Aurora Burning: The Aurora Cycle 2 Read online

  I see Ty and the squad moving through the crowd toward us, and the thrill of my little triumph is warm in my chest. That went even better than I expected. As I smile behind the mirrormask, Zila sidles up to me and whispers.

  “THAT WAS …”

  “Magic?” I reply.

  “REMARKABLE.”

  “Yeah. But don’t fall in love with me, Zila. I’ll just break your heart.”

  “THAT DOES SEEM CONSISTENT WITH YOUR ROMANTIC MODUS OPERANDI.” She pauses a moment before adding, “YOU ARE ALSO TOO TALL FOR ME.”

  I blink at that. “Wait … you like girls?”

  Zila shrugs, scanning the crowd. “NOT TALL ONES.”

  I’m actually a little surprised at that. To be honest, I didn’t think Zila liked anyone much at all. But before I can ponder this new revelation, Ty and the others have reached us at the Opha May’s berth.

  The grin on my bee-bro’s face makes me grin back, despite the fact that nobody can see under my helmet. As soon as Gruber and his boys get their gear together, we’ll be on our way.

  “It is a nice ship,” Auri sighs through our comms channel, looking her over.

  Even knowing nothing about ships, I have to agree—it’s a beauty. We’ve all had it rough in the last few weeks, but it seems like things are finally going our way. Our Trigger girl looks tired, but totally awake. For once in his life, Finian seems to have run out of sass, shooting me a goofy smile instead. Only Kal looks a touch out of sorts.

  Syldrathi are a little hard for me to read beyond their genetically ingrained arrogance. I guess if I was going to live three hundred years and everyone around me would be dead in half that, I’d be a little distant, too. But this isn’t our Tank’s typical You are but mayflies attitude at work. Looking at the frown on his pretty face, the dilation of his pupils, I’d say he looks almost … nervous.

  “You all right?” I murmur.

  “… Kal?” Auri asks, reaching out to brush his hand with her fingertips.

  He rubs his brow, looking around the docks. “I feel—”

  “Hello, Kaliis.”

  The voice comes from behind him. Sharp enough that it cuts through the clamor. Something about it fills my stomach with ice-cold butterflies. And turning across the crowded dock, I see a young woman glowering at the back of Kal’s head.

  I mean, she looks like a young woman. Maybe nineteen or twenty. But with Syldrathi it’s hard to tell. She’s taller even than me. She has the flawless olive skin and high cheekbones and aching, ethereal elegance of all her people. Her eyes are narrowed, dazzling, bright violet. Her hair is long, swept back over her tapered ears in ornate braids of inky black—she’s the only Syldrathi I’ve ever seen with hair that color. She’s the kind of beautiful that plucks your heart out through your ribs.

  But she’s wearing black armor, daubed with white Syldrathi script. The glyf of the Warbreed Cabal is etched on her brow—three crossed blades, just like Kal’s. There’s a stripe of black paint running from temple to temple, right across her eyes. Her lips are painted black too, and there’s a cord of what might be severed thumbs strung around her neck. And as she smiles, I note she’s filed her canines into points.

  I’ve seen armor like hers before. On the news feeds of the Orion Incursion. The surprise attack where Dad was killed. She’s one of the renegade cabal of militants who started the Syldrathi civil war.

  Unbroken.

  “Spirits of the Void … ,” Kal breathes, looking at her.

  Ty looks at him sidelong. “Kal?”

  I can feel the sudden tension radiating off our Tank in waves. Every muscle flexed, hands clenching into fists. His voice drops to absolute zero.

  “All of you, listen to me carefully,” he says. “Do not let her get close to you.”

  The young woman is still gliding nearer, cutting through the crowd like a knife. Kal reaches out to Auri beside him, presses her back.

  “Get behind me, Aurora.”

  She blinks. “Kal, what’s—”

  “Be’shmai.” He meets her mismatched eyes with his. “Please.”

  “It is true, then.”

  I turn back to the Unbroken woman. She’s stopped about ten meters away, looking at Kal with her lip curled. She’s speaking in Syldrathi, but language studies were one of the few subjects at the academy I was good at, so surprise, honey, I speak it too. One hand is propped at her hip, contempt twisting that beautiful face into something ugly and awful.

