Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(64)

I set her down against the wall, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. Isha lands on a nearby perch, screams at me, sharp little fangs glinting in the flickering light. Looking Saedii over, I see her pants are now sodden with blood, her boots full of it. Something important got cut or crushed under that wreckage. I rip off my shirt, tear it into strips as the alerts scream across the PA. Saedii winces as I wrap the fabric around her wounded thigh to stanch the bleeding.

“Weakling,” she whispers.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, tying off my makeshift tourniquet.

“Wretch.”

“Shut up,” I sigh, slinging her arm around my shoulder and standing again. “Before I forget my manners.”

I hear heavy boots coming down the stairwell behind us. A lone Syldrathi stumbles along the smoke-filled corridor ahead, her eyes widening as she recognizes her Templar hanging limp in the arms of a shirtless Terran boy. She raises her weapon, but mine’s already up, and with a BAMF! she drops to the deck.

I struggle on with Saedii hanging off my shoulder, moving fast as I can. We reach a junction and I demand to know the way. Saedii mumbles a reply. Those marines have gotta be right on my heels—there’s no way I can fight them off if they catch us, and there’s nowhere I can hide. I’m quickly realizing that if we’re going to make it out of this, we need something awful close to a miracle.

And then I see her.

Down at the end of the corridor, charging through the smoke, disruptor rifle in her arms. Flame-red hair, big eyes as blue as mine, all of it bleached gray by the Fold. Around the edges of her enviro-mask, her face is smeared with soot and grime and blood. But I’ve never seen her look as beautiful as she does right then.

“Scarlett,” I whisper.

Finian is beside her, crouched low. He spots me first, crying out over the alarms, the fire, the alerts.

“There he is!”

Shuffling, stumbling, dragging Saedii onward, I feel an idiot grin break out on my face. Scarlett bolts down the corridor toward me. My miracle, just as ordered.

And that’s when something hits us.

It’s not big enough to be a missile. A chunk of debris, maybe, or a fighter plowing out of control into the Andarael’s flank. The strike hits the floor above us, buckling the hull. The impact is like thunder, throwing Saedii and me into the wall. I hit with a gasp, she crashes into me, and then we’re both tumbling to the deck, my disruptor skittering from my hands. Unconsciousness beckons, offering me warmth and dark and quiet, and I shove back at it, blood in my mouth.

I open my eyes. Alarms are screaming about an atmo breach, and beneath them I can hear the deadly hiss of gas escaping into space. Heart sinking, I see the corridor ahead has buckled—the ceiling has collapsed, the sundered electrical cables spewing live current. Beyond the wreckage, I glimpse Finian on his knees. My sister dragging herself to her feet.

“Scarlett!” I roar. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she coughs. “You?”

“I’m okay,” I shout.

“Do I even wanna ask why you’re shirtless right now?”

“Abs like these yearn to be free, Scar.”

She laughs at the joke, but through the wreckage, I can see the smile die on her lips almost instantly. The corridor is impassable—we can’t get to each other without a cutting torch or explosives. Atmo is leaking from the hull, and while we’re all wearing enviro-gear, if the Andarael’s triage systems are still online, the ship will seal this corridor off to prevent further loss of oxygen throughout the ship.

“You need to get out of here, Scarlett,” I call.

“Shut up, Tyler,” she says. “Finian, help me with this.”

She starts tugging at the wreckage, trying to pry the gap wide enough to let me through. The severed cables spark and spit as Finian leans against the metal, exosuit whining as he puts his back into it.

“Scar, you’re not going to be able to—”

“I’m not leaving you!” she shouts. “Now shut up!”

My heart twists at the tone in her voice. The tears in her eyes. Because as much as she might pretend to be, my sister isn’t simple. She knows the math here.

And then I hear heavy boots behind me. The sound of disruptor rifles powering up. A voice, thick with reverb, speaking Terran.

“Hands in the air!”

I turn, see the platoon of TDF marines. Their power armor is big, bulky, graceless, decorated with the kind of graffiti grunts use to fill the time in between engagements. EAT THIS. WAR IS HELL. The lieutenant has MAN-EATER stenciled across her breastplate. The eyes in their helmets are aglow, servos whining as the laser sights on their rifles light up my chest.

A dozen of them. One of me.

Bad odds, even on the best days. And this is pretty far from that.

“Get out of here, Scar,” I say quietly.

“Tyler—”

“Auri is all that matters.”

“On your knees, Legionnaire Jones!” the man-eater bellows. “Slow!”

They know my name. Briefed by Princeps to bring us in alive, I’m betting. Aurora most of all. I raise my hands, sink to the floor. Saedii curses and tries to rise, but a Stun blast knocks her back down. Isha shrieks and bares her teeth, launches herself at the marines. A dozen Kill shots ring out in the corridor, and the little drakkan crashes to the deck in a splash of dark blood.