Hope you enjoy this unedited sneak peek of Blood of Aeternai! (Will be updated with edited version soon.)
Chapter 1
The twin moons of Lyraxis cast uneven shadows across the detention facility’s perimeter, their pale light doing little to warm the pre-dawn chill that had settled in my bones. Crouching behind a cluster of industrial equipment, I studied the four-building compound through the enhanced vision of my combat gift. The aurilink nestled over my earlobe thrummed faintly with quiet activity as Nexa—the AI on Stormweaver in orbit above the planet—fed me real-time tactical data from one of her drones.
Thermal scans indicate minimal guard presence, Nexa’s harmonic cadence came clearly into my mind. Thirty-three distinct heat signatures detected. Expected complement for a facility this size is sixty-two.
Even through the precision of her speech, I caught a flicker of excitement—an emotional state I hadn’t believed an AI could feel, let alone transmit. But she was the new “daughter” of Dawn, the unique colonial AI, who now ran the huge space station in Solar Centauri space.
“Something’s wrong,” I said through comms to my team, now scattered nearby at the facility’s south edge.
“Define wrong,” Beckett Cadogan’s voice crackled through his comm, his position six meters to my left marked by a faint green indicator in my peripheral vision—another gift from Nexa’s tactical overlay through my aurlink. He was our team leader, a gifted blaster, but as a combat Aeternai, I was in charge of this mission. That I was madly infatuated with Beckett was something I still questioned. Loving him was like dancing on a live wire—thrilling, dangerous, and impossible to stop.
“This place is run by the Galactic Unity Alliance, which means it should be crawling with guards,” I responded. “We’re looking at skeleton crew numbers.” I shifted my weight, muscles coiled and ready with the familiar tension of a mission about to go sideways.
“Maybe they’ve already transferred the captives,” Hendrick Vale suggested from his position closer to the main entrance. His voice carried the controlled calm that made him such an effective team member—no wasted emotion, just practical assessment. He was combat like me, so it was logical, he’d jump to the same conclusion I had.
“Or maybe they’re expecting us,” Karson Hargrave added. Even through the comm, I could hear something different in the Earthman’s voice. Confidence, maybe. Or the subtle arrogance that came with new capabilities. The mortal’s cloned leg had been healing for three weeks now, though Karson had been frustratingly vague about exactly what enhancements the Aeternai healers had approved.
I glanced past Beckett to see Karson’s green glow, remembering how close we’d been to losing my friend during the battle for Centauri. As we’d lost our team member Larrane. And Saski.
Unbidden, Saski’s voice echoed through my memory, asking me to tell our mother she loved her in those final moments before running into the station’s core to stop the station’s destruction. The grief hit like a physical blow, stealing my breath for a heartbeat before I forced it down. I couldn’t afford to lose focus. Not when five kidnapped Aeternai were counting on us.
“No surprises on the east or west gate entrances,” Rodrigues Soares said. “Xandia’s ready to shift us past the outer barriers on your mark.”
“By the color numbers, I see,” Xandia Cadogan added, “I can confirm thirty-three soldiers. But there’s an electric grid on that northeast building, the one we believe is the detention facility. There’s no telling how many soldiers they may have inside that.”
I closed my eyes for a moment longer, the familiar weight of responsibility heavy across my shoulders. Back on Aeterna, my ward Tani was probably wondering why I hadn’t called in three days. On Centauri, my mother was fighting a losing battle against a nanite infection that was slowly killing her from the inside out. And here I was in a completely different solar system, searching for strangers while people I cared about suffered.
Focus, I told myself. Save the people you can save today.
Because despite our recent triumph over the GUA and their attempt to enslave Solar Centauri with their behavior modification devices, they were still moving forward similar devices on other planets. Equally as bad, the GUA had the technology for the nanites that could kill my people, the quasi-immortal Aeternai, and we were the only people in the galaxy with the power to confront them. Rescuing our people so the GUA couldn’t build more starbridges was only the beginning.
