“We picked up the power spike on long-range scans,” Tyler says. “You’re damned lucky we did, too. We were headed back to …”
He catches himself before saying more, his voice fading. He looks to his readouts, the incoming Ra’haam ships, chewing his lip in thought. I can see his mind: the distrust, the anger, battling with the proof before his eyes. He stares at Aurora, and she gazes back, unfailing hope in her eyes, softly speaking two words: the same message Admiral Adams passed to us what feels like a lifetime ago now.
“Believe, Tyler.”
“Thirty seconds to weapons range, boss,” the Betraskan says.
And finally, Tyler Jones sighs.
“All right. I don’t know what the hells is going on here, but we got incoming Weeds and I just spent most of my fusion bombs. I suggest we continue this conversation a few light years the hells away from here. Are your engines still operational?”
I look to Aurora, the bloodstains on her upper lip. Perhaps it is my imagination, but the small cracks in the skin around her right eye seem … deeper. But she nods anyway, her eyes alight. “I can move us.”
“All right, follow our lead. Lae, spool up the rift drive and—”
“You cannot mean to bring them with us?”
It’s the Syldrathi woman who speaks, sitting at what I presume is the helm. She is only a little older than I, fierce and slender with long, flowing braids of silver. The Waywalker glyf is scored on her brow, but there are deep cracks in the skin around her eyes, similar to those that mark Aurora and my father. And when she speaks, it is with the fury of a thousand suns, staring at Tyler in disbelief.
“That sounds like you questioning my judgment, soldier,” Tyler replies.
“They ride with the Starslayer!” she spits. “The blood of ten billion Syldrathi on his hands! The death of the galaxy at his feet!”
“Quiet your noise, child,” my father sighs, leaning back on his throne. “From your look, you could not even have been alive when Syldra fell.”
“My mother told me of you, cho’taa,” she hisses, violet eyes narrowed to slits. “I know exactly what you—”
“Spool up the rift drive, Lieutenant,” Tyler interrupts. “I want us out of here now.”
The Syldrathi woman glowers at Tyler, but his tone is hard, unforgiving. After a moment of silent struggle, she acquiesces, bows her head.
“If I am bringing them with us, we cannot go far. A rift that large—”
“Where doesn’t matter, Lieutenant. As long as it’s away from here.”
She clenches her jaw. “Yessir.”
“Auri, Kal,” Tyler says. “Follow us through. And just in case that bastard sitting behind you is getting any ideas in his pretty head?” He glares at my father, his good eye ablaze. “We’ve still got a few nukes left, Starslayer.”
My father is not even looking at the screen anymore, treating Tyler as beneath contempt. But Auri nods, jaw set. “We’ll follow you, Ty.”
“Strap yourselves in if you can. The ride’s a little bumpy.”
The transmission ends, and with a glance, my father banishes the projection he’s summoned. The light about us dies, the throne room dimming to a darker shade of blood-red, reflected in my father’s eyes.
“Weakling,” he murmurs.
Beside me, Aurora watches him, eyes narrowed. And pursing her lips, she holds out her hand toward the center of the room where the projection was. The air shimmers. I feel the power in her swell, a tiny spark shining in the white of her right eye. Another image appears—a view from outside the ship, conjured by the power of her mind.
I look at her, wary, but she smiles back at me.
I realize she is learning how to wield it. She is mastering this place.
But what is it going to do to her?
I see Tyler’s vessel—a strange amalgam of Syldrathi and Betraskan and Terran technologies, as if cobbled together from the pieces of half a dozen other ships. It is not beautiful, but it is functional, built for war. The name VINDICATOR is painted down her prow.
My breath catches as I see a glow begin, a tiny point of light against the backdrop of the FoldStorm. The light grows in intensity, spreading wider, like a tear across the fabric of the Fold. And I realize what I am seeing—a FoldGate, crude and temporary to be sure, but large enough for us to pass through in the Neridaa, into the solar system beyond.
The thrusters on Tyler’s ship flare bright, and his vessel soars through the rift it has torn, vanishing out of the Fold. Aurora lowers her chin, a frown darkening her brow, and I take her hand as I feel us begin to move—this mighty vessel, bigger than a city, more powerful than any weapon developed by Syldrathi or Terrans or any other.
And my be’shmai moves it simply with the power of her thoughts.
We reach the rift, and the Weapon begins to shake around us. Violent. Sudden. Enough to throw me off my feet.
But I feel a gentle pressure, and the glow in Aurora’s eye burns brighter, her power keeping me upright. The Neridaa trembles as we cross the threshold, white light like a supernova, all of space stretching and inverting around me.
And as suddenly as it began, it is over.
All is silence. The space I see projected outside our hull is not the bleached colorscape of the Fold anymore, but the vibrant and rainbowed hues of realspace. A red star burns distant. Nearby, an ice giant of methane and nitrogen hangs in the gloom, silent and green and forever frozen. There is no sign of Ra’haam ships pursuing us, the tear in space closing behind us with one final shimmering flare of sun-bright light.
And we are safe.
For now.
“They’re hailing us again,” Aurora murmurs.
I glance to my father. He is watching Aurora like a hawk now as she focuses her gaze and shifts her fingers. The image projected in the room’s heart shimmers, and again, I see the war-worn face of Tyler Jones.
My chest might normally ache at the sight of him—the marks the cruel hands of time have left on my friend’s skin. But I am more interested in my father now, studying Aurora like a drakkan with its prey. She is learning the workings of the ship quickly—she was made for this task, just as he was. Both Triggers of the Eshvaren. Both able to wield this Weapon, for good or ill. And looking into his eyes, one of them now softly aglow, I know she is in danger.
Caersan will tolerate no rival for this throne.
“You two all right?” Tyler asks.
“We are well, Brother,” I tell him, my eyes not shifting from my father. “We thank you for your aid.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Tyler growls. “Every member of my command staff is telling me I need my head examined. You’d better get your asses over here and bring a damn good explanation with you. Because in all honesty, I’m about halfway convinced to leave you for the Weeds.” He leans forward, glowering. “By the way, the invitation doesn’t extend to that mass-murdering psychopath sitting behind you. Because if I lay eyes on him in the flesh, I’m gonna blow his fucking brains all over the floor.”
My father raises one eyebrow, and yawns.
“Vindicator, out.”
• • • • •
We walk down to the docking bay together, and on the way Aurora pauses at the place she left her boots when she first entered the Neridaa. She is still for a moment, toes curling and flexing against the crystal as though she is loath to break contact with it, and then with a sigh, she sits down to pull on her socks and lace up her boots.