Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(2)

If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was—

“Unknown vessel, you have entered restricted Terran space. Identify yourself and provide clearance codes, or you will be fired upon. You have thirty seconds to comply.”

The voice crackles through the cockpit, harsh and discordant. My pulse kicks up a notch, which is unhelpful.

I cannot see another vessel. Where is the voice coming from?

Leaving aside the fact that I have no clearance codes, I do not know whether the hail comes from friend or foe.

Not that my squad has a long list of friends just now.

I depress the switch for intrasquad comms and speak urgently. “Scarlett, please hurry to the bridge. Diplomacies are required.”

“Unknown vessel, identify yourself and provide clearance codes. Failure to comply will be interpreted as hostile intent. You have twenty seconds remaining.”

I scan the shuttle’s controls and stretch—every Syldrathi over the age of twelve is taller than me—to press the button that will switch our channel from audio to visual. I must find out who is addressing me.

The face that fills my commscreen is covered by a black breathing apparatus, a thick hose snaking out of sight. The mask conceals everything beneath the pilot’s eyes, and a helmet hides everything above.

I am looking at a Terran, though, most likely East Asian in origin, age and gender unclear. Strange as my situation is, perhaps a Terran can be reasoned with—we are the same species, after all.

“Please hold,” I say. “I am summoning my team’s Face.”

“Ident codes!” the pilot demands, eyes narrowing. “Now!”

“Understood,” I tell them. “I cannot provide codes, but—”

“You are in violation of restricted Terran space! You have

ten seconds to provide proper clearance, or I will fire on you!”

All around me, alarms flare into life, lights flashing and Syldrathi symbols illuminating as a loudspeaker barks at me. I don’t understand the words, but I know what it’s saying.

“WARNING, WARNING: MISSILE LOCK DETECTED.”

“Five seconds!”

“Please,” I say. “Please, wait—”

“Firing!”

I watch a tiny line of light appear on our scanners.

We have no engines. No navigation. No defenses.

We should be dead already. Incinerated with Aurora and the Weapon. But it seems somehow unfair to have to die again.

The light draws closer.

“Please—”

The missile strikes.

Fire tears through the bridge.

BOOM.





2.1



SCARLETT





Black light burns white across my skin. I can taste the sound around me, metallic on the back of my tongue, hearing touch and feeling scent as everything I am and was and will ever be rips itself apart and together and together and togeth—

“Scar?”

I open my eyes, see another pair of eyes before mine.

Big.

Black.

Pretty.

Finian.

“Did you … ?” I ask.

“Was that … ?” Fin says.

“Weird,” we murmur.

I look around us, a strange black-cat, creepy-crawly feeling of déjà vu spidering its way up my spine.

We’re standing in the corridor outside the engine room, just where we were a minute ago when the Eshvaren Weapon fired a whole beamful of planet-destroying badness into our favorite faces and then blew itself to tiny shinies. But, joy of joys, we are not, in fact, dead.

This comes as good news for a couple of reasons.

First, of course, and speaking frankly, it would be a bad move on the universe’s part to waste an ass like mine by incinerating it in a fiery explosion in the depths of space. Honestly, they come along, like, once a millennium.

Second, it means the boy standing opposite me isn’t dead, either. And strangely, that’s a whole lot more important to me than I would’ve admitted a few hours ago.

Finian de Karran de Seel.

He’s totally not my type. Brains not brawn. Chip on his shoulder as wide as the galaxy. But he’s brave. And he’s smart. And standing this close, I can’t help but notice that tumble of white hair and smooth pale skin and lips I almost kissed as we were about to die.

But that’s the only reason I did it.

Because we were totally about to die, right?

We stare at each other, conscious of how close we’re still standing. Neither of us is moving away. He looks into my eyes and I open my mouth, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, I have no idea what to say, and the only thing that saves me from the embarrassment of being speechless, when the only thing I’m really good at is talking, is Zila’s voice crackling over comms.

“Finian, Scarlett, are you still … ?”

“Breathing?” Finian says, his voice a little uneven.

“Apparently so.”

And there it is again. That same creepy black-cat-walking-on-your-grave feeling. The feeling that—

“I am one confused boy right now,” Finian says.

“Didn’t we just … explode a moment ago?” I ask.

He meets my eyes again. I can still feel that almost-kiss between us, and I know he can too. And I see him steel himself, take a deep breath.