1
Tyler
The disruptor blast hits the Betraskan right in her chest.
She
shrieks, and her armload of e-tech goes flying as she collapses in a
drooling heap. I vault over her as she falls, ducking as another
disruptor shot hisses past my ear. The bazaar around us is crowded, the
mob parting before me in a panic as more blasts ring out behind us.
Scarlett is running right on my heels, flame-red hair plastered to her
cheeks with sweat. She leaps over the unconscious Betraskan woman and
her scattered goods, offering an apologetic shout.
“Sorryyyy!”
Another
blast rings out. The gangsters chasing us roar at the crowd to step
aside. We leap over the counter of a semptar stall, past the gobsmacked
owner, and out the back door into another packed, humid street.
Hovercraft and rotor bots. Pale green walls around us, red skies above,
yellow plascrete beneath our feet, a rainbow of outfits and skin tones
ahead.
“Left!” Finian shouts over comms. “Go left!”
We
left it, barreling into a grubby alleyway off the main drag. Hucksters
and fienders stare at us as we sprint past, boots pounding, trash
flying. The tiny gangsters chasing us reach the alley mouth, filling the
air with the BAMF! BAMF! of their disruptor blasts. The whoosh of
charged particles rushes past my ear. We skid behind a dumpster full of
discarded machine parts, looking for some kind of cover.
“I told you this was a bad idea!” Scarlett gasps.
“And I told you I don’t have bad ideas!” I shout, kicking through a doorway.
“Oh no?” she asks, cracking off a shot at our pursuers.
“No!” I drag her inside. “Just less amazing ones!”
Yeah, let’s back it up a little.
About
forty minutes, maybe, before things got quite so shooty. I know I’ve
done this before, but it’s more exciting this way. Trust me. Dimples,
remember?
So, forty
minutes ago, I’m sitting in a crowded booth in a crowded bar, music
thumping in my ears. I’m outfitted in a tight black tunic and tighter
pants, which I presume are stylish—Scarlett chose them for me, after
all. My sister’s squeezed into the booth beside me, also in civilian
wardrobe: blood-red and formfitting and cut as low as she likes it.
Sitting opposite us are a dozen gremps.
The
place we’re in is a dive, all pulsing light and smoky air, stuffed to
the rafters. There’s a broad pit in the center of the room where I guess
they hold some kind of blood sport, but fortunately nobody’s killing
anyone else in here right now. Drug and skin trades are going on all
around us, the small-time hustlers of the station and their daily grind.
And along with the smell of rocksmoke and the speakers’ thudding
deepdub, a single question is buzzing in my head.
How in the Maker’s name did I get here?
The
gremps sit across from us—a dozen small, furry figures crammed into the
other side of the booth. Their slitted eyes are fixed on the uniglass
Scarlett has placed on the table between us. The device is a flat pane
of palm-sized transparent silicon, lit up with holo displays. Rotating a
few inches above it is a glowing image of our Longbow. The ship is
arrowhead-shaped, gleaming titanium and carbite. The Aurora Legion sigil
and our squad designation, 312, are emblazoned down its flanks.
It’s state of the art. Beautiful. We’ve been through a lot together.
And now we have to let her go.
The
gremps mutter among themselves in their own hissing, purring tongue,
whiskers twitching. The leader is a little over a meter tall, which is
big for her species. The tortoiseshell fur covering her body is
perfectly coiffed, and her pearl-white suit screams “gangster chic.” Her
pale green eyes are edged with dark powder and have the gleam of
someone who feeds people to her pets for kicks.
“Risky, Earthgirl.” The gremp’s voice is a smooth purr. “Rrrrisky.”
“We
were told Skeff Tannigut was a lady who could handle a little risk,”
Scarlett smiles. “You’ve got quite the reputation around here.”
The
aforementioned Ms. Tannigut drums her claws on the tabletop, glances up
from the hologram of our Longbow and into my sister’s eyes.
“There’s
regular risk, Earthgirl, and then there’s the risk of twenty years in
Lunar Penal Colony. Trafficking in stolen Aurora Legion hardware is no
joke.”
“Neither is the hardware,” I say.
Twelve
sets of slitted eyes swivel toward me. Twelve fanged jaws drop open.
Skeff Tannigut looks at my sister with astonishment, ears twitching atop
her head.
“You let your male speak in public?”
“He’s…spirited,” Scarlett smiles, giving me a side-eye full of Shut uuup.
“I could sell you a pain collar?” the gangster offers. “Break him in?”
