“Tyler?” Half the crew frowns every time I use his name instead of his title, but I know switching to Commander isn’t the way to remind him we’re friends. I reach out for his hand. “You okay?”
“It’s nothing,” he replies, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’ve been in the Fold a long time. I’m too old for this shit.”
Fold psychosis. I’d forgotten. Aurora Legion squads form when the legionnaires are eighteen because by age twenty-five or so, more than seven hours in the Fold puts too much strain on you. It’s why I was in coldsleep on my way to Octavia—Fold psychosis is no joke. And Tyler’s in his late forties now. Which is just weird.
What did he just see when he looked at me?
What is it doing to him?
“Never thought I’d see this place again,” I say, offering him a small smile, diverting the conversation. It’s not just that I need him on my side. It’s that I can’t bear to see him like this. “Last time I saw this view, we were following my weird backward directions, didn’t even know why we were coming, let alone that we’d soon be pulling a heist, facing down the Great Ultrasaur of Abraaxis IV.”
“Wait,” says a voice behind us. Elin, the Betraskan, is sitting forward. “That chakk about the Great Ultrasaur was true?”
“You should have seen the pants your boss was wearing,” I reply.
Just for an instant I win a smirk from Elin. Then she remembers that I disappeared at the Battle of Terra and caused the end of everything, and her expression hardens again.
“You wouldn’t believe how many favors I ended up owing Dariel over the years,” Tyler says, something about him a touch softer. “He kept threatening to collect, but he never did.” He pauses a beat and then closes his eye, rubbing at the patch covering the other. “He died six years back on a retrieval mission.”
Kal comes up to stand beside me as I search for something, anything, to say to that. But as always, he fills the void for me.
“This place has seen many battles,” he murmurs.
Tyler nods. “The Ra’haam. We’ve fought at least fifty engagements with it. No matter where we hide, eventually it tracks us down.”
“But you fight it off each time?” Kal asks.
“Hell no. We run.” Tyler nods to the massive ship. “There’s a rift drive inside her. All the rest of the Eshvaren crystal we managed to scrounge. And every Waywalker left alive in the galaxy. When the Ra’haam appears, they open up a gate and fling Sempiternity as far away as they can.”
“Giving another piece of themselves each time they do so,” Lae says softly. “Until there is nothing left.”
Tyler looks at her with concern in his eyes, lips thin.
“But the Weeds always manage to find us again anyway,” Toshh growls. “Bastards can sense us. Smell us.”
Tyler nods. “Usually takes them around three weeks. A month if we’re lucky. The last time they hit us was only ten days back, so we should be safe in this location for a while.”
I’m horrified by the thought. Of never being safe. Never being able to rest. Always being hunted by that … thing that consumed my father. Cat. Octavia. And if it gets its way, everything else in the galaxy.
The power crackles at my fingertips. Every hair on my body stands up.
I can’t let this be the galaxy’s future.
I won’t.
“What can you tell us about the council we’ll be meeting?” I ask.
“The Council of Free Peoples,” Tyler replies. “There’s four sitting members. The three largest groups of survivors supply one each, and the smaller take turns to cycle in two representatives a year. So there’s a Syldrathi from the Watcher Cabal, a Betraskan, and a Rikerite—a politician, a pragmatist, and a warrior. And right now the minority rep is an Ulemna.”
“Humans are one of the minorities?” I ask, my heart curling in on itself.
“No,” he replies, eye on the station ahead. “We’re banned from the council. Elin, get on comms and notify Sempiternity command we’re inbound. And remind them about the massive Eshvaren crystal we have in tow so nobody pops the panic button and chucks a nuke in our direction.”
“Roger that, boss,” the Betraskan nods. “I’m presuming I still shouldn’t mention the planet-killing genocidal maniac aboard it?”
Tyler rubs his chin. “That’s probably more a face-to-face conversation.”
“Why?” I ask softly, as Elin sets to work on comms.
“You don’t think the Starslayer—”
“No, I mean why are we banned from the council?”
Finally Tyler takes his eye off the World Ship and looks to me. I can see how tired he is. How angry. How sad. “Because this is our fault, Auri. Octavia was our colony. We woke the Ra’haam early. And it consumed our colonists, and they managed to get back to Terra and spend the next two centuries infiltrating the GIA, and nobody fucking noticed. Those agents sliced the heads off every planetary government in the galaxy. Ruined any chance we had to cut the Ra’haam off at the root. And to top all that off, our Trigger disappeared with the only real Weapon we had at the battle where the tide turned.”
My breath’s shallowing and my legs don’t feel right—like I need to sit down, or else I’ll fall. All this, because of me—the smallest of their hurts, as well as the biggest. Kal’s arm goes around me, and I feel the gold and violet of his mind pressing in comfortingly against mine.
“Brother,” he says quietly. “The Terrans stumbled across the Ra’haam nursery through ill fortune. Who is to say any other race would have detected impostors? And Aurora abandoned no one. You are a commander, you are respected here. So there must be some room for understanding.”
“It’s taken me most of my life to prove myself,” Tyler replies. “Forgiveness is in short supply around here.”
“Do you think there’s any chance the council will help us?” I ask, trying to still the new wave of despair inside me.
“Anything’s possible,” Tyler replies. But he’s looking at Sempiternity again, and he won’t meet my eyes.
• • • • •
We stand off from Sempiternity for another hour before the council sends for Tyler. He boards the Vindicator’s shuttle and heads off to brief them, leaving us to a silent and uncomfortable wait among his crew.
After the third hour, word comes that they’re ready, and Lae and Toshh escort us to Sempiternity. We pull into one of the docking bays along the transparent umbilicals snaking out from the station—last time I was here, they were all full, different aliens endlessly coming and going. Fin and I talked about how his people live underground, and how he didn’t like the stars.
A sky full of ghosts, he said. His words were prophetic.
You’re not dead, I promise him silently. I’ll get back in time. I’ll change the way the story ends.
When we step off our shuttle, the Sempiternity survivors are waiting for us. The corridor is lined with bodies large and small, young and old, dozens of races, hundreds and hundreds of people. Every one of them is dressed in clothes that have been patched and mended to last through the decades, every one of them silent.