“On your knees, Legionnaire Jones!” the man-eater bellows. “Slow!”
They know my name. Briefed by Princeps to bring us in alive, I’m betting. Aurora most of all. I raise my hands, sink to the floor. Saedii curses and tries to rise, but a Stun blast knocks her back down. Isha shrieks and bares her teeth, launches herself at the marines. A dozen Kill shots ring out in the corridor, and the little drakkan crashes to the deck in a splash of dark blood.
“NO!” Saedii screams, trying to rise again.
Another handful of Stun blasts ring out—
BAMF!
BAMF!
BAMF!
—and the Unbroken Templar sinks down, silent and still.
I glance over my shoulder, see my twin’s face through the wreckage, tears streaming down her cheeks. I can hear Dad’s voice in my head. Feel his hands ruffling my hair that way I hated, hear him speaking to me that way I loved. Like he was saying something Important. And I was worthy of it.
Look after your sister.
“Show the way, Scarlett.”
“Tyler … ,” she whispers.
“I said that you could find yourself doing this without me one day, remember?” I glance to the boy beside her, his face bleached a paler shade of white. “Look after her for me, Fin. That’s an order.”
“… Yessir,” he nods. Taking gentle hold of Scarlett’s arm, he speaks to her softly. “We have to go.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No.”
“Scar, I’m sorry, we have to go!” Finian cries.
I feel metal hands grab me and push me to the deck, mag-restraints clap around my wrists. The marines force my face into the floor, so I don’t have to see the look on hers as her heart breaks. But I hear her sobs as my twin finally lets Finian drag her away from the only family she has left.
“I love you, Scar!”
A disruptor rifle hums. A finger tightens on a trigger.
BAMF!
And darkness comes down like a hammer.
16
SCARLETT
The race back to the Zero is a blur. My eyes sting with sweat and tears. The whole ship is listing badly, the deck sloping away between us as Finian and I stumble through the smoke and carnage, toward the docking bay. The lighting is flickering, failing—even the Andarael’s emergency power systems are struggling now. The corridors are strewn with Terran and Syldrathi corpses, their blood sticky beneath our feet. This ship has become a slaughterhouse. And if we don’t get off it soon, we’re going to be dead at best, or back in the hands of the GIA at worst.
I think of Tyler, my heart aching so hard I almost fall. For a moment, Finian is the only thing keeping me going, his arm around my shoulder, dragging me on through the swirling gray, the raining sparks, the howling alarms. I feel like I’ve betrayed Ty somehow. Like I’ve left the most important part of myself behind. But then I hear my brother’s voice inside my head, see his eyes as he spoke to me.
Show the way, Scarlett.
That’s what all good leaders do, according to the late, great Jericho Jones:
Know the way.
Show the way.
Go the way.
Those are the words Ty has always lived by. The reason he’s spent his whole life looking after me and everyone around him. The torch he’s carried since Dad died. I know he’s passed it to me because he can’t carry it himself anymore. He’s trusting me with it. Relying on me to see the rest of us through this.
Show the way.
So I stand taller, ease out of Finian’s hold, clutching the disruptor rifle to my chest. The enviro-mask is still fixed over my face, so I can’t wipe away my tears. But I can push them back. Lock them away for another time, another place, where the fate of the entire damn galaxy doesn’t hang in the balance.
“You okay?” Fin asks me.
I sniff hard, swallow harder. Tap the screen of my uniglass.
“Kal, can you hear me?”
“Affirmative, Scarlett,” comes the ever-cool reply. “What is your location?”
“We’re on our way to the Zero, can you hold position?”
“Not for long. You must be swift.”
“Tell Zila to heat the engines, prep for launch. If we’re not down there in five minutes, or it looks like Auri is in danger, you get the hells out, understand?”
“Understood. What is Tyler’s status?”
I breathe deep. Push it all down into the soles of my feet.
“Tell Zila I hope she’s as good at flying a starship as she is at piloting a van.”
“… Acknowledged,” comes Kal’s soft reply.
I tap the screen to cut transmission, meet Finian’s