There are advantages to being one of the galaxy’s most wanted criminals.
My whole life I played by the rules. Studied hard, worked harder, never really made time for trouble. But turning the collar of my long black coat up against the chill, pulling up my hood, and stepping into the bar, much as I hate to admit it, I kind of enjoy the feeling of being a wanted man.
The place is totally packed—freighter pilots and longhaul crews, gangsters and drug/sim/skin dealers, hundreds of faces, a dozen different races. Through the crowd, the Betraskan girl behind the bar gives me an appreciative smile, and the various lowlifes, scumbags, and villains I’ve scoped over the last day or two nod greeting or just cradle their drinks. But nobody messes with me, even in a place rough as this.
I’m a galactic terrorist, after all. An Aurora legionnaire gone rogue. A mass murderer, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Syldrathi aboard Sagan Station, not to mention an Interdiction breach, a heist, a couple of explosions aboard Emerald City, and any number of other charges the GIA has drummed up against me.
That’s not the kind of guy you mess with head-on.
I belly up to the bar, drenched in the thumping beat of the deep dub, surrounded by glowing holos advertising the latest stimcasts, newsfeeds of distant battles, the growing pulse of the war that’s rising across the stars. Nobody seems particularly worried by it. Most of them aren’t even aware it’s happening. The girl behind the bar slides a glass of synth semptar down the polished plasteel at me. As I lift the glass, I see the coaster underneath has her palmglass number written on it.
Like I say, there’s advantages to being a badass.
I’ve been on MaZ4-VII Station for thirty-two hours. It’s a starport at the intersection of a dozen major shipping routes, orbiting a gas giant right next to the FoldGate into the Stellanis system. Long-haul flights use it as a stopover for crews to avoid Fold psychosis, but it’s also on the border of Betraskan, Rigellian, Terran, and Free space. Which means it’s as busy as a one-handed Chellerian in an arm-wrestling competition.
Saedii and Co. dropped me off here almost two days ago, and I can still feel her farewell kiss on my lips. Still see the look in her eyes as she handed me that knife and refused to say goodbye, even knowing we’d probably never see each other again.
I will see you in the stars, Tyler Jones.
Best-case scenario, she unites the Unbroken, I somehow keep the Ra’haam from destroying Aurora Academy, and we’re still stuck without the Weapon, still all die fighting the Ra’haam.
Far more likely, we end up on opposing sides of an everdevolving galactic war. Or most likely of all, I just get arrested for being a traitor to Earth and the Legion, and executed.
Being one of the galaxy’s most wanted criminals isn’t all free drinks and pretty girls’ palmglass numbers, see. And truth is, I’m running out of time.
I scan the crowd, looking for my contact, rubbing the plastique disk in my pocket. The credits Saedii gave me are enough to buy passage to the Aurora system, but there’s still a summit of the entire Galactic Caucus being held at the academy in three days. What I’m saying is, getting to the system isn’t the real drama. Getting onto the station is. Security is going to be scarier than Scarlett without her morning coffee.
But like I told Saedii, I can’t just send a random warning and hope for the best. I have to get aboard without getting caught and shot so I can warn Adams directly about the threat to it.
The only way I can send him something that won’t be intercepted is via the academy system, to his private number. Anything else, there’s at least one person between me and him, and probably more.
There’s only one way I see myself pulling this off.
“Should call her, Earthboi.”
I glance at the seat beside me, see a feline humanoid sitting where nobody was a moment ago. Takka’s got sneak, I’ll give him that.
He peers up at me with slitted golden eyes, whiskers twitching. He’s dressed the same as when I scoped him out yesterday—a big-shouldered suit black as his fur, lifts in his bulky shoes. I’ve never met a gremp with short-man syndrome before, but there’s a first time for everything, I guess. He’s chewing a bright blue stick of Rush, his teeth discolored from the saccharine and stims.
“What?” I ask.
