for the Void’s embrace. In Caersan’s name, you will be purged.”
The screen drops into sudden black.
“That’s your idea of magic?” Finian asks softly.
“Shut up, Finian!” Scarlett snaps in reply.
“They’re accelerating,” Zila says, calm as ever. “ETA four minutes.”
“Zila, send the mayday,” Ty commands. “Loud and wide as you can.”
Scarlett’s running her hand through her hair again, leaving it a mess. “Nobody’ll respond. If the Terran or Betraskan defense forces hear it, it’s policy not to. And if there was another AL ship within range, we wouldn’t have been sent here in the first place. This is all us.”
Ty simply nods, and presses on. “Finian, you have the bridge. Keep working on those missiles. Zila, stay with him, keep on comms.”
For once, no sass—the two of them simply murmur an acknowledgment and get to work. I think that scares me more than anything else has so far.
“Looks like we’re going with your plan, Kal,” he continues. “You, me, Scar, arms ready. We’ll head for the cargo bay. First Taneth, gather up anyone among your people who has a weapon and meet us there.”
Kal and the Syldrathi girl are already moving toward where the First Taneth and I stand by the door, and Tyler’s eyes are on me as he draws close.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had any combat training?” Ty asks softly.
“Um,” I say. “I mean, I took a self-defense course at school?”
“You cannot intend to send her down there?” Kal says.
Tyler glances at the taller boy. “Give her a sidearm.”
Kal bristles at the suggestion. “That is unwise, sir. She will only be a liability.”
“Hey, listen here, Lord Elrond … ,” I begin.
“We face adepts of the Unbroken,” Kal says to Tyler, not even looking at me. “Syldrathi are faster and stronger than Terrans. And these ones are trained from b—”
“I appreciate the warning, Legionnaire. But we’re in it up to our necks here.”
A small electronic chirp sounds from my breast pocket. “Well, if I may offer an opinion—”
“No, you may not,” Tyler tells Magellan. “Silent mode.”
My uniglass falls quiet as Ty turns to me. “Look, Auri, I’m sorry. I don’t even know what you’re doing here, but we need everyone in the ring or we’re all dead. If you can pull a trigger, we could use you. Will you help us?”
My heart is in my throat and my palms are damp. And I’m a million light-years from home and two hundred years out of time, and none of this makes any kind of sense. But if we’re all going to die anyway …
“Okay,” I say quietly.
I find myself crammed in the cage elevator with the rest of the team. Kal holds out a dangerous-looking high-tech pistol, and the words “She will only be a liability” are echoing in my head as I snatch it from his hand.
“This locks on to your target,” he says, pointing. “This will fire. In the unlikely event you actually hit someone, hit them twice more for good measure.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But I learned to use a flare gun in my colony training. I can shoot just fine, Legolas.”
He blinks. “My name is Kal. Who is this Legolas you speak of?”
I roll my eyes and mutter under my breath. “Read a book sometime, you conceited sonofa …”
My grumbling trails off into nothing as I notice how quiet everyone else is. And in that moment of silence, the truth I’ve been running from catches up and hits me like a freight train. I’m about to go into combat here. My hands are sweating, and I’m not sure I’m even going to be able to grip the gun. My body’s still aching from hiding in that crate, and my lungs have gone all tight, so I can’t even suck in a slow breath to try and calm myself. Truth is, the thing in my hands is to a flare gun what a full-grown lion is to a kitten.
All the stupid little routines I used to do before a big competition at home flash through my mind—the stretches, the breathing exercises, the pump-up songs—and they all seem so impossibly small and stupid. That version of me—the one who thought she had any idea what life and death stakes were—feels young and far away, even though really, she was only a few days ago.
I’d give anything to be her. To be able to tell my mom this scares me, and have her tell me to switch off the scary movie. To be able to tell my dad I don’t feel ready,