Aurora Rising

I m gonna miss the Draft.
The Hadfield is disintegrating around me. Black arcs of quantum lightning are melting the ship s hull to slag. My spacesuit is screaming seventeen different alarms, the lock on this damn cryogenic pod still won t open, and that s the one thought blaring in my head. Not that I should ve stayed in my rack and gotten a good night s sleep. Not that I should ve just ignored the damn distress call and headed back to Aurora Academy. And not that this is a really stupid way to die.
Nope. Looking death right in the face, Tyler Jones, Squad Leader, First Class, is thinking one thing, and one thing only.
I m gonna miss the damn Draft.
I mean, you work your whole life for a Thing, it s only natural the Thing be important to you. But most rational people would consider getting vaporized inside a derelict spaceship drifting through interdimensional space just a little more important than school. That s all I m saying.
I look down at the girl sleeping inside the cryopod. She has shortish black hair, with a strange white streak running through her bangs. Freckles. A gray jumpsuit. Her expression is the kind of blissful you only see on babies or the cryogenically frozen.
I wonder what her name is.
I wonder what she d say if she knew she was about to get me killed.
And I shake my head, muttering over the scream of my suit alarms as the ship around me begins to tear itself into a million burning pieces.
She better be worth it, Jones.
Let s back it up a little.
About four hours, to be exact. I know they say to start your story at the exciting bit, but you need to know what s going on here so you can actually care about me getting vaporized. Because me getting vaporized is totally gonna suck.
So. Four hours ago, I m in my dorm at Aurora Academy. I m staring up at the underside of Björkman s mattress and praying to the Maker that our training officers throw some kind of grav-failure or fire drill at us. The night before the Draft, they

Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff are the New York Times bestselling co-authors of the Illuminae Files and the Aurora Cycle. Amie has also co-written (with Meagan Spooner) the Starbound and the Unearthed trilogies. Jay is the author of the LIFEL1K3 series, as well as the Nevernight Chronicle and the Lotus War series for adults. Collectively, Amie and Jay stand 12'5" tall and live in Melbourne, Australia, with two long-suffering spouses, two rescue dogs, and a plentiful supply of caffeine. They met thanks to international taxation law, and stuck together due to a shared love of blowing things up and breaking hearts. You can learn more about Amie at amiekaufman.com or @AmieKaufman; look for Jay at jaykristoff.com or @misterkristoff.

"This intergalactic space opera has it all: action, thrills, suspense, laughs, and all the feels." Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Rotating perspectives and never-flagging energy propel this narrative forward, which, if it wasn't compelling enough on its own, is given illustrious life by its ragtag, always-at-odds cast." Booklist, Starred Review