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As if targets by laser, the three chunks of metal and rock I’d been imagining are blown into dust…

…along with a good portion of the wall.

I jump back – stunned at the effortless lethality of the weapon.

My hand guidedthat?

Suddenly, I’m giddy – jumping up and down, excited at my success.

“I got them! Ihitthem!”

Lazar grins. Otho chuckles.

“The Orb in the gun has a mind of its own, Natali. You communicated to it, and the Orb helped you make the shots.”

Lazar adds: “You did a good job. You’re a natural.”

My excitement suddenly cools. A chill ripples through me.

The Orb in the gun has a mind of its own.

I’ve read about Orbs. I’ve read that we still know very little about them. Despite millennia of use, we’re still ignorant of their true origin, or power. Some of what we know, we try not to – like how some scholars have written that Orbs possess a sentience of their own; something otherworldly, in possession of its own, base cunning.

Like the majority of scholars, I’ve never liked the thought of that. I prefer to think of them as objects.Things. Perhaps things that behave in unexpected, eerily intelligent ways…

…but not alive. Not like us.

If they were... Well, each Orb has been around for the duration of the universe – forged in crucible of creation itself. Surely no sentient being could be alive for that long…Shouldbe alive for that long.

Hearing the Aurelians confirm their belief in this rumor… It makes me uneasy.

I looked down at the gun in my hand. This gleaming, black weapon is just one example of the thousands of ways in which Orb-Material has been weaponized.

The greatest weapons known to man are all powered by Orbs. The jump drives of warships and cruisers… Even the legendary Planet-Killers; the forbidden craft of war that had once nearly obliterated life in the great galactic war between Aurelians and Toad.

They, too, were fuelled by Orbs.

If they’re alive in some capacity –sentient– then what manner of murderous indifference must it take to be used as weapons of some petty, mortal war. They fire whenweask them to, which must mean they possess the power to refuse…

…and yet they don’t. Knowing they are being used to kill, or maim, or destroy, the Orbs still allow their otherworldly energy to be harnessed; as if the devastation wrought