“As Xandia indicated,” Nexa said to everyone over comms, as if my silence were an invitation, “there is an electric grid—probably to stop the captured Aeternai shifter from creating an escape fold. This means they are also likely shielding our heat scanners in that location, so there may be more soldiers. The good news is that I cannot detect any other electric grids, not even inside the administration building, which has become more common in more recently built GUA compounds.”
“What’s the plan, Raya?” Xandia’s voice was tight with anticipation. After three weeks of waiting on Centauri Station, Beckett’s sister appeared eager to use her shifting abilities again. I knew the feeling. The urge for combat hit me like a demanding itch while simultaneous demand wariness. Was I being too cautious?
I studied the facility through my boosting my vision further with my synergy, noting the guard patterns, the defensive positions, the subtle wrongness of the whole setup. Every instinct screamed trap or that we were too late, but if there was the slightest chance the captives were still here, we had to try. Because once they were moved from here, we wouldn’t know where to look next.
“We go in,” I decided. “You all know the drill. Non-lethal takedowns only. We aren’t fighting a war here. Yet. If the captives are here, we’ll get them easily enough. Xandia, you will get us past the perimeter and then check out the utility building and hanger. Hendrick and Rodrigues will take the barracks. Beckett, you’re with me to the admin building. Karson will take out the perimeter guards. Be ready to extract if this goes bad. Clear all the buildings. Don’t miss any guards or we may not be able to get out of the compound before that GUA assault ship docked at their space station is notified. Once your missions are complete, meet outside holding facility and decide what to do about getting past the electric grid.”
I paused a heartbeat before adding, “Nexa, monitor the guard at the gate to let us know if someone arrives. Keep your drone ready to subdue him if necessary.” We’d opted not to sedate him until we left, in case unwanted visitors decided midnight was a good time for a visit.
Quiet murmurs of “Copy that” were covered by Karson’s louder “Understood.” His reply carried a note I couldn’t quite identify, despite our history chasing wanted criminals and the past few months fighting the GUA in Centauri space. Was it anticipation? I just hoped it wasn’t the kind of reckless confidence that came having survived near death when others close to us hadn’t been so lucky. The fact that he’d lost his right leg should have kept him grounded.
Xandia shifted to my position with a soft pop, bringing Rodrigues with her, their Aeternai bodysuits making them nearly invisible under the shadows. The suits were woven from adaptive metamaterials and lined with armor born of thousands of years of Aeternai engineering—thinner than the bodysuits themselves, and stronger than any other material available in the Milky Way.
The rest of the team converged on our position by foot as Xandia opened a circular fold. Shifters could either pass through space instantly using the in between, which they did usually alone or with one other person, but opening a fold cut through space, like a door opening into another room. As long as we were physically connected to Xandia, we could all pass through instantly, without experiencing the nothingness of the in between.
I unclipped my battle helmet and put it on. This also activated my suit’s outer electric shield that would be good for at least a few powerful hits.
We stepped through, clasping shoulders or arms. One moment I was standing behind industrial equipment outside the compound’s gates, and the next we stood inside the compound in the shadow of the admin building. The other teams took off, nearly invisible in the dark, while Beckett and I carefully continued along the line of the admin building.
“No alarms triggered,” Nexa reported. “Perimeter guards are maintaining routine patrol patterns.”
I could see them in the display she sent to me, off to the east where Karson was heading. His tranq gun would make short of the first two men. The others would likely find their tasks slightly more challenging. I had chosen the admin building for myself because the twelve men inside would be armed and awake. Not a daunting challenge for me, especially with Beckett’s help, except we had to be sure they didn’t send for backup—or alert that assault ship.
We slipped past their cameras on the front of the admin building and approached the doors. We wouldn’t be able to avoid any cameras inside, and disrupting them would give warning, but at least whoever was monitoring them wouldn’t have much time to react.
Nexa, I subvocalized with concentrated effort. Be ready to loop the monitors once we plug in CipherX’s data disc.
We are ready, she confirmed.
