Her hazel eyes—were they always hazel?—met his and never left as they counted together. “Three,” they said in unison, and Kara flipped on her back and slid down, riding the surface of her massive jacket like it was a magic carpet. Aly flew down right with her. Somehow their hands found each other’s.
Time moved fast and slow all at once. It didn’t feel like it was stretching out so much as getting bigger, the big rim of the bowl shifting above him and framing the sky in its perfect center. It was an impossible moment of peace. He’d prove his innocence. He would show everyone.
Suddenly Pavel’s leash whipped out of his hand, and they fell away as the droid stayed stuck on a ridge he and Kara had just barely missed.
“PAVEL!” Aly called, and tried to flip himself over to slow down. Kara tried, too, but they got tangled up, rushing down like a tide. They tumbled. Everything happened in near silence and small grunts. He’d given up trying to get Pavel back, but now they were coming in fast on the port below, right at the center of the bowl. It had looked far smaller from up top, but now he saw it was a raised cylinder in the middle. At this rate, if they didn’t stop, they’d break their legs, best-case scenario. Worst-case scenario, maybe flip over it and break their necks.
Aly tore his sleeve open as he dragged his elbow into the surface; it was raw and bloody, and he could feel where the friction heat and metal were burning his skin. Kara’s eyes went wide as she saw the port, and she clawed at the surface. Her hair in his mouth. His hand on her waist. He dug a heel in and could smell the rubber of his sole burning. Their bodies had found each other in the mad scramble, parallel now by the time they’d slowed—his foot just tapping the port. The curve of her hip brushed against him, and even now—filthy and exhausted, skinned to hell, and on the run for his life—Aly felt his face flush.
He was quick to push himself up to sit, and he looked behind him, up the slope. They were outside of Pavel’s signal jammer, and any second some NX could pop up over the crest to find them.
Kara sat up and rubbed the heel of her palms against her eyes. He crawled toward her and pulled her into a hug. Her braid had come undone, and her crazy hair made a halo around her face. Or a lion’s mane. “Holy taejis,” she said breathlessly.
“You good?” he mumbled into her hair. His adrenaline was off the charts. He’d bloodied his knees and elbows, and he was sure that everything would hurt later, but it felt fantastic here—his arms around her, his face in her big mess of tangles.
“Don’t worry about me, Aly.” She looked up at him. Their faces were an inch apart. Only for a split second, though—Kara blinked and pushed him away. “Now or never.”
Now or never.
He exhaled through his nose, then powered up his cube for the first time in weeks. It was lightning running through him, pain and pleasure, striking nerve after nerve. And with his other hand, he touched the metal conductor to transfer his playback. There was a jolt of electricity, and his limbs went numb.
Aly closed his eyes as he shuffled through recent memories. It was hard to get back into it. His mind felt closed off, rigid. He pictured sticking his hands into the big, dark knot of his memory, up to his elbows, feeling his way around. Then something hooked on—a moment, a feeling. He’d found it.
“Stream playback.” His own voice sounded distant, but just saying it, dictating what he could and couldn’t do with his cube and his memories—it made him feel like a god. The data transfer felt like his soul was pouring out from the point on his neck and funneling into the hologram that projected up into the sky, out into the worlds. Alongside millions of strangers, he rewatched the moment he found the dead body on the royal escape pod. There he was, slipping on the Nau Fruman’s blood. The robodroid, throwing him one-handed across the room.
With his memories transferred, Aly fell to his knees and tasted salt in his mouth, felt his face flood with tears. His hand fell away and he doubled over, one hand to support himself while the other one wiped his face.
“Aly!” Kara said. She kneeled before him and lowered his hand from his face and wrapped her arms around his neck. She squeezed him. He could smell her, feel all the warmth from under her coat. For a long time, there was quiet, except for the sound of Aly’s heavy sobbing.
There was the rest of it, too, the stuff he couldn’t show them because he’d gone offline. But he’d never forget any of it: stabbing himself with the syringe full of tauri. Vincent piloting the escape pod.
“Who are you?” Aly’d asked him.
“I’m the guy who’s going to save your sorry ass,” Vincent had said. At the time Aly had been pissed, taken for granted that Vin had a mission more important than ten Alys put together. Despite it all, Vin had saved Aly like he said he would. Vin had died to keep his word, because Aly hadn’t been able to save him when the time came.
“They’re coming, aren’t they?” Aly asked now. His face was wet. He wiped it away and hoped he didn’t have snot coming out of his nose.