Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(32)

There are so many conversations I should have had. I should have been nicer to my grandparents. I should have apologized to my parents. Should have apologized to most of the people I’ve ever met, I guess, but my apologies always seem to make things worse.

Still, this is probably my last chance to try.

“Look, Zila,” I say. “About your parents. I—”

“Sir, I’m getting a transmission from a Terran Defense Force destroyer,” she says. “Ident: Bellerophon. They just dropped through the FoldGate in response to our mayday and estimate they’re eleven minutes from weapons range.”

Tyler replies down comms. “Um, are you sure?”

He sounds as lost as I feel. No way in hells are the TDF involving themselves in a scuffle like this. No way they’d even be out here in the nowhere end of space, let alone willing to compromise Earth’s neutrality with the Unbroken. …

“Affirmative,” Zila says without missing a beat.

“Put me on comms with the Syldrathi, Zila,” Scarlett says.

“Broadcasting.”

“Syldrathi invaders,” Scar begins, in a don’t-mess-with-me tone. “Please be advised we have incoming support from the Terran Defense Force vessel you can no doubt see popping on your scopes. If you want to keep your pretty asses in your pants, I advise your immediate withdrawal. Or you can stick around to see if a Wraith-class Syldrathi cruiser is a match for a fully armed Terran destroyer. Your call.”

Is it weird that this girl’s don’t-mess-with-me tone makes me want to tell her she can mess with me any day she wants?

We hold our breath. I stay where I am, on my hands and knees, half-inside an ancient bank of computers. Zila doesn’t move a muscle above me, and through my audio I can hear the soft breaths and rustles of the team down in the cargo bay as they hold position.

And then with a shuddering clunk, the Syldrathi shuttle pulls free.

“Sir, they’re in retreat,” Zila reports, in exactly the same tone she’s used all through this near-death experience.

What is with this girl?

Tyler chimes in on comms. “Cat, let the incoming TDF destroyer know you’re there so they don’t mistakenly blast you out of space. Zila, we need you down here for medical. Finian, you too.”

I crawl out backward, and Zila and I exchange a glance.

Why do they need medical when nobody made it on board?

When we reach the cargo bay, the Syldrathi refugees are standing together, doing a pretty good job of looking aloof and composed despite the fact they all just escaped certain and brutal murder. The Jones twins are crouching over the one young Syldrathi who’s out cold on the floor, silver hair splayed around her like a halo, arms outflung. Kal’s busy looming nearby, along with our stowaway. I remember her name now—Aurora—and I know where I’ve heard it before.

She’s the one Goldenboy pulled off the Hadfield.

But what’s she doing here?

Zila busts open a crate of medtech, and I help her carry a kit over to where the Syldrathi girl’s laying. Someone’s clearly punched her, and she’s smacked her head but good on the wall behind. Might have been our Aurora, because she’s sporting a bloody nose, now that I squint at her again. She looks wild, down on one knee, cheeks wet as though she’s been crying, one hand trying to staunch the blood. Weirdest of the weird, her right iris has turned almost totally white.

“What has happened to her eye?” Zila asks.

I shrug, glancing at the bleached stripe running through Aurora’s bangs.

“Matches her hair now, at least?”

Aurora ignores us both, looking up at Tyler instead.

“The Terran government’s outside?”

“That’s right,” he says, speaking a little carefully.

“Please, don’t tell them I’m here. I can’t go with them.”

He blinks, exchanging a glance with his sister.

“Auri,” he tries. “That’s exactly where you should go. I don’t know how you ended up here, but you’re a Terran, they’ll take care of you.”

“You don’t understand,” she insists, lowering her bloodied bandage. “Battle Leader de Stoy told me to avoid them. She told me to stow away with you.”

Another twin-to-twin glance ensues while Auri tries her pleading eyes on me. Then she hisses, hand to her head as though it’s hurting her. Pawing at her bloody nose.

Scarlett takes over from her brother. Apparently during their silent communion they’ve decided this is a job for a diplomat. “Auri, there’s no reason de Stoy would say that. Maybe you misunderstood her?”

“I can’t go,” Auri insists, eyes getting wilder, doing herself no favors at all. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand. They wiped away every trace of my colony. It’s like Octavia never existed. They want to wipe me away, too.”

Kal stares at her with cold violet eyes. Zila is looking at her like a bug under a magnifying glass. She’s not coming off as any kind of reasonable, and her uneasiness is infecting me, if I’m honest. Maybe it’s just nerves in the wake of a bunch of Unbroken almost getting close enough to barbecue me. Or maybe it’s that from time to time, the Terrans make me uncomfortable, too. They’re so complex, with so many languages, so many different clothes and colors, like a bunch of kazar birds, always picking fights and swirling into a blur. But I don’t know if we should force this girl to go somewhere she doesn’t want to be, either.