I didn’t know if I reminded her because she was a new entity and I hadn’t learned to trust her, or if I was nervous. Why did everything feel off?
The double glass doors were unlocked, and a GUA soldier in the familiar blue uniform sat behind a desk, his short brown hair combed flat on his oversized head. He jolted with surprise as he saw us, glancing toward the monitors on his desk with a sense of betrayal. But since we were there, he’d have to assume we’d been given entry approval by the guard at the gate, so he had no choice but to ask us our business.
He forced a smile. “Can I help—?”
I shot him with a tranq before he could finish.
His hand rose to his neck where the dart had pierced, his mouth working soundlessly. His eyes rolled up as he started to collapse.
Beckett vaulted the desk, caught the guard before his head hit the floor, easing him down. He set his own tranq gun momentarily on the tiled floor before snapping a flex-cuff on the sedated man.
I leaned over the desk, yanking the panel off the security console, pushing the wafer-sized disc CipherX had printed for this op into the port, glancing behind me to make sure the lobby was still empty. It was, except for a potted plant that was more plastic than chlorophyll and a row of chairs no one had likely sat in for weeks.
“Receiving data,” CipherX said, his voice all husk and attitude through the comms. “And I’m seeing a firewall last updated two minutes ago, which is amusing. Just a minute. There. What about now, Arden?”
“I’m in,” Arden Torva said, her voice crisp and cool. I could picture her on Stormweaver’s bridge near CipherX with the neural crown threading her hair, eyes unfocused, hands at rest. “Routing interior feeds through the phantom loop. Still images on a ten-second delay.”
She sounded happier than she had in weeks. More than anyone, she was glad we were finally doing something to mitigate the damage her father, Admiral Habid Torva, a seated member of the GUA Assembly, had wreaked with behavior modification controls, not only on Centauri but on other worlds. Worlds who now begged for our help.
“Perimeter’s quiet,” Karson reported. “Approaching the first pair.”
I heard the subtle metal thud of his foot even through the comm—different weight, different rhythm. He’d learned to compensate, but my combat senses picked up micro-imbalances no one else would notice. The sound carried the promise of power. It also made the back of my neck itch.
“Guard on security monitors is down,” I announced to the team. “Proceed.”
Beckett and I moved toward the door beside the desk, our arms brushing as we walked. I was fairly certain the pulse of electricity sparking through my suit wasn’t an accident. It slid over my skin like a tease, warm and deliberate. When I met his gaze, he was watching me through the clear screen of his helmet. I answered with a knowing smile before pulling the door open.
The admin hall was narrow, white, and cheap. The kind of white that pretended to be sterile and only managed to look tired. Two doors on the left, a glass-walled office on the right, deeper shadows at the intersection where the hall split toward more offices and the back of the building.
Two blue-jacketed GUA soldiers turned the corner at that intersection, chatting, crowns of buzzed hair under harsh strip lighting. Their eyes hit us, hands going for weapons and comms.
“Hey,” the first one said, “you can’t be back here.”
I sprinted toward them in a blur. I caught the first man’s wrist, twisting it as I swept his legs. He went down with a gasp. The second soldier’s hand had almost reached his shoulder mic. Beckett’s hand flicked and the comm sputtered a dying sizzle.
I struck twice, controlled. Tranq dart into the shoulder of the standing guard, then another at his downed companion. There was plenty of time to lower the second guard’s body to the hard tile. No gunshots, no alarms.
“You never save me any,” Beckett murmured.
“That was an impressive trick with the comm,” I whispered back, checking pulses, binding wrists. “Shame no one’s watching.”
“You have body cams,” came CipherX through the comms, dry and gravelly. “Arden and I are watching. And the footage will no doubt be viewed by the Aeon Council and your mother back on Centauri Station. You still have at least nine more before you clear the building.”
At the mention of my mother, pain flashed through my chest so hot it felt like a brand. I could picture my mother’s face, pale under the lights of Centauri’s Space Station, the tiny flickers on the readouts as Dawn, the station AI, held back the nanites destroying her body. I pushed the image down where the others lived. Later was for feelings. Now was for function.