  “When the adepts you thrashed in that bar brawl on the World Ship told me the tale, I could scarce believe it,” she tells Kal. “I cut their throats to silence their lies. But I should have known you were capable of sinking to any depth. Any shame.” Violet eyes flicker to Aurora. “Enough even to name a human beloved.”

  Kal’s hand slips to the disruptor under his jacket.

  “What do you want, Saedii?” he asks.

  Hmm. They’re on a first-name basis. Interesting …

  Madam Badass lowers her chin and smiles with pointed teeth.

  “You know what I want, Kaliis,” she replies.

  The Opha May’s crew is emerging from the ship behind us now, arms loaded with luggage, frowning in confusion at the scene in front of them. Tyler whispers a warning, and I catch glimpses of six more Unbroken fanning out in the crowd. I spot another two on the warehouse roof opposite our landing pad. They all have black armor, long silver hair, beautiful, battle-scarred faces. Warbreed glyfs on their brows and smiles on their lips and hate in those big, pretty eyes.

  But as dangerous as this crew might look, these docks are way too busy for them to start any real trouble. I don’t know who these pixies are, but whatever’s going on here, I’ve had about enough of it. Time to put this uniform to work again and get the hells off this station before the real trouble arrives.

  “You will refrain from coming any closer,” I say in Syldrathi, putting on my Voice of Authority again. “These individuals are in the custody of the GIA, and—”

  “You are no more an officer of the Global Intelligence Agency than I am, human,” the woman sneers, her eyes never leaving Kal. “Now still your tongue before I cut it out of your head.”

  “We need to go,” Kal murmurs, glancing at Tyler. “Now.”

  Ty nods in agreement, eyes still on Madam Badass.

  “Everybody get aboard.”

  We start backing toward the Opha May’s loading ramp. The Unbroken woman tilts her head. And with zero foreplay, not even so much as a goodbye kiss, one of her chums up on the warehouse fires a damn pulse rocket at us.

  It looks like a bolt of luminous green, trailing a wisp of thin smoke. Hissing as it comes. Auri shouts a warning and throws up her hands, and I see a flare of brief white light from her right eye. For a second the air around us crackles with tension, greasy and warm. But as the pulse rocket goes skimming right over our heads, I realize it’s not aimed at us.

  Gruber and his crew scatter as Tyler roars at the top of his lungs.

  “Everybody down!”

  Kal throws himself on top of Aurora; the rest of us hit the deck as the rocket sails right through the open bay doors of my newly commandeered escape plan. The explosion rips through the Opha May’s insides and blooms out her exhaust ports. Shrapnel whizzes past my head, skims off the nanoweave armor on my back. I hear Aurora scream, Zila gasp, Fin curse. Alarms begin blaring across the docks; the crowd roars in panic. Alerts flash across the display inside my mask as a warning spills from the public address system.

  “FIRE IN SECTION 12, CETA. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEAREST EXIT.”

  Chaos breaks loose on the docks. Black smoke rolls in the air. Fire and explosions aboard a suborbital station are rarely a good thing, and all around us the mob begins scattering toward the transit tubes, babbling, trampling, desperate. Nozzles open up in the deck, spraying chemicals onto the Opha May’s burning shell.

  I squint through the smoke and see the Unbroken stalking toward us through the panicking crowd. The young woman is in the
lead, violet stare still fixed on Kal. Our Tank has his arms around Auri, and I see blood spilling from a shrapnel gash on her brow. Her jaw is slack, her eyelashes fluttering.

  “Aurora?” he cries, touching her face. “Aurora!”

  “M-mothercustard … ,” she groans.

  I stagger to my feet, shaking my head to clear it. But the GIA armor has protected me from the worst of the blast, and I drag my disruptor pistol from its holster, aim at the oncoming Syldrathi woman.

  “Freeze,” I tell her.

  She stops for a moment. Perfectly still. And then she moves.

  Now, I’ve seen Kal dismantle a room full of Terran Defense Force troopers in seconds. He took down two GIA agents without breaking a sweat. But Madam Badass gives a new meaning to the word fast. One moment I’m drawing a bead on her head, and the next she’s standing in front of me, her fist colliding with my chest. My breath sprays from between my lips; I feel myself lifted off the plasteel. I hear something rip, see black stars, taste blood. And then I’m flat on my back, gasping, clutching my bits.

