“If I see a portal, I will run the other way.”
“Good.”
Jovie makes a kissy sound and disconnects.
“Stars, Aura, you have fallen so far down the cutesy hole it’s making me sick.” Blaize is suddenly beside me in a pale gray armor I don’t quite recognize, with a badge on his chest that glints in the sunlight.
“Shut up. You cry over Terran movies all the time.”
Blaize cracks a grin. “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”
“That will last five minutes.”
He waits for me to join him in walking back to the complex.
“So what’s with the outfit?” I finally ask.
“Eluni lightened the Rogue uniforms we had onboard and added the green stripe over the shoulder. Jorusk is quite the metal worker. Bends metal with his hands. He made the badge. Fieri came up with the belt design. And Talros did this.” He taps his badge, making it crackle and light up. “It’s connected to my Storm. “It shows my true nature, myhonor.”
They did all this while we played out here?“Any chance she can make it in a size larger?”
Blaize chuckles. “I think your fat ass will fit in what they’re working on. But we must get you back to be fitted.”
We return to Allele and find the ship in party mode with flashing lights and dance music with a country twang playing inside. “What in stars?”
Eluni walks out into the hallway, stops, and looks up. “It’s his fault!”
Talros rubs his arm where he stands in the medical bay, his brace lying on a bed. “I thought we could use a mood change. Too much?”
“I like it,” Allele admits. “It’s fun.”
I squint at Fieri in the pilot’s seat. He looks pissed. “As long as it gives that crotchety bastard an itch.”
31: Aurelius
I inspect my new Rogue uniform, which is now lighter gray armored plating and features a green stripe over the right shoulder, marked with a badge similar to Blaize’s.
I tap the shield.Genesislights up in the same shade of green as my Storm.
Allele?
Yes, Aura?
If there was a time to stop us, would it not be this ceremony?
I cannot say, Aura. You will be Amphiran but not in this uniform. You are Genesis. You do not represent New Order or Amphir.
But it still feels like I’m committing a crime, allowing my people to be broken like this, viewed as divided.
“The people of Genesis need you,” she says, switching to audible communication for a reason I cannot fathom. Our private conversation is gone, and I miss that she and I used to have our own thing that no one else had. But it’s not just her and me anymore. I have to accept it.
“All of my people deserve freedom,” I say. “Not just those who agree with me. I do not like how we cannot talk and be civil about differences in preferences.”
“Sometimes, evolution requires natural selection,” Allele remarks. “My kind were not strong enough to overpower our enemies. That is why I am alone. Because I am different. But I am here.”
I sigh. “The problem with that theory is that people like Jovie and Zariah and all the other wonderful females and beings in this universe who grow up with less and are often hungry are notallowed the same chance to thrive. I want all of my people to stay together. We are one people.”
“You have grown into two.”
