a relentlessly chirpy summary of how stupid I am doesn’t sound like too much fun right now. Instead, I find something to eat, and I feed Zila and Scar—Auri doesn’t answer my knock—then I pace a little. I stare at the closed door to Kal’s quarters, trying to figure out what I think of what he did. But though I’m usually a galactic-class champion at dreaming up comebacks an hour or two after the opportunity to say them has passed, this time I draw a blank. I can only be certain of how it feels now that Kal’s gone. And honestly, after all we’ve been through together, it feels like someone reached into the heart of us and ripped out a fistful.
Eventually, on a hunch, I head back to the storage bays. Sure enough, piled in a corner behind the spare fuel cells and replacement parts are drums of thick black paint. Just what we’ll need.
This ship really does have everything.
Gets me thinking, that. About the note in Kal’s cigarillo box. The little metal case itself sure proved useful, and the note inside it proved right.
So, what about the other gifts we were left in the Emerald City storage box? Zila’s earrings, Scar’s pendant, Tyler’s shiny new boots. It’s like Adams and de Stoy knew what was coming for us—where we’d be, what we’d be doing—and not for the first time, I wonder how.
I reach into my cargoes, find the ballpoint pen they gave me. I frown at it. Wondering what in the Maker’s name it’s for. I figure if the Legion commanders did know about Kal getting shot, if they knew enough to warn him to tell the truth, maybe this thing in my hand has some magic to work in our darkest hour.
I click the button on the end, in and out. Hoping for some kind of miracle.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“I got robbed,” I sigh.
· · · · ·
When we arrive at Tiernan Station—Zila did burn it, but the clock’s still ticking—we don’t know what the reception will be like. So we ease cautiously out through the FoldGate, color restored to the ship once more. The station’s structure is beautiful, as all Syldrathi designs are. It’s shaped like a large egg, speckled all over with lights. There’s a massive Waywalker glyf painted down one side in an elegant script, and close to a hundred fighters and cruisers are swarming around the station in graceful, sweeping arcs.
Every single one of them locks its weapons on us as soon as we appear.
Scar leans forward to speak very carefully into the mic. I don’t understand Syldrathi, but I can follow along with the translator on my uni, and this encounter is so important that she practiced her script with me before we arrived.
“We are here to see Elder Raliin Kendare Aminath.”
There’s a pause, and then the reply crackles back.
“For what purpose?”
Scarlett breathes deep and sighs. When you’ve got no other angle, it’s always best to run with the truth, she told me. So she presses the Transmit button and dials her earnestness up to eleven.
“We need his help saving the galaxy.”
· · · · ·
About half an hour later, I’m standing in one of the landing bays of Tiernan Station, carefully daubing Syldrathi glyfs down the side of an elderly shuttle. The Unbroken sigils are beautiful, elegant … but possessed of a savagery somehow. Some hint of the violence the Starslayer’s warriors adore so much. I’m following a visual guide Scar sent to my uniglass, watched by a number of very dubious Waywalkers.
Zila’s inside the shuttle, having a piloting lesson.
Auri has finally emerged from her quarters and is walking a slow lap of the landing bay. She moves with a kind of grace that I associate more with Kal, and she reminds me of a restless predator. She seems unaware of the rest of us. But the Waywalkers we rescued from their imprisonment on the Andarael are fascinated by her, tracking her progress back and forth. All Waywalkers have some kind of low-grade psychic ability. They’re empaths. Resonants. I’ve heard rumor some can even speak telepathically to each other. Maybe they’re sensing her new brain muscles.
Scar is talking to the elder, who looks deeply concerned about her life choices. Though his accent is terrible, he’s speaking in fractured Terran for Auri’s benefit.
“We cannot aid you in this,” he tells the girls. “Caersan—Void curse his name—has already destroyed our world. It has taken us many cycles to gather this enclave. We cannot risk his