Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(12)

“Um, Scarlett?”

“Yes, Finian?”

“You and Zila are still transmitting.”

“… So?”

“Um … never mind.”

“Good answer.”

Tyler breaks in before anyone can dig themselves too deep. “Okay, Scar, we’re on your six, about three hundred meters back. Clock us?”

I glance behind, see Tyler and the rest of the squad lurking in the shadow of a refueling station. They’re dressed in stolen coveralls to fit in with the rest of the dock crowd, hoods or jetball caps pulled low to cover their features. Emerald City is a pretty civilized place, and the SecDrone patrols are regular overhead—it’s a risk to be out in the open like this, is what I’m saying, especially with that bounty on our heads. But if we’re going to get to the Hadfield before it ends up at auction, we’ve gotta get off this station. And with our Longbow down and out, that means getting another ship.

“WE SEE YOU, TYLER,” Zila reports.

“We’ll be watching through your uniglasses, so keep them handy. If you run into trouble, bug out and head for the transit station.”

“Relax, little brother,” I say. “I’ve got this.”

“Not a doubt in my mind.”

“Gooooood answer.”

“The ship we’re looking for should be coming up on your right.”

I scan the crowd around me, grateful for once that I’m tall enough to see over it. And if you think being a six-foot-tall girl sounds like a party, I invite you to try buying pants that fit. Or finding a boy who isn’t weirded out about being shorter than you.

The spaceport is on Emerald City’s upper level, closest to the dome of charged particles that keeps the poisonous atmosphere at bay. These docks are just as colorful and frantic as the city’s bazaar, though there’s a different kind of urgency up here. The security lockdown caused by our gremp-related escapades lasted twenty-four hours before the authorities were forced to lift it, which means every ship in port is now a full sol behind schedule. Captains are roaring at their crews, auto-dockers and refuelers are working at redline, the air is abuzz with loader drones.

Off to our left is the transit station, a dizzying tangle of transparent tubes zipping people and freight off to other levels. And to our right, on one of the midsized landing pads, I see a sleek, almost retro-looking cruiser.

She’s gunmetal gray, heart-shaped, highlighted by long white racing stripes down her flanks. The name Opha May is sprayed near her bow. Prow? Eh, I don’t really know the difference. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been interested in spaceships. I slept through most of my mechaneering classes, apart from a four-week stint in third year when I was paying attention to impress a boy.

(Liam Chu. Ex-boyfriend #32. Pros: Wrote me love songs. Cons: Cannot sing.) But Tyler tells me the Opha May is a good ship. Small enough for a crew of six. Fast enough to outrun most trouble and punchy enough to fight off the rest. And if my baby brother knows about one thing besides infuriating me, being a know-it-all, and having perfect hair, it’s ships. It’s one of the reasons he and Cat get along so well.

I mean, got along so well.

Oh hells …

And just like that, my eyes are burning again. My heart is aching at another reminder she’s gone. I’d known Cat since kindergarten. We were roomies at the academy for five years. And it’s stupid, but it’s the little things about her I miss most, because they were the constants in my life, and it’s so continuously obvious they’re gone now.

I miss the way she’d talk in her sleep. Hide my socks in a friendly attempt to drive me totally insane. Borrow my stuff without asking. Those little touches from Cat all day, every day, were how I knew she was around. They were the reassurance of her presence. And her presence meant I always had my best friend with me. I always had my partner in crime. I had all the bigger, harder-to-articulate things that came with Cat being a part of my life.

I found a stick of her eyeliner in my bag last night, and I cried for an hour.

So I let myself feel it now. Let it wash over me for a moment that seems to last forever. I don’t want to deny how bad it hurts, because in some way that’d be denying all she meant to me. But then I breathe deep and push thoughts of Catherine “Zero” Brannock from my mind. Focusing on what I need to do.

Because that’s what Cat would want me to do.

Zila and I walk toward the Opha May, and the crowd gives us a wide berth. I bet it’s not often that agents of the Global Intelligence Agency travel this far out from the Core, but their reputation as People You Do Not Mess With ensures that even among this mob of aliens from across the ’Way, nobody messes with us. Burly Chellerian workers take one look at our uniforms and step aside. Packs of sour-faced toughs in union colors part like smoke. I swear even a loader drone scurries out of our way as we step up to the landing pad. I think about the faces of the people we found inside these uniforms, Auri’s dad and the rest, all of them totally corrupted by the Ra’haam. And part of me wonders just how far that corruption spreads.

I push the thought away for another day and look over the small group of men and bots at work on the ship in front of us. The crew is a mix of skin tones, but all of them are Terran. Which, of course, is why out of every vessel in the Emerald City dock registry, Ty picked this one.

“That’s the captain on the loading ramp,” Finian says over our uniglass link. “The shouty male with the fur-thing on his faceparts.”