“Noted,” I said to CipherX. Then to the team: “Report status.”
“Most of the barracks asleep,” Hendrick said. “Rodrigues and I are delivering additional lullabies. Three awake in the mess. Two are playing cards. One is losing badly. Fifteen seconds.”
“Utility building is clear,” Xandia reported. “Just one guy now sleeping over some liquid refreshment and a headless cleaning bot. Moving toward the hangar now.”
“Perimeter guards one and two are taking a nap,” Karson said, a thread of satisfaction in his voice. “Moving to three and four. There’s a blind camera on the southeast corner. Good thing we’re looping.”
Our next four targets were in separate offices, so it was a simple matter of opening the door and firing a tranq. Even the one woman who had locked her door, opened it without asking who was there. Easy.
The last five people we found in what looked like a lounge, where the occupants were drinking and watching something on a huge vidscreen. Their backs were toward the door.
We came in quietly, shooting tranqs at three before the other two noticed. One of the remaining officers moved fast, rolling to the side and bringing up a pulse gun aimed at my chest.
Diving over his chair, I caught his arm and slammed it sideways. The shot went wild, shattering a bottle instead of slamming into my armor. Beckett fired a dart into the man’s neck.
By then the last officer was lunging at me, a knife flashing. I twisted away, felt the blade graze my sleeve, and kicked a side table into his knees. He stumbled, and I drove my elbow into his jaw, catching him before he hit the floor. I shot him with a tranq as Beckett dug out flex-cuffs.
“Clear.” I muttered, feeling a bit of a letdown. My breathing had barely changed. Not exactly the battle my combat ability yearned for. When we got back to the Stormweaver, I’d have to engage in a good holo workout.
Beckett checked the corners, then met my gaze with a nod, confirming what I already knew. “Admin building clear,” he said into his comms. “Heading to the holding.”
“All perimeter guards down,” Karson answered.
“Barracks clear,” Hendrick reported. I heard the rustle of fabric and the soft click of flex-cuffs in his background.
“Hangar?” I asked when Xandia didn’t respond. With her shifting ability, she should have been the safest of all.
“Both occupants down,” Xandia said after a beat. “But despite the low number of people in the compound, all but one bay has a shuttle. That new scanner CipherX integrated with my datascreen is showing anomalous energy readings—fluctuations consistent with recent shuttle movement.”
“Recent?” Beckett asked.
“Within the last six hours, based on residual thermal signatures. Something left this hangar, and at least two of these shuttles also show activity. Could be a supply drop.”
Six hours ago we’d been leaving Centauri Station heading to the Centauri-Lyraxis starbridge. Starbridges and translight had shortened the distances between star systems to almost nothing, but that could work against us as well since the kidnappers had the same options.
Jaw tightening, I looked at Beckett and saw my thoughts reflected in his very green eyes. Xandia’s suggested supply drop could just as well be additional weapons for the missing number of soldiers this compound usually employed. So did that mean an ambush or that the captives were still here and deemed dangerous?
Thirty seconds later, Beckett and I were heading down a corridor that led to an outside door. It was locked, but Beckett, no longer under fear of discovery from the subdued soldiers, sent a controlled burst of energy through the lock, melting it instantly.
We ran across the short expanse concrete to the holding facility, where Karson already waited. As we approached, the hum of the electric grid teased the edges of my hearing even before Nexa projected the building schematics over my vision—a faint ghost mapping where the power lines thickened along the north wall. Hendrick and Rodrigues jogged up to our position, just as Xandia popped into existence next to me. The knife in her hand was bloody, but I didn’t ask.
“Grid is live,” Beckett confirmed. “The feed isn’t coming from the circuit powering the rest of the compound. Probably an interior generator. No remote kill from out here. I don’t dare blast it too hard or we may risk killing the captives.”
I studied the reinforced door at the entrance, a layered mesh that would stop even pulse guns or laser rifles. But not an Aeternai gifted with blasting. There was only one way we were getting in.