He nods to the number on the coaster. “Girrrrrl,” he purrs. “She pretty. Should enjoy last night before you dying.”
“You pulled it off?”
He sneers, rolling the Rush back and forth across his jagged teeth with a rough pink tongue. “Tell you, Earthboi. Takka people who know people.”
“What’s the deal?”
He lowers his voice to appropriately conspiratorial levels, looks around the bar. “Ice freighter. Passing two thousand LY shy of Aurora FoldGate.”
“Two thousand light-years?” I frown. “What good is that?”
“Closer than now,” Takka shrugs. “Sure with motivation, captain could get closer. Speaking of …” He glances down at my coat, rubs his fingers together. “Paypay.”
“You don’t get paid till I’m on board.” I glower. “And I want to meet this captain of yours before I sign on.”
“Funny. Said same ’bout you.” Takka crunches the Rush between his teeth, shivering. “But Takka not taking Earthboi nowhere without paypay.”
With a sigh, I reach into my coat for the credstick, press my thumb onto the ident sensor to unlock the funds. Takka grabs it with clawed fingers, but I hold tight, staring into his eyes. “Half now. Half if I sign up.”
One ear twitches. “Real distrusting nature, Earthboi.”
“I’m a master criminal, remember?”
Takka sneers, taps his stick to mine for the transfer, and slides off his chair. I follow him through the crowd, out into the station corridors, drawing my hood down around my face. It’s sleep cycle on the station clock, so the lighting is dim, but the transit tube we ride in is still packed, Takka obviously displeased at his crotch-eye view as we’re jammed in like ration packs.
We offload in a quiet section of the docks, spilling out with a group of long-haulers. It’s quieter down here, Takka leading me through the landing bays, chattering about a tip he got on the upcoming heavyweight GMA match, easy paypay, blah blah. But my eyes are on the shadows around me, heartbeat running quicker as I grip the Syldrathi pulse pistol in my coat pocket.
I’m suddenly aware how far from home I am.
Things go bad here, they go bad all the way.
“Which ship is it?” I ask.
“Up here,” the gremp nods. “D Bay.”
A long transparent window of plasteel looks out on the ships berthed below, all models and makes. But there’s a small mountain of freight between us and Bay D. Glancing around, I realize even for late night, this place is awfully quiet. A few loader drones. But no sec patrol or dock crews.
“What’s the ship called?” I ask, scanning a glowing manifest on the wall.
“No name, Earthboi.” Takka looks over his shoulder. “Ident AL-303.”
My heart drops in my chest. Hand tightening on my pistol.
“That’s not an ice freighter. That’s a Legion designation.”
The curve of our corridor straightens out, and I grind to a stop. Behind the dull gray mountain of freight boxes, I catch the edge of a Longbow hull—long, speartip-shaped, gleaming white against the station’s gunmetal skin. And emblazoned down its flank, I see the burning star of the Aurora Legion.
“Freeze.”
The voice comes from behind me, accompanied by the hum of a disruptor rifle. From the weapon’s tone, I can tell it’s set somewhere between Pacify and Kill. Glancing over my shoulder, I see a tall Syldrathi male, silver hair in five braids, sharp violet eyes. He’s wearing a Legion uniform, green stripes on his shoulders tell me he’s a science specialist, the twin circles on his brow denoting one of the Weaver Cabal. The Tank looming beside him is a big Betraskan, broad-shouldered, with dark blue contacts over his eyes.
“Give us an excuse, Jones,” the Tank says. “Please.”
Takka steps aside as more figures emerge from the shadows, each wearing a Legion uniform—Ace, Gearhead, Face—a mix of Betraskan and Terran. Each is armed with a disruptor and a dark scowl. I ease my grip away from my pulse pistol. I can feel the Syldrathi blade that Saedii gifted me still strapped to my forearm, heavy as lead.
I glance at Takka, jaw clenched. “You sold me out.”
