Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(124)

Hmm. Maybe she’s not a perfect tactician after all.

I stick my head out, rewarded by a spray of disruptor fire from both directions. The marines are advancing quick—it’s only a matter of time before they cut around behind me and hit me from all sides.

I’m not sure how I’m gonna pull this off… .

“CEASE FIRE,” comes a cold, metallic command.

“Cease fire!” a marine LT repeats, shouting. “Corps, cease fire!”

I press back against the wall. Heart battering against my ribs. It’s one of the GIA operatives out there. Princeps, maybe, come to drag me back to my cell. Or maybe just to finish me once and for— “TYLER?”

My heart seizes up.

Even under the metal, the mirrormask, I know that voice. I’ve known it since we were five years old, that first day of kindergarten, when I pushed her over and she smashed a chair over my head.

The voice of my best friend. The girl who always looked out for me. The girl I was supposed to look out for in turn. The girl I loved, and the girl I failed.

I peek out into the corridor, and she’s standing right there. Clad head to toe in GIA charcoal gray. That featureless mirrormask over her face.

But still, I know her.

“TYLER, DON’T GO,” Cat says.

“Ma’am,” growls the marine behind her. “This prisoner escaped his cell and—”

“YOU’RE DISMISSED, LIEUTENANT,” Cat says, not looking at him.

The LT looks unsure. “Ma’am, we have orders to—”

“I AM COUNTERMANDING THOSE ORDERS,” Cat snaps. “THERE ARE THREE SYLDRATHI STEALTH CRUISERS OUTSIDE TRYING TO BLOW US INTO COMPONENT MOLECULES. I AM SURE THERE ARE BETTER WAYS FOR YOU AND YOUR MEN TO BE SPENDING YOUR TIME RIGHT NOW, LIEUTENANT.”

“But the prisoner, ma’am …”

Cat’s still staring at me, head titled.

“HE ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE. ARE YOU, TYLER?”

My eyes are locked on that mirrormask. My mouth dry as ashes.

“ORDER YOUR MEN BACK, LIEUTENANT,” Cat commands. “I’M SURE I DON’T NEED TO REMIND YOU THAT THIS OPERATION IS UNDER GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY COMMAND.”

I can see the conflict in the LT’s eyes. The orders don’t seem right, and he and his squad know it. But I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again—the Terran military doesn’t teach you to think in combat. It teaches you that you follow orders or people die. And right now, given the attack going on out there in the Fold, these marines probably do have some better way to spend their time than wrangling me.

“Yes, ma’am,” the LT nods, and pulls his crew back.

I listen to the marines retreating. Glancing down at my rifle’s power.

Eight percent.

The thing wearing Cat’s body waits until we’re alone in the smoke-filled, trembling corridor. And then I hear a small, wet hiss. The ship shudders around me.

“Tyler?” it calls with her voice again.

I say nothing. Biting my lip.

“Ty?” it calls again.

“What do you want?” I finally shout.

“I want you to stay.”

I risk a glance out, see it standing in the corridor alone. It’s still clad neck to toe in GIA charcoal gray. But it’s taken off the mirrormask now, and its face, its nose, its lips—they’re all hers. All except the eyes, glowing soft and poisonous.

“Stay with us, Tyler,” the thing wearing Cat’s body replies. “Please.”

“You’re not Cat!” I shout. “Don’t pretend to be!”

“But I am,” it calls. “Don’t you understand? I’m more than I used to be, but I’m still in here! I’m still me!”

“You’re nothing like her! You’re orchestrating a war that billions of people could die in, and for what? Just so you can infect the rest of the galaxy?”

“I’m trying to save you, Tyler,” it pleads. “Don’t you get it?” I hear a crack in its voice. It sounds like it’s close to crying. And I risk another glance from behind cover and see it standing there, hands balled by its side, and my stomach twists up like a clenched fist as I see … it is crying. Tears shining in the glow of those flower-shaped pupils. The Kusanagi shakes beneath me, but it’s not the motion of the ship that almost brings me to my knees. It’s what this thing says next that guts me.

“I love you, Tyler.”

I close my eyes. I feel each of those words like bullets in my chest. A part of me knew how she felt about me. A part of me always knew it. But Cat never said those words aloud. Not even after the night we spent together. And to hear them now …

“I love you,” it says. “So the Ra’haam loves you, too.”

Cold dread washes over me. My worst fears confirmed.

“I knew it,” I breathe. “That’s where you’re taking us. That’s why we’re still Folding. You … you want to …”

“We want you in here with us,” it says, tears spilling down its cheeks as it takes one step forward. “We want you to stay.”

I look out into the corridor again. And I can see her there. The girl who always backed me when I needed her. The girl who sat beside me in that tattoo parlor on shore leave and laughed as she poured me another shot in the bar afterward, who sighed my name as she dragged my shirt up over my head and sank with me down onto the bed. I can see her.