the operative says, motioning at Auri. “BUT AS WE EXPLAINED, THIS ASSET IS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE TO TERRA. WE WOULD PREFER THAT SHE DID NOT BECOME COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN YOUR FIT OF PIQUE.”

  Bianchi tilts his head, looming over the G-man and growling in perfect Terran.

  “This is my ship. My world. You have no jurisdiction here, hoo-maaan.”

  I can’t see its face, but the operative speaks like it didn’t even blink. “YOU WOULD NOT EVEN HAVE BEEN AWARE OF THIS ROBBERY HAD WE NOT INFORMED YOU OF IT, MR. BIANCHI. SOME GRATITUDE MIGHT BE IN ORDER.”

  “If you had warned me sooner, my pet would not be dead!”

  “THE BELLEROPHON IS ONLY A FEW HOURS AWAY FROM THE WORLD SHIP, SIR. ON ARRIVAL, OUR PRINCEPS WILL COMPENSATE YOU ADEQUATELY FOR YOUR LOSSES. WE REQUIRE ONLY THE GIRL. AS FOR THE REST OF THESE TRAITORS”—the G-man gestures to me and Cat—“WE ARE SURE A MAN OF YOUR REPUTATION WILL ENJOY TAKING HIS TIME WITH THEM IN YOUR HOLDING CELLS.”

  “Waitaminute,” Cat says, stepping forward. “That wasn’t the deal….”

  I turn on her, eyes widening. “Deal?”

  She doesn’t look me in the face, staring at the GIA agent instead. “You said we had immunity! You said we could go back to our lives!”

  The agent tilts its head. “WE LIED, LEGIONNAIRE BRANNOCK.”

  “…You sold us out?” I whisper at Cat, hands curling into fists.

  She meets my eyes, tears welling in her own. “I…I did it for the squad, Ty.”

  “For the squad?” I yell. “You betrayed me for the squad?”

  “Betrayed?” Cat’s voice is incredulous. “If anyone betrayed us, it’s you!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me!” Cat points at Auri. “Ever since she came aboard the Longbow, you’ve thrown the regs
out the window! Sucking us all down into the toilet, and for what? For her?” She presses her hands to her breast and whines, “Oh, I’m so sweet and helpless, Mr. Jones, won’t you gather me up in your big, strong—”

  “That’s what this is about?” I demand. “You and me?”

  Bianchi steps forward and growls. “Enough—”

  “This has nothing to do with us!” Cat screams right over the top of him. “This is about the Legion! About the academy! Everything we worked for since we were kids, Tyler! Some skirt bats her eyes at you and you throw it all away?”

  “It was a mistake, Cat!” I yell. “I’m sorry about what happened between us on shore leave! I’m sorry I messed it up! But isn’t it about time you got over it?”

  Her eyes widen at that. “You sonofa…”

  She launches herself across the room, slugs me right in the jaw, shoves me back into a display, cracking my skull on the glass. I tackle her backward, we crash into the Trigger display, knocking it over as we hit the deck. Broken glass and flailing fists, Cat pounding on my face and screaming, screaming.

  The room dissolves into chaos: a couple of the Chellerians guffawing at the stupid hoo-maaans, the two GIA agents striding in to break us up, Auri crouching low and covering her ears as Bianchi raises his disruptor and fires into the ceiling.

  The G-men pull Cat off me, my blood on her knuckles. She’s panting, flailing, still spitting curses at me.

  “You bastard! I’m gonna kick your arse so hard, your fu—”

  “ENOUGH!” Bianchi roars. “Take them to the cells!”

  One of the G-men grabs Aurora’s arm, hauls her up from the debris. “WE WILL BE TAKING MS. O’MALLEY BACK TO EARTH, AS PER OUR ARRANGEMENT.”

  Bianchi squares up to the operative, folding all four of his arms.

  “YOU WILL HAVE EARNED THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE TERRAN GOVERNMENT, MR. BIANCHI. I ASSURE YOU, OUR GRATITUDE IS ALMOST BOUNDLESS.”

  “Perhaps while they are showing their gratitude, they can explain why they had two of their agents aboard my World Ship without my consent.”

  The G-man shrugs. “THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY HAS ONE THOUSAND EYES, MR. BIANCHI.”

  The gangster grits his fangs. But finally he growls and nods. The Chellerian goons step into the room and grab me and Cat. The GIA agents march briskly out through the office door, hauling Auri between them. With a hard shove to help us, Cat and I follow, boots crunching on broken glass, leaving Bianchi to stare mournfully out at the remains of his pet.

  We’re marched side by side, Auri and the GIA operatives out in front. Cat refuses to meet my eyes. Blood drips down my chin from the split she reopened in my lip. I can hear Auri’s breath catching in her chest, the soft metallic hiss of the G-men breathing. I can’t hear the party music anymore.

  The G-men bundle into a turbolift, press the button for the docks. One of the goons swipes a passkey and hits another button—presumably the level for Bianchi’s infamous holding cells. People who go in there never come out.

  I stand facing the doors, six Chellerians at my back, two GIA agents behind them. I ache all over. One of the goons talks to me, lips curling in a sneer.

  “I don’t speak Chellerian,” I reply, licking my bloody lip.

  “HE’S ASKING IF YOU’RE STUPID,” one of the operatives replies helpfully. “HOW YOU POSSIBLY EXPECTED TO GET IN AND OUT OF THAT OFFICE WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT.”

  I smile at the goon, then glance over my shoulder at that faceless mirrormask.

  “Tell him I didn’t.”

  The operative draws its disruptor, unloads a stun blast into the back of the Chellerian’s head. The second agent draws too, firing into one goon’s face as he turns, then dropping another with a second point-blank blast to his chest. There’s a brief scuffle, stun blasts flash again, and in a handful of seconds, every goon in the lift is laid out on the floor, twitching and drooling.

