Free The Forgotten City by Nina D'Aleo

crashed onto the rooftop, skidding along the rocks, only her military fatigues saving her skin from being shredded. She smashed into the other side, with the speeder on top of her. Hands wrenched her free from the wreckage and she looked up at Jude, staring at her through his night-vision glasses. His spider robot, SevenM, sat balanced on one broad shoulder.
    “Diega!” He shook her. “What have you done to yourself?”
    She shoved away from him and stood up, limping on a twisted ankle.
    “Are you high again?” he demanded.
    She snorted, sick to trutting death of Jude’s holier-than-thou attitude. He was looking at her like a sickness that needed curing. She started to tell him to mind his own business, but he grabbed the narc-gone spray off his belt and squeezed it full into her face. It was absorbed straight into her bloodstream and sobered her immediately. A mountain of pain smashed down on top of her. She staggered to the edge of the rooftop and leaned against it, swallowing, feeling as though she was about to throw up. She grasped her anti-nausea serum and downed it, followed by a pain-cancel to kill the ache of her bruises.
    “I don’t understand.” Jude spoke behind her. “You killed the Skreaf. You avenged your sister. Why are you acting even crazier than before? What’s wrong with you women?”
    Diega shook her head. He didn’t understand. Everything was worse now – because of him, because of Copernicus and Silho and because she felt even more lost for purpose than ever, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing through her. She just gave a rough laugh and said, “King Jude.”
    He knew how to press all her buttons, but she knew all his as well.
    Jude moved in closer and said with pity that cut straight to her heart, “Diega – I still care about you.”
    Her eyes flickered closed. That was the worst thing to hear – I still care about you. But I don’t love you …
    He kept talking, but she didn’t hear another word, just stared up to the stars, finding among the infinitude of glowing forms the star her parents had made for Ariana and sent into the sky to shine forever. She’d always wanted to make her own star from her sister – but never had. It would mean accepting she was gone. Beyond the stars, the immense forms of other planets filled the night sky, the most visible of them, Bandos, Eumaios and Praterius, said to have once been part of Aquais, struck free by a rogue meteor.
    Diega’s sight dropped down toward movement beside the building. Copernicus and Silho were walking along the street below. Even after all the year-cycles since she’d first met him and after all they’d been through, the sight of Copernicus Kane made her breathless, and she could still see why most people found him so frightening. It was partly appearance – his height and carved stone muscles, harder than any muscles had the right to be, as Eli had once joked. It was also his presence. He radiated an undercurrent of animalistic alpha-male … but mostly, it was his eyes. When they were angry, it was like the entire universal sky blackening over with a storm – the kind no one would ever go out in. It was primal. It was just plain scary, which was why everyone was still calling him Commander Kane even though the United Regiment had ceased to exist.
    She could say she didn’t still love him and want him and fantasize about him, that she wouldn’t drop everything and everyone if he said he wanted her too – but that would be another lie. Those feelings had never gone away, and they hurt more than any physical injury she’d ever had. Hating Silho would be as easy as breathing, if the girl didn’t make it so difficult. She wasn’t conceited – in fact, most of the time she actually seemed completely oblivious to how strong she was, how stunning, how unique. Her Tehron , the shimmer of the star reigning in the sky on the day of a person’s birth, which reflected always from their eyes, was