  “Scar!” Tyler roars.

  “Owwww,” I groan.

  “Maker’s breath, are you okay?” Finian gasps, on his knees beside me.

  “No.” A low moan escapes my lips. “She p-punched me … in the ladies… .”

  See what I mean about these things being a bitch to own?

  I’m only dimly aware of my brother rising to his feet, aiming his disruptor at the woman who just whomped me in the ta-tas. But in a heartbeat, she slips aside from his blasts, stepping up to him in a black blur. I see her hands clap down on Ty’s shoulders. I hear an ugly crunch, an off-key squeal of pain, as her knee collides with my twin brother’s fun factory so hard I can almost feel it in our shared DNA.

  Poor Bee-bro …

  She grabs Ty’s arm and flips him over her shoulder, slamming him onto the deck with a force that shakes the plasteel. His wrist is still locked in her grip as she crouches low, open palm drawn back to slam into my brother’s head.

  “STOP!” comes a cry.

  I blink hard, watch Kal rise up from beside a semiconscious Aurora. There’s a shrapnel nick in his cheek, a thin line of purple blood spilling from the wound.

  A long strand of silver hair has come loose from one of his braids, drifting across his eyes in the burning updraft.

  His fingertips are wet with Auri’s blood. His beautiful face is twisted with a fury that’s all the way terrifying.

  “Saedii, stop this,” he spits.

  “Only you have the power to stop this, Kaliis. You belong with us.”

  “No,” he says. “I am not like you.”

  I look from the glyf on her brow to the identical glyf on his. The hate in his eyes, reflected in her own. The other Unbroken have gathered around us now, black armor aglow in the light of the Opha May’s wreckage. The two on the rooftops have climbed down, approaching us with more pulse rockets at the ready. Fin is crouched beside me, hand on my shoulder; Zila is next to Auri, checking over the groaning girl with a med-scanner. And I’m wondering how deep the hole we’re in can actually go when one of the Syldrathi steps up to Kal with hand outstretched.

  “Come with us, comrade.”

  In a flash almost too quick to track, Kal seizes the man’s wrist, bends it backward with a bright snapping sound. The man screams and Kal twists; I hear another crunch as the guy’s elbow bends in entirely the wrong direction. The other Unbroken step forward, but with a hiss, the young woman called Saedii holds them still. And as I watch, horrified, Kal sweeps the warrior’s feet out from under him and starts slamming his fist into his face. His features are twisted. Silver braids hanging about his face. Lips peeled back from his teeth. Eyes burning.

  Crunch.

  “Great Maker,” Fin breathes.

  Crunch.

  “Kal, stop,” I whisper.

  Crunch.

  Kal stands up when he’s done. Purple blood dripping from his knuckles. Spattered across those prettyboy cheeks. The woman looks at him with triumph.

  “There he is,” she breathes. “There’s the Kaliis I know.”

  He takes a step toward her. In a flash, she draws a disruptor pistol from her belt, pointed right at his chest. It doesn’t take a Tank to know from the hum that the weapon is set to Kill.

  “Don’t,” she warns.

  “You won’t kill me, Saedii,” Kal says.

  “True.” She turns the weapon on Fin and me. “But them?”

  “I am not going with you,” Kal says. “I am not going back.”

  “Oh, Kaliis.” The young woman sighs, looks down at his hands, dripping purple blood on the deck at his feet. “You never lef—”

  The impact throws her backward, arms pinwheeling, black hair streaming about her face. Her posse is thrown back too, spit and blood, tumbling through the air. I watch a sphere of translucent force surge outward, crushing the ships around us like paper, peeling the deck, popping the swarms of drones above us like bugs on a windshield. The floor shakes beneath us; the air around us crackles with static, greasy and warm. Every hair on my body is standing to attention.

  I turn around and see Aurora wobbling on her feet, hand outstretched. Her right eye is flickering with moon-pale light. Her hair blows like there’s a wind, white bangs twisting, almost aglow. Blood spills from the split in her brow.

  “Auri?” I manage.

