Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(15)

“You are no more an officer of the Global Intelligence Agency than I am, human,” the woman sneers, her eyes never leaving Kal. “Now still your tongue before I cut it out of your head.”

“We need to go,” Kal murmurs, glancing at Tyler. “Now.”

Ty nods in agreement, eyes still on Madam Badass.

“Everybody get aboard.”

We start backing toward the Opha May’s loading ramp. The Unbroken woman tilts her head. And with zero foreplay, not even so much as a goodbye kiss, one of her chums up on the warehouse fires a damn pulse rocket at us.

It looks like a bolt of luminous green, trailing a wisp of thin smoke. Hissing as it comes. Auri shouts a warning and throws up her hands, and I see a flare of brief white light from her right eye. For a second the air around us crackles with tension, greasy and warm. But as the pulse rocket goes skimming right over our heads, I realize it’s not aimed at us.

Gruber and his crew scatter as Tyler roars at the top of his lungs.

“Everybody down!”

Kal throws himself on top of Aurora; the rest of us hit the deck as the rocket sails right through the open bay doors of my newly commandeered escape plan. The explosion rips through the Opha May’s insides and blooms out her exhaust ports. Shrapnel whizzes past my head, skims off the nanoweave armor on my back. I hear Aurora scream, Zila gasp, Fin curse. Alarms begin blaring across the docks; the crowd roars in panic. Alerts flash across the display inside my mask as a warning spills from the public address system.

“FIRE IN SECTION 12, CETA. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEAREST EXIT.”

Chaos breaks loose on the docks. Black smoke rolls in the air. Fire and explosions aboard a suborbital station are rarely a good thing, and all around us the mob begins scattering toward the transit tubes, babbling, trampling, desperate. Nozzles open up in the deck, spraying chemicals onto the Opha May’s burning shell.

I squint through the smoke and see the Unbroken stalking toward us through the panicking crowd. The young woman is in the lead, violet stare still fixed on Kal. Our Tank has his arms around Auri, and I see blood spilling from a shrapnel gash on her brow. Her jaw is slack, her eyelashes fluttering.

“Aurora?” he cries, touching her face. “Aurora!”

“M-mothercustard … ,” she groans.

I stagger to my feet, shaking my head to clear it. But the GIA armor has protected me from the worst of the blast, and I drag my disruptor pistol from its holster, aim at the oncoming Syldrathi woman.

“Freeze,” I tell her.

She stops for a moment. Perfectly still. And then she moves.

Now, I’ve seen Kal dismantle a room full of Terran Defense Force troopers in seconds. He took down two GIA agents without breaking a sweat. But Madam Badass gives a new meaning to the word fast. One moment I’m drawing a bead on her head, and the next she’s standing in front of me, her fist colliding with my chest. My breath sprays from between my lips; I feel myself lifted off the plasteel. I hear something rip, see black stars, taste blood. And then I’m flat on my back, gasping, clutching my bits.

“Scar!” Tyler roars.

“Owwww,” I groan.

“Maker’s breath, are you okay?” Finian gasps, on his knees beside me.

“No.” A low moan escapes my lips. “She p-punched me … in the ladies… .”

See what I mean about these things being a bitch to own?

I’m only dimly aware of my brother rising to his feet, aiming his disruptor at the woman who just whomped me in the ta-tas. But in a heartbeat, she slips aside from his blasts, stepping up to him in a black blur. I see her hands clap down on Ty’s shoulders. I hear an ugly crunch, an off-key squeal of pain, as her knee collides with my twin brother’s fun factory so hard I can almost feel it in our shared DNA.

Poor Bee-bro …

She grabs Ty’s arm and flips him over her shoulder, slamming him onto the deck with a force that shakes the plasteel. His wrist is still locked in her grip as she crouches low, open palm drawn back to slam into my brother’s head.

“STOP!” comes a cry.

I blink hard, watch Kal rise up from beside a semiconscious Aurora. There’s a shrapnel nick in his cheek, a thin line of purple blood spilling from the wound.

A long strand of silver hair has come loose from one of his braids, drifting across his eyes in the burning updraft.

His fingertips are wet with Auri’s blood. His beautiful face is twisted with a fury that’s all the way terrifying.

“Saedii, stop this,” he spits.

“Only you have the power to stop this, Kaliis. You belong with us.”

“No,” he says. “I am not like you.”

I look from the glyf on her brow to the identical glyf on his. The hate in his eyes, reflected in her own. The other Unbroken have gathered around us now, black armor aglow in the light of the Opha May’s wreckage. The two on the rooftops have climbed down, approaching us with more pulse rockets at the ready. Fin is crouched beside me, hand on my shoulder; Zila is next to Auri, checking over the groaning girl with a med-scanner. And I’m wondering how deep the hole we’re in can actually go when one of the Syldrathi steps up to Kal with hand outstretched.

“Come with us, comrade.”

In a flash almost too quick to track, Kal seizes the man’s wrist, bends it backward with a bright snapping sound. The man screams and Kal twists; I hear another crunch as the guy’s elbow bends in entirely the wrong direction. The other Unbroken step forward, but with a hiss, the young woman called Saedii holds them still. And as I watch, horrified, Kal sweeps the warrior’s feet out from under him and starts slamming his fist into his face. His features are twisted. Silver braids hanging about his face. Lips peeled back from his teeth. Eyes burning.