Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(40)

“Maker’s breath,” I whisper.

Aurora is slumped in a single metal chair, restraints at her wrists. Her eyes are closed, blood dripping from her nose, spilling over her chin. The floor, ceilings, and walls are buckled outward, almost in a spherical shape. I see two faceless helmets on the floor, two charcoal-gray suits crumpled beside them, their contents smeared up the wall in a strange mixture of gray and black, textures unrecognizable. They go all the way up to the ceiling, like the people inside them were tubes of toothpaste and someone just … squeezed.

“Amna diir … ,” Kal breathes.

“Grab Aurora,” I say, fighting the churning in my gut. “We’ve gotta move.”

He nods, his face grim. He kneels beside those shredded suits and rummages in the soggy pockets, finally producing a passkey. With a swipe, Aurora’s restraints are unlocked, and Kal lifts her effortlessly, gently cradles her in his arms. Then we’re moving across the bloody floor, out into the strobing light, wet footprints behind us. My disruptor rifle has a small torch slung under the barrel, a slice of light showing us the way through all that flickering gloom.

The elevators have no power, so we hit the stairs, barreling down as quick as we can to level five. Slipping out though the door I see four TDF troopers in a huddle around a wall comms console, trying to raise the bridge.

I know it’s them or us, I know I’ve got no choice, but my stomach clenches as I take a knee and fire. They cry out and scatter into cover like the dummies in training exercises never did as I turn to Kal and roar.

“Go! Go!”

He dashes out from the stairwell, across the Bellerophon’s docking bay toward our Longbow with Aurora in his arms. Troopers around the bay turn at the sound of gunfire, Scar pops up from behind a stack of cargo crates and opens up with her own rifle, disruptor fire streaking white through the dark. Looking through our Longbow’s blast shield, I see Cat has somehow managed to sneak aboard in the chaos. I breathe a prayer to the Maker that whatever killed the destroyer’s power somehow hasn’t affected our own ship, sighing in relief as she arcs the engines.

Sparks ricochet off the deck as troopers fire at Kal. I use what’s left of my disruptor’s power on them, trying to give him cover. Cat opens up with our Longbow’s gauss cannons and the TDF troopers are forced back into cover as a barrage of supersonic shells explode across the bay.

Scar breaks cover and runs for the Longbow, and I take my chance, too, dashing after Kal, heart hammering in my chest. The Longbow’s engines are growing louder, the ship rising off the deck. Finian’s on our docking ramp, waving to me frantically as Scarlett leaps into safety. Kal bounds up onto the ramp in three long strides, I hit it close behind him as TDF fire whizzes around me, sprawled flat on my stomach as I roar, “PUNCH IT, CAT!”

The ramp shudders closed and our Longbow banks hard to port. There’s a soft whine and bright hisssss as Cat fires two plasma missiles at the inner bay doors, melting them to slag. Bullets are pattering against our hull like hail as Cat fires again, this time breaching the plasteel on the outer hull, exposing the colorless void of the Fold beyond.

There’s a burst of violent decompression, the atmo in the bay spilling out into the Fold and forcing the TDF to retreat or suffocate. Alarms are screaming, our engines roaring, Cat’s voice crackling over the internal PA.

“Hold on to your undies, kids!”

We blast out from the bay, a handful of TDF bullets kissing us goodbye. The portside engines scrape against the melted bay doors as we rocket out into the Fold.

I look around to check on the others, and nobody seems to be hurt. Kal is crouching beside Aurora, making sure she doesn’t slide around. She’s out cold—her eyes are closed, lips and chin smudged with blood, her expression as blissful as the moment I found her in that cryopod.

That was only three days ago.

“Everyone okay back there?” Cat asks over the PA.

I tap my uniglass to reply.

“Roger that,” I sigh. “We’re all okay.”

Scarlett’s looking at me across the Longbow’s holding bay, eyes locked on mine. “You sure have a strange definition of ‘okay,’ Bee-bro.”

Looking at my twin, I know what she’s thinking. Sure as if she said it herself.

We just undertook armed insurrection on a Terran Defense Force destroyer.

We just violated a hundred or more Legion regulations before dinner.

We just attacked TDF personnel.

Great Maker …

The engines roar as we hurtle on through the Fold, farther away from the crippled Bellerophon, the scene of our crimes, on through all that glittering dark.

We might have gotten away alive, but we sure didn’t get away clean. Not after what Aurora did in that cell. You don’t murder GIA operatives and expect to keep breathing. It’s only gonna be a matter of time before the Global intelligence Agency and the entire Terran Defense Force is breathing down our necks. They were set on killing us, sure, but …

We’re fugitives, I realize. From our own people.

Scar chews her lip and nods.

What would Dad say?

Finian looks around the bay, big black eyes finally settling on me.

“So, Goldenboy,” he says. “What in the Maker’s name do we do now?”

I take a deep breath, blow my hair back from my eyes.

“That,” I sigh, “is an excellent question.”