  Like someone switched off a light, the glow in her eye dies and she sinks to her knees again, blood spilling from her nostrils. Kal catches her as she sags, pulling her up in his arms. Impossibly gentle, where a moment ago he was anything but.

  “We …” Auri swallows hard, wipes her lip.

  “Be’shmai?” Kal says.

  “We need … to g-get out of here,” she says.

  “AURORA IS RIGHT,” says Zila, pulling off her mask. “Security will be coming.”

  I look around us, chest still aching, struggling to breathe as I crawl to my brother’s side. He’s only semiconscious, groaning softly.

  The Unbroken are scattered like kids’ toys, comatose, swept aside with a wave of Aurora’s hand. But the dock and ships around us are likewise totaled. The Opha May is a smoldering paperweight and we don’t have the passkeys to any of the other ships at dock.

  Our plan to get off Emerald City is in the toilet.

  “We need t-to hide,” Aurora says. “Deep and dark as w-we … can.”

  I can hear incoming sirens.

  “Okay,” I say. “We have to move.”

  “Here, hold on to me,” Fin says, helping me to my feet.

  “Kal, c-can you grab Ty?” Auri asks.

  Our Tank complies, hauling Tyler up. “On your feet, Brother.”

  Kal supports Ty; Fin and I support each other. Zila leads the way with her disruptor drawn. And quick as we can, we’re hobbling across the ruined loading docks, the buckled decks, smoke still billowing around us, alarms blaring, groaning Unbroken scattered like fallen dominoes.

  We reach the transit station, and Fin’s consulting his uniglass, stabbing in a destination with shaking hands while we wait for the pressure inside the tube to equalize. Thankfully, Aurora’s shock wave knocked out any SecDrones, so the station authorities might not be able to track where we’re headed. If we reach the Emerald City’s underbelly, we might be able to find a place deep enough to lay low.

  Aurora is looking back across the docks at the downed Syldrathi, blood in her eyes and on her lips. My stomach flips as I see Madam Badass trying to rise to her feet.

  “You two know each other,” Auri says, pawing at her bloody nose.

  “Yes,” Kal replies.

  “Lemme guess,” Finian says, glancing over his shoulder and stabbing with renewed vigor at the tube controls. “Evil ex-girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  I glance at Auri. “Evil current girlfriend?”

  “Worse.”

  “What could be worse than that?” Zila asks.

  Kal sighs as the tube doors open. G
lances back as he steps into the flow.

  “She is my sister.”

  4

  ZILA

  Aurora confirms that our hiding place is deep and dark enough to comply with her vision.

  The squad is pressed together, all six of us crammed into the junction between eleven different transport tubes. It is a precarious position, every wall at a different angle, obliging us to brace ourselves simply to stay in position. A moment’s inattention would mean a considerable fall through a gap.

  Finian managed to halt our progress long enough to open an emergency access hatch in the tunnel we were using, and we exited the tube system into the dark spaces within the transit network. Our current refuge is a small, cramped space that constantly vibrates and shudders as locals whiz by us, one after another, all moving too fast to register our makeshift camp. We are a tangle of limbs and backpacks, but we are temporarily secure.

  I am thinking, accompanied by the symphony of whirs and whooshes all around us, my mind humming as fast as any transport tube. I find myself tapping one finger against my knee, the tempo varying, then repeating. I do not know this pattern’s origin, but I feel it rising to the surface of my mind.

  Tap.

  Tap, tap.

  Tap.

  Tyler is the one to break the silence. He is huddled in the corner with his sister pressed against him, his knees lifted to protect his crotch. I should ask to examine his most recent injury, but I calculate that the probability of a refusal, followed by a sarcastic response from Finian, is almost one hundred percent.

  Tyler still looks a little dazed as he speaks.

  “Kal,” he says. “We have a lot of problems on the boil already without this kind of surprise cropping up.”

  “My sister prides herself on appearing when least needed,” our Tank says. His face is still daubed with his own blood, and that of the Unbroken.

  “Well, where’d she come from?” Scarlett asks.

  “I know not,” Kal replies. “I have not seen Saedii since before I left for the academy. She was unaware I had even joined Aurora Legion.”

  “She mentioned those Unbroken we fought back in the bar on the World Ship,” Tyler says. “I’m guessing they passed on word to her about you?”