Tyler hangs frozen, like a broken mirror, hand still on his pistol. His crew is tensed and ready, the Syldrathi poised, null blade cracking with a harsh purple glow, the gremp and Rikerite holding their breath. I can see love for Tyler in their eyes—the look of a crew who would gladly die for the one who leads them. A crew who believes.
“I missed you so much, Ty,” Aurora breathes, squeezing him tight. “We thought you were …”
None of us said it aloud then—we could not bear to. And the word hangs unspoken in the air now, as if it might attract its own kind, draw darkness down upon the little ship.
Dead.
Tyler stands still for a moment longer. His eye flickering to me. But finally, his hand slips away from his pistol, and slowly, he lifts his arms. His embrace is not ablaze with warmth, not a full surrender; I still see the tension in his frame, the burden on his shoulders. But for a tiny moment, he holds her tight, allowing himself a second of joy in a galaxy that seems otherwise bereft of it. Joy that his friend still lives.
“I missed you, too,” he whispers.
14
KAL
“That’s a hell of a story, Aurora.”
We are seated in the flickering light of the Vindicator’s ready room, a host of unfriendly eyes aimed our way. Aurora sits beside me, hand resting upon my lap. Tyler’s command staff is gathered on the other side of the table. The air is crackling with tension, animosity, mistrust.
Tyler sits in the captain’s chair, the mantle of command resting upon his shoulders as easily as it ever did. But I feel a new weight on my friend, beyond the years and scars, a weight he never used to carry.
The Tyler I knew was a tactical genius, a boy who could think his way out of the tightest of corners. But I have seen the look in his eyes before—on the faces of warriors who go to face their deaths. Tyler’s is not the face of a brave commander, struggling for victory but knowing he shall triumph in the end. His is the face of a warrior who knows he cannot win his war.
The face of a man who is waiting to die.
“I know,” Aurora says. “I’d find it hard to believe unless I was living it myself. But for us, the Battle of Terra only happened a few hours ago.”
“Lucky you,” someone growls. “Most of us have been living with your failure for twenty-seven years, kid.”
It is the Betraskan who speaks—a surly veteran named Elin de Stoy, who serves as Tyler’s second-in-command. The cybernetic monocle over her eye whirs and shifts as she holds Aurora in her black gaze. Aurora is taken aback at the jab, but keeps her temper, meeting Elin’s stare.
“I’m sorry. But I had no control over what—”
“That is a word you use a great deal, Terran,” the Syldrathi helmswoman says. “I hope you realize sorry counts for nothing at all.”
Her violet eyes glitter as she stares at Aurora in unmasked challenge. Her name is Lae, or so Tyler calls her—a curious moniker for one of my people. But I suppose these are curious times. She wears the glyf of the Waywalkers on her brow, yet she bristles with warlike hostility. Deep cracks scar the skin around her eyes, marks of pain twist the corners of her mouth, but beneath it all, there is a … familiarity to her I cannot quite place. And strangest of all, now that we are out of the Fold, I see her hair is not the silver common among my people, but a faded alloy of silver and gold.
“We hope to make whole what was broken,” I tell her, meeting the challenge in her eyes. “We think we can journey back to the moment we left, and undo what was done. But first, the Weapon must be repaired.”
“And we’re supposed to trust you?” Lae scoffs. “Son of the Starslayer?”
“From the state of your ship, your crew, what little we have seen of the galaxy, what choice do you have?”
The shadow of it hangs in the ready room now—the memory of those worlds consumed by the Ra’haam. Those corrupted ships bearing down out of the Fold, those cargo bays below full of refugees. Aurora looks at Tyler, hurt in her eyes as she speaks.
“What happened here, Ty?”
He lifts a battered metal flask, takes a mouthful, teeth gritted. I can smell the liquor from where I sit—harsh, home-brewed. Tyler wipes his lip, scratches the patch of leather covering the place his eye should be.
“What do you think happened, Auri? We got our asses kicked.”
He breathes deep, takes another swig. I can feel a weight in the room then, a scent on the air. Looking among these warriors, seeing the color reflected in their eyes, the taste of salt and rust on my tongue.
Blood.
So much blood.
“Saedii and I were captured by the GIA,” Tyler sighs. “Taken off the board to provoke Caersan. And like an idiot, the Starslayer took their bait, kicked off a war between the Unbroken and the Terran-Betraskan alliance. After the Weapon disappeared during the battle, the Unbroken pulled back from Earth, but not before massive casualties had been inflicted on both sides. And then the Ra’haam unleashed its real plan.”
Tyler shakes his head, takes another sip.
“It had covert operatives all over the galaxy by then. Using the GIA’s networks and resources, it staged a series of terror attacks against several galactic governments—the Chellerians, the Rikerites, the Betraskans—framing the strikes to look like they were perpetrated by other species. Sowing mistrust. Fracturing the old alliances. The Galactic Caucus called an emergency meeting to get the bottom of it all. Every planetary head gathered together in one place. Stupid, really.”
Tyler sighs, looks out the viewport to the stars outside.
“A Ra’haam agent detonated a bomb in the Caucus meeting. Simultaneously wiped out every top-end diplomat and head of planetary governance in the alliance. Effectively cutting the head off the Caucus. Each planet blamed the other, old grudges came home to roost. So much effort was wasted looking for the perpetrator and fighting petty squabbles that by the time they figured out what was really happening, it was too late.”
“Bloom and burst,” Aurora whispers.
“The Ra’haam hatched from its seed worlds,” Tyler nods. “Spread through the natural gates in those systems, and from there into the Fold. Trillions of spores, infecting everything they came across. Ship by ship. Planet by planet. Race by race. Dragging them all into the hive mind.
“We fought. Of course we did. But every world it consumed made it stronger. Every soldier or ship it infected shifted the tide of the battle. Until its numbers were too great to fight anymore, and all anyone could do was run. Scattering to the corners of the galaxy, lying low, hoping the hive mind wouldn’t hear them, sense them, find them. But it always does.”
The horror of it washes over us both, and Aurora finds my hand, squeezing tight. “But … you’re still fighting?”
“There’s a few of us left,” he says, motioning to his ragtag crew. “A coalition, looking for survivors, bringing them back to what little sanctuary we can offer. But it’s just a matter of time.”
Tyler shakes his head, meets Aurora’s eyes again.
“Until it has everything.”
“How is it that you stay ahead of the enemy?” I ask. “The FoldGate you opened to bring us here … I have not seen such technology before.”