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The big doors clamp shut, and I can barely believe it. Those Toads have just bypassed the walls of their armor with our Trojan Horse under their arm.

“Three minutes to denotation. It didn’t blow early. That’s good. That’sveryfucking good.”

Iunia’s tense voice puts me on edge. Now all we need to do is wait.

The seconds pass by like hours. Assault ships – albeit only a small portion of the Toad fleet – buzz incessantly around the Mothership like flies around a pile of dung.

If those doors open again, we’re doomed. It will be to send out the entire assault fleet.

“Thirty seconds.”

My hands are clenched into tight balls. Aelon slowly backs the Reaver away, putting distance between us and the Mothership.

"Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five..."

Please detonate.Pleasedetonate...

"Four... three... two... one!"

Nothing happens.

The Mothership sits there – a huge beast, just waiting malevolently.

Then those massive loading bay doors start to open. The sub-communications light blinks.

“You fucking cunts! I’ll kill you!” Meelon screams through the sub-coms, and it’s like he’s yelling right into my ear.

His ship blasts every one of its countless las-cannons towards us.

Light beams out, blinding me as the immense firepower of the entire Mothership expends itself towards us, all in one moment. I rush forward, running to Aelon, hardly able to see anything in the blinding brightness. I grab onto his arm, feeling his sturdiness, and he turns to look at me.

His blue eyes are so, so deep.

We’re about to die – but at least the last thing I’ll see is his love. Ifeelit. Ifeelhis love for me, and it calms the terror in my heart as the las-beams blast towards us.

Our Reaver whines as Aelon slams it into full power – every ounce of that fearsome Orb-Energy churning into the reverse thrusters. At the last instant, Aelon cancels all power to the engines, throwing it onto the forward shield.

He didn’t need it. The beams fade out a hundred meters in front of us. He judged the distance from the Toad Mothership perfectly.

Assault ships pour out of the Toad Mothership…

…just as it explodes into a ball of light.

Fire, wreckage, and glimmering blue-black Orb-Energy mix together – creating a supernova of screaming light and power as the Mothership explodes outward, sending a churning ribbon of energy pulsating out across the emptiness of space – brushing the assault ships aside like an angry bear swatting away flies.

Sawoot whoops in victory as our enemy explodes into that blinding light. Blue lightning arcs out from the dying ship. Just as we think it’s over, the Orbs themselves add to the explosion. I don’t know what triggered Iunia’s chemical explosion – what the chain reaction is, or why the normally indestructible Orbs combined with the detonation – but together, theyannihilatethe entire ship.

There’s nothing left.

Literallynothing– not even dust, ash or wreckage.

Instead, just twenty-six Orbs sit in space – having sent out a blinding ripple of power at the moment of explosion, and then sunk back into their swirling, sinister, serene form.

I blink. It’s like that immense, green hulk had never been there. I was expecting debris, dust, something –anything.

There’s nothing.

“Gods be damned. The Orbs deleted them from existence.”