Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(113)

Ten days later, and the entire galaxy is drenched in panic.

I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like an infection, traveling ahead of the Ra’haam: that wave of glittering blue spores spilling out into the Fold, the corrupted coalition armada moving along with it.

We’ve had only snatches of vision as the enemy advances, but there’s enough footage to know the fleet and everyone in it is gone. All those warstars and reapers and carriers now encrusted with spores and mold and leaves of blue green, trailing long, twisting tendrils behind them through the Fold. They look like shipwrecks on the bottom of Terran oceans, overrun with barnacles and weeds, and I shudder to think about what became of all those brave soldiers inside.

Admiral Adams. His fellow commanders.

The Aurora Legion and every military in the galaxy have been virtually decapitated.

Where a few weeks ago it slumbered hidden and silent, now the whole galaxy knows its name, whispered in the dark and spoken fearfully behind closed doors and shouted across the feeds.

Ra’haam.

An enemy set to swallow the races of the galaxy one by one.

Until there’s nothing left but it.

As far as we can tell, only the Octavia nursery has hatched so far. Maybe it has something to do with the assault, or the Terran colony that settled there, some other variable. All we know for certain is that as bad as things are now, they’re gonna get twenty-one times worse once those other nursery worlds hatch.

This war is over almost before it’s begun.

The fear of it is like a wildfire, sweeping the Milky Way just as the enemy sweeps out into the Fold. The other races begin panicking, some going so far as to destroy the FoldGates into their systems—cutting themselves off into a new, pre-Fold Dark Age rather than allow the Ra’haam to colonize their worlds. And all the while, those spores billow outward, glowing ghostly blue even in the muted colorscape of the Fold.

Endless.

Relentless.

The corrupted fleet rides the spore wave, cruising like dark shadows among a glowing, glittering storm billions of kilometers across. And as I watch the snatches of footage on the feeds, awash in the terror of it all, I can’t help but sink into hopelessness.

I did just what my vision told me. I stopped the destruction of Aurora Academy, averted whatever calamity might have followed the destruction of the Galactic Caucus. I did as I was asked.

And in doing so, I’ve helped hand the Ra’haam a massive battle fleet it might otherwise never have had.

Scar and Fin carved a pathway across time, Zila gave her life to form the Aurora Legion in the past to fight against this thing, Auri and Kal gave up their lives to try to secure the Weapon, and yet, here the Ra’haam is, spewing out into the Fold just like it always wanted, just like it always planned.

Maybe after all we’ve done, Squad 312 only made things worse.

And even after all I did to save Aurora Station, it will count for nothing. Because Aurora Station is where that Ra’haam fleet is headed next.

Our logistics teams have confirmed it. Course plotted. Data correlated.

The Ra’haam is coming here.

And it’ll arrive in less than twenty hours.

No help is coming. No miracle on its way. We’re outnumbered and outgunned—though we still have reserve ships and a defense grid, the simple fact is, a fleet that size will make short work of any resistance we can muster.

“Scar, you’ve gotta get out of here.”

We’re standing on the promenade, the chaos of the crowd milling around us. What’s left of station command has confirmed the Ra’haam is inbound to Aurora Station, and all nonessential personnel have been ordered to evacuate. Vendors and their families are hastily packing up their stores and possessions, the dark outside lit up by the flare of hundreds of engines—shuttles and carriers and freighters streaming through the FoldGate, headed toward whatever safety they can find.

“Brother mine,” Scarlett says, “you’re out of your mind.”

“I mean it,” I say, waving to the station around us. “The time for diplomacy is long gone, Scar. There’s no sense you staying here.”

“There’s no sense in anyone staying here, far as I can tell,” Fin says.

“Thank you!” Scar cries, giving Fin a dramatic bow. “At last, someone here is talking sense!”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be talking at all,” I mutter.

My Gearhead flashes me a grin, his new exosuit hissing softly as he shrugs. “We all knew it was too good to last.”

“Seriously, Tyler, we should evac with th—”

“I can’t do that, Scar. I swore an oath to the Legion when I joined it.”

“The Legion?” she scoffs. “Tyler, we lost most of our commanders and nearly all our ships when Octavia bloomed! The Legion is absolutely fuc—”

“I know!” I say, my temper flaring. “I know better than anyone! Trust me, I’ve run this math with de Stoy a thousand times! But if I’m gonna die, then I’m gonna die fighting! And the best place to fight from is here!”

She meets my stare and simply shrugs. “Then I’m staying with you.”

“Scar, no, there’s no—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Scar shouts. “I didn’t join the Legion because I wanted to make the galaxy a better place! I didn’t join it to be a hero! I joined it because you’re my baby brother and I look after you! And I didn’t drag my fabulous ass across time and space and collapsing paradox loops just to turn and run at the first sign of a little galaxy-shattering cataclysm, you hear me?”