“My readings on the station are congruous,” Zila says. “Gravitonic bursts in the tempest, energy signatures, quantum flux—everything about this scenario is identical every time.”
Electricity crackles as Fin’s fingertips brush mine. “You know, you’re not stupid,” he tells me. “I dunno why you talk about yourself like that.”
I look at the gray metal around us. The flashing globes reflected in the big, pretty eyes of the boy holding my hand. And then I see it.
Because, yeah, maybe I’m not the Brain of this squad. But if we’re stuck in this loop and acting different every time, and that trigger-happy pilot out there is also acting different every time, there’s only one explanation.
Eliminate the impossible.
Whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth.
“That pilot is stuck in the loop with us,” I say.
“Not just a pretty Face,” Fin smiles.
“I see what you did there.”
His smile fades a little as I look down to his lips. And as I press my mouth to his, as he kisses me back, I realize there are worse ways to die, over and over and over again.
BOOM.
3
TYLER
“TYLER!”
The walls around me are rainbows.
The ground is shaking beneath my feet.
There’s blood in my mouth and a shadow rising above my head so massive and deep and dark I know it will swallow the galaxy if I let it.
I can’t let it… .
A Syldrathi girl kneels above me, a kaleidoscope of light shining behind her like a halo. She’s beautiful. Radiant. Younger than me but somehow older, and her eyes are violet and her hair looks like spun gold and I know she means the world to me without quite knowing why.
“TYLER!”
The voice echoes from my past, but into my future—another girl I used to know but never truly did screaming from beyond the boundaries of time and death. And I know she’s trying to tell me something important, but that Syldrathi girl before me reaches out and her hands are covered in blood (my blood) and that golden hair is now dripping red and—
“… you still have a chance of fixing this, Tyler Jones …”
“I don’t …”
“Tyler Jones.”
There might be nothing.
There is nothing. I—
“Tyler Jones!”
I open my eyes, and spears of bright light stab into my skull. I wince at the silhouette above me.
A Syldrathi girl, like the one from my dream just now, beautiful, radiant. But where her hair was gold as starlight, now it’s black as midnight, same as the stripe of paint across her eyes and gleaming on her curling lips.
“Awake at last,” Saedii says, one dark eyebrow rising slightly. “I wondered if you planned to sleep through the entire war.”
My mind is ringing, and the lights are way too bright, the thrum of heavy engines rumbling through the medi-cot beneath me. There’s a dermal patch on my arm, the metallic taste of stims in my mouth, and antiseptic in the air. It hurts a little to breathe.
I’m on a ship, I realize. Black metal. Syldrathi design. But the light is gray, not red, so we’re Folding… .
“Maker’s b-breath,” I cough. “W-what happened … ?”
“Is that not obvious?” Saedii leans back in her chair, and lifting her long black boots, she rests one sharp heel on the edge of the cot beside me. “You almost died, Tyler Jones.”
“… Where am I?”
“Aboard my ship. The Shika’ari. Well …” She glances around briefly, tosses a thick black braid off her shoulder. “My ship now, at any rate.”
“Last thing I remember … was the battle on the Kusanagi.” I lever myself up onto one elbow, my head pounding like a war drum. “We broke out of our cell. Your people attacked.” I wince again, my memory fuzzy, that strange dream still echoing in my head. It feels like I’ve been run over by a grav-freighter.
… you still have a chance of fixing this …
“We evac’ed … in escape pods?”
“The Terran cowards on the Kusanagi fired upon your pod.” Saedii sneers, one sharpened canine gleaming. “But I was aboard the Shika’ari by then. Our defense grid intercepted their missile before it struck you. The explosion’s proximity still disabled your pod, knocked out your life support. You were close to dying by the time we recovered you.”
She quirks one sharp black brow.
“But recover you we did.”
I meet her eyes, black-rimmed, deep violet irises running to gray. Her face is all sharp angles, perfect symmetry, cold and imperious.
“You saved my life.”
She inclines her head. “As you saved mine.”
I feel the touch of her thoughts then. Tentative, as if to make sure all we’d shared during our time in that prison cell aboard the Kusanagi was real. The revelation about the Syldrathi blood in my veins sits in my mind like a sliver of ice. Thoughts of the Waywalker mother my dad never told me about swirling like smoke.
I remember those other truths we shared. The truth of her bloodline. Her father’s name. The lie her brother told me. But before I can grow too angry at the reminder of my friend’s betrayal, thoughts of Kal lead to Auri, then to Scarlett and—
“Earth,” I hiss, sitting up. “The Unbroken are at war with Earth.”
“Yes.”
“We have to stop it! A galaxy at war is just what the Ra’haam wants!”
Saedii shrugs, black lips pursed. “Fortune smiles, in that case.”
“Well, where the hells are we?” I raise myself up off the bed, head swimming as I get to my feet. “We have t—”
Saedii stands, so tall that she’s almost eye to eye with me. And placing one hand square on my chest, she holds me still. I can smell her hair, the fragrance of leather and lias flowers and traces of blood. I remember the press of her lips to my cheek as we said goodbye. The look in her eyes, her voice in my mind as I covered her escape.
“You have courage, Tyler Jones. Your blood is true.”
“We are undertaking tactical withdrawal,” Saedii says. “The battle with the Kusanagi was costly. Only the Shika’ari and one other of our cruisers survived. And both our vessels sustained significant damage.”
“I need to talk to my people at Aurora Command,” I insist. “Admiral Adams and Battle Leader de Stoy. The fate of the whole galaxy is—”
“You should be concerned with your own fate, Terran. Not the galaxy’s.” Her fingers twitch against my chest, pressing a little harder. “You are my captive now, after all. And your people showed me precious little hospitality while I was in their care. My entire command staff is of the opinion I should have let you die in your escape pod.”
My mind returns to my final minutes in captivity. That confrontation near the pods, those eyes, once brown, now blue, boring into my own. The mind of the enemy, the voice of a friend, begging me to stay.
Tyler, don’t go… .
Cat …
I love you, Tyler.
Saedii searches my eyes. Her hand still rests on my chest. I can feel the warmth of her skin through the Terran uniform I stole. She’s taken the time to change into Unbroken colors again—sharp black lines, sharper curves underneath. I can still recall the sight of her stripped down to her underwear in that storage locker if I try, but I’m desperately trying not to, because people who share Waywalker blood can apparently hear each other’s thoughts, and the last thing I should be thinking about right now is—