Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(63)

I check to see if anything is broken, but though I’m gonna be black and blue in a few hours (presuming I make it out of the Fold alive), a few deep gashes seem to be the worst of it. My ears are bleeding. Eyes burning in the fumes. I stagger to my feet with a groan, drag the breather mask off the dead guard’s head and the disruptor pistol from his belt. All the Syldrathi on the bridge are on their backs or bellies, but through the crushed metal and rains of sparks, I can see that more than a few are moving, coming to after the explosion.

I need to get out of here.

I need to find Scar and the others.

But my chances of that are zero. I’ve studied Syldrathi capital ships, but I don’t know their internal layouts as well as those of Terran vessels—I’ve only got the vaguest sense of where the hangar bays are, let alone the detention levels. And even if the lower decks weren’t crawling with Terran marines, there’s still the Unbroken to deal with. I’ve got no edge here, no …

Leverage.

I hear a reptilian screech, spot Isha through the smoke, wings spread, shrieking her distress. The little drakkan is perched on a collapsed section of the ceiling, and beneath it, on her back, I see Saedii. Her legs are pinned, her teeth bared in a snarl. She’s trying to claw her way free, but she’s got no way to get out from under the weight.

The temperfoam floors and instrumentation are ablaze, alarms screaming. The fire-suppression systems must be offline, and the flames are spreading toward Saedii. She curses, punching the metal in frustration. Isha shrieks again, little claws scrabbling on the wreckage in a desperate attempt to get her mistress free.

I stagger across the burning bridge, down the sloping floor. Saedii looks up as I loom over her, the momentary relief on her face overshadowed as she realizes I’m not one of her crew come to rescue her.

Isha screeches warning as I set my disruptor to Kill and level it at Saedii’s face. The Templar meets my eyes.

Unafraid.

Unbroken.

“Do it,” she spits. “Terran coward.”

I swivel the pistol, blast the collapsed metal, partially melting it. Bending down, I grab hold and lift the weight, my face reddening with the strain. Saedii winces, pushes, manages to drag herself out from under the wreckage. As she wriggles free, I can see blood soaking her uniform pants a darker shade of black. She collapses, her face drawn and damp with sweat. She keeps most of it from her expression, but I can still see the pain in her eyes.

“Why?” she whispers, looking up at me. “Why save me?”

“I’m not saving you,” I say.

I lean down, sling her arm around my shoulder, and drag her up. She gasps with pain but straightens, teeth gritted, face smudged with blood.

“I’m saving my friends.”

I should leave her here. Let her burn with the rest of these murderers. But if I have Saedii in hand, I have someone who can direct me through the ship, avoid the incoming Terrans. I have the leverage I need to keep the other Unbroken off my back. And much as they seem to despise each other, I’m not sure Kal would appreciate me letting his sister burn to death up here.

“Which way to the detention levels?” I ask.

She spits in my face, uttering a vicious curse in Syldrathi. I kick her in her injured leg and she actually cries out at the agony—the first sign of weakness I’ve ever seen her show. I shove my disruptor up under her chin, still set to Kill.

“Don’t do that again,” I say.

“Or what?”

Leaning in close, I meet her stare with mine. Just as hard. Just as determined.

“Or I pay you back for what your people did to my father,” I snap. “Now tell me the way to the detention levels.”

She stares back at me, eyes like ice. I press the pistol up under her chin hard enough to make her wince. Finally she nods to the bridge doors, and I’m moving, half carrying, half dragging her out of the growing blaze and into the corridor beyond. Isha follows, fluttering from one perch to another and shrieking in distress.

“Shut her up,” I say. “She’ll bring the entire TDF down on our heads.”

“Coward.” Saedii aims the word at me like a weapon.

I press the pistol harder into her skin. “Which way?”

She nods again, teeth bared, eyes glittering with hate. And so we go. Slow. Staggering. Groping our way forward through the thickening smoke, the wailing alarms. A squad of Unbroken stumbles across us as we reach an auxiliary stairwell, their leader crying out for me to halt. But as they raise their weapons, a platoon of TDF marines bursts through a stairwell behind them. The air is filled with disruptor fire, the ring of blades, the screams of the dying.

I drag Saedii into the stairwell. The TDF troopers roar at us to halt over the thunder of the firefight, the rumble of another missile strike. We stumble downward, Isha circling behind, Saedii almost falling. My breath is burning in my lungs even through the breather, the smoke filling the well and making it almost impossible to see. We burst out onto a lower level, scorching heat, thicker smoke.

“Which way?” I shout.

Kal’s sister grimaces and nods, and we stumble on. Andarael is listing hard, the floors sloping almost forty-five degrees. Saedii is bleeding badly, bloody footprints on the floors behind us. Her injury is probably the only reason she hasn’t tried to overpower me yet, but I’m not sure how much longer she can stay on her feet. I don’t have the time to spare, but if she collapses here …