“You okay?” he asks softly.
She nods, tossing one silver-gold braid off her shoulder. “I am well.”
“If you want to fall back …”
He nods to the throne room behind us, fixing her with his one good eye.
“To guard Aurora …”
Lae raises her null blade, the crackling glow setting her irises aflame. I can sense the Ra’haam coming now, feel the pressure of its mind pressing down on my own. I can see the cracks around Lae’s eyes, the toll of the countless battles she has fought—that they have all fought—to keep this tiny flame alive. And even in the face of its fading …
“My father taught me to fight with courage,” she says, defiant. “But my mother taught me to die with honor.”
Tyler shakes his head. “Lae—”
“No,” she says, meeting his stare. “I do not fear the Void, any more than she did.”
I look between the pair, wondering at the truth of them. They clash like fire and ice, but they are not simply commander and soldier, that much is clear. I can sense a thread between them now, if I try. Thin as a strand of spun sugar but still, strong as star-forged steel.
“Incoming!” Toshh roars. “This is it, people!”
I suppose it does not matter now.
The enemy is upon us.
The song of battle fills the air.
And then there is no more time for words.
30
TYLER
TICK, TICK, TICK.
My heart is thumping a hundred klicks a second now. The image of the academy blowing apart is running on replay, over and over in my head. My pulse pistol is clutched in my sweating hand, the knife Saedii gave me is heavy on my wrist.
TICK, TICK, TICK.
Admiral Adams continues his speech to the assembly above, oblivious to the calamity unfolding below.
“You’ve gathered here to discuss the growing tide of unrest among the many worlds of our galaxy. But before talks commence, another matter should be brought to your attention, one that concerns not only every species here present, but the life of every creature in the Milky Way.”
The shape of the reactor core rises ahead of me—three towering cylinders in a vast circular room, running right through the academy’s spine. The walls are lined with heavy conduits, the bright screens of control terminals and monitor stations punctuating the low, pulsing light.
The temperature in here is boiling now, almost too hot to bear. Steam rising, hissing, coiling. Cat has disengaged the cooling lines, pushing the reactor toward overload, while somehow killing the alert systems.
Looking around, I can see shutdown terminals pried open, alarm relays and overrides disengaged. More dead bodies littering the floor. Their necks are broken, spines twisted, mouths open in silent screams.
Cat, what have they done to you?
“The Aurora Legion was established over two hundred years ago, in a time of darkness and strife, in the wake of a war we wished never to repeat,” Adams says, voice echoing through the amphitheater. “Since then, we have functioned as a peacekeeping force, serving the interests of the sentient races of the galaxy. But that has not been our only purpose. And I’m afraid Battle Leader de Stoy and I have not been entirely honest in our reasons for gathering you here today.”
I hear murmurs ripple among the summit audience.
The floor begins shaking beneath my feet.
Adams draws a deep breath, looks around the delegates as the image of a large blue-green planet appears in the holo floating above his head.
“Representatives, delegates, friends, this is the planet Octavia—”
And without warning, the feed sputters and dies.
The lights around me flicker, red to strobing white. The floor shakes again beneath my feet. The light from the reactor burns brighter, the heat more intense, and through the shimmering air I spot her, bent over another terminal, the burning light of the core reflected in her blank mirrormask.
She doesn’t know I’m here. She’s intent solely on her sabotage. I sink slowly to one knee, thumb the power setting on my pulse pistol to Kill. Focusing only on the uniform. The threat. Not thinking about the girl underneath, the girl I used to know, the girl who begged me to stay.
Tyler, I love you… .
I take aim with my pistol, right at her heart.
One shot, and it’s over.
TICK, TICK, TICK.
“JONES!” comes a roar. “FREEZE!”
I turn, heart sinking as half a dozen Legion security troopers pour through the blast door behind me, their disruptor rifles raised. Glancing back at my target, I see Cat whirl away from her terminal, hear a sharp intake of breath turned metallic by that faceless mask.
“TYLER.”
Cat draws a long, sleek GIA-issue blast pistol from inside her uniform.
The troopers behind me roar a warning.
I crack off my shot, but Cat dives aside, unloading her own weapon at the SecTeam. And the air is filled with the BAMF!BAMF!BAMF! of Legion disruptors, the sizzle of Cat’s blaster, the hiss of my own pistol as a three-way firefight for the future of the galaxy breaks out in the reactor room.
I dive behind a bank of computer terminals for cover, roaring to the SecTeam, “She’s trying to blow the reactor core! We’ve got to—”
I hear the bright ping of metal on metal, my eyes widening as two flash-pulse grenades hit the ground beside me. Gasping, I throw myself clear, buffeted by the blast as the explosives detonate. I’m thrown hard into the wall, collapsing to the ground behind a bank of steel piping, tasting blood on my teeth and tongue, ears ringing with static.
“I’m on your side, you ASSHOLES!”
I see movement—a sleek shadow dashing through the dark to another terminal. I duck out from cover to shoot, but a burst of disruptor blasts opens up at my back—BAMF!BAMF!BAMF!—and I’m forced behind cover again, the air about me sizzling.
I’m pinned down.
There’s no way I can get to her.
“Cat!” I roar. “Cat, please don’t do this!”
No reply but the heavy tread of Legion boots on metal. More troopers are pouring into the room now, fanning out to flank me. I don’t want to shoot them, they’re my people—We the Legion. We the light—but if they catch me flat-footed, with all those dead personnel on the ground at my back and the charge of mass murder and galactic terrorism over my head …
“Cat, please!” I shout. “I know you can hear me!”
“Jones, it’s over! Toss your weapon!”
I catch a glimpse of her through the swirling steam. The pulsing light. The thrumming, boiling air. But I don’t have a clear shot. My breath is hammering. My body dripping. That image playing over and over in my aching head: crystal splintering, academy exploding, that voice, that voice now begging, screaming in my head.
… You can fix this, Tyler …
FIX THIS, TYLER.
I draw a deep breath. Think of my sister. Of Saedii. Auri and Kal and Fin and Zila. And whispering a prayer to the Maker, I dive across the floor, pistol in hand as I roll up onto my knee, drawing aim right at Cat’s head.
BAMF!
The blast hits me in the hip. Pain rips through my body, the blast burning clean through my flesh as I gasp in agony, cracking off my shot. I see it strike Cat in the left arm and she whirls, hissing in pain.