Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)
Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
1
ZILA
I am rarely surprised. In any situation, I habitually calculate the odds of all possible outcomes, ensuring I am prepared for every eventuality.
Nevertheless, I am extremely surprised to discover I am still alive.
I spend six seconds in open-mouthed shock, blinking slowly. After that, I press two fingers to my neck to check my pulse, which is rapid but unquestionably present. This suggests I am not experiencing an unexpected version of the afterlife.
Interesting.
A glance out of the cockpit viewshields reveals nothing—no stars, no ships, simple blackness. On instinct, I check our failing sensors, long-range and short. Strangely, I do not see any sign of the enormous battle that was raging around us moments ago, just before the Eshvaren Weapon blew itself apart—an incident with no possible outcome but our complete incineration.
Impossible as it may be, the entire Syldrathi armada, along with the Terran and Betraskan fleets, and the Weapon, have … vanished.
… Interesting?
No. Unnerving.
I let my training take over, instructing the ancient navcom on our Syldrathi ship to catalog all visible stars, FoldGates, and other landmarks or phenomena and then advise on our present location.
Wait. Our.
I flick on comms. “Finian, Scarlett, are you still … ?”
“Breathing?” comes Finian’s voice, a touch uneven.
“Apparently so.”
A wave of relief washes through me, and I do not attempt to prevent it. It is inefficient to combat such sensations. Better to let them pass naturally.
“I am one confused boy right now,” Fin continues.
“Didn’t we just … explode a moment ago?” Scarlett asks.
“… Lemme check,” Fin replies.
I hear a small squeak. A soft sigh. A long moment passes, and I am almost tempted to send a query when Finian speaks.
“Yeah,” he finally reports. “We’re definitely still alive.”
“I am investigating,” I advise them, as the navcom pings softly. “Please hold.”
Consulting the ship’s guidance systems, I feel a small frown forming between my brows. Not only is there no sign of the massive battle that should have killed us, there is also no sign of the planetary bodies of the Terran solar system. No Neptune, no Uranus, no Jupiter.
In fact, I can detect no stellar features at all, near or far.
No systems.
No stars.
We have … moved.
And I have no idea where.
Interesting AND unnerving.
A new icon pops up on the fritzing sensor display, indicating something is behind us. Our engines are still down, disabled during the fleet battle, so I turn on our rear sensors, looking at the vast stretch of space to our aft.
It …
That is to say …
I, um …
I …
Stop that, legionnaire.
I suck in a deep breath, straightening my spine.
I do not understand what I am seeing.
I begin by cataloging what can be observed, as any scientist would.
The ship’s sensors are reading colossal fluctuations along the gravitonic and electromagnetic spectrums, bursts of quantum particles and reverberations through subspace. But engaging our aft cameras, I can barely see anything of this disruption in the visual spectrum at all.
In fact, at first, I mistakenly assume our visual arrays have been damaged. Everything is totally black. And then a pale light flares in the distance, a small pulse of disintegrating photons. And by their brief mauve glow, I glimpse what can only be described as …
A storm.
A dark storm.
It is enormous. Trillions upon trillions of kilometers wide. But it is utterly black, save for those brief photon flares within—an oily, seething emptiness, so complete that light simply dies inside it.
I know what this is.
“A tempest,” I whisper. “A dark matter tempest.”
Its presence would be strange enough, given that mere moments ago we were on the very edge of Terran space, where no such spatial anomaly exists. But stranger still, I see something more. Engaging my magnification settings, I confirm my suspicion. To our starboard, etched in silver against that seething storm of blackness, is a … space station.
It is a bulky, ugly thing, clearly built for function, not aesthetics. It appears to have been damaged—great crackling bolts of current slither over its surface, blinding and white. From the side closest to us, vapor is venting: fuel, or if the crew is unlucky, oxygen and atmosphere, puffing out like warm breath on a cold day and dragged into that endless roiling darkness.
If it is Terran, the station’s design specs are positively archaic.
But that does not explain what it is doing here in the first place.
Or how we got here.
None of this makes sense.
“Zila?” It’s Scarlett. “What’s happening out there? Can you see the Eshvaren Weapon? What’s the status on the enemy fleet? Are we in danger?”
“We …” I am not sure how to answer her question.
“Zila?”
There is a thick cable of gleaming metal stretching from the station. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers long, it twists and ripples but holds firm to the battered structure at one end. At the other, out on the edge of that seething tempest of dark matter, a great quicksilver sail is stretched across a rectangular frame, its surface swirling like an oil slick. It appears tiny on my visuals, but for me to even be able to see it at all from here, the sail must be immense.