the fuzzy green dragon, as if for luck.
“Everybody hold on,” she says.
Our thrusters roar.
And we’re away.
· · · · ·
Turns out Zila can fly as well as she drives. She’s no Cat, no Zero, nowhere close, but apparently all those nights alone in her room, bereft of friends, she had more than enough time to study theory and practice simulations. It’s a wild ride, though—she definitely leaned heavier on the theory than the practice.
The Terran fighters pursuing us didn’t have the range to keep up with the Zero, and every capital ship in that attack fleet had suffered major damage by the time Andarael’s guns fell silent. Though it was a defeat, one Syldrathi warship fought six Terran vessels and gave every one of them a bloody nose or a broken neck. I can’t imagine what a war between us is going to mean. My dad fought half his life to build the peace between our peoples.
And now everything is in flames… .
We’ve dropped out of the Fold near a no-name star, way out in a neutral zone. This system is only notable for the naturally occurring FoldGate leading to it—according to logs and scopes, there’s no settlements here, no mining ops, nothing. It’ll be a good place to lay low while we figure out what the hells we’re gonna do now.
“So what the hells are we gonna do now?” Finian asks.
Zila has locked us into orbit around the system’s first planet—an Earth-sized rock fried to a cinder by the white dwarf it’s circling. She’s taken her place with the rest of us, sitting around our bridge consoles and looking into each other’s eyes. Kal and Auri sit together, bloodstained fingers entwined. Fin sits opposite with me, his uniglass plugged into his terminal, the surface aglow with scrolling reams of data. Zila is at the head of the console where Ty used to sit.
Where Ty used to sit …
“We have to go back, right?” Auri says, looking back and forth between us. “We can’t just leave Tyler in the hands of the GIA.”
“That is exactly what we must do,” Zila says.
“But this is my fault!” Auri says. “They wanted me, not him. This is on me!”
“No,” Kal sighs. “Saedii was chasing me. If not for her interference, the GIA would never have caught up to us. This is my fault. All of it. I am shamed. De’sai.”
“Listen,” Fin says, glancing up from his data streams. “I know I’m not usually Mr. Sunshine, but I’m not sure we should be pointing fingers at ourselves here.”
“Agreed,” I nod. “This is no one’s fault. You didn’t ask to become what you are, Auri. And Kal, you can’t help it if your sister is, and I mean no offense here, a murder-faced psycho bitch-machine.”
Kal smiles faintly, but I see hurt twinkling in the violet of his eyes.
“She was not always so,” he murmurs.
I breathe deep, chewing my lip and running over the events of the last day in my head. It seems like we’ve got the whole galaxy chasing after us. We can’t rely on anyone for help out here. We’re still wanted galactic terrorists. And I can’t say my time in Unbroken captivity has endeared me to the thought of life in a penal colony.
“Those Waywalkers Saedii captured,” I murmur, thinking back to the cells on Andarael. “Why would Warbreed be rounding up Syldrathi empaths, Kal?”
He shakes his head. “I do not know.”
“Saedii seemed to take a real interest in Auri once she saw a display of her power,” I say. “She made specific mention of transporting her back to the Starslayer.” I meet Auri’s eyes. “What would Caersan want with you?”
“This is all utterly irrelevant,” Zila snaps.
I blink at our Brain, a little taken aback. Normally Zila speaks in monotone, her mannerisms closer to a cardboard box than a human. But she actually seems …
Testy?
“… Are you feeling okay?” I ask.
“Tyler, Saedii, the Starslayer, none of it matters,” she says, looking at each of us in turn. “We cannot stray from our path. The stakes we are playing with here are unfathomable. We must find the Eshvaren Weapon. The Ra’haam must be stopped. Every other consideration must be secondary.”
Fin clears his throat. “Zila …”
“All of this is happening for a reason,” she says. “We must go forward. The message from Adams and de Stoy, this ship, the cigarillo case that saved Kal’s life, all of this is unfolding as it was supposed to. The only way out is through.”
Kal touches his chest