My stomach turns, and something in my core snaps.
Planet Vinym begins to fall to the Nebs. The boundary breaks like my heart. Innocent soldiers, many in their teens, don’t survive.
I can keep my controlmost of the time.
This needs to end.I accept the deaths of those of us who have taken lives because we are not pure any longer. But I lose my temper when I see the shields burst and innocents pay the price.
“Blaize—” I rumble with fury.
He shakes his head. “You know the rules!”
I switch out the ammo belt as it runs dry and keep firing at the ground troops that advance toward the broken Vinym boundary. “We’re not going to win if I sit like a turd on hot pavement, just baking in this fucking sun!”
Vybron calls over the radio. “I know what you’re thinking, Aura. I saw it, too.”
My mentor knows me too well.
“But youcan’tdo anything about it,” Vybron adds.
“Can’t or shouldn’t?” I challenge. “Do you want me to let our allies die?”
His darker purple face glares at me from around the berm he and Fieri are behind. “The kings have…”
“Fuck the kings’ orders! The Nebs don’t care about them!” I roar. “We have to act if they are going to lose what they have worked so hard for!”
“I trained you to have better control!” Vybron asserts.
There’s no sense talking anymore.You did train me. And now I’m going to use it.
None of my crew or the others from our fleet know how much I’m burning up inside. Something is wrong with my Storm. It isn’t normal. If I don’t let it out, it starts to lash out. And by the arcs of green light crawling over my skin, I need a discharge, or I’m going to go full nova on someone.
“You with me?” I ask Blaize.
“Through enemy lines and nests of Firespines, brother.”
When my gun runs out of ammo, I reload it and charge out across the plains toward the oncoming enemy. There’s a ship I want to take down. Blaize stays with me.
A Nebulous soldier runs at me, then explodes in a round of friendly fire from the berserker.
Blaize laughs maniacally. “Doing our fucking jobs for us, that’s how little they give a shit about their own!”
All I can think about are the impressionable teens in the dome behind us. I don’t want any one of their kind to die or turn out like us, comfortable sleeping in ditches with enemy fire chewing up our beds, roaming from battle to battle while surviving on a dark sense of humor that would make most people cringe.
Blaize lifts his rifle from across his chest and keeps pace with me. Fieri catches up while the other Amphirans stay behind. Even when I break the rules, Fieri and Blaize never let me wander off without tagging along.
“You crazy son of a bitch!” Fieri calls after me. He’s deep purple like Vybron with frown lines on his face from a decade more of battle than I’ve seen. “Your father’s going to have your head!”
I don’t want my father to think I’m a rebel. I want him to be sure of it.
Our people, too.I want to break the Royal reputation and bring back to life the strength of my people, the one that comes from our Storms. We are basically just big purple humans without them.
“I will not have my capabilities stifled by that pompous ass!” I retort as I run toward the nearest ship.
The berserker is within range. Time is of the essence as I slide to a stop underneath it. I toss Fieri my gun. He and Blaize split off and clear the soldiers that approach.
I crouch to the ground, eye a handhold on the belly of the berserker that’s just within my range, and launch myself skyward. My momentum slows as I reach the ship, but I grab on and crawl fast to the top. The moment I fry the bitch, she’s going to fall like a hot metal meteor.
Finding the nearest power cell, I grab it with both hands and close my eyes. Wind rips around me. Gunfire and shouts fill the air below. Guns turn on me from the berserker itself.
