I shake my head, almost laughing.
“You are such a fool.”
“And you are a child,” he snarls. “Ever your mother’s son.”
“And proud of it!” I roar, rising. “And if you had given me but one drop of the ocean of love she did, I might still say the same of you! But all you are is hate!” I spread my arms, taking in the shaking ship, the broken rainbow light. “And this is what comes of it! The end of a galaxy! And for what?”
“For the honor of our people, boy!”
“You killed our world! You killed our people! What honor lies in that?”
“They were traitors!” he roars. “They sought peace with the Terrans! No true child of Syldra would abase themselves by lying with our enemies!”
“Tell that to your daughter!”
He falls still, burning eyes gone wide. “What—”
“Look at her!” I shout, pointing to Lae.
The walls around us tremble. The rainbow light darkens. Aurora’s mouth opens and closes, as if she would speak.
He breathes soft, staring bewildered at Lae. “My …”
“You taught us war,” I tell him. “You taught us fear. You taught us blood and rage and enemy. And yet even Saedii found it in herself to love a human. To bear his child. To die defending all you left broken in your wake.”
Tears burn on my cheeks as I look to my niece.
“Your children have stood in the shadow of your hatred all their lives. And still, Saedii made something this beautiful.” I turn to my father, shaking my head. “Imagine what we could have made, if only you had loved us.”
“Fix this… .”
I turn, see Aurora floating in the center of the room. The power wells within her, enveloping me, us, refracting from the broken crystal around us. Tears brim in her eyes as she looks to my father.
“It is not broken!” he snarls.
“Caersan, I can’t do this alone.”
She reaches toward him, all the galaxy in the balance.
“Fix this.”
32
THREE ONE TWO
Scarlett—fourteen minutes remaining
Zila’s in my arms, all sharp angles to my softness, and I wish this wasn’t the first and last time I’ll ever hold her. I’m a snotty mess, and even though I know she’s right, I don’t know if I can take one more loss. I can do what I have to do, but what will be left of me on the other side?
But she gives me this moment, doesn’t pull away, just stays in my arms, real and whole and a part of my life for a few seconds more. And then … then something unwinds inside her, and she relaxes against me, head on my shoulder for a single heartbeat.
And I know she’s ready. She’s become who she needs to be to do this. And the parts of that transformation that don’t come straight from her, they were gifts from us.
I look up, eyes still swimming with tears, and Nari’s gaze is waiting.
I promise I have her, those solemn eyes say.
I squeeze Zila one more time, still looking across at the girl who’ll guard her for us. She’s everything, my own gaze tells her in reply. And, She needs someone to care for her.
Lieutenant Nari Kim simply nods. She already knows. She sees.
I draw back, let Zila go, and Finian slips a hand into mine. There’s nothing more to say, and no time to say it anyway. So the two of us turn, and we run.
Zila—twelve minutes remaining
It is strange to be following Nari instead of guiding her through comms, but I know every step as if I have run it myself a hundred times. Nari and I take a corner, flatten ourselves against a doorway, counting precious seconds as the patrol passes by at the end of the hall.
Finian and Scarlett will divert them in a moment. And so Nari and I will reach the core forty-five seconds sooner than she has before.
It would not be enough for her on her own. But it will give her time to defend me.
Together, we can do this.
Finian—ten minutes remaining
“Maker’s hairy—”
“Less talk, more run!” Scar gasps.
The sec patrol pounds down the hallway behind us, radioing for backup and probably immediate missile drops on our current location. There’s a Betraskan aboard their station, and now they know it.
So the good news is, we’ve distracted them. The bad news is that we’re nearly at the docking bays, and if we don’t lose the goons on our tail, stealing a ship is going to be preeeeeetty tricky.
Then I see it, up ahead at the intersection, mounted on a wall bracket. If it comes out easy, we live. If it sticks, we die.
“Scar,” I gasp. “Bank left.”
She doesn’t question—throwing herself around the corner just as I’m grabbing the fire extinguisher and yanking it free. And with a prayer to the Maker, I hurl it back at the goons chasing us.
They try to shoot me—one of them comes so close I almost get a haircut. But their shots also hit the extinguisher, blasting it apart. In a moment, the whole corridor is filled with fine white powder, and I’m blinded by it, inhaling a sharp chemical mouthful and feeling my way through the pale cloud to the door Scarlett’s holding open.
I slip inside, both hands clapped over my mouth to muffle my gasping coughs. The door hums closed, and we listen as the patrol reaches the intersection, curses up a storm, and divides four ways, pounding away from our hiding place.
Suckers.
Zila—eight minutes remaining
Liebermann went down without shooting Nari this time. The security guards outside the lab have been incapacitated. We reach the sign.
NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT.
“SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2. REPEAT: SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2.”
A stolen passcard against the door. A deep electronic hum.
And the announcement that tells me there are eight minutes remaining until the implosion of the station and the end of our final loop.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT BREACH ESCALATION UNDER WAY, ENGAGE EMERGENCY MEASURES DECK 9.”
And I am here in person, in the large circular room I have seen over and over through Nari’s eyes. A cylindrical glass case dominates the space, cords and conduits connecting it to the computer banks against the walls. Our target is within, cracked and suspended midair, pulsing with light.
The first time I saw one of these probes, Aurora touched it, and lived half a year inside the Echo with Kal. I wonder briefly how they are. If they make it. If all of this will be worth it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Nari stuns the man in the white radsuit. Stuns his companion before he has time to draw his sidearm this time. I drop to my knees, plunge my hands into the machinery, narrowing my focus to the task at hand.
This moment is all that matters.
“Twenty seconds till company arrives,” Nari murmurs, perfectly still, eyes fixed on the door. A hawk hovering, waiting for her chance.
The system to eject the crystal out into space is mechanical rather than electronic—in case of a power failure, I suppose. There are four locks holding the probe in place, one at each compass point, and all must be disengaged manually. But the mechanisms are heavy, bolted shut. Scanning the floor around me, I crawl toward one of the unconscious engineers. Shoving him onto his back, I search his tool belt, grabbing a heavy wrench.