“It is only the fifty-second time,” Zila says. “And Nari is doing her best. Under extremely difficult circumstances.”
Zila rises from the computer with a wince, and Lieutenant Kim offers a hand. As Zila takes it, I notice a small flush on Nari’s cheeks.
“You okay?” she asks softly.
“I am … very tired,” Zila admits.
“If we don’t get through this attempt, maybe you could take a break next run?” I offer. “Try to get some—”
“No,” Zila snaps, her lips pressed thin. “There is no time, Scarlett.”
I sigh, knowing that she’s right, but worried all the same. Zila’s operating on zero sleep, her brain running a thousand klicks a second, but she’s summed it up perfectly, as usual. We’ve got three problems, really. But all of those problems basically boil down to one big one.
TIME.
Zila tried to explain Problem Number One, but honestly, temporal physics isn’t my thing. From what I can tell, the paradox of having two versions of the exact same piece of Eshvaren crystal in this timeline is creating temporal stress, and each time we loop, the loop grows shorter. When we first arrived here, we used to get almost two hours before the station went pop.
Now we’re closing in on one.
Zila’s whole plan revolves around us being out in the dark tempest next to that quantum sail at the forty-four-minute mark so my necklace can get hit by that pulse of dark energy. But what happens if the loop grows so short that the station blows up before the quantum pulse hits?
Because here’s Problem Number Two—Nari’s fighter ship wasn’t built to withstand the energies in that storm. None of those Pegasus models were. Which means to get out into the tempest and get hit by that quantum pulse and hooooopefully get snapped back to our own time, first, we need to get to the hangar and steal a heavy shuttle capable of getting us there.
Now admittedly, compared to some of the other crap we’ve been through, this part wasn’t all that difficult after the first couple of attempts. But even with us aboard the shuttle, we keep running face-first into Problem Number Three. That’s the one that’s killing us, over and over again. And with our timeline growing shorter every time we restart, we just can’t afford to be making mistakes anymore.
The station shakes around us, and the sirens start whooping like they always do. We look at each other in the flickering red light of Pinkerton’s office, and my heart is in my throat, as usual. It’s kinda stupid, but if we’re successful, this is our last chance to tell Nari Kim goodbye. And though we’ve only known her a day, part of me feels like I’ve known her all our lives.
I pluck a hair from my head, fold it inside a piece of note paper off the good doctor’s desk. “For the DNA swab in the Dominion vault.”
“Oh yeah,” Fin says. “Almost forgot.”
He marches over to the display case near the window, smashes the glass with one exo-clad fist, and grabs the cigarillo case. Hurrying back to my side, he takes the paper from my hand and slips his trusty ballpoint pen from his pocket to write on the folded page. Nari looks down at the message as he folds it up inside the case—a warning, in Fin’s handwriting.
TELL HER THE TRUTH.
“Seems kinda pointless. Kal doesn’t listen. But this cigarillo box saves his life at least.” Fin frowns as he spins the pen through his silver fingertips. “Still, seems an awful lot of messing about with time and space just to deliver a note that Mister Tall Dark and Broody ignores.”
“Nevertheless,” Zila says, “that is what happens.”
“We hope,” I sigh.
The weight of it all presses down on us a moment—the formation of the Aurora Legion, the war against the Ra’haam, the whole future of the galaxy hanging on what we do here.
“Good luck, Dirtgirl,” Fin says, offering his hand. “Next time I see you, hopefully you’re a hundred meters tall and made of solid marble.”
“I’ll make sure not to shoot any Betraskan ladies in the face.” Nari smirks weakly. “Assuming I ever get out of this alive, I mean.”
“I’m sure you’ll do it this time, Nari,” I tell her.
“I’m trying, Red.” She sighs, scratching her chin. “It’s a big ask.”
“If anyone can pull this off, the Founder of Aurora Academy can,” I smile. “We the Legion, we the light.”
Nari squares her shoulders. “Burning bright against the night.”
The lieutenant turns to Zila, jaw clenched.
“I guess this is it. Again.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant Kim,” Zila murmurs, offering her hand.
“You too, Legionnaire Madran,” Nari says, shaking it.
The pair stand there, still holding hands, while the station shudders in its rivets and metal groans dangerously around us. Zila looks up into Nari’s face, and her expression would be a mask to most. But like I say, reading people is what I do. And I can see it in Zila’s eyes, sure as I can see those pulses of dark energy outside the viewports.
Zila likes this girl. I mean likes likes. In all the time we’ve known each other, I’ve never known Zila to really like anyone. It seems kinda cruel she had to cross an ocean of two hundred years to find someone, only to leave her behind.
And even though she’s trying to keep a lid on it, to be professional, analytical, unemotional, I realized a few loops back that having to say goodbye to Nari over and over again is breaking Zila’s heart.
Over and over again.
“Kids, we gotta go,” Fin says.
“Yes,” Zila nods. “We do.”
She lets go of Nari’s hand, gives over her beloved disruptor pistol, and slips her uniglass into the breast pocket of the lieutenant’s flight suit. Nari nods once, cycles the office door open.
“Good luck, Nari,” I whisper. “See you in 2380.”
Nari takes the stairs, but we head back down the elevator shaft, quick as we can. After a quick dodge around a sec patrol, a pause to let a flustered engineering crew rush past, we finally make our way into the chaos of the hangar level.
As we creep into the stuttering red light of the main bay, the chaos washes over us in a wave. The stench of scorched chemicals burns my lungs. The scream of emergency alarms fills my ears. I stifle a cough, breathing in the stink of charred plastic and smoke, as Finian, Zila, and I take shelter behind a stack of storage drums. Like always, a frantic-looking soldier runs past, and a deck commander roars, “Get that goddamn fire out!”
The floor shakes, and we steal on through the smoke-filled bay. The lighting is emergency red, intermittent, and even though Fin and I aren’t half as good at the space-ninja thing as Zila, we stay unseen, crouching below the wing of a Pegasus fighter.
As a pair of deckhands run past, Zila whispers, “Now,” and we dash across the deck, the wailing alarms covering the clang of our feet on the grille. I don’t breathe again until we’ve reached our target—the bulldog-nosed bulk of a heavy Terran military shuttle, waiting at one end of the hangar bay.
I’m sure Tyler would be able to tell me the make, the model, the name of the engineer who designed this thing. But the thought of my brother just hardens that lump of ice in my belly, and so I try not to think about it, instead keeping watch as Finian sidles up to the shuttle’s loading bay door and begins to work. I have no idea what kind of magic he’s weaving, but magic it is, because in a few minutes, the hatch cycles open.