Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(65)

“NO!” Saedii screams, trying to rise again.

Another handful of Stun blasts ring out— BAMF!

BAMF!

BAMF!

—and the Unbroken Templar sinks down, silent and still.

I glance over my shoulder, see my twin’s face through the wreckage, tears streaming down her cheeks. I can hear Dad’s voice in my head. Feel his hands ruffling my hair that way I hated, hear him speaking to me that way I loved. Like he was saying something Important. And I was worthy of it.

Look after your sister.

“Show the way, Scarlett.”

“Tyler … ,” she whispers.

“I said that you could find yourself doing this without me one day, remember?” I glance to the boy beside her, his face bleached a paler shade of white. “Look after her for me, Fin. That’s an order.”

“… Yessir,” he nods. Taking gentle hold of Scarlett’s arm, he speaks to her softly. “We have to go.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No.”

“Scar, I’m sorry, we have to go!” Finian cries.

I feel metal hands grab me and push me to the deck, mag-restraints clap around my wrists. The marines force my face into the floor, so I don’t have to see the look on hers as her heart breaks. But I hear her sobs as my twin finally lets Finian drag her away from the only family she has left.

“I love you, Scar!”

A disruptor rifle hums. A finger tightens on a trigger.

BAMF!

And darkness comes down like a hammer.





16

SCARLETT

The race back to the Zero is a blur. My eyes sting with sweat and tears. The whole ship is listing badly, the deck sloping away between us as Finian and I stumble through the smoke and carnage, toward the docking bay. The lighting is flickering, failing—even the Andarael’s emergency power systems are struggling now. The corridors are strewn with Terran and Syldrathi corpses, their blood sticky beneath our feet. This ship has become a slaughterhouse. And if we don’t get off it soon, we’re going to be dead at best, or back in the hands of the GIA at worst.

I think of Tyler, my heart aching so hard I almost fall. For a moment, Finian is the only thing keeping me going, his arm around my shoulder, dragging me on through the swirling gray, the raining sparks, the howling alarms. I feel like I’ve betrayed Ty somehow. Like I’ve left the most important part of myself behind. But then I hear my brother’s voice inside my head, see his eyes as he spoke to me.

Show the way, Scarlett.

That’s what all good leaders do, according to the late, great Jericho Jones:

Know the way.

Show the way.

Go the way.

Those are the words Ty has always lived by. The reason he’s spent his whole life looking after me and everyone around him. The torch he’s carried since Dad died. I know he’s passed it to me because he can’t carry it himself anymore. He’s trusting me with it. Relying on me to see the rest of us through this.

Show the way.

So I stand taller, ease out of Finian’s hold, clutching the disruptor rifle to my chest. The enviro-mask is still fixed over my face, so I can’t wipe away my tears. But I can push them back. Lock them away for another time, another place, where the fate of the entire damn galaxy doesn’t hang in the balance.

“You okay?” Fin asks me.

I sniff hard, swallow harder. Tap the screen of my uniglass.

“Kal, can you hear me?”

“Affirmative, Scarlett,” comes the ever-cool reply. “What is your location?”

“We’re on our way to the Zero, can you hold position?”

“Not for long. You must be swift.”

“Tell Zila to heat the engines, prep for launch. If we’re not down there in five minutes, or it looks like Auri is in danger, you get the hells out, understand?”

“Understood. What is Tyler’s status?”

I breathe deep. Push it all down into the soles of my feet.

“Tell Zila I hope she’s as good at flying a starship as she is at piloting a van.”

“… Acknowledged,” comes Kal’s soft reply.

I tap the screen to cut transmission, meet Finian’s eyes.

“Let’s move.”

We dodge at least four firefights on our way downward, ducking into stairwells or circling back or just making a mad dash away from them. The Terran marines and Unbroken warriors are still cutting each other to pieces all over the ship, but it’s only a matter of time before the TDF wins through. Those marines called Ty by name—they know who we are, and I know what they’re here for. We need to get Auri out of here or all this has been for nothing.

We dash past a turbolift shaft, and Finian drags me to a sudden halt.

“Hold up,” he says, popping a multi-tool from his exosuit’s arm. He goes to work on the controls, prying the panel off the wall. The lighting flickers again, dropping us into blackness before struggling to life once more.

“Emergency power’s almost dead,” I say. “We can’t ride that down.”

He looks up from his work and winks. “Who said anything about riding?”

I hear the clunk of a lock, the sound of grinding metal. Fin pushes his silver-clad fingers into the gap between the doors, and slowly, exo whining with the strain, he pries them apart. The doors open out into nothingness—just an empty shaft running the entire depth of the massive ship. He taps a control on his suit, and globes in his fingertips light up, cutting a bright swath through the gloom.