I sigh, looking out the massive viewport to the stars outside. The fleeing ships. The fall of a galaxy.
I know there’s no way out of this. I know we’re looking down the barrel of our own execution. And I remember what it felt like fighting Cat in the reactor. Looking into those glowing eyes. Bleeding out on the floor. That awful moment when I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just lose myself in the Ra’haam rather than die alone.
I know how stupid that fear was now. Because even in my darkest hours, I’ve never been alone. And so I put my arms around Scar, hold her tight, grabbing Fin and pulling him in, too.
This is what family is, I realize.
To never be alone.
The lighting around us shifts to red. An alarm pitches across the PA, a metallic voice echoing across the promenade.
“Aurora Station, this is Battle Leader de Stoy. Red alert: Unauthorized vessels inbound. All stations Ready one.”
“Oh shit … ,” Scarlett whispers.
“Repeat, this is Battle Leader de Stoy. Multiple unauthorized vessels breaching Aurora FoldGate. All stations Ready one status.”
“It’s here,” Fin breathes.
“No,” I frown, easing them both out of my arms and looking through the viewport at the gate beyond. “The Ra’haam is still nineteen hours fr—”
“Legionnaire Jones, this is de Stoy, do you copy?”
I tap the comm badge at my chest.
“I read you, Commander.”
“You’d best get your tail up to C&C on the double, soldier.”
I look to the FoldGate again, my belly twisting as dark shapes begin pouring through the rift.
I put my hand to the plasteel viewport, heart breaking loose in my chest, not quite believing what I’m seeing.
“I know those ships … ,” I whisper.
“Ty?” Scar asks. “What are—”
But I’m already running, barreling down the promenade through the milling crowd, roaring at the top of my lungs. “Scar, Fin, come on!”
“Where the hells are you g—”
“JUST COME ON!”
Scar and Finian follow me through the fleeing crowd and into the turbolift. We ride up to the bridge of the C&C tower in silence, Fin and Scar looking at me like I’m half-crazy, me wondering if I’m all the way gone.
I didn’t dare hope, didn’t dare even let myself think about it, but as the three of us pile out into the crowded decks of Aurora Command and Control, my suspicion is confirmed, a storm of butterflies breaking loose in my stomach just as a goofy-as-hells smile breaks out all over my face.
“What is that?” Fin asks, looking at the monitor screens.
“She did it,” I grin. “She made it.”
The shapes are clearer now, spilling through the blinding flare of the FoldGate and into the Aurora system. A fleet of battleships, sleek and sharp, black hulls daubed with beautiful glyfs of gleaming white. A people born with the taste of blood in their mouths.
A people born for war.
Battle Leader de Stoy stands among her staff, looking about as certain as a commander running on zero sleep in the middle of a galactic cataclysm can. Her thin, pale face is set in a scowl, black eyes fixed on me.
“They’ve been hailing us for the past five minutes,” she informs us. “They want to speak to you, Jones.”
I nod, standing a little taller. “Roger that, ma’am.”
The image of the incoming fleet on the holoscreen in front of us dissolves, that massive armada replaced by a single face. Her hair is dark as the empty spaces between the stars, her eyes shining like dark jewels, black lips curled into a tiny smile as she lays eyes on me.
She’s beautiful. Fierce. Brilliant. Ruthless.
Like no one I’ve ever known.
“Saedii … ,” Fin whispers.
“Tyler Jones,” Saedii says.
“About time,” I smile, scarred eyebrow rising slightly. “I wondered if you planned to sleep through the entire war.”
Scar and Fin both look at me, gobsmacked. Saedii only scoffs. “Time enough to sleep in the grave, Terran.”
“Did you do what you needed?” I ask. “Get what you wanted?”
Saedii spreads her arms, as if to encompass the Unbroken armada at her command. Her smile is triumphant, and I notice there’s a new chain hanging around her neck, silver, strung with half a dozen severed Syldrathi ears. “I am a Templar of the Unbroken, Tyler Jones. I do what I wish, I go where I please, and I take what I want.”
“You know what’s coming for us.”
She nods, fierce and grim. “We have seen.”
“Then you know there’s no way out of this,” I warn. “Our only real plan here is to take out as much of it as we can before the big goodbye.”
“We will dance the dance of blood with you. We will paint the sun red this day.” She shakes her head. “And Unbroken do not say goodbye.”
My heart is burning in my chest at the sight of her. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed her until this moment. I hold out my hand toward her, and she raises her own, as if to press her palm against mine.
I wish we had more time, I wish I’d gotten to know her better, I wish …
“I’m glad you’re here, Saedii Gilwraeth.”
Black lips curl in the smallest of smiles. “I am also pleased to fight once more at your side, Tyler Jones. And …”
“And?”
“… And to see you again.”
Saedii stares for an endless heartbeat longer, and then her transmission drops away. Lowering my hand, I realize the entire bridge crew is looking at me incredulously.
“Not that I’m ungrateful for the assist,” de Stoy says. “But I almost wish I had time to read your report on that one, Legionnaire Jones.”
My Gearhead is wearing an expression somewhere between admiration and shock, but my sister is going straight for utter disbelief, looking between me and the screen.
“You … and her?”
I shrug. “It’s the dimples.”
“How are you still walking?” Fin whispers.
I grin. “Yeah, I was limping for a while there.”
Fin covers his open mouth with one hand, offers me a cheeky fist bump behind Scar’s back with the other. Scar catches him, looks back and forth between us. “What are you, twelve?”
“Out of ten?” I shrug. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
“Oh Maker … ,” she groans.
The smiles are short-lived, the warmth in my chest quickly fading, until the thought of the thing coming for us is all that remains.
Glad as I am for Saedii and her armada to be here, I know they’re not going to make the difference between victory and defeat. The corrupted coalition fleet is too big, the Ra’haam is too much—like I said, our only move here is to do as much damage to it as possible before we go down.
But if that’s the play, then we’re going to make it as best we can.
And if this really is the end, at least I’m not alone.
? ? ? ? ?
Seventeen hours later, I’m standing on the bridge of a familiar Longbow, staring out at our lines of defense. Behind us, Aurora Station glitters like the sun at dawning, bristling with pulse cannons and missile arrays. Around us, the Legion fleet is forming up into our lines.
Adams and de Stoy threw almost every ship they had at the Octavia assault, and there’s only forty or so Legion Longbows left, flanking one heavy cruiser, the Invincible, commanded by Battle Leader de Stoy herself.
But supporting us is Saedii’s Unbroken armada: the dark silhouettes of Wraiths and Specters, the sleek bulk of Banshee carriers and Shadows, hundreds upon hundreds of them. We’re arrayed in a phalanx, aimed toward the FoldGate, ready to unleash hell on the first vessel that blows through.
“Hostiles still inbound,” comes the warning over comms. “Enemy fleet will breach Aurora system in T minus six minutes.” “Thanks for the ride,” I murmur, eyes on the gate. “I’d have hated to sit this one out on the sidelines, Em.”
Beside me, Emma Cohen shrugs, eyes roaming the fleet. “Figured I owed you one after you stopped the station from getting blown to pieces and all.”
“No hard feelings about me locking you in your own brig?”
“That depends,” she says, looking at me sidelong. “Any hard feelings about me shooting you in the face?”
“We both did what we had to do,” I smile. “We the Legion.”