Fin is wrapped in a thermal blanket and spacesuit that belongs in a museum, and I note with horror there’s pale pink blood spattered inside the visor.
Scar is in another ancient suit beside him, her body floating limp and motionless in the dark. Around her neck, I can see the medallion she got in the Dominion vault on Emerald City. The crystal is glowing like a candle, its light slowly fading.
“HURRY UP!” I roar. “GET IT OPEN!”
The airlock shudders, the med team once again bringing in the hydraulics to force it. I’m on my belly, squeezing underneath as it rises, heedless of the awakening pain in my body, the blood I can feel pooling under my dermal wraps.
I scrabble across the deck, clutching at the ceiling to slow myself, hooking an arm around the pilot’s chair as I drag my sister in with my other hand. Her eyes are closed, hair billowing in a halo around her face. There’s no oxygen in here, no atmo, nothing to carry sound, and so instead, I scream into her head, across the blood between us, the blood that binds us, praying, Please, Maker, please.
Scar, can you hear me?
The team bustles in behind me, securing Fin. Readings are taken, vitals checked. “We gotta get these two back to station, STAT.”
Scar! It’s Tyler!
They push me aside, wrap my sister in electrothermals, secure her in a grav-gurney. I’m holding her hand as we boot it back to our own shuttle, refusing to let go, refusing to give up. Not after all this.
Not her too.
SCARLETT, WAKE UP!
She’s motionless on the gurney, strapped inside our shuttle now, warming up from the freezing chill of space.
But she’s still not moving, barely breathing, and I can’t feel her in my mind, that strange more-than-twins bond we’ve always shared, the gift from the mother we never knew, the dad we lost, the family we were, all of it more important to me now than it’s ever been, please Scar, please I can’t lose you too, I can’t lose you too.
“Ty …”
I open my eye, heart bursting as I see her looking at me through heavy lashes, her voice thick, eyelids bruised. I can sense the size of the story she’s just lived, the weight she’s just lifted, the place she’s just been. But after all she’s been through, she still finds it in herself to smile.
“H-hey, Bee-bro …”
I laugh, I sob, hanging my head. “I hate it when you call me that.”
Her lips part, fear gleaming in her stare. “FFinian?”
“He’s okay,” I whisper. “He’s okay, Scar.”
I want to hug her so bad I can taste it. I want to drag her into my arms and never let her go. But I can tell what her body’s been through, and I don’t want to risk hurting her. So I just squeeze her hand, lean in to kiss her brow, tears breaking loose from my lashes and floating free in the low grav as I pour everything I’m feeling into her head. The sorrow and the fear, the regret and the pain, but more and most, the pure, blinding joy I feel at seeing her again.
We’ve known each other all our lives. Even before we were born. And everything I’ve done, everything I’ve lived and fought through, even when she wasn’t there beside me, she was with me. A part of me.
Forever.
Scarlett opens her arms, and I hold her gently as I can, and she strokes my hair as I press my face into hers.
“I love you, too,” she whispers.
36
TYLER
It’s a long Fold for those on the way to the Octavia system. Long enough for my wounds to begin healing as we wait for news that the coalition fleet has reached its destination. I find the rehab hard work, and the cybernetic they gave me still feels strange, but good news is, I can read the news feeds right off the network now.
Fin is still confined to the med bay, but as I limp into his room, he and Scar break apart with an audible pop, so I figure he can’t be too bad. My sister straightens her tunic, brushes a stray lock of newly dyed red back from her flushed lips, settling in on the medi-cot beside Fin. I rumble to a stop and raise an eyebrow, looking back and forth between them.
Fin’s blushing, which is kinda weird for a Betraskan.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” I say.
“He is resting,” Scarlett says breezily.
“You stabbed a pen into his throat, Scar. You might wanna give him a few more days before you start licking his tonsils.”
“Very droll,” she says, rolling her eyes. “And very graphic. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I wave at my face. “You know, this cybernetic eye they gave me can see into the thermographic spectrum. Your cheeks get almost 0.2 degrees warmer when you lie.”
She screws up one of Fin’s many pillows, hurls it at my head.
“Should’ve gotten you a damn eye patch.”
“That might be pushing the space-pirate thing too far, even for me.”
“Avast, matey,” she grins.
“Hoist the mizzen,” I smile. “Jolly the Roger.”
“Yarrr,” Fin growls, in a small, broken voice.
Scar turns on him in mock outrage as she pokes his chest. “You’re not supposed to be talking!”
Fin shrugs and grins sheepishly, and she puts one hand to his cheek, kisses his lips. I watch them break apart slowly, eyes fixed on my Gearhead. Fin pretends not to feel my stare, but eventually he glances at me sidelong.
“You know,” I say, “when all this is over, you and I are gonna have to have us a little chat about my sister, buddy.”
Fin waves at the derm patches wrapped around his throat and shrugs apologetically, mouthing the words Not Supposed to Be Talking.
“My burly protector,” Scar says, hand to heart and lashes fluttering.
“I’m not worried about you,” I scoff. “I’m worried about him.”
She rolls her eyes, looks at the satchel I’m carrying.
“What’d you bring me?”
I sit beside the cot, rummaging around before tossing her a few packets of Just Like Real Noodelz!? My sister stares at me, trading mock outrage for the real deal. “You brought me ship rations? Tyler, we’re on station, they have real food here, what the … ?”
Her voice fades out as I produce a tub of ice-cold quad-choc gelato and an academy-issue spork, toss them into her waiting hands.
“Oooooh, you are a good man, Tyler Jones. I pardon you.” Fin winces, speaks in a whisper. “Can’t believe … you’re hungry.”
“You’re not supposed to talk.” Scarlett eases off the top of the gelato tub like it contains the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything. “And when in doubt, eat your way out.”
Fin looks at the holo projected on the wall, mumbling. “Just … feels strange to be celebrating.”
Scar and I follow his gaze to the holo, drinking in the sight. Battle Leader de Stoy stayed behind aboard Aurora Station to oversee the assault. But Adams is sending us a feed direct from the bridge of his flagship, the Relentless. He said we’d earned ourselves front-row seats to history.
And sure enough, history is playing out before our eyes.
After almost two weeks of Folding, the assembled ships of the coalition fleet have finally reached the Octavia gate and are now poised to commence their attack, wiping out the first seed world of the Ra’haam.
They gather like spears in the Fold’s black and white, silhouetted against the gate. Like all the systems where the Ra’haam hid its nurseries, the Octavia gate is a naturally occurring weak spot in the fabric between dimensions. Instead of the hexagonal gates we Terrans use, or the teardrop portals of the Syldrathi, this one looks like a shimmering rip right across the face of the Fold. It’s tens of thousands of kilometers across, edges rippling with bursts of black quantum lightning. Over its horizon, the view sheers and shifts like heat haze, and beyond, I can see a faint glimpse of the Octavia star, burning bloodred in the rainbow hues of realspace.
Last time we saw this, it was just the seven of us. Squad 312. We all know what we lost on the planet. What was taken from us. For a moment, the anger and hurt are so bad it’s all I can do to breathe.