Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(30)
Zila nods. “The black box from the Hadfield is our next objective.”
That pronouncement breaks the somber mood that settled over the table, and Tyler nods, transforming into Goldenboy again with a quick toss of his head. He squares his shoulders, speaks with authority.
“Okay,” he says. “It’s been a Day. Let’s grab some food and strategize, then once we’re through the FoldGate, we can try and get some downtime.”
The confidence in his voice seems to galvanize the rest of the squad, and everyone is soon moving again—turning to their displays or rummaging in supply lockers or prepping for the Fold. I look down at my gift on the console in front of me—dull, metallic, about as useful as a spacesuit without an oxygen supply.
With a sigh, I tuck the pen into my top pocket.
“I sure hope we know what we’re doing.”
· · · · ·
A few hours later I’m on watch, feet propped up on the center console to ease the twinge in my lower back. It’ll be a longish Fold to get to the gate nearest the convoy—longer Folds can come complete with anything from paranoia to the shakes to psychosis, but we’re all young enough that we should be fine on a jump like this.
Once you hit twenty-five or so, it becomes a very different equation. After that age, you can’t travel through the Fold for long without being put into stasis. That’s why Aurora Legion squads start so young. We graduate around eighteen, and we get seven years before we mostly move to desk jobs.
Sometimes I’ve wondered whether the stress on my body will mean I get less time before the Fold starts to wear on me. But hey, as Scarlett would say, upside: I’d need to be alive for it to become a problem. And the odds of that are bad at best.
If Ty knew what shape my suit was in, he wouldn’t have given me a watch at all. But he still hasn’t completely worked out how bad it is, and Scar has respected my requests to keep it under wraps. It won’t be an issue soon, anyway—I have everything I need in my cabin for repairs, and once my suit’s properly aligned and functioning, it’ll take the strain off my muscles and let them start healing too.
I check the scanners for the fifth time in as many minutes. We’re still on course, no pursuit, my displays reduced to sharp monochrome like everything else in the Fold. Black and white isn’t a huge stretch for a Betraskan—life underground isn’t very colorful at the best of times. But I sometimes wonder if my squaddies get weirded out by it.
I hear soft footsteps and look up from my displays to see Auri emerging from the passageway in a sweater and pajama pants. She must have been to visit the super-sleek galley in the stern, because she’s holding two steaming mugs.
“Hey, Stowaway. Couldn’t sleep?”
She answers with a little shudder. “Bad dreams.”
I make a sympathetic face and pull my feet off the console, reaching across to take my mug from her. It’s baris, a favorite drink of my people that nobody else in the galaxy really likes.
“Wow,” I murmur. “They really stocked the galley with everything.”
“You’re telling me,” she agrees. “I never thought I’d see chamomile again.”
I lean across to look at her drink, and she holds out the mug so I can inhale the steam. “Smells like flowers,” I decide.
“It’s one of my faves. It’s traditionally for before bed. Helps you wind down.”
“Chamomile.” I repeat the word to commit it to memory, in case I need to make it for her sometime. “You want to talk about the dream? A load shared is a load halved.”
She smiles. “Is that some ancient Betraskan wisdom or something?”
I shake my head. “Read it on a coaster at a skin bar. But, you know, sometimes dreams aren’t so bad when you say them out loud.”
Even as I’m saying that, I’m thinking about the dreams she’s probably having. About the one I had, when I saw Trask covered in blue snow that turned out to be the pollen of the Ra’haam. It’s the fate that awaits my homeworld if we fail to stop the Ra’haam from spreading. The fate that awaits the whole galaxy.
She closes her eyes and sips her tea.
“It was what you’d think,” she says quietly. “It wasn’t Octavia this time. Too many moons. And the sky was greener. But the plants were the same. Except they felt bigger and stronger. I was trying to look more closely, but the pollen was too thick to see. I think there were … buds. On the plants.”
A finger of ice traces a path down my spine.
Her voice is a whisper. “I think it was getting ready to bloom and burst.”
I don’t really know what to say to that. I’m wondering how I’d feel if it was me in her position—if the whole galaxy was resting on my narrow shoulders, not hers. I’m trying to figure out a way to tell her how brave I think she is. How most people would have just flown to pieces if they’d lived her life over the past few weeks. But I’ve never been good at Peopling. I never know what to say.
Fortunately, I’m rescued from my struggle by the arrival of Scar and Kal. They both look sleepy, but Kal’s taken the time to pull on his uniform, his hair as immaculate as ever. Scar’s in a silky wrap thing that invites me to imagine what she’s wearing underneath it. I do my best not to, with mixed results.