“Beckett, break through the door,” I said. “Just the door. Once we’re in, we subdue any guards, grab our people, and kill the generator so Xandia can shift us out.”
“Thirty seconds,” Beckett said, and electricity wisped across his face in a way that always made something in my chest knock against my ribs. He smiled, as if he knew my thoughts. “You can help if you like.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod.
Beckett held out his palms in front of him, slightly positioned at the door. His breath was slow, his shoulders loose. I could see his atomic weave strengthening as energy from the compound gathered to him, a draw that skimmed down my skin like static. I pushed with my synergism, helping him gather power faster, bolstering his weave to withstand even more energy. The memory blowing up a starbridge together flashed before my mind, sending thrilling pulse of both exultation and fear pulsing through me even knowing that the electricity he fed on now could never match the power of a starbridge. We weren’t dying again today.
Beckett exhaled, pushing his hands forward. The door blew inward, the front portion of the building on either side collapsing.
We hurried forward, leaping over debris and flame, landing in a short intake foyer with another blast door ahead, the walls lined with storage lockers and a long table where someone had bothered to stack food trays in a neat line. The top tray was still damp.
We knew from the schematics that the actual prison cells were deeper inside the building, but it was a relief to see we hadn’t hurt anyone inside.
Not even a guard.
“Heat signatures?” I asked Nexa.
“The drone is still not detecting any,” Nexa said.
Xandia touched my shoulder. “We’re in, but the electric grid is still active. It must be shielding her view. Unless we find the generator, I won’t be able to shift us out until we’re outside.”
“Then we’d better hurry.” I sprang forward, blasting open the next door with my laser rifle.
The door exploded inward, and I was already moving through the smoke when the first pulse shot screamed past my ear.
Twenty heat signatures bloomed in my vision—my helmet detecting and relaying them to back to Nexa through the aurilink, who sent me a tactical overlay. A breath in time. The soldiers were waiting in the corridor, weapons raised, positioned behind makeshift barriers that hadn’t been in the facility schematics.
“Ambush!” I shouted, diving left as a barrage of fire erupted.
The team scattered. Beckett’s hand flashed, and three pulse rifles overloaded in their wielders’ hands with electrical pops. Hendrick was a blur, his combat gift propelling him forward faster than mortal eyes could track. His laser gun struck twice, and two soldiers went down hard.
Our gloves were now off. No more tranqs or sedation. This was battle.
But there were too many, and they had the corridor locked down tight. I saw it in the pattern of their positioning, the calculated fields of fire. Someone had trained these people well. Too well for standard GUA garrison troops.
And were the soldiers Hendrick shot getting up again?
A pulse shot grazed my shoulder, the impact absorbed by my bodysuit’s armor but still hard enough to spin me sideways. I rolled, came up firing my own laser handgun. Two soldiers ducked out of sight.
“Raya, fall back!” Beckett called, energy crackling between his fingers as he prepared another blast.
“The cells are past them!” I could see the corridor beyond through gaps in their defensive line. Empty doorways. Dark spaces where captives should have been. “I need to confirm. Cover me!”
“I’m coming with you,” Karson said, his voice carrying an edge I’d never heard before.
With a scowl and huge push of his hands, Beckett sent a rush of power at our attackers, a targeted electric chaos that shorted electronic systems in front of us. Lights died. The closer weapons sputtered. At least two enemies were dead, their heat dissipating in my overlay.
Darkness swallowed the hall, power rushing into Beckett as he called more to him. I moved through the black like it was mine.
Karson launched himself forward with me, using surprising speed, his new leg lighting up and driving him across the corridor in three powerful strides that left scorch marks on the floor. The reactive armor plating I’d heard rumors about flared to life as pulse shots struck him—energy dissipating across his leg in rippling waves of light.
“Looks like you’ve been holding out on me,” I called. “What exactly did you forget to mention about that new leg?”
“Everything important,” he shot back, and something in his ankle joint ignited with a sharp hiss.
A plasma lance? I thought. What the solar slag?
