Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(52)

Logic dictated that.

· · · · ·

Logic dictates that it cannot be much longer, but still, I feel a sense of relief at the twelve-minute mark, when one of the Syldrathi smothers a yawn. I make a mental note to research what variables might have caused the gas to impact him before the others. Carbon monoxide is lighter than air. Perhaps he is taller?

I inspect the other four technicians from my vantage point. One is visibly flagging, but three still appear well. I hope the Syldrathi constitution is not, in their cases, hardier than I anticipated.

· · · · ·

It was harder than I had anticipated to keep my father safe, but I succeeded for a while. It was a small ship, but I was small too, and I had a lot of experience playing hide-and-seek. This time, though, there were no muffled giggles as I slipped away from my hunters. No secret smiles as they walked right by me.

I shoved my feelings down very hard as I climbed from the vents and into my mother’s office. I imagined myself putting them in a box and closing the lid so they couldn’t distract me.

I crawled in under her desk to where her comms equipment was plugged in, and yanked the cables free. The rig was set to auto-transmit a status update every three hours. If it didn’t, someone would come looking for answers. They might wait until we missed two check-ins, but if a corp craft was in the area, we could get lucky.

Two hours later, the equipment failed to transmit. After four hours, the raiders started bickering. Their drugs were wearing off, and their raid had not concluded as easily as they had expected. One of the men argued they should cut their losses.

The leader pointed out that (a) my demonstrated ability to calculate odds would still be lucrative for their employers, and (b) I had seen their faces and could testify against them.

But after three more hours of searching, they lost patience. They shot Miriam, despite her begging and her tears. And then they held the gun to my father’s head.

“Come out, Zila,” called the man. “I don’t want to shoot your daddy too. Just come out and he’ll be safe, Lucky Charm.”

I considered my position. If I emerged, I was confident they would shoot him and take me immediately. If I did not, perhaps they might choose to search a little longer, prolonging his life for use against me later. Giving the corp more time to send a team to investigate our silence.

I held my position.

“She’s not here,” my father said doggedly. “But if she were, I would tell her that I love her.” He looked up into the vents. Perhaps hoping that I was watching. “And that this isn’t her fault.”

The man shot him.

Then they ransacked the Janeway and left.

When I emerged from my hiding place, the ship’s emergency ionization field was crackling over the jagged hole they’d left in its side, holding the vacuum back.

I remember thinking I had a field just like that keeping my feelings at bay. I didn’t know how long it would hold, either. But I poured all my strength into maintaining it. I thought I would be better off without them.

For twelve years, I was correct.

· · · · ·

I was correct. By the sixteen-minute mark, all five Syldrathi are unconscious, collapsed over their glass countertop. I carefully remove the vent, keeping myself low as I climb up into the room. Though my heart insists on thumping, Aurora Legion training has assured me that if I stay close to the ground and work quickly, I will avoid a dangerous dose of the gas.

“HI THERE!”

I startle as Aurora’s uniglass speaks from its place on the counter, my heart now beating wildly against my ribs.

“YOU SURE TOOK YOUR TIME GETTING HERE!” it chirps, unaware of my distress. “I WAS AFRAID THEY WERE GOING TO DISSECT ME!”

“You are a machine,” I say. “You cannot be afraid.”

“SAY, THAT WAS A NEAT TRICK WITH THE GAS! YOU’RE PRETTY SMART FOR A—”

“Be quiet,” I tell it.

“YOU KNOW, YOU’RE LUCKY I LIKE YOU PEOPLE SO MUCH,” it chirps. “CONSTANTLY BEING TOLD TO BE QUIET COULD LEAD A LESSER MACHINE TO MAYBE START PLOTTING YOUR GRISLY MURDERS AN—”

“Silent mode!” I hiss.

Magellan finally complies, falling mute. I quickly gather the passkeys and the other uniglasses, then avail myself of the weaponry on offer—Warbreed technicians are more heavily armed than United Terran Authority scientists would be. And wasting no more time, I pack my haul into one of their bags before crawling back down into the vents.

· · · · ·

When I crawled down from the vents, I discovered I was too small to move the bodies, but I arranged them as best I could. Even Miriam. She had been scared, I knew that. That was why she had done it.

That was why it was so important not to feel.

Everyone here had acted on feelings, and they were dead because of it.

And because of me.

Someone would eventually be sent to investigate why the beacon had failed. Obviously my hope of a corp craft’s arrival after six hours and two missed transmissions had been optimistic—the Janeway was a minor asset. But in time, they would come. I just needed to support myself until then, and hope the force fields didn’t give out.

It was another seventy-six hours before I woke in my parents’ bed to voices above me.