Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(56)

“I will warn you once, little Terran. Where the Starslayer is concerned, watch your tongue. Or watch me hand it to you.”

“He’s a madman,” I spit. “And he—”

I don’t really see her move, I just feel the strike—the heel of her palm into the bridge of my nose. I feel a crunch, see black stars, taste blood in the back of my throat. I tumble backward off the chair but quickly to my feet, my ribs still aching from the battle with the drakkan. The world is blurred with tears, and I only catch a glimpse of a dark shape before two hands clap down on my shoulders—

Oh Maker, not again …

—and a knee crashes into my groin. The black stars in my eyes burn through to white, and for a moment I’m nothing but the pain, dropping to my knees, crumpling to the floor, curling up into a ball of agony and misery. It’s all I can do to remember to breathe, and I’m waiting for those silver-tipped boots to start dancing on my throat when a voice cuts through the burning haze.

“Templar. Forgive my interruption.”

The boots never land. I recognize the voice—it’s Saedii’s second-in-command, his voice distorted slightly by the comms system.

Through the tears, I look up and see Saedii touch the transmitter on the breast of her uniform. Her voice is cool, and she tosses one black braid off her shoulder as she smiles down at me, completely unruffled.

“What is it, Erien?” she asks.

“We have detected several vessels on intercept course with Andarael,” the lieutenant reports. “Approaching us from multiple headings.”

“Who are they?”

“Terran capital ships. Four destroyers. Two carriers.”

Maker’s breath. That’s not just “several vessels.” That’s an assault fleet… .

“Ignore them,” Saedii replies. “The Terrans would not dare risk violating neutrality by accosting an Unbroken vessel. Maintain course for the Neridaa.”

“They are moving at assault speed, Templar. And they are hailing us.”

That gives Saedii a moment’s pause. What she said is true—ever since the Syldrathi civil war broke out, Earth has been bending over backward to avoid getting involved with Syldrathi affairs. It’s hard to blame them, really—the Starslayer not only destroyed his own homeworld but somehow caused the Syldrathi sun to collapse upon itself. The subsequent black hole wiped out the entire Syldra system and several uninhabited systems nearby.

Nobody wants to get on the wrong side of a man with that kind of power.

But now there’s a Terran fleet on intercept course with us?

Andarael is a massive capital ship herself—Drakkanclass, the biggest in the Unbroken armada—but that doesn’t mean her oh-so-cool commander wouldn’t be at least a little worried at tackling a Terran attack force that size.

“Transmission onscreen,” Saedii says.

I blink away my tears, the screaming pain in my groin receding to a mumbling ache as one wall flickers into life. For a moment, there’s only white light, burning on the back of my eyeballs. Then the white coalesces into a familiar shape, and as I force myself up into sitting position, I feel my stomach flip.

I see the winged crest of the Terran Defense Force. The ship ident KUSA NAGI emblazoned beneath it.

I see a Global Intelligence Agency uniform, spotless and white.

A smooth, featureless mirrormask.

“SALUTATIONS FROM THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, TEMPLAR. YOU MAY REFER TO ME AS PRINCEPS.” Its voice is sexless. Metallic. Giving no hint of who might be behind that mask. But I know the man, the monster, beneath that flawless uniform.

Auri’s father, Zhang Ji.

Or what’s left of him, anyway. He was just one of hundreds of Octavia III colonists consumed and assimilated by the Ra’haam. They’ve been working in the shadows for two centuries, infiltrating the GIA and Maker only knows what other arms of the Terran government. Erasing all evidence of the Octavia colony’s existence. Hiding the existence of the twenty-two worlds the Ra’haam had seeded, and laying the groundwork for its return.

The shock of seeing Princeps hits me like another kick—last we knew, we’d left him behind on Octavia. And suddenly I’m back there, on that doomed and ruined world. Blue spores tumbling from the sky. The colony run through with leafy tendrils of the thing slumbering beneath its mantle. Cat’s eyes, bright blue and flower-shaped, filling with tears as she looked at me for the last time.

You have to let me go.

The world is blurring again. I paw the burn from my eyes.

Maker, I miss her… .

“What do you want, Terran?” Saedii replies, staring at the figure onscreen.

“TEMPLAR, IT IS OUR UNDERSTANDING YOU HAVE APPREHENDED SEVERAL TERRAN CITIZENS ENGAGED IN ESPIONAGE ABOARD A HEPHAESTUS SALVAGE CONVOY. THE SURVIVING HEPHAESTUS EMPLOYEES CONFIRM YOUR VESSEL’S PRESENCE IN THE BATTLE.”

For a moment, I’m surprised the Unbroken left anyone alive in that convoy to give testimony. But thinking about it, I suppose it makes sense they leave witnesses to help spread the fear. It’s not like the Starslayer’s followers are afraid of reprisals. Nobody in the galaxy is brave enough to mess with them.

Except …

“Who I may or may not have acquired is none of your concern,” Saedii replies.

“THESE CRIMINALS ARE WANTED BY THE TERRAN GOVERNMENT FOR INTERGALACTIC TERRORISM,” Princeps says. “THE BETRASKAN FINIAN DE SEEL AND THE SYLDRATHI KALIIS IDRABAN GILWRAETH ARE NO CONCERN OF OURS. BUT WE WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF OUR CITIZENS WERE RETURNED TO US.”