He swept it in a wide arc, and the makeshift barrier in front of us simply ceased to exist—molten metal and vaporized composite material raining down as we burst through the line.
Behind us, the team laid down covering fire. Rodrigues’s small tactical bombs created walls of sound and light that disoriented the ambush party. Xandia flickered in and out of existence, shifting behind enemy positions to deliver precise strikes before vanishing again. She might not be able to shift us through the building’s electrical barrier, but she was free to move around inside it as she liked.
I barely registered the chaos. My combat senses were locked onto the corridor ahead, counting doorways, calculating distances. Dodging remaining pulse fire as my senses demanded. Then we were through.
We found five cells. Five empty cells.
The first door hung open, electronic lock disabled. Inside, a narrow cot with rumpled bedding. A half-eaten meal on a small table. A few personal effects scattered as if someone had grabbed what they could carry and run. Each of the rooms had heavy-duty shielding components, obviously meant to hold Aeternai.
“Recently evacuated,” I said, already moving to the next cell. “Within the day most likely.”
Or six hours, given Xandia’s estimate of their shuttle bay activity.
The pattern repeated. Rumpled beds. Fresh food. Signs of hurried departure but not violence. No blood. No struggle.
In the third cell, where black lightning marks stained every surface, I found something that made my chest tighten. A small stone placed deliberately where it would be found. I snatched it up, turning it over to see black text etched into its surface as if by a thin bolt of energy. A single word: Calis.
Calis, headquarters of the Galactic Unity Alliance and home to its Assembly. I had no doubt this cell had belonged to the captive Aeternai blaster. I’d seen Beckett do similar damage to walls and much more. I wasn’t surprised that the blaster hadn’t broken free, in spite of the heavy cell shielding. No doubt he’d be wearing a behavior modification cuff, and every blast would have punished him from within.
“They’re gone,” I said to my team, the realization settling in my gut like hard ball of icy anger. “But I think I know where they’ve been taken.”
Karson unclenched his jaw to add, “The GUA obviously knew we had intel about this place. They expected us to try.”
Before I could consider the ramifications of his statement, the sound of pulse fire intensified behind us. Someone screamed—a mortal sound of pain that called us back to our duty.
“We’d better give them our own message,” I ground out.
“Rodrigues is hit!” Hendrick’s voice said in our comms, tight with concern. “We need finish this or get out!”
I wanted to search the remaining cells to find something that might tell us more about exactly what the GUA planned for the captives. But the mission was blown, and keeping my team alive mattered more than answers I couldn’t force from empty rooms.
“Fall back!” I ordered the team, already running back down the hallway. “Xandia, we need a fold! If Beckett hasn’t drained that generator, get outside. Karson and I are going to clean up on our way out.”
Karson’s enhanced leg began humming with power, as I grabbed my twin laser pistols. The authorities had likely been called, and we needed to get out of here.
“The grid is gone!” Xandia’s voice strained with effort. “But we’re still taking fire. I’m shifting Rodrigues out. I can come back for—”
“No,” I barked. “Stay with him. We’ll come to you. Get the fold ready.”
Karson and I burst back into the corridor where the rest of our team had broken through and formed a defensive position between us and the attackers.
Beckett nodded at me, and the energy building around him intensified until the air itself seemed to vibrate. He was ready.
“Everyone down!” I shouted.
Beckett released the blast in front of us. Not targeted like before, but wide and wild—a wave of intense fire.
In the darkness, my combat senses painted the world in sharp relief. I could see every enemy position, every tactical weakness, the exact path we needed to take.
“Follow me!” I commanded.
We moved as one. Hendrick and I took point, navigating the darkness with precision. Behind us, Beckett’s hands glowed faintly, providing just enough light for him and Karson to follow.
We hit the ambush party like a storm, the soldier’s weapons completely disabled by Beckett’s blast. My synergy increased my speed, the bursts from my pistols coming simultaneously. Beckett alternately shot laser fire with his gun and lightning balls from his bare hands. The strength amplifiers on Karson’s enhanced leg allowed him to simply bulldoze through opposition. He caught a soldier trying to flank us and kicked the man into two others with casual ease.
