I glance at Zila again, see the hurt in her eyes as she watches Nari slip the uniglass back into her pocket. The station shakes. The door at the end of the corridor is marked in large white letters.
NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT.
“SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2. REPEAT: SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2.”
“Think that’s for m-me?” Nari chuckles.
“This is the farthest she’s ever got,” Fin breathes.
I nod, hope surging. “She might make it this time.”
“Zila, you need to prep the shuttle for launch,” Fin warns. “I’m gonna start working on the bay doors.”
“Just a moment … ,” she whispers.
“Attention, Glass Slipper personnel. All engineering staff report to Gamma Section, Deck 12, immediately.”
Zila watches the projection, lips pressed tight. Nari stumbles on, breathing hard but moving quick. She uses her stolen passcard, the bulkhead shudders as it groans and opens wide, and for a moment, the light flares so bright the uni screen goes totally white.
“That’s it … ,” Zila whispers.
“Great Maker,” Fin breathes.
In front of Nari we see a large circular room, bathed red in alert lighting. The walls, the ceiling, the floor are all scarred by long slashes of black—scorch marks, I realize. Conduits and pipes twist out from massive banks of computers, snaking along the floor to a cylindrical tank of glass in the center of the room. The glass is cracked, charred in places. And inside it, pulsing with light like a heartbeat, is the broken Eshvaren probe.
I feel heat on my chest, look down at my medallion and feel it pulse. As if it somehow knows what I’m looking at.
“What the hell are you doing here?” someone barks.
It’s a scientist, dressed in a heavy white radsuit. Nari turns, fires her disruptor. The man cries out and falls. Another man in white protection gear draws a sidearm, fires, and sparks rain off the computer banks as Nari dives to one side and lands hard, coughing wetly. With a gasp, she rolls upward and fires, once, twice, dropping the man to the floor. The probe thrums, the light in the room flushes purple, then drops to black, the walls shaking.
“SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2. REPEAT: SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2.”
“She’s really gonna do it … ,” Fin breathes.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT BREACH. EVACUATE DECKS 5 THROUGH 6 IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CONTAINMENT BREACH—”
“Okay,” Nari gasps, hauling herself to her feet. “How the hell do I unplug this fuc—”
There’s one minute left to the lightning strike. Even if she could do it now, we’d be too late. But I can’t look away.
“FREEZE!” someone roars.
A burst of auto-fire squeals across the feed. We hear Nari curse. As she lunges to one side, I see a squadron of sec goons pouring into the lab, weapons flaring. Nari hits her belly and rolls, blasting away with her disruptor. But she’s outnumbered. Outgunned.
We all know how this is going to end.
Over and over.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
“Flank right! Flank right!” someone shouts.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
A thundering BOOM crashes across the feed. The picture flares white.
“Nari … ,” Zila breathes.
“Goddamn it,” we hear her grunt.
The picture shudders. Nari curses in pain, dragging the uni out of her pocket. We can see her face now, spattered in blood. Hear the sound of running boots. The braying chatter of covering fire.
“Sorry, kids,” Nari gasps, teeth red. “No dice.”
“So close,” Fin whispers.
“So far,” I sigh.
Zila reaches out to the projection on the screen.
Touches Nari’s face.
“See you soon.”
BANG.
25
TYLER
I’ve gamed this out a thousand times, and I’m still not sure I can pull it off.
I tried to contact Adams twelve more times, with zero success. But it’s the night before the busiest day in his life, so I can’t be angry, and I can’t just leave a chirpy message about the threat to his station and pray he gets it.
I thought about getting myself arrested by security, begging them to let me speak to command. I considered breaking into the officers’ hab section, or infiltrating the summit itself to make some dramatic speech about the Ra’haam threat while trying not to get shot. Thing is, I’ve got no real proof of its existence, and even if I did somehow convince the planetary leaders an ancient plant gestalt is manipulating them into a war of distraction, that’s still not going to stop the Ra’haam’s agents from blowing this station to pieces.
Lyrann Balkarri offered me crash space in his suite—clearly a guy willing to play the long game—but I got no sleep. The headache is constant now, the vision too: rainbow walls and that golden-haired Syldrathi girl, hands covered in my blood. The air crackles with midnight blue and blood-red, crystal shattering around me, and last, I see the academy blowing itself apart from the inside, the best hope left in the galaxy snuffed out like a candle and plunging us all into war.
… you can fix this, Tyler …
I’m not sure I can, honestly. But I can’t see any other way through. I’ve got a few pieces on my side, and I didn’t spend all that time playing chess on the academy team for nothing.
Yeah, I was in chess club. Terrible thing for a dashing space pirate to admit, I know. But when you don’t swear or drink or chase skirt, there’s not much else to do for fun at a military academy.
Be grateful I was such a no-lifer, okay? Because I can see my enemy’s next move, clear as glass.
There’s really only one reason Cat would be among the prime minister’s protection detail. One reason the Ra’haam would send her here specifically. She used to attend this academy, after all. She knows it inside out, better than almost anyone. Its secrets. Its safeguards. Its weaknesses.
I’ve seen before that although the Ra’haam seems to know everything that every one of its drones knows, there’s still something about the individuals… . There’s a reason it sent Auri’s dad to hunt her down, and I’m not convinced it was just the power of her seeing his face. There’s a reason Cat’s here now, in this place she knows as well as her own skin.
And I know what that reason is, sure as I know Queen’s Gambit or the Caro-Kann Defense.
She’s their triggerman.
Catherine “Zero” Brannock is the one who destroys Aurora Academy.
I’m just not sure how.
An hour before the summit begins, I finally scope her in the lobby of the hab section guest wing. The summit itself is being held in the Founders’ Enclave, where Academy command holds its general assembly. It’s a massive, multi-tiered amphitheater, capable of seating a few thousand people. Hundreds of delegates are already en route to the first day’s talks, and station security is out in force. But as I watch that charcoal suit and mirrormask slipping through the crowd, I understand why the Ra’haam has waited to make its move. Attendees were arriving until early this morning, and with the influx of guests, the SecTeams are now stretched thin.
All the better for a lone pawn to slip through the line unnoticed.