Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(68)

He shakes his head. “I do not know.”

“Saedii seemed to take a real interest in Auri once she saw a display of her power,” I say. “She made specific mention of transporting her back to the Starslayer.” I meet Auri’s eyes. “What would Caersan want with you?”

“This is all utterly irrelevant,” Zila snaps.

I blink at our Brain, a little taken aback. Normally Zila speaks in monotone, her mannerisms closer to a cardboard box than a human. But she actually seems …

Testy?

“… Are you feeling okay?” I ask.

“Tyler, Saedii, the Starslayer, none of it matters,” she says, looking at each of us in turn. “We cannot stray from our path. The stakes we are playing with here are unfathomable. We must find the Eshvaren Weapon. The Ra’haam must be stopped. Every other consideration must be secondary.”

Fin clears his throat. “Zila …”

“All of this is happening for a reason,” she says. “We must go forward. The message from Adams and de Stoy, this ship, the cigarillo case that saved Kal’s life, all of this is unfolding as it was supposed to. The only way out is through.”

Kal touches his chest where the disruptor blast hit him, as if remembering the shot that almost killed him. Auri squeezes his hand, concern in her eyes.

“Don’t you dare do anything like that again, okay? Listen to me next time.”

“I will, be’shmai,” he replies. “I swear it.”

Fin is looking at the pair, at Kal, a strange expression on his face. I nod to the uniglass he has plugged into his terminal.

“So, does the data from the Hadfield tell us anything?”

“Gimme a second,” he replies. “I’m looking for unusual readings or anomalies in the logs, but there’s a lot to wade through here.”

An uneasy silence falls, broken only by the pulse of our LADAR sweeps, the tapping of Finian’s metal-tipped fingers on his screens. I look at Auri and I can tell she’s still torn up. Thinking this is her fault. Feeling guilty about leaving Ty behind, about her loss of control on the Hadfield, about losing her nerve on the Andarael. I know she’s trying, but this power of hers … she has to learn how to control it. And I’m wondering how she’s going to manage that if she won’t even acknowledge it.

“When the Unbroken had me sedated … ,” she begins.

Her voice falters and Kal squeezes her hand. She seems to draw strength from his touch, breathing deep before speaking again.

“I dreamed,” she says, shaking her head. “I felt it. I saw it.”

“The Ra’haam,” Kal says.

Auri nods. “It’s getting stronger. I can … sense it somehow. Like a splinter in the back of my mind. Every moment we spend out here is another moment it has to grow. In my dreams … I saw whole worlds covered in that blue pollen. I saw Earth. Other planets. All of them like Octavia III. Completely overrun.” She shakes her head again. “It’s close to hatching now. Blooming and bursting.”

“How close?” I ask, my stomach turning cold somersaults.

“I don’t know.” She sighs, leans forward, elbows on her knees. “But soon.”

My stomach rolls again, and I think of Cat in her final moments. Imagine what it would be like, being consumed. Losing yourself to this thing the way she did. I imagine whole worlds being assimilated, annihilated, and for a moment I feel so small, so insignificant, I can barely breathe. I’ve already lost my best friend. Now I’ve lost my brother, too. Who else am I going to lose before this is over?

“Hold up … ,” Finian murmurs.

Zila comes to attention, sitting up even straighter in her chair (if that’s possible). “Finian? What have you found?”

He narrows his eyes, poring over the Hadfield data streams. “There’s something strange here. Spatial anomaly. Massive power fluctuation in the Hadfield’s core. Critical bio-failure in most of its cryo systems. Its sensor arrays weren’t that advanced, but these readings …” He looks up at me. “Yeah, something really weird happened aboard that ship.”

“When?” Auri asks, her mismatched eyes growing wide. “Where?”

“Almost a hundred years ago.” Fin whistles, tapping a handful of commands on his screen. “I’ve got approximate coordinates. It’s about twenty hours through the Fold from our current location, if we put Zero on maximum burn.”

They all look to me then. The tattered remnants of Aurora Legion Squad 312. Maybe because I’m a Jones. Hells, maybe because they’ve got no one else to look at. But I’m not cut out for this. I shouldn’t be making these calls. Tyler should.

Who do I think I am?

Who do we think we are, going up against something this big alone?

Zila meets my eyes, her voice soft. “The only way out is through, Scarlett.”

I breathe deep, nod slowly.

“Okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Fin, see what else you can make of those readings. Find out anything you can about what we’re flying into. Kal, run a diagnostic on the Zero’s weapons systems and defenses, get us ready in case we hit more trouble. Zila, set us a course for those coordinates. Maximum burn.”

The squad breaks into motion, probably grateful just to have a direction to follow. We have no idea what we’re headed toward. What we’ll find when we get there, assuming we find anything at all. But in the end, what choice do we have?