When my power cells were empty, I was close enough to our enemy not to need them. I began punching and hitting, using precise, controlled strikes. These soldiers were the lucky ones. Though unconscious, they might live another day.
Even as they went down, I had the reoccurring thought that the soldiers had endured longer against our mostly Aeternai team. I’d expected my team would have taken out more during my brief absence. Every soldier I hit already had many wounds, a few of which looked fatal, though they’d apparently fought on.
All at once, there was silence. For a heartbeat, we looked around, bodies taut with readiness, but we’d taken them all.
Pushing forward, we burst through the ruined entrance and into the compound yard in front of the building. Dawn was breaking, the twin moons fading as Lyraxis’s sun crept over the horizon.
Xandia had a fold opened and ready. A bloodied, but still standing Rodrigues leaned on her, one hand pressed to his side where blood seeped through his bodysuit. The armor had stopped the pulse shot from being lethal, but he’d need medical attention soon.
She glanced over at me, her face pale with strain. “Someone’s activated a grid around the hangar where we left the shuttle. I won’t be able to get us inside.”
That meant our attackers had reported us, and likely the GUA had activated electric grids around all the nearby shuttle hangars. There might even be another ambush waiting near our shuttle.
“Sending you new coordinates,” Arden’s voice came through comms, calm despite the chaos. “They can’t stop the shuttle from taking off, even if Nexa’s flying it remotely. We’re bringing it to your new extraction point now. But you should know that the assault ship from the space station is undocking, so we have to assume you are the reason. You have maybe three minutes to get to the shuttle before they can target it—if they decide to head to the planet.”
“Grab on,” Xandia shouted, as the destination on the other side of her fold changed without her closing it. Beckett grabbed my shoulder and Hendrick’s, who was already holding onto Rodrigues and Xandia as she pulled the fold down over us.
Then we were standing in scrubland five kilometers from the facility, the sound of shuttle engines already reaching my ears. That wasn’t the only sound. In the distance alarms began to wail across the GUA compound.
“Move!” I ordered, and we ran to meet the shuttle as it landed.
We piled into the shuttle’s cramped interior, and Nexa had us airborne before the door fully sealed. G-forces pressed me into a seat as we angled hard for orbit, the shuttle’s stealth systems engaging with a high-pitched whine.
“Stormweaver’s ready for immediate docking,” CipherX reported as we neared our ship. “And I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve convinced the starbridge control station we’re an authorized medical transport, and they’ll let us skip the line. The bad news is that the GUA assault ship is not heading toward the planet but toward the starbridge. They won’t dare go through it to Centauri space, but they might try to prevent us from going through. I’m jamming the control station’s comms now, so they can’t receive orders to fire on us. We’ll need to use translight to beat the assault ship to the starbridge.”
“Do it,” Beckett and I barked at the same time. Using translight this close to a planet was frowned upon, if not outright prohibited, but at the moment, we didn’t have a choice because otherwise the starbridge would be a good three hours away. Besides, Nexa could calculate the deceleration before the starbridge better any normal mortal-created AI.
I hoped.
My hands clenched the armrests as the shuttle shuddered through atmospheric turbulence. Behind me, Xandia was already applying emergency plastiskin to Rodrigues’s wound. In front, Karson sat next to Hendrick with his enhanced leg, still faintly glowing, up on the console, grinning like a madman.
In my pocket, the etched rock felt like it weighed a thousand kilos.
The GUA had anticipated our rescue attempt. They’d evacuated the captives and set an ambush. Did that mean we’d pick up chatter they’d purposely sent out, or that someone was feeding the GUA information about Aeon Council operations? Because only the Council and my mother’s people had known about this attempt. Now the five captive Aeternai were being moved to a new location, one step further from rescue.
The mission had been a complete failure.
But as I met Beckett’s from the seat next to me, I saw my own determination reflected there. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
We were just getting started.