“Listen,” he nods. “Out there.”
I look to Aurora, and she meets my eyes, pressing her lips thin. I feel her mind swell and stretch at the edges of my own. She lifts her hand, as if reaching toward that distant star. That pale glow illuminates her iris, seeps through the splits in her skin.
“I can’t … I can’t hear anything.”
He nods. “Silence.”
My father looks out on the Taalos star, his face a cold mask.
“A colony of almost half a million people orbited this sun. Unbroken all. Loyal unto death.” He laces his fingers together and breathes deep. “The death that has now claimed them. Each and every one.”
“How?” I breathe.
“The Ra’haam,” Aurora whispers. “I can … I can feel it.”
She looks at me with tears in her eyes.
“It’s taken over the colony, Kal. It’s taken over their entire world.”
“But how?” I demand, my frustration rising. “How is this possible? The Ra’haam has not even bloomed yet! Its intent was to drive the galaxy into war while it slumbered on its nursery worlds, waiting to hatch! But now it has taken Earth? Taalos? How can this be?”
“This is your fault,” Aurora says, stepping forward. “All of this. The Eshvaren entrusted you to defeat the Ra’haam, Caersan, and you used their Weapon to fight your own petty war! And where did it get you?”
He looks at her then, and the imperious mask he wears begins to slip. It starts small, just a glimmer of amusement in his eye, a faint curl of his lip. But soon he is smiling, and that smile stretches and splits to his eyeteeth, and of all things, he begins laughing. Laughing, as if my beloved has said the most amusing thing he has ever heard.
All this death. All this darkness. And he finds it amusing. And I see it then, sure as I see this girl beside me, sure as I saw the wreckage of our world, the ruin he has made of our people.
My father is insane.
“What the hell is so funny?” Aurora shouts.
“As I said,” he finally replies, wiping a tear from his eye, “always you seek answers to the wrong questions.”
“What should we ask, then?” I demand.
“It is not a matter of where my ambition has gotten me, my son.”
My father breathes deep, looking out into that silent void.
“It is when.”
8
ZILA
“What the hell is going on?”
I am back in the cockpit of our Syldrathi shuttle again, floating at the edge of a storm of dark matter, my ears still ringing with the crack of the gunshot that killed me. Instead of replaying the moment of my death over in my head, I focus on Lieutenant Kim’s face as it appears on the monitor. I had been hoping she would take a different approach this loop, and as she opens comms for the tenth time, I realize she is ready to talk.
Pleasing.
“Hello, Lieutenant. I have been expecting you.”
Her pause is so long that if I could not see her shifting slightly on my monitor, I would think our comms had cut out.
“I can’t tell if you’re kidding,” she says eventually.
“I hear that with remarkable frequency.”
More silence.
“Open the airlock,” she says. “I’m coming over.”
Scarlett and Finian reach the bridge, breathless, having sprinted up from the engine room. Catching the end of the conversation, Finian leans in to study the lieutenant onscreen. “You’re only coming over if you agree not to shoot anyone. I’ve died ten times already today, and I’m in no mood.”
The lieutenant blinks, brow creasing. “Ten? I count nine.”
“We died on the way here, too.”
“On the way here from the future.” Her tone is dubious.
Scarlett leans in beside Finian. “See you soon, Lieutenant.” Kim cuts the connection, leaving the three of us to stare at each other. The impossibility of what we are experiencing is not lost on any of us.
“I don’t like this,” Finian mutters. “I don’t like her.”
“Me neither,” Scarlett agrees. “But our ship is dead in the water, so we’re not getting anywhere until we convince her we’re not a threat.”
Fin looks at Scarlett, voice soft. “… You sure you’re okay?”
Scarlett blinks. “Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, okay as I can be, considering what’s going on here… .”
“You …” Fin swallows. “You got shot.”
“I’m fine, Fin.” Scarlett smiles gently, touches his hand. “I promise. You got shot too, you know.”