Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(37)

Finian dS: Screw you, Cat.

Cat B: I’d rather screw the Great Ultrasaur of Abraaxis IV, thanks.

Tyler J: KNOCK IT OFF. FIN, EXPLAIN.

Finian dS: Aurora said that to me, right before the GIA arrived. “They’ve got no faces.” And she muttered something about wiping this clean. Painting it black.

Zila M: Which the faceless GIA are doing right now. Aurora also claimed to have seen Kal in a vision before she ever met him.

Cat B: BECAUSE THE FOLD HAS MESSED WITH HER BRAINMEATS.

Kal G: This will sound like madness. But in the cargo bay, when Aedra attacked me, Aurora threw her into the wall without ever touching her.

Finian dS: Are you joking?

Kal G: I swear it on the spirits of the Void. Her right eye was glowing so brightly it hurt to look at. And after the battle, it had changed color.

Scar and I look at each other then. I can see skepticism in her bright blue stare.

But Auri’s eye did change color.

Tyler J: Listen, I didn’t mention this on my report because I didn’t really want to believe it myself. But when I first rescued Aurora on the Hadfield, I think she Tyler J: Well, she moved me.

Scarlett J: Moved you? Like in a love song way moved you?

Cat B: Oh, spare me.

Tyler J: Like I was on the verge of passing out two hundred meters from my Phantom. And suddenly, we were right outside the airlock.

Zila M: Telekinesis. Precognition. Interesting.

Cat B: This is totally bloody sideways. …

Scarlett J: I’m afraid I must concur with my punchy but learned colleague.

Cat B: Thanks, roomie.

Scarlett J: All good, girl. You’ve still got my eyeliner btw.

Zila M: It is common knowledge that prolonged Fold exposure exerts extreme mental duress on travelers. I’d remind you that Aurora was drifting in it for over two centuries. Nobody has ever survived that kind of exposure before.

Finian dS: So what do the GIA want with her?

Zila M: An excellent question. But I think the far more pressing concern is our imminent and no doubt brutal murders at the hands of their operatives.

Finian dS: I admit that Princess guy didn’t seem like a barrel of chuckles.

Scarlett J: PrincePs. It’s Latin. Means “first among equals.”

Zila M: I did not know you spoke Latin, Legionnaire Jones.

Finian dS: What in the Maker’s name is Latin?

Cat B: Look, this still makes no bloody sense. If they want us dead, why didn’t they just flatline us on the station?

Zila M: Perhaps they wish to speak to Tyler about how he found Aurora? Or to ensure we have not passed her location on to anyone else? Whatever their reasons, unless we find a way off this ship, we will never leave it alive.

Tyler J: This is the Terran Defense Force you’re talking about.

Zila M: The Global Intelligence Agency is in command here, sir. The TDF is simply giving them a ride.

Tyler J: They’re still Terran! Maker’s sake, what are we supposed to do? Attack our own people?

Finian dS: As opposed to being executed by them?

A warning claxon sounds across the destroyer’s public address system, followed by a ship-wide announcement.

“All hands, prepare for Fold entry. T-minus fifteen seconds.”

The thrum of the engines shifts in tone, and each of us takes a breath. There’s a slow rush of vertigo, a brief sensation of weightlessness, and the colorscape shifts as the destroyer enters the FoldGate, everything around us dropping into black and white. I see my squad, looking to me for a decision.

Impossible as it sounds, Zila is making an awful kind of sense. The lives of people who depend on me are on the line here. And the consequences of not believing her—and being wrong—would be fatal.

Problem is, if the TDF really means to flatline us, the only way I can see out of this is fighting our way out, and that means fighting fellow Terrans. My dad was in the TDF before he became a senator. If the Aurora Legion didn’t exist, I’d probably be TDF myself.

I meet Scar’s stare, and she tilts her head just a fraction.

It’s a strange thing, being a twin. Dad told Scar and me that we invented our own language as little kids. Talking to each other in words nobody else could understand. Scar can tell me a story with a look. Write me a novel with a single raised eyebrow. And right now, I know exactly what she’s saying, without her ever saying a word.

Show the way, baby brother.

The door hisses open, and four TDF troopers march into the room, clad head to foot in tac armor, carrying disruptor rifles. The young lieutenant I spoke to in the Sagan station airlock is leading them, stopping to survey the puddle of water on the floor, my soaking uniform, one eyebrow raised behind her visor.

“All right, Legionnaire.” She smiles. “If you’ll come with us, we’ll debrief you and have you and your squad back at Aurora station in time for chow.”

I glance at Scar again, looking for her impressions. I’m not exaggerating when I say she can read people like books. It’s kinda scary sometimes. I haven’t been able to lie to her since we were five years old.

She looks the lieutenant up and down.

Glances at me.

Pouts.

Lying.

I can feel the tension around me. Cat’s hands in fists. Kal’s icy fury, staring at these soldiers who just murdered a hundred of his people but are acting like nothing’s wrong. I’m not sure how good Finian or Zila will be in a free-for-all, but there’s six of us, four of them, and if they think I’m the kind to just march to my own murder, they don’t know me too well.