I raise my eyebrow. “Thanks, but—hrk!”
I
clutch my bruised shin under the table and glare as Scarlett leans
forward to look the syndicate leader in the eye. “If you’re feeling so
generous, let’s skip the foreplay, shall we?” She waves at the holo
image of our Longbow. “A hundred thousand and she’s yours. Weapon
passcodes included.”
Tannigut
confers briefly with her colleagues. Not fancying another boot to the
shins, I keep my mouth on the right side of shut and study the club
around us.
The bar
is lined with bottles full of rainbows, and the walls are lit with
holographic displays—jetball games and the latest economy reports from
Central and newsfeeds of Unbroken ships on the move in the Neutral
Zones. This station is a long way from the Core, but I’m still surprised
at the number of different species here. Since we docked two hours ago,
I must’ve counted at least twenty—pale Betraskans, furry gremps,
hulking blue Chellerians. This place is like a dirty slice of the whole
Milky Way, dropped into one dodgy, suborbital melting pot.
The
planet we’re floating above is a gas giant, a little smaller than
Jupiter back home. This station hovers in the stratosphere, suspended
above a storm that’s four centuries old and twenty thousand klicks wide.
The air is filtered, the whole floating city sealed inside a
transparent dome of ionized particles crackling faintly in the skies
above our heads. But I can still taste the tang of chlorine gas that
gives the storm its color and this station its name.
I take a sip of my water. Glance at the coaster beneath it.
welcome to emerald city! it says. don’t look down!
The
gremps have stopped conversing, and Tannigut’s glittering eyes are back
on Scar. The gangster smooths her whiskers with one paw as she speaks.
“I’ll give you thirty thousand,” she says. “First and final offer.”
Scar raises one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Since when do gremps do stand-up comedy?”
“Since when do Aurora legionnaires sell their ships?” the gremp asks.
“We could have stolen this baby. What makes you think we’re Legion?”
Tannigut points to me. “His haircut.”
“What’s wron—hrk!”
“All
due respect, but the whys aren’t your concern,” Scarlett says smoothly.
“There’s no tech anywhere in the galaxy like the tech that comes out of
Aurora labs. One hundred thousand is a bargain, and you know it.” Scar
tosses her flame-red bob out of her eyes and manages to look nowhere as
desperate as we actually are. “And therefore, madam, I bid you good
day.”
Scar is
rising to leave and Tannigut is reaching out to stop her when the
commotion starts at the bar. I look toward the noise to see what the
fuss is, notice that the various jetball games and stock reports on the
displays have been interrupted by a special news feed.
My stomach flips as I read the message at the bottom of the screens.
aurora legion terror attack
A
big Terran asks the barkeeper to turn it up. A bigger Chellerian
bellows to put the game back on. As a small fistfight breaks out, the
barkeep drops the volume on the deepdub, cranks the news feed through
the pub’s speakers.
“…over
seven thousand Syldrathi refugees were killed in the attack, with the
Terran and Betraskan governments both expressing outrage at the
massacre…“
My
heart drops and thumps in my chest as I watch the accompanying footage.
It shows the gunmetal-gray blisters of an ore-processing rig nestled on
the flank of a massive asteroid, floating in a sea of stars.
I
recognize the structure immediately. It’s Sagan Station—the mining rig
our squad was sent to on its first mission away from Aurora Academy. We
were captured by a Terran destroyer there, held captive by the GIA. They
obliterated Sagan to silence any witnesses who might have seen them
taking Auri into custody. There’s nothing left of that place but debris
now.
Hard to believe that was just a few days ago…
As
I watch, a ship swoops in and fires a barrage of missiles, immolating
the station. But as the footage freezes on the attacking vessel, I
realize it’s not the lumbering, snub-nosed hulk of a Terran destroyer
firing the kill shot. The attacking ship is arrowhead-shaped, gleaming
titanium and carbite, the Aurora Legion sigil and its squad designation
emblazoned down its flanks.
312.
“Great Maker…”
I glance at Scarlett. The voice-over rises above the worsening bar brawl.
“The
perpetrators of the Sagan massacre are also wanted in connection with
breach of Galactic Interdiction while being pursued by Terran forces.
The joint commander of Aurora Legion, Admiral Seph Adams, released the
following statement just moments ago….”
The
footage cuts to the familiar figure of Admiral Adams, our Aurora Legion
CO, decked out in full dress uniform. Dozens of medals gleam across his
broad chest. His cybernetic arms are folded, his expression grim. He
taps one prosthetic finger on his forearm as he speaks, metal ringing
softly on metal.