  “WELL.” Scarlett drags off her GIA mask, checking her reflection and adjusting her flaming red hair. “That went less than smoothly.”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” I say. “Is Finian okay?”

  “HIS EXOSUIT IS DAMAGED, BUT HE IS ALIVE,” Zila replies from beneath the other G-man uniform. “KAL TOOK HIM BACK TO THE LONGBOW.”

  “Could’ve gone bad,” Cat mutters. “Bastards told me they were going to wait till after we had the passkey before they stormed the flat.”

  “I think it’s safe to say we were right not to entirely trust the agents of the Global Intelligence Agency,” I smile.

  Cat smiles back. “If they were so bloody intelligent, they wouldn’t have asked an Ace to sell out her Alpha. They would’ve expected me to run right back to you and tell you everything they said.”

  I reach out and squeeze her hand, and she grins at me, feral, triumphant, fierce as the heat of a thousand stars.

  “Good work, Legionnaire Brannock.”

  “Always back your Alpha,” she says. “Always.”

  The turbolift door opens, and we’re met by Dariel on the other side. He blinks in surprise, his jaw hanging open.

  “Holy crap, it worked?” he asks, looking at the unconscious bodies in the lift.

  “Never underestimate the element of surprise,” I say, marching past him.

  We roll out into the corridor and through an airlock, heading into the docks. The place is a shambles after the gravity outage, but the cleanup crews are already at work. We move quick, Dariel shuffling alongside me, scowling and scratching his head. I’m sorry to say it, but I’m guessing Finian gets his brains from one of the other three sides of his family.

  “Okay, explain it to me again,” Dariel says.

  “THIS,” Zila notes, pulling off her helmet, “WILL BE THE third time.”

  “I’m a lover, not a thinker,” the Betraskan winks. “By the way, you got a number I—”

  “It was like Fin said,” I say. “There was no way to pull this off without getting caught. So once the GIA tried to flip Cat, I counted on it. The original plan was to snatch Bianchi’s passkey and get into his office. The GIA would hit your flat at a time they arranged with Cat, arrest Fin, cut off our comms. They’d then alert Bianchi to our scam, and everyone could roll down to the office and catch us. If the GIA worded up Bianchi beforehand, we’d just get killed by his security teams and they’d get nothing. But catching us red-handed, the GIA would look like heroes.”

  “And a grateful Bianchi would hand over Auri while the rest of us got shot,” Cat adds.

  “But the GIA hit the den early…,” Dariel objects. “Beat the crap out of Fin.”

  “So we had to go through the ultrasaur enclosure instead,” I nod. “And Kal had to storm the flat to take out the GIA instead of waiting for them in ambush.”

  “He was…kinda terrifying,” Dariel murmurs.

  “Again, sorry about the mess,” Scar says.

  “All that really mattered was getting hold of the GIA uniforms,” I say. “It’s hard to tell who’s actually under those masks. And Scar can sell almost anything.”

  Dariel blinks. “So…you went to all that trouble…just to get caught?”

  “Yeah,” I reply. “But we had to be in the office when the GIA arrived. After that, the only thing Cat and I really needed to do was get in a fistfight.”

  “Take Bianchi’s eyes off the prize,” Cat nods.

  “Make sure nobody was watching me,” Auri says quietly.

  Dariel turns as the girl speaks. And with a triumphant smile, she reaches into the bunches of bright red tulle around her waist and produces a three-fingered statue wrought in strange metal, a winking diamond set in its chest, its right eye a gleaming pearl.

  “Classic misdirection,” I shrug. “Basic Tactics, second semester.”

  “How long until Bianchi notices it’s gone?” Dariel asks.

  “Gi
ven the state of disarray we left his office in,” Zila says, “I would estimate another three to four minutes. Approximately.”

  “And the Bellerophon is still en route to the World Ship,” Cat says. “And from the sound of things, I don’t think Mr. Princeps is going to be happy about what Kal did to the only two agents the GIA had aboard.”

  “You have no idea,” Scarlett says.

  Auri blinks. “So…remind me why we aren’t running?”

  It’s a good question, and I can’t think of a good answer. And so we run. Dashing past the loaders and dockers, down through the tangled snarl of the World Ship berths, along the transparent umbilical leading to our Longbow. The airlock is open, and Kal’s waiting for us. His Uncle Enzo’s delivery uniform is spattered in blood, a disruptor rifle is in his hand. He sees us, and though he keeps that typical Syldrathi cool in place, his lips curl in a small smile.

  Aurora meets his eyes.

  His smile falls away.

  “We should move, sir,” he says.

  I nod, turn to Dariel, and shake his hand in thanks. “I don’t know what Fin owes you, but I owe you now too, Big Time. You need my help in the future, just shout.”

  Scarlett kisses Dariel on the cheek and winks. “Thanks, Romeo.”

  Dariel turns to Zila, a small smirk on his lips. “Do I get a kiss from you too?”

  “Thank you, goodbye,” she says, walking right past and into the ship.

  Aurora produces a second artifact from the folds of her skirts—it’s a small figure carved from a greenish stone. She holds it out to Dariel. “I grabbed this for you. In case you need some relocation funds.”

  He pockets it with a grin. “Probably not the worst idea,” he admits. “And thanks, those stalactites weren’t cheap.”

  The rest of us hustle aboard. With a final nod to Dariel, we seal the airlock behind us, scatter up to the bridge. Finian is already in his chair. His suit seems a little worse for wear, and he’s working on the left forearm with a small photon welder, looking bruised and miserable. But he perks up when he catches sight of us. Shamrock is sitting in his lap.

  Cat scowls at him as she slips into the pilot’s seat.