“Sorry, old chap.” He takes another bite of Rush, smiling with discolored teeth, his Terran suddenly vastly improved. “Perhaps you should work on that distrusting nature we discussed. Any fool knows Aurora Legion has been looking for your stupid arse in this sector for months.”
“You won’t get the other half of your money.”
“But I get the reward for turning you in.” He grins wider. “No hard feelings, old chap. The Legion just has deeper pockets than you.”
A figure steps from the dark to my left, her aim and stance academy-issue perfect. I see the blue stripes of an Alpha on her uniform, long blond hair drawn back in a smooth tail, deep green eyes and lightly freckled skin.
“We can do this gentle, Jones,” she says. “Or we can do it rough.”
“Cohen.” I smile, raising my hands extra slow. “Long time since graduation. How you been, Em?”
“Shut up, Tyler,” she replies. “Get on your knees.”
“And you do it slow,” the Tank growls behind me. “Or I swear to the Maker, you are never getting back up again.”
I glance back to him. “You’re not still sore about the Draft are you, de Renn? Not my fault I got stuck with Kal, I didn’t really have a choice. Although honestly, you woulda been my third pick anyway.”
“Same old Goldenboy.” Emma steps closer, rifle aimed at my chest. “Almost as full of yourself as your sister.”
“Scar said sorry about your boyfriend, Em, I dunno how many t—”
“You thought you were the smoothest flavor in our whole damned class, Jones. But it’s gonna take more than a cute set of dimples to save you now, you fucking traitor.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You think I’ve got cute dimples, Em?”
Cohen hisses in outrage. Raises the rifle to my face.
“Looks like we do it rough, then.”
BAMF.
• • • • •
It’s the dream that finally wakes me. Dragging me up from the black mire of unconsciousness into a nightmare.
I see it again, just like before—the silver city of Aurora Academy, floating in the light of the Aurora star. It gleams like a jewel in the night, like a lighthouse that old Terran sailors might have used to keep their ships off the rocks that would ruin them.
I reach out toward it. I hear screaming, somewhere distant.
The station blows apart from the inside out, scattering like diamonds across the black velvet of space.
And I realize the screaming is me.
I open my eyes, slowly sit up, the thudding of my pulse only adding to the throbbing in my head. From the stiffness in my muscles, I’d guess I’ve been unconscious maybe twelve hours. Not so bad, really. An Aurora Legion disruptor can knock you out for three days without burying you. Cohen’s rifle must have been set a lot closer to Stun than Kill.
Honestly, she always had a bit of a thing for me.
I recognize where I am immediately. It’s a Legion Longbow, 6-Series, same model as the ship issued to my squad when we set out for Sagan Station, what seems like a thousand years ago. The walls are burnished gray, but a glance toward the light fixtures tells me we’re Folding—there’s usually a slight blue hue to the globes.
I’m in the Longbow’s detention cell—a three-by-three-meter room used to transport prisoners or dangerous cargo. The walls are blast-shielded, there’s no controls on this side of the heavy door. The only furniture is a temperfoam mattress and a waste disposal system. The air vents are tiny, there’s no wall sockets, no windows. Far as short-term prisons go, the Legion makes them pretty good.
My head feels like someone kicked me in it.
Like any good Alpha on her first year of duty, Cohen has followed the rules. Mag-restraints bind my wrists and ankles. They’ve stripped me of my coat, my pistol, Saedii’s blade, leaving me with the minimum—gray cargoes, T-shirt. They left me my boots, but they took the laces.
There’s a metal tray on the floor near the door, an unwrapped protein pack and a cardbox of filtered water sitting on it. Making a show of being more hurt than I am, I guzzle the water as I glance up at the corner of the room. I can see the tiny black stud of the sec cam in the ceiling—if Cohen is good, she has her Tank watching me like a hawk through those feeds. And Cohen is good—she was the top-ranked Alpha after me in our year. The squad she picked are half the people I’d have grabbed myself if I hadn’t missed the Draft. So there’s not a lot to do for now except wait.
