“Silence,” he says.
Aurora blinks. “Okay, maybe I’m being unclear here, but you don’t talk to me that way. You don’t call me girl, you don’t demand silence, you don’t treat me like something you stepped in by mistake. I am a Trigger of the Eshvaren, and unlike you, I was brave enough to step up and—”
“No.”
My father rises, a small scowl on his brow, and he looks at the star system projected before him.
“Listen,” he nods. “Out there.”
I look to Aurora, and she meets my eyes, pressing her lips thin. I feel her mind swell and stretch at the edges of my own. She lifts her hand, as if reaching toward that distant star. That pale glow illuminates her iris, seeps through the splits in her skin.
“I can’t … I can’t hear anything.”
He nods. “Silence.”
My father looks out on the Taalos star, his face a cold mask.
“A colony of almost half a million people orbited this sun. Unbroken all. Loyal unto death.” He laces his fingers together and breathes deep. “The death that has now claimed them. Each and every one.”
“How?” I breathe.
“The Ra’haam,” Aurora whispers. “I can … I can feel it.”
She looks at me with tears in her eyes.
“It’s taken over the colony, Kal. It’s taken over their entire world.”
“But how?” I demand, my frustration rising. “How is this possible? The Ra’haam has not even bloomed yet! Its intent was to drive the galaxy into war while it slumbered on its nursery worlds, waiting to hatch! But now it has taken Earth? Taalos? How can this be?”
“This is your fault,” Aurora says, stepping forward. “All of this. The Eshvaren entrusted you to defeat the Ra’haam, Caersan, and you used their Weapon to fight your own petty war! And where did it get you?”
He looks at her then, and the imperious mask he wears begins to slip. It starts small, just a glimmer of amusement in his eye, a faint curl of his lip. But soon he is smiling, and that smile stretches and splits to his eyeteeth, and of all things, he begins laughing. Laughing, as if my beloved has said the most amusing thing he has ever heard.
All this death. All this darkness. And he finds it amusing. And I see it then, sure as I see this girl beside me, sure as I saw the wreckage of our world, the ruin he has made of our people.
My father is insane.
“What the hell is so funny?” Aurora shouts.
“As I said,” he finally replies, wiping a tear from his eye, “always you seek answers to the wrong questions.”
“What should we ask, then?” I demand.
“It is not a matter of where my ambition has gotten me, my son.”
My father breathes deep, looking out into that silent void.
“It is when.”
8
ZILA
“What the hell is going on?”
I am back in the cockpit of our Syldrathi shuttle again, floating at the edge of a storm of dark matter, my ears still ringing with the crack of the gunshot that killed me. Instead of replaying the moment of my death over in my head, I focus on Lieutenant Kim’s face as it appears on the monitor. I had been hoping she would take a different approach this loop, and as she opens comms for the tenth time, I realize she is ready to talk.
Pleasing.
“Hello, Lieutenant. I have been expecting you.”
Her pause is so long that if I could not see her shifting slightly on my monitor, I would think our comms had cut out.
“I can’t tell if you’re kidding,” she says eventually.
“I hear that with remarkable frequency.”
More silence.
“Open the airlock,” she says. “I’m coming over.”
Scarlett and Finian reach the bridge, breathless, having sprinted up from the engine room. Catching the end of the conversation, Finian leans in to study the lieutenant onscreen. “You’re only coming over if you agree not to shoot anyone. I’ve died ten times already today, and I’m in no mood.”
The lieutenant blinks, brow creasing. “Ten? I count nine.”
“We died on the way here, too.”
“On the way here from the future.” Her tone is dubious.
Scarlett leans in beside Finian. “See you soon, Lieutenant.” Kim cuts the connection, leaving the three of us to stare at each other. The impossibility of what we are experiencing is not lost on any of us.
“I don’t like this,” Finian mutters. “I don’t like her.”
“Me neither,” Scarlett agrees. “But our ship is dead in the water, so we’re not getting anywhere until we convince her we’re not a threat.”
Fin looks at Scarlett, voice soft. “… You sure you’re okay?”
Scarlett blinks. “Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, okay as I can be, considering what’s going on here… .”
“You …” Fin swallows. “You got shot.”
“I’m fine, Fin.” Scarlett smiles gently, touches his hand. “I promise. You got shot too, you know.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “But I didn’t have to watch.”
They gaze at each other for a long moment, and the silence eventually grows heavy enough for me to feel compelled to break it.
“Your medallion.” I nod to the small crystal around Scarlett’s neck. “The diamond reacted after the quantum sail was hit out in the storm.”
“Yeah,” she replies, recalling herself to the business at hand. “But it’s not diamond. Fin figured out it’s Eshvaren crystal.”
I stare at the gem, eyes narrowing. “Interesting …”
“Why did it glow like that?”
“I do not know,” I murmur, my mind now racing. “But it must be of significance. Several of our gifts from Admiral Adams and Battle Leader de Stoy have proved vital up to this point. The cigarillo case that saved Kal’s life. The inscription on your necklace, telling us to go with the plan to disable the Eshvaren Weapon. It is as if the Aurora commanders knew what would happen to us. Their actions could even be interpreted as having guided us to this point.”
Fin cocks his head, unconvinced. “Obviously something’s up with the gifts. But guiding us? That’s a stretch, Zil. They gave me a damn pen.”
Scarlett nods to my golden hoops. “And you just got earrings.”
WHUNNGG.
Our shuttle rocks as a towline strikes the hull. Another follows.
WHUNNGG.
Fin rolls his eyes. “Guess we better go down and let Lieutenant Psychopath in. I wonder what new and interesting way she’ll kill us this time.”
“You must be polite, Finian,” I warn. “Her demeanor may be overly aggressive, but Lieutenant Kim is a critical component in all this.”
Scarlett raises one eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”
“I take it you did not notice her callsign.”
Now Finian blinks at me. “Huh?”
“Her callsign. A nickname used by her fellow pilots. It was stenciled on the wing of her fighter. It is also painted on the helmet she wears.”
“I was too busy looking at the pistol in her hand to notice the helmet on her head,” Scarlett admits. “What was it?”
I reach up to touch the earrings, the gift left for me in the Dominion Repository. The small golden birds dangling from the hoops, their wings spread, talons flashing in the dim light.
“Her callsign is Hawk.”
? ? ? ? ?
This time when the airlock disengages, all three of us are waiting for her out in the open. Lieutenant Kim doesn’t have her weapon drawn, though one hand rests on the grip. She stands framed in the doorway, reaching up slowly to unbuckle her mask and remove her helmet.
She is perhaps in her early twenties, and I believe my assessment that she is of East Asian descent is correct. Her features are symmetrical, conventionally attractive, although I imagine that for some, her stern expression would detract from the effect.
She is not tall.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” says Scarlett. “My name is Scarlett Jones. This is Zila Madran, and this is Finian de Karran de Seel.”
“And before you start shooting again, some of my best friends are Terrans,” Finian informs her. “All my best friends, actually.”
“Lieutenant Nari Kim,” our guest says slowly.
“Nice to meet you,” Scarlett smiles. “And thanks for not killing us.”
“You’re welcome,” she deadpans. “So, who wins the war?”