Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(67)

“Okay, punch it, Zila! Go! GO!”

The hatchway cycles closed, and with a dull roar, we’re lifting off. Fin and I are slammed into the wall as we swing around, the Zero’s artificial gravity kicking in, and I grab desperately for something to hold on to as Kal unloads into the Andarael’s docking bay doors. A deafening explosion rips across the bay and I feel the heat through the closing doors. And then we’re rocketing free, out into the firestorm, a debris field of ruined fighters and burning hulks, a long stream of reactor exhaust spilling from the Andarael’s wounded side and into the cold black of the Fold.

“Engines to full,” says Zila over comms. “This will be bumpy.”

I dash out of the bay and up the corridor, Finian coming hot on my heels as the Zero shakes around us. By the time we arrive on the bridge, we’re breathless. I see Zila in the pilot’s chair, Kal on the weapons station. Auri flies out of her seat and wraps her arms around me, around Fin, tears shining in her eyes.

“Scar, are you okay?” she breathes. “Are you—”

“Please resume your seats,” Zila says, sounding a little miffed. “We have Terran fighters inbound.”

Presumably those marines in Andarael’s hangar bay have given some kind of warning about our takeoff; our scopes are showing a pack of bulldog-nosed Terran fighters scrambling to intercept us. But as Auri, Fin, and I grab chairs and strap ourselves in, I see there’s still some fight left in Saedii’s dragoons. A posse of sleek Syldrathi corvettes is moving to intercept the Terrans, chasing them through the tumbling wreckage, missiles and cannon fire lighting the dark and incidentally giving us the few precious minutes we need to make our escape.

“Stealth field engaged,” Kal reports. “We should be hidden from their radar now. We only need to get out of their line of sight.”

“Leave that to me,” Zila murmurs.

She looks up at Shamrock, still perched above the pilot’s station. Reaching out, she touches the fuzzy green dragon, as if for luck.

“Everybody hold on,” she says.

Our thrusters roar.

And we’re away.

· · · · ·

Turns out Zila can fly as well as she drives. She’s no Cat, no Zero, nowhere close, but apparently all those nights alone in her room, bereft of friends, she had more than enough time to study theory and practice simulations. It’s a wild ride, though—she definitely leaned heavier on the theory than the practice.

The Terran fighters pursuing us didn’t have the range to keep up with the Zero, and every capital ship in that attack fleet had suffered major damage by the time Andarael’s guns fell silent. Though it was a defeat, one Syldrathi warship fought six Terran vessels and gave every one of them a bloody nose or a broken neck. I can’t imagine what a war between us is going to mean. My dad fought half his life to build the peace between our peoples.

And now everything is in flames… .

We’ve dropped out of the Fold near a no-name star, way out in a neutral zone. This system is only notable for the naturally occurring FoldGate leading to it—according to logs and scopes, there’s no settlements here, no mining ops, nothing. It’ll be a good place to lay low while we figure out what the hells we’re gonna do now.

“So what the hells are we gonna do now?” Finian asks.

Zila has locked us into orbit around the system’s first planet—an Earth-sized rock fried to a cinder by the white dwarf it’s circling. She’s taken her place with the rest of us, sitting around our bridge consoles and looking into each other’s eyes. Kal and Auri sit together, bloodstained fingers entwined. Fin sits opposite with me, his uniglass plugged into his terminal, the surface aglow with scrolling reams of data. Zila is at the head of the console where Ty used to sit.

Where Ty used to sit …

“We have to go back, right?” Auri says, looking back and forth between us. “We can’t just leave Tyler in the hands of the GIA.”

“That is exactly what we must do,” Zila says.

“But this is my fault!” Auri says. “They wanted me, not him. This is on me!”

“No,” Kal sighs. “Saedii was chasing me. If not for her interference, the GIA would never have caught up to us. This is my fault. All of it. I am shamed. De’sai.”

“Listen,” Fin says, glancing up from his data streams. “I know I’m not usually Mr. Sunshine, but I’m not sure we should be pointing fingers at ourselves here.”

“Agreed,” I nod. “This is no one’s fault. You didn’t ask to become what you are, Auri. And Kal, you can’t help it if your sister is, and I mean no offense here, a murder-faced psycho bitch-machine.”

Kal smiles faintly, but I see hurt twinkling in the violet of his eyes.

“She was not always so,” he murmurs.

I breathe deep, chewing my lip and running over the events of the last day in my head. It seems like we’ve got the whole galaxy chasing after us. We can’t rely on anyone for help out here. We’re still wanted galactic terrorists. And I can’t say my time in Unbroken captivity has endeared me to the thought of life in a penal colony.

“Those Waywalkers Saedii captured,” I murmur, thinking back to the cells on Andarael. “Why would Warbreed be rounding up Syldrathi empaths, Kal?”