soft and stupid at your wretched little academy. Do they teach you idiocy there?”
Kal’s eyes are closed again. Just like me, he’s imagining the moment we left the Emerald City. Saedii throwing herself at the Zero, holding on for those few precious seconds before Ty tipped her off. She must have slapped a beacon on the hull. That’s why the Unbroken were so close when the SOS was broadcast by the convoy’s security. They didn’t need the distress call to know where we were.
“Saedii,” tries Kal. “You have asked and you have asked, and I have answered and I have answered. I want no part in this thing you do.”
“This thing I do,” she replies, her anger audible, “wants you. He wants you.”
Kal flicks the transmitter to the off position, killing his line to Saedii for a moment so he can speak to the Zero.
“Tyler, you must go,” he says simply. “Now.”
There’s a chorus of protests down the line from Goldenboy, from Scarlett, from Auri. Ty’s the one who prevails, at least for a moment. “Not an option, Kal.”
The transmitter on the dashboard flickers to life again. “We’ve hacked your communications, so I can still hear you, little brother. And nobody is going anywhere. You will surrender yourself to the troops I am sending to your ship, and your squad will dock with Andarael.”
“What could you want with my squad?” Kal asks, and for a moment, he sounds incredibly Syldrathi. Like none of the humans aboard the Zero could possibly have any value, anything worth delaying her journey even a minute for.
“Kaliis,” she chides him gently. “Do you not think it fitting your elder sister wishes to be properly introduced to her brother’s be’shmai?”
And there’s something in the way she speaks—a terrible, cold something—that tells me that she doesn’t just want to taunt Kal. That Auri has some value to her as well.
“My squad is none of your concern, Saedii. Release them, and I will join you.”
Kal looks across at me, and I can see the apology in those big violet eyes of his. We both know that whatever happens to the others, his sister won’t be letting me rejoin the Zero before it departs. And we both know what the Unbroken will make of my physical limitations. My suit.
And Maker’s bits, does that suck.
But it’s also okay. I want them to go. They’re my chosen clan, and I want them to live. So I draw a deep breath, nod at him silently.
He reaches across to clasp my shoulder, completely oblivious to the fact that he just about crushes it.
“Kal.” Aurora cuts across the channel. “Kal, I’m not leaving you.”
I can hear the fear in her voice, the hurt, the heartache. I hassle Kal and Auri about it, because hey, it’s me, but I’m not blind to how close these two are growing. How much she means to him, and how much he’s starting to mean to her. I find myself wondering what it would’ve been like to have someone feel that way about me. To have found someone who looked at me the way he looks at her. And yeah, it’s probably a stupid thing to be thinking at a time like this.
Which is why I spot her just half a second too late.
A figure in the bridge hatchway, leaning hard against the door, blood dripping down her nose. She’s not Syldrathi, I realize—she’s one of the Hephaestus tug crew that Kal laid out when we arrived. Maybe the Galaxy’s Greatest Grandma. Maybe just the jetball fan. Whoever she is, she looks like death warmed up, but somehow she’s made it to her feet and staggered to the cockpit.
And she’s holding a disruptor.
“Kal!” I shout, flinging up my hands as though they can stop a blast.
Our Tank’s eyes are still on the comms array, the speaker his sister’s threats are spilling from. But at the sound of my voice, he swings around, drawing the disruptor at his belt. He moves fast—faster than any Betraskan, any human—but still not fast enough. He pushes me aside, his finger tightening on his trigger, just as the razor hissss of a Kill shot tears through the cockpit, ringing in my ears.
My heart sinks in my chest as I watch it all unfold in slow motion.
Kal twisting aside, trying to dodge the blast.
The shot striking him, right in the chest.
Violet eyes widening in pain, mouth open in shock.
And then he’s flying, spit spraying between his bared teeth, backward into the control panel and crashing