Engines thrum beneath me as we cruise the Fold. My thoughts turn to my sister, the other members of my squad. I think of us running together back on Sempiternity. The seven of us seemed unstoppable, and my chest aches at the thought of what might have happened to them all.
That I might be the only one left.
Where are you, Scar?
Finally, I hear a shift in tone from the drives, the faint echo of the PA beyond my cell door. The metal is too thick for me to make out the words, but I know exactly what they’re saying: we’ve been Folding for twenty-four hours, which is the maximum recommended exposure without a break.
There’s a reason they don’t recommend Fold travel for anyone over twenty-five for more than a few hours without being frozen first—even young minds have trouble with continuous exposure in here. So, per standard Legion regulations, Cohen is ordering her crew to drop through a nearby Gate for a break.
I feel it begin—that strange vertigo that tells me we’re crossing from the Fold into realspace. My insides feel weightless, I double over, cross-legged, colorscape rippling from black and white to vibrant hues. And as we cross the threshold, my fingers slide toward my feet.
These boots waited ten years for me in the Dominion vault. I still have no idea who put them there. How they knew I’d find myself needing to bust out of captivity, not once, but twice. But honestly, the way my life has been going recently, I’m not gonna question the one lucky break I’ve got.
The false heel twists aside. I feel inside for the gremlin—the device that generated the electromagnetic pulse that busted Saedii and me out of prison. An Aurora Legion Longbow is a lot smaller than a Terran Defense Force cruiser, and I’m not sure of the range on this puppy. But truth be told, I’m too desperate to care—as desperate as I’ve been since I hatched this insane plan.
It’s exactly like Takka said: any idiot knows Aurora Legion has been looking for my dumb ass in this sector for months. So, security being what it is, I really could only figure one way to get onto Aurora Academy to warn Adams about the Ra’haam threat.
On board an Aurora Legion ship.
I make a mental note to send Takka a present for selling me out so quick. And with a small prayer to the Maker, I press the stud.
I feel that same vibration in my boot. That hum on the edge of hearing. And just like they did aboard the Kusanagi, every light in the cell dies.
The camera dies.
And joy, the magnetic locks on my restraints and on the door die too.
I’m on my feet in a flash, jamming my boot against the frame and prying it apart. But my belly rolls as I lose my balance, arms flailing as I keep rising up off the floor. I see the remains of my meal doing the same, the empty water box floating just above the tray.
The door comes open, and peering out into the pitch-black hallway, I realize immediately what’s happened—my EMP hasn’t only knocked out the electronics inside my cell. It’s knocked out the electronics on the whole ship. That means engines. That means life support. And aside from what’s being provided by our thrust, that means gravity.
Whoops.
I can hear voices from the bridge—Cohen, demanding a status update. The auto-repair systems on a ’Bow are top-tier, which means power and engines might be back online any second. But while I might not know how long this is gonna last, what I do know is what this squad’s Alpha is likely to do about it. There’s rules for this kind of thing, and there was a time I was a real stickler for rules.
I’m waiting above the hatchway to the engine room when Cohen’s Brain and Gearhead come floating through. They’ve taken time to don their protective gear—enviro-suits and safety cables, the flashlights on their helmets cutting lines of light through the dark. The EMP has knocked out their comms, but we still have atmo, so they can talk at least.
“No sign of damage,” the Gearhead reports. He’s a quick, wiry-looking Betraskan named Trin de Vriis, top 3 percent of our year. He’d have been my first pick after Cat in the Draft if I’d had the chance.
“Power is down through the entire ship,” the Brain reports, stabbing at his dead uniglass. He’s the Weaver Syldrathi who sassed me on the docks. His name is Anethe, top 10 percent of our year. I considered him for a while, but his spatial dynamics scores weren’t great. And his performance in zero-gee hand-to-hand was borderline average.
