“Kal.”
My name is heavy as iron, spat from Tyler’s lips as though it were poison. He stares at me from the projection my father has thrown into the air before us, and from across an ocean of time.
Tyler Jones is a man now, where once—mere days ago—I knew just a boy. He sits in the commander’s chair of his warship, and I can see the years have not been kind to my old friend. His face is battle-scarred, worn, lined with pain and grief, but more and most, with rage.
“What the hells are you doing here?” he demands. “What are—”
“Tyler!” Aurora cries at my side. “Holy cake, it is you!”
A scowl creases his scarred brow, confusion in his stare. “… Auri?”
“Yes, it’s me!” she shouts, wiping blood from her nose. She seems weakened after the battle, but she looks exhilarated, almost drunk perhaps. “It’s us! Ty, I thought I’d never see you again!”
He shifts his gaze from Aurora to me, bewildered. “See me again? Last time I saw you was twenty-seven years ago… .”
Aurora shakes her head. “Last we saw you, you got captured by the GIA! We were so worried, Scar was going out of her mind!” She grins even as she cries, her eyes shining with tears. “I know it sounds crazy, Ty, but holy cake, it’s so good to see you! I’m so glad you’re okay!”
“Aurora … do I look okay to you?”
His gaze shifts to my father, his eyes hardening.
“The ship you’re in disappeared at the Battle of Terra with you all inside it. We needed that Weapon, Auri. We needed you!”
“I know,” she whispers, her smile falling. “I’m sorry, Ty. We didn’t mean to come here. We didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“This may be difficult for you to fathom, Brother,” I tell him. “Twenty-seven years may have passed for you, but for us, the battle between the Unbroken and Terran forces was only hours ago. We have traveled in time.”
“What the hells … ?” he whispers.
“We look the same, do we not?” I insist. “Look at Aurora. Almost three decades have passed for you, but she has aged not a day, yes?”
He stares at me, brow creased, jaw clenching as he looks to his crew.
“I am telling you the truth, Brother,” I plead.
“You don’t get to talk to me about truth.” Tyler’s lip curls as he speaks in perfect Syldrathi. “I’na Sai’nuit.”
My heart sinks at that. So, he knows. The lie I told him. Told them all. It shames me to think of it now—that I called him friend and yet lied to his face about who I was. I had my reasons, and yet, I have no excuse.
“Brother, I am sorry. I was wrong to deceive you then. But I beg you to believe me now. I will never lie to you again.”
“Tyler, please … ,” Aurora says.
The Betraskan beside Tyler pipes up, squinting as she adjusts a cybernetic targeting monocle over her eye. “Commander, I hate to break up the touching reunion, but we still have incoming. Weed fleet, bearing seven-one-eight-twelve-niner. Weapons range in sixty seconds.”
“Shit,” Tyler whispers, and more than the sight of him, the years on his bones, the pain in his eyes, that shakes me.
The Tyler Jones I knew never cursed.
But this is not the Tyler Jones I knew.
“What’s your status?” he says. “Your hull looks compromised.”
“The Weapon was damaged during the journey here.” I glower at my father, who is sitting back and watching the exchange with mild disinterest. “And we were attacked again before you arrived. It took some time before we were able to muster the energy to retaliate.”
“We picked up the power spike on long-range scans,” Tyler says. “You’re damned lucky we did, too. We were headed back to …”
He catches himself before saying more, his voice fading. He looks to his readouts, the incoming Ra’haam ships, chewing his lip in thought. I can see his mind: the distrust, the anger, battling with the proof before his eyes. He stares at Aurora, and she gazes back, unfailing hope in her eyes, softly speaking two words: the same message Admiral Adams passed to us what feels like a lifetime ago now.
“Believe, Tyler.”
“Thirty seconds to weapons range, boss,” the Betraskan says.
And finally, Tyler Jones sighs.
“All right. I don’t know what the hells is going on here, but we got incoming Weeds and I just spent most of my fusion bombs. I suggest we continue this conversation a few light years the hells away from here. Are your engines still operational?”
I look to Aurora, the bloodstains on her upper lip. Perhaps it is my imagination, but the small cracks in the skin around her right eye seem … deeper. But she nods anyway, her eyes alight. “I can move us.”
“All right, follow our lead. Lae, spool up the rift drive and—”
“You cannot mean to bring them with us?”
