They all gave up so much—gave everything—to get me this far. And I’m not gonna fail them.
My Longbow comes into berth, umbilicals and docking clamps snaking out from the airlock to secure my ship. Hardline cables plug into the ’Bow’s computer system, downloading trip data and logs. And after a forty-eight-hour Fold, a few cases of assault against fellow legionnaires, misappropriation of Legion resources, deprivation of liberty, and one count of what is definitely galactic piracy, I’m finally in the station network.
Like I say: hell of a lot of trouble just to make a phone call.
But hey, I’m a pirate now.
Yarrrrr.
I know the admiral’s private uniglass number by heart. It’s only accessible via the Aurora Legion network aboard the station. It’s for senior command members and his closest friends within the Legion. And for his friend’s son—the boy he mentored all through his years at the academy.
I must have dialed him a thousand times, for advice, for a debrief, for a game of chess. He and my dad served in the TDF together, and he looked in on me like Dad would have wanted him to. We went to chapel together every Sunday for years. And somehow, for some reason, he’s the one who put me on this path, who put Aurora O’Malley on my ship, who left those gifts for us in the Dominion vault on Emerald City.
My hands are still shaking as I punch the numbers into the station comms system, staring at my reflection in the glass monitors. Adams and de Stoy know something about the Ra’haam, the Eshvaren, all of this—at times, it seemed they knew what was coming before it actually happened. And yet, if my vision is true, somehow they don’t know the Ra’haam plans to blow up this academy and the entire Galactic Caucus aboard it.
The vidcall connects. My heart lurches as the admiral’s face appears on the screen—heavy jaw, scarred cheek, salt-and-pepper hair shorn to stubble.
“Admiral—”
“Hello, you’ve reached the private number of Seph Adams. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to answer. Please leave your details and I’ll get back to you.”
CLICK.
The face disappears.
The screen goes dark.
I blink.
“You’ve gotta be kidding… .”
I stare at the glass, a flashing prompt that reads LEAVE MESSAGE?
“No,” I rise to my feet, voice rising with me. “No, you have got to be kidding me!” I drag my hand back through my hair, my patience splintering into a million glittering pieces. “I escape GIA captivity, I get stabbed, beaten, and chewed like a jetball in Unbroken custody, talk my way out, get myself captured again and then take out an entire squad of Aurora legionnaires, steal their ship, drag my ass halfway across the sector, risk capture and summary execution, and I get your MESSAGE SERVICE?”
LEAVE MESSAGE? the computer prompts.
“I don’t get it!” I bellow. “How could you know to leave us the Zero, Admiral? To send us that coded message? How could you know about Kal getting shot, about me being captured, about Cat not making it off Octavia, and not know to ANSWER YOUR DAMN UNIGLASS?”
I don’t curse. I consider it a sign of poor self-control. Scar used to say swearing was a natural impulse—that it’s a proven stress reliever and dopamine-release mechanism. But if you’ve got something important to say, it’s worth taking the time to say it without resorting to language you’d hear in a toilet. I can count the number of times I’ve said a bad word on one hand.
“Fuck,” I say.
The computer beeps.
“Fuck,” I repeat, louder.
LEAVE MESSAGE?
“FUCK!” I shout, swinging at the air. “Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
I sink down to my haunches. Breathe a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, okay,” I admit. “That feels a little better.”
But not much.
Adams is probably slammed, a voice whispers in my head. He’s the joint commander of a spacefaring peace corps, hosting thousands of delegates from hundreds of worlds, trying to keep the galaxy from spiraling into a dozen different wars. It’s the night before the summit. He won’t have time to breathe, let alone answer private comms.
He’s probably not even carrying his uni.
And I see it again. Like a splinter in my mind, digging deeper each time. The image of the academy blowing itself apart from within. The shadow rising beyond. That voice at the edge of hearing, pleading, begging.
… you can—
“Fix this, Tyler,” I snap, wincing in pain. “I know, I know already!”
So this is it.
After all this way. All that risk. I’m at the goal line and can’t even warn my own team about what’s coming.
My squad’s gone, I’ve got no line to station command, I’m shoot-on-sight for Terran and Legion personnel, and the Ra’haam is somehow going to blow this station and everyone in it to pieces.
And there’s nobody to stop it but me.
I slip a fresh supply of rations through the hatch into the detention cell, ignoring Cohen’s roar of protest, de Renn’s vows to rip my spine out through my … well, I won’t go into detail, but it sounds like it’d hurt.
I pull the brim of an Aurora Legion cap low over my eyes and turn up my flight suit collar, whispering a prayer. My pulse pistol is stuffed down the back of my pants, the blade Saedii gave me strapped to my wrist.
The thought that I’m alone here is a stone in my chest.
The knowledge that I’ve trained years for this is iron in my spine.
And the memory of that dream, that shadow rising …
“Get moving, legionnaire.”
? ? ? ? ?
First rule of tactical: Knowledge is power.
I have no idea what the Ra’haam has planned, and there’s any number of ways it might trigger an explosion if it got an agent on the station.
But from that vision repeating in my head, I know the explosion comes from inside Aurora Academy, blossoming out like a burning flower and engulfing all around it.
The Galactic Summit is scheduled to begin 09:00 Station Time tomorrow. It’s 15:57 ST right now, so I’m on the clock in three different ways.
I’ve got forty hours, if all goes well, until maintenance crews find Cohen and Co. stuffed in that detention cell and the alarm is raised.
Worse, I’ve got an unknown number of hours until someone notices Cohen hasn’t reported in to her deck commander. Maybe they’re too busy to notice for a while. Maybe they cut her some slack because she’s usually a high performer. Or maybe that tips them off that something’s up.
But regardless, I’ve got seventeen hours and three minutes until the summit begins. So it’s time to get to work.
If I know anything about politicians, galactic or otherwise, I know the night before they get to work, they’re probably going to the bar.
So, seems I need to get myself a drink.
I bail out of the Longbow loading bay into a crush of foot traffic—a group of dockhands, mech and tech crews, and a handful of legionnaires returned from duty. I make it through the first two security checkpoints without much drama. Rioli’s flight suit is a little snug in the crotch (not to brag), but I look enough like him to flash his ident tag and pass muster with the overworked security teams.
This is kid stuff, though. Once I get though decontamination and on to the metal detectors and biometrics—facial tracking, retinal scans, DNA idents—I’m screwed.
Fortunately, I was best friends with one Catherine “Zero” Brannock.
Cat was so named for her perfect score on the pilot’s classification exam in our final year—the sims never landed a single hit on her. And one of the ways Cat got to be such a gamebreaker behind the stick of a Longbow over our years here at Aurora Academy was stealing flight time.