Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(62)

The Andarael is an impressive ship, with twice the firepower of anything in the Terran armada. But she’s outnumbered and outgunned here. The Unbroken Get Out of Jail Free card hasn’t worked, and while she’s destroyed three ships and critically wounded another, Saedii’s counterattacks are failing in the face of superior numbers. No matter how clever a commander she might be, her only option now is to run. And that’s something a Templar of the Unbroken is never going to do.

Another missile plows into our stern, shaking the Andarael in her bones. The TDF gunners are targeting our engines and guidance systems, trying to cripple us. Reports are coming in from the lower decks—the Terran boarding parties are breaking out from their beachheads, TDF marines in suits of power armor inexorably carving their way through the Unbroken defenders. The numbers are grim; every Syldrathi is killing at least five Terran soldiers before they fall, but the TDF just has more bodies to throw, and they’re throwing everything they have.

It’s an abattoir down there.

Part of me still can’t comprehend that this is happening. The ramifications of an engagement like this—a full-blown slaughter between Terran and Unbroken troops—I don’t even want to think about what it’ll mean for the galaxy… .

The Unbroken on the bridge are all wearing breathers in the event of atmo loss, but nobody was nice enough to give me one. I can smell smoke in the air now, burning meat, charred polys. Another breach pod crashes into the lower decks, filled with yet more marines. I feel the impact through the floor, all the way up my spine. I’m not sure how much more of this Andarael can take.

And then Saedii’s lieutenant speaks, his words bringing sudden stillness to the bridge. I only catch three of them. But again, they’re the important ones.

Transmission.

Archon Caersan.

The name is like a punch to my gut. I tense, all thought of the battle gone from my head. Saedii turns from her tactical displays, speaks softly, and the central projection of the battle raging outside fades, replaced by another image.

The image of a man.

I’m honestly not sure what I was expecting. No matter what the storybooks say, monsters rarely look the part. I grew up hating this man for everything he took from me. But looking at the most infamous mass murderer in galactic history, the man responsible for the Orion Incursion, the destruction of his own homeworld, the death of my father, I was expecting something at least a little horrific.

The Starslayer is …

Maker, I don’t know what he is… .

Stunning, maybe?

The Archon of the Unbroken is tall like all his people, clad in an ornate suit of Syldrathi battle armor, fixed with a long dark cloak. The angles of his face are cruel, his cheekbones high, his ears tapering to knife-sharp points. His long silver hair is swept up and over the Warbreed glyf at his brow in ten intricate braids, curving down to cover one side of his face. And that face is like something out of a simulation—too beautiful and terrible to be real. It’s almost heartbreaking to think a surface so perfect could be so rotten underneath.

But it’s his eye that strikes me the most. Here in the Fold I can’t see the violet of his iris. But his stare is still piercing in intensity. I find myself pinned and helpless before it, as if he can actually see into my soul.

His mere presence onscreen brings quiet to the bridge, even in the midst of an all-out firefight. He radiates authority, gravity, fear, like a star radiates heat.

He speaks to Saedii, his voice dark as smoke and smooth as Larassian semptar. The transmission is coming from Maker knows where, so Saedii speaks quickly, spilling it all. I hear her say Aurora’s name. Kal’s name. Attack and Terran and battle and can’t.

It’ll take a good few minutes for her message to reach him across interstellar space, even through the shortened distances in the Fold. In the meantime, Saedii turns back to the battle raging outside. Damage reports are coming in from all over the ship. Andarael’s engines are now offline. Alert sirens are still blaring, the stink of smoke is getting stronger, the tactical displays are filled with the dance and fire patterns of the fighters still waging war outside.

Finally, I see the Starslayer’s beautiful face twist—Saedii’s reply has arrived at his end. His stare darkens and his lips draw into a tight, thin line. I see incredulity, quickly running through to fury and hatred—the kind of rage that could bring a man to rip his own homeworld apart. The kind of rage that murders billions.

“They dare?” he spits.

He opens his mouth to speak again, but we never get to hear the rest. Something hits the Andarael’s bridge hard, a bloom of white light and screaming fire, and suddenly I’m hurled sideways, smashing into the wall behind me as the entire world turns upside down. The explosion is blinding, pummeling, almost deafening, and for a brief moment I wonder if this is it. If this is the place I die.

I’ve followed the tenets of the United Faith, lived them as best I can; I should be at peace. But I don’t want to go yet—there’s too much to leave behind, too many people I care about, too much at stake. And so I hang on, grim, digging my fingernails in and refusing to let go. Screaming at that dark.

Not yet.

Not yet.

I open my eyes. I see twisted metal. Choke on black smoke.

The bridge has suffered a direct hit, the blast shredding the hull like tinfoil. The power is dead, the displays shot. Unbroken bodies lie where they’ve fallen, dead or dying, purple Syldrathi blood turned gray by the Fold and spattered over the floor. The guard who was watching me has been impaled on a twisted stanchion, eyes lifeless. Fires are burning among the computer systems. The deck slopes away to the left—the artificial gravity systems are still online, but engines are dead, and Andarael is now drifting, sideways and helpless in the dark.