It’s the Syldrathi woman who speaks, sitting at what I presume is the helm. She is only a little older than I, fierce and slender with long, flowing braids of silver. The Waywalker glyf is scored on her brow, but there are deep cracks in the skin around her eyes, similar to those that mark Aurora and my father. And when she speaks, it is with the fury of a thousand suns, staring at Tyler in disbelief.
“That sounds like you questioning my judgment, soldier,” Tyler replies.
“They ride with the Starslayer!” she spits. “The blood of ten billion Syldrathi on his hands! The death of the galaxy at his feet!”
“Quiet your noise, child,” my father sighs, leaning back on his throne. “From your look, you could not even have been alive when Syldra fell.”
“My mother told me of you, cho’taa,” she hisses, violet eyes narrowed to slits. “I know exactly what you—”
“Spool up the rift drive, Lieutenant,” Tyler interrupts. “I want us out of here now.”
The Syldrathi woman glowers at Tyler, but his tone is hard, unforgiving. After a moment of silent struggle, she acquiesces, bows her head.
“If I am bringing them with us, we cannot go far. A rift that large—”
“Where doesn’t matter, Lieutenant. As long as it’s away from here.”
She clenches her jaw. “Yessir.”
“Auri, Kal,” Tyler says. “Follow us through. And just in case that bastard sitting behind you is getting any ideas in his pretty head?” He glares at my father, his good eye ablaze. “We’ve still got a few nukes left, Starslayer.”
My father is not even looking at the screen anymore, treating Tyler as beneath contempt. But Auri nods, jaw set. “We’ll follow you, Ty.”
“Strap yourselves in if you can. The ride’s a little bumpy.”
The transmission ends, and with a glance, my father banishes the projection he’s summoned. The light about us dies, the throne room dimming to a darker shade of blood-red, reflected in my father’s eyes.
“Weakling,” he murmurs.
Beside me, Aurora watches him, eyes narrowed. And pursing her lips, she holds out her hand toward the center of the room where the projection was. The air shimmers. I feel the power in her swell, a tiny spark shining in the white of her right eye. Another image appears—a view from outside the ship, conjured by the power of her mind.
I look at her, wary, but she smiles back at me.
I realize she is learning how to wield it. She is mastering this place.
But what is it going to do to her?
I see Tyler’s vessel—a strange amalgam of Syldrathi and Betraskan and Terran technologies, as if cobbled together from the pieces of half a dozen other ships. It is not beautiful, but it is functional, built for war. The name VINDICATOR is painted down her prow.
My breath catches as I see a glow begin, a tiny point of light against the backdrop of the FoldStorm. The light grows in intensity, spreading wider, like a tear across the fabric of the Fold. And I realize what I am seeing—a FoldGate, crude and temporary to be sure, but large enough for us to pass through in the Neridaa, into the solar system beyond.
The thrusters on Tyler’s ship flare bright, and his vessel soars through the rift it has torn, vanishing out of the Fold. Aurora lowers her chin, a frown darkening her brow, and I take her hand as I feel us begin to move—this mighty vessel, bigger than a city, more powerful than any weapon developed by Syldrathi or Terrans or any other.
And my be’shmai moves it simply with the power of her thoughts.
We reach the rift, and the Weapon begins to shake around us. Violent. Sudden. Enough to throw me off my feet.
But I feel a gentle pressure, and the glow in Aurora’s eye burns brighter, her power keeping me upright. The Neridaa trembles as we cross the threshold, white light like a supernova, all of space stretching and inverting around me.
And as suddenly as it began, it is over.
All is silence. The space I see projected outside our hull is not the bleached colorscape of the Fold anymore, but the vibrant and rainbowed hues of realspace. A red star burns distant. Nearby, an ice giant of methane and nitrogen hangs in the gloom, silent and green and forever frozen. There is no sign of Ra’haam ships pursuing us, the tear in space closing behind us with one final shimmering flare of sun-bright light.
And we are safe.
For now.
“They’re hailing us again,” Aurora murmurs.
I glance to my father. He is watching Aurora like a hawk now as she focuses her gaze and shifts her fingers. The image projected in the room’s heart shimmers, and again, I see the war-worn face of Tyler Jones.
My chest might normally ache at the sight of him—the marks the cruel hands of time have left on my friend’s skin. But I am more interested in my father now, studying Aurora like a drakkan with its prey. She is learning the workings of the ship quickly—she was made for this task, just as he was. Both Triggers of the Eshvaren. Both able to wield this Weapon, for good or ill. And looking into his eyes, one of them now softly aglow, I know she is in danger.