That’s why I hit de Vriis first, kicking off the bulkhead and flying at him like a spear. I crash into his back, and he gasps as his faceplate smashes into the engine casing. The gees are low enough I can use his own momentum for thrust and the engine housing as a pivot. And his scream rings out in the dark as I dislocate his shoulder with a sickening crunch.
Anethe is staring at me wide-eyed, face pale. To his credit, he doesn’t run, but like I say, his zero-gee was bad. My kick is hard enough to make him puke, and as he tears his helmet from his head rather than choke on the vomit, I lay him out with a nerve-strike I picked up from Kal during that brawl on Sempiternity. Turning back to a groaning de Vriis, I choke him with a sleeper hold until he blacks out.
2–nil.
De Renn is more trouble. I actually lied to him on the dock: he’d have been my first pick for Tank if I hadn’t gotten lumped with Kal. I genuinely liked the guy. We used to play jetball back in academy days.
But I guess these aren’t academy days anymore.
I ambush him as he floats back from his sweep of my cell—Cohen obeying regs, easy to predict, yet again. De Renn’s disruptor won’t work after the EMP, and he’s broken out some weapons, no doubt from his own personal stash—a pair of hooked Betraskan fighting sticks called satkha.
I wallop him in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher, but even stunned he doesn’t drop, actually gives me a decent shot to the jaw before I take a leaf from the Saedii Gilwraeth playbook and lay him out with a thunderous knee to the groin. He goes belly-up, making a noise I can only describe as a squeam—half-scream, half-squeal.
I wrench off his helmet and put a sleeper hold on him, struggling to control him as he flails and bucks. He finally goes limp, and I choke him for as long as it’s safe, then give him an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, buddy. No hard feels.”
3–nil.
The other three members of Squad 303 are on the bridge. Their Ace is at the helm—an old drinking buddy of Cat’s named Rioli. He’s a big guy, sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes. Cohen is at another station trying to resurrect comms. Their Face, a pretty Terran girl named Savitri, is near the entrance. Her helmet visor is up so she can chew a fingernail, long hair floating about her cheeks as she squints into the dark.
“Shouldn’t Bel be back by now?” she asks.
“Relax, Amelia,” Cohen replies. “He’s probably in his quarters deciding which of his favorite murderclubs to break out. What’s our status, Rioli?”
“Still nothing,” the Ace replies. “Whatever hit us—”
He turns at the wet THWACK of Savitri’s face meeting my satkha. The girl pinwheels back with a bubbling gasp, nose spraying blood. She collides with the wall just as I collide with Rioli, slamming him into the console and smashing him so hard in the ribs I hear bone crack.
“Maker’s breath,” Cohen breathes. “Jones—”
I know what she sees as I turn on her. My knuckles and face are spattered with blood, Terran red and Syldrathi purple and Betraskan pink. I must look every inch the criminal, the killer, the terrorist that the GIA painted me as—Aurora Legion’s most promising Alpha, turned into a cold-blooded psychopath.
But thing is, it’s not madness that drives me forward, doubling her up with a shot to her belly. It’s not rage making me slam my open palm into the base of her skull, sending her bouncing off the deck, groaning and senseless.
It’s desperation. It’s fear.
Because I can see it. Even as I strip Squad 303 down to their unmentionables and lock them in my detention cell, welding the door shut with an acetylene lance from the cargo hold. Even as I change into Rioli’s uniform and float back up to the bridge, praying for the Gods of Auto-Repair Systems to work quicker. Even as the power finally flickers and shifts back online, as I slide into the pilot’s chair and whisper thanks to the Maker.
I can see it.
That image of Aurora Academy. Blowing itself to pieces in a halo of fire and shrapnel, ripping apart the last hope for peace in the galaxy.
I can feel it, rising beyond—that shadow, set to swallow the galaxy. And I can hear it—that voice, that plea, begging me to keep going even if I have to go on alone.
I lay in a course for Aurora Academy. Hit thrust on my engines.
… you can fix this, Tyler …
“Damn right I can,” I whisper.
And I’m away.