Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(9)

“Aurora—”

“I want to speak to someone from Ad Astra, someone from the Octavia expedition. I want to speak to my mom or dad.”

“Aurora, please—”

I stumble my first few steps, and momentum carries me to the door, which slides open as I approach. Two women in blue-gray uniforms swing around to face me, and one steps forward.

I try to dodge, but I nearly fall over sideways and she grabs me by the shoulders. My hands are busy holding up my sheet, so I just kick her in the knee. The woman yelps, her hands tightening painfully on me, fingers digging in.

“Let her through.” It’s Battle Leader White Lady’s voice behind me, and in total contrast to my panic, she sounds calm. Kind of resigned.

The woman releases me, and my legs are shaking as I totter forward, my throat tight, as if someone’s squeezing it.

And then I see the windows across the hallway. I see what’s outside them.

Stars.

My brain tries to understand what’s happening, flipping through options and discarding them at top speed. The view outside the windows isn’t a wall. It’s not a building. It’s a huge sweep of metal, studded with bright lights, stretching away from me in a long curve.

Those are spacecraft zipping around it, like a tiny school of fish darting around a shark.

This is a space station. I’m in space. This place is impossible—it makes the Cid Shipyards that the Hadfield launched from look like a gas station somewhere out in the boondocks.

This place is impossible.

Unless that lady really is an alien.

Unless I’m really in space.

Unless this really is the future.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Does not compute, please reboot.

I’m two hundred and thirty-seven years old.

Everyone I know is dead.

My parents are dead.

My sister is dead.

My friends are dead.

My home is gone.

Everyone I know is gone.

I can’t.

The next wave of the vision comes for me.

And this time I let the glowing waters sweep over my head.

And they pull me under.





3


    Scarlett




This is such crap.

That’s what my baby brother is thinking. I can see it all over his face. He won’t actually say it, because Tyler Jones, Squad Leader, First Class, doesn’t curse. Tyler Jones doesn’t do drugs or drink or do anything we mere mortals do for fun. But if my eighteen years in this strange little galaxy have taught me anything, it’s this: Just because you’re not saying it, doesn’t mean you’re not thinking it.

We’re sitting on a mezzanine above the arboretum. … Well, Cat and I are sitting, anyway. Tyler’s pacing back and forth, trying to come to grips with the thought that his last five years’ work just got flushed into the recycler. He drags one hand through his golden blond hair, and as he walks past me for the seven hundredth time, I notice a small scuff mark on his normally immaculate boots.

Yeah, he’s really taking it hard.

The dome above us is transparent, letting in the light of a billion distant suns. The garden below is a mix of flora from across the galaxy; swirls of Rigellian glassvine and orbs of Pangean duskbloom and blossoms of singing crystal from the stillsea on Artemis IV. The arboretum is probably my favorite place in the whole academy, but the splendor seems kinda lost on my dear baby brother right now.

Can’t blame him, really.

“It’s not the end of the Way, Ty,” I venture.

“Yeah, but you gotta admit it’s bloody close,” Cat replies.

I look at Cat sidelong and give her my best shut uuuuuup smile, speaking through gritted teeth. “We should look on the bright side, Cat.”

“Come on, Scar,” Cat says, ignoring my smile’s shut uuuuup-edness. “Everyone knows Ty got robbed. He’s the most decorated Alpha in our year. And now he’s stuck with the jank and chaff no other squad leader wanted to touch.”

“Not to feed that rampant ego of yours,” I sigh, “but you’re the best Ace in the academy, Cat. You may be counted as neither jank nor chaff.”

“Cheers.” She smirks. “But I was talking about you and the others.”

“Oh, stop.” I clutch my chest. “My poor heart.”

“Aw. Hug?”

“Kiss.”

“No tongue this time.”

Catherine Brannock is my bunkmate here at Aurora Academy. She’s the yin to my yang. The half-empty glass to my half-full. The mint chocolate chip to my strawberry triple ripple. She’s also Tyler’s and my oldest friend. Ty pushed Cat down on our first day of kindergarten, and she broke a chair over his head in retaliation. When the dust settled, my baby brother ended up with a nice little scar on his right eyebrow to go with his killer dimples, and a friend whose loyalty is pretty much unquestionable.

She’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering.

“That O’Malley girl was stuck in the Fold for two hundred years,” Cat continues. “The brass should be pinning a bloody medal on Ty for rescuing her, not saddling him with a squad of no-hopers.”

“No-hopers?” I say. “You know, you’re lucky I’m such a soulless shrew. Otherwise you might be at risk of quite possibly maybe hurting my feelings.”