“We
condemn,” he says, “in strongest possible terms, the actions of Aurora
Legion Squad 312 at Sagan Station. We cannot explain their motives, save
to say that this squad has clearly gone rogue. They have violated our
trust. They have broken our code. Aurora Legion Command offers every
assistance to the Terran government in its pursuit of these murderers,
and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the slain
refugees.”
Photographs flash up on the screen. The faces and names of my crew.
Finian de Karran de Seel.
Zila Madran.
Catherine Brannock.
Kaliis Idraban Gilwraeth.
Scarlett Jones.
Tyler Jones.
Under each of our names scroll more words.
wanted. reward offered: 100,000cr
And it’s about then that my stomach feels ready to crawl right out of my mouth.
I
glance at my sister wordlessly. We need to move. Scar’s already
snatching her uniglass off the table when Tannigut’s claws sink into her
wrist.
“On second thought”—the gremp smiles with pointed teeth—“a hundred thousand credits does sound like a bargain.”
Scarlett
looks to me. Like I’ve said before, it’s funny being a twin. Sometimes I
feel like I know what my sister will say before she says it. Sometimes I
swear she can tell what I’m thinking just by looking at me. And right
now, I’m thinking we need to get all the way out of this stinking bar
and off this stinking station.
Like, yesterday.
Scarlett
slams the heel of her palm into Tannigut’s nose. She’s rewarded with a
loud crunch and a shriek of pain, a gout of deep magenta. I grab my
sister’s bloody hand and drag her out of the booth as the other gremps
howl and leap at us.
The
brawl over the remote control at the other end of the bar is now in
full swing, and I figure a little more chaos isn’t going to hurt. So I
blast a gremp in the face with my disruptor, knock another’s fangs out
of its head with my boot, push Scar toward the door.
“Go! Go!”
Someone
screams. A barfly goes sailing into the wall above my head. Three
gremps jump on me, clawing and biting. I kick and blast them free, roll
across the floor and up to my feet, burst out the front door behind my
sister and into the labyrinth of streets that make up the Emerald City.
The
station covers eighty levels, a hundred kilometers wide. The lower
levels are taken up by an inverted forest of wind turbines, which
harnesses the immense storm currents below and turns them into energy.
The city is interconnected by a huge lattice of transparent public
transit tubes, powered by those same currents. And it’s into one of
these tubes that my sister and I leap face-first.
“Grand
bazaar!” Scarlett shouts, “Complying,” the computer beeps, and before I
can blink, we’re being whipped along the tube on a cushion of ionized
oxygen.
“Fin? You reading me?” I shout over the rushing current.
“Um, yeah,” comes the response. “You catch the news, Goldenboy? That was not a flattering photo of me.”
“Yeah,
we saw it. So did half the people in this city, I’m guessing. Including
the syndicate we were trying to sell the Longbow to.”
“No deal, I take it?”
I
glance behind, see a pack of gremps whipping along right on our tails,
disruptors ready to fire as soon as we’re out of the pressurized tube.
“You
could say that,” I reply. “We’re coming back through the bazaar, I need
you giving us directions. Tell Kal and Zila to prep for launch. Every
bounty hunter, lawman, and half-baked do-gooder in this hole is gonna be
after us now.”
“I did tell you this was a bad idea.”
“And I told you. I don’t have bad ideas.”
“Just less amazing ones?”
Emerald
City is whipping past the transit tube outside, dozens of levels,
thousands of secrets, millions of people. The clouds around us swirl and
shift in beautiful patterns, like watercolors on wet canvas. The walls
and archways and gleaming spires under the ionized dome are tinged pale
green by the chlorine storm below, the skies above like bruised blood.
I
knew we’d be pushing it by even coming to a station as remote as this
one. It was only a matter of time before word got out that we’d gone
rogue, and I knew the Global Intelligence Agency would be gunning for us
after Octavia III. But I should’ve known they’d come at us sideways.
Framing us as the perpetrators of the massacre they committed was smart.
Something I might’ve done if I flushed my morals into the recycler. By
painting us as killers of innocent refugees as well as Interdiction
breakers, they’ve cut us off from Aurora Academy and anyone who’d help
us.
I can’t
blame Adams for disavowing us. But he took me and Scar under his wing
when Dad died—I have to admit it hurt, listening to him call us
murderers. And though it makes sense for him to cut us loose after we’ve
been accused of galactic terrorism, part of me is gutted he could ever
believe it.
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