“That’s progress,” Scarlett murmurs. “If she knows something weird is happening to us all, we can try and communicate.”
“We must change our approach,” Zila declares. “Finian, what do you make of our surroundings?”
I bite down on the urge to be flippant, because we don’t have time. Our friend Shooty McShootface could start up again any minute. I know better than to bother looking out the windows—one of the principal characteristics of dark matter is you can’t actually see it, only what it does to the stuff around it. So I peer at the fritzing controls instead, looking over the data coming in.
“Well, that DM storm is huge. One of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Gravitonic, electromagnetic, and quantum fluctuations are all off the scale. But we’re far enough away not to suffer any ill effects, I think.”
“And the station?”
I check our cams. “Dunno. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It is Terran,” Zila murmurs. “As was the pilot who hailed us. But it is an archaic design. It is also seriously damaged. Venting core plasma, I believe.”
“So if that’s her home, she’s got bigger problems than us.”
Zila’s not looking quite at me, that big brain of hers going at full speed. “What do you make of that sail out in the storm?”
I shrug, studying the enormous cable leading from the station, the tiny rectangular glimmer out on the edge of the tempest. “I mean, it looks like a quantum sail.”
“A what?” Scarlett asks, giving me a look that dares me to suggest she was doing her nails during this lecture at the academy.
I do not wish to displease Scarlett in any way, so I reply very diplomatically. “It’s one of the idiotic things you dirtchildren were trying back when Terrans and Betraskans made first contact. We didn’t teach you the error of your ways till after the war ended. But your theory was that you could harvest energy from dark matter storms.”
Scarlett blinks at me, suggesting that, yes, she was indeed doing her nails when they covered this stuff in basic astrometrics.
Very studiously.
“Look, dark matter is basically the gravitational glue that holds the galaxy together, right?” I say. “And when streams of it collide, you get all kinds of crazy chakk going on at the subatomic level. Those lights you see out there? Those are dark quantum pulses. There’s more energy in a single burst than is generated by a star going supernova. You Terrans thought you could harness it.” I shrug. “Sounds good in theory, but the reality is, the energy in a dark quantum pulse is just too unstable, and dark energy starts doing really dangerous things under containment. So while it looks like a quantum sail out there, it can’t be, because even Terrans aren’t that dumb anymore.”
Zila is staring at the viewscreen, thoughtful, sucking on a lock of hair. Scarlett slides into the seat beside her.
“Okay, well, massive space nerdery aside,” Scar says, rolling her eyes at me, “we still need to figure out what’s happening. So let’s try switching things up. If that pilot won’t talk to us, maybe we can talk to her.”
Zila gives her the frequency she needs, and our Face wrestles with the comms rig for a moment. I just stare at that massive storm of pulsing darkness, the tiny station hanging on the edge of it. Bewildered.
“Attention, Terran vessel. Attention, Terran vessel. Are you reading us?”
No reply. Zila and I glance at each other as Scar tries again.
“Listen, we know it sounds insane, but I’m guessing this situation is feeling awfully familiar to you by now. And given that you’re not shooting at us anymore, you’re probably starting to figure out the four of us are somehow tied in to all of this together. Whatever this is. What say we figure it out?”
More silence. Scarlett puts on her best Voice of Reason.
“You’re probably just as scared as we are. We just want to talk, okay?”
Still nothing. A pulse of dark energy illuminates the tempest, deep mauve amid those seething coils of bottomless black. And I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Scar’s met the one person in the galaxy who can resist her charms when the vidscreen crackles and a masked badass appears, shooting a Class Five death glare through narrowed eyes.
Getting a better look at her this time, I realize she’s kinda young—not too much older than us. She’s not looking quite so much the badass anymore, either. In fact, if anything, she looks more freaked out than we do.
“Well, hi,” Scar says, treating the pilot to one of her very best smiles. “We simply have to stop meeting like this.”
Our new friend’s gaze hardens in a very not-friendly way.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Good question,” Scarlett replies, still all smiles, which is a good idea, because Miss Badass still has all the guns and we have none of the guns. “Excellent question, in fact, well worth discussing. Might I suggest we try and answer it together? Because we’re very keen to avoid dying again.”
The seconds tick by in silence, the girl behind the mask inscrutable. But finally, we hear a massive WHUNGGGG, and the whole shuttle shakes around us. Another WHUNGGGG rings out on our hull, and I’m almost knocked off my feet, hands out for balance.
“Maker’s breath, she’s shooting us again?”
“No.” Zila looks at her sensors, shakes her head. “She has secured our ship with tow cables.”
“Open your airlock,” the pilot orders. “I’m coming aboard. I expect to see your hands in clear view when those doors open. If not, kiss your asses goodbye. You reading me?”
“Five by five,” Scarlett replies. “See you soon.”
Our Face swings around in her chair. She squares her jaw, draws a deep breath, and nods in that way that reminds me of her brother again.
“All right. Let’s go roll out the red carpet.”
“Wait, we’re gonna just let her in here?” I ask, looking around the cabin. “I don’t want to get all judgy, but this girl has murdered us nine times today.”
“Eight times,” Zila corrects.
“Oh, well, that’s okay then.”
“She’s hard to read with the mask and helmet and all.” Scar shrugs. “But if she didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t be coming over at all.”
“I do not pretend to understand what is happening here,” Zila says, starting for the door. “But this pilot is a part of it. We must speak with her.”
I exchange a look with Scar, and we follow our Brain down the stairs. Trekking down to the cargo bay, I find myself trying to make sense of all this.
I’m not the genius Zila is, but I’m no slouch either, and none of it is adding up. While I’m worried about saving our own hides, worry about Auri is also nagging away at me—what the hells happened to her, to the Weapon, to the Syldrathi fleet we were right in the middle of?
Is the battle on the edge of this system still under way? Is that why this pilot was so jumpy? Thing is, we saw the Betraskan fleet arrive to defend Terra against the Unbroken—we’ve been allies since our war ended nearly two centuries ago. There’s no two planets in the galaxy tighter than Terra and Trask. So why did she freak out when she saw me?