Caersan will tolerate no rival for this throne.
“You two all right?” Tyler asks.
“We are well, Brother,” I tell him, my eyes not shifting from my father. “We thank you for your aid.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Tyler growls. “Every member of my command staff is telling me I need my head examined. You’d better get your asses over here and bring a damn good explanation with you. Because in all honesty, I’m about halfway convinced to leave you for the Weeds.” He leans forward, glowering. “By the way, the invitation doesn’t extend to that mass-murdering psychopath sitting behind you. Because if I lay eyes on him in the flesh, I’m gonna blow his fucking brains all over the floor.”
My father raises one eyebrow, and yawns.
“Vindicator, out.”
• • • • •
We walk down to the docking bay together, and on the way Aurora pauses at the place she left her boots when she first entered the Neridaa. She is still for a moment, toes curling and flexing against the crystal as though she is loath to break contact with it, and then with a sigh, she sits down to pull on her socks and lace up her boots.
“Probably impractical to go to a war council barefoot,” she says, with a small, rueful smile that tugs at my heart.
This moment is such a small one, so simple, so domestic. But it summons a thousand others we spent together in our half year inside the Echo. It reminds me of all the ways in which we learned to fit together, day by day. And so I am reminded that although she is impossibly powerful, and although we are in a galaxy made of nothing but death, she is still the girl I know. I still have riches beyond counting, because I have her.
Tyler will not, of course, dock with the Eshvaren ship, and so Aurora takes us to meet the Vindicator, carrying us out into the void.
I am not wearing a suit or helmet, just the black armor of an Unbroken warrior—I would normally freeze and suffocate out here. But a warm nimbus of light plays over Aurora’s skin, engulfing me as she takes my hand, carrying us through the empty dark with only the power of her mind.
Her right eye is aglow, and I find myself in awe of how far she has journeyed. How strong she has become. Her face is almost ecstatic as we traverse the Void together, her lips gently curled. But still, I see that faint webwork of scars about her eye, picture the same cracks in my father’s face, deeper, darker. I wonder at the toll all this is taking on her.
The price she might pay in the end.
“You are beautiful,” I tell her, as we soar together through the black.
My heart aches at her smile. “Not so bad yourself.”
“I am … sorry, Aurora. For lying to you. About who I am.”
Her smile fades a breath, and she glances back toward the Neridaa. The ship hangs in the dark behind us—colossal and beautiful, all the colors of the spectrum. But I can see scars torn down its flanks from the Ra’haam attack now. And I can feel the shadow lurking in its heart.
“It hurt that you couldn’t tell me the truth, Kal.” She squeezes my hand. “But now I’ve met him, I understand why you’d rather your father be dead.”
“He gave me life,” I say, looking down at our entwined fingers. “And I sought to take his in return. I tried to put a knife in his back.”
“He’s a monster, Kal. He murdered a whole world.”
“I know it.” I shake my head and sigh. “But it should not be this way.”
She holds my hand tighter, looks me in the eyes.
“I understand. I’m with you. And I’m glad you’re here with me.”
She kisses me, brief and soft, and out in this infinity, we are totally alone, and totally complete. And despite everything, the struggle, the hurt, the loss, a part of me still cannot believe this girl is mine.
Aurora brings us across the span of nothing between the Neridaa and Tyler’s ship. Drawing close, I can see the Vindicator has been through many battles, held together with spotwelds and prayers. We glide into the fighter launch bays, and Aurora brings us through the secondary airlock. The aura she has thrown around us fades as the chamber pressurizes, oxygen hissing into the compartment. Gravity slowly returns, Aurora’s hair drifting downward, the white streak settling over the dying glow in her eye.
The hatchway cycles open, and we see the gremp from Tyler’s bridge crew waiting, one clawed hand on the pistol at her waist. She wears a battered spacesuit, and through the plexiglass of her sealed helmet, I can see her black fur and the spot of white over her left eye. A toothpick of what might be humanoid bone hangs from one corner of her mouth.
Beside her stands the Rikerite—another female, by the look. She is taller even than I, horns sweeping back from a heavy brow. Her arms are thick as my thighs, her shoulders impressively broad. The heavy pulse rifle she carries is aimed vaguely in our direction, and she wears an old sealed combat suit.
“Morning,” she says, in a deep voice turned metallic by her visor. “I’m Toshh, chief of security aboard the Vindicator.”
“Greetings,” I say, touching my eyes, lips, heart.
“Hello,” Aurora smiles.
“This is Dacca. She’s going to scan you for infection. Do yourselves a favor and don’t move.” Toshh hefts her rifle. “Sudden or otherwise.”
The gremp steps forward, sweeping us with a handheld scanner. Aurora and I exchange a glance as the red light scrolls over our bodies—both of us know exactly what kind of infection these two are searching for.
Finishing her sweep, the small feline steps back, growling in her own language. The Rikerite nods, touches her helmet. “Comm, this is Toshh, we’re green light on bio-scans. No sign of corruption, over?”
“Roger that, Chief,” comes Tyler’s reply. “Bring them up.”
The woman hefts her pulse rifle onto one massive arm, motions over her shoulder. “Follow me.”
The inner airlock opens after the woman punches in a code, and we follow her into a broader corridor, the gremp bringing up the rear, with her hand still on her pistol. Stepping out into the main vessel, I see the power settings are low, the lights dim. The plasteel is old, the fixtures faulty and flickering, the steel pocked with corrosion. This ship has seen far better days.
Aurora finds my hand as we move into a larger bay, crowded with people. They are young and old—Betraskans mostly, though I see Chellerians and humans and a few gremps among them. They are ragged and shell-shocked, dirty skin and thin bodies, watching with tired eyes as we follow Toshh. I have seen enough war to know their look in an instant.
“Who are all these people?” Aurora whispers.
“Refugees,” I reply.
Toshh nods. “Survivors of a miner fleet, hiding in an ice belt around a dead sun in the Beta sector.” She shrugs. “The Weeds found ’em anyway. We pulled them out of the fire just as the swarm hit. Managed to evac two of the ships in the convoy before the rest got taken.”
“How many ships were there total?” Aurora asks.
The gremp chatters behind us, little fangs bared.
“I’m sorry,” Aurora replies. “I don’t und—”
“Thirty-seven,” Toshh says. “We saved two of thirty-seven.”
We reach an elevator, the doors hissing wide. Aurora watches a little Rikerite girl playing with a stuffed toy beside a pile of packing crates. She is filthy, terribly thin, small horns budding on a brow stained with old blood.
“Be’shmai?” I murmur.
Aurora blinks, joins us in the elevator, her hand finding mine as the doors slip closed. We feel motion, the gentle hum of magnetized mechanics, and in a moment we are stepping out into the space we saw in Tyler’s transmission—the bridge of his vessel.
I take note of spot repairs and jury-rigs, bundles of cable and wiring spilling from tactical stations—the signs of wear and tear are apparent here too. But nowhere more so than in the man who awaits us in the commander’s chair. He swivels toward us, a battle-scarred mask, a journey of years and blood staining his hands and etched in his one good eye.
“Tyler!” Aurora cries.
She runs forward, suddenly, without warning. Toshh and Dacca both shout in alarm. I see the Syldrathi woman coming to her feet, drawing a null blade from her waist.
I cry out as weapons are raised, stepping toward Chief Toshh, between her and my be’shmai. Tyler rises from his chair, hand slipping to the sidearm at his waist, the Syldrathi woman roars, “SIR, LOOK OUT!” charging toward Aurora. As I kick the gremp’s weapon aside and snatch the pulse rifle from Toshh’s hands, I hear a soft grunt from Aurora, a hiss from Tyler. And he stands there, his whole body tensed as Aurora throws her arms around him and gives him a crushing hug.
Tyler hangs frozen, like a broken mirror, hand still on his pistol. His crew is tensed and ready, the Syldrathi poised, null blade cracking with a harsh purple glow, the gremp and Rikerite holding their breath. I can see love for Tyler in their eyes—the look of a crew who would gladly die for the one who leads them. A crew who believes.
“I missed you so much, Ty,” Aurora breathes, squeezing him tight. “We thought you were …”
None of us said it aloud then—we could not bear to. And the word hangs unspoken in the air now, as if it might attract its own kind, draw darkness down upon the little ship.
Dead.
Tyler stands still for a moment longer. His eye flickering to me. But finally, his hand slips away from his pistol, and slowly, he lifts his arms. His embrace is not ablaze with warmth, not a full surrender; I still see the tension in his frame, the burden on his shoulders. But for a tiny moment, he holds her tight, allowing himself a second of joy in a galaxy that seems otherwise bereft of it. Joy that his friend still lives.
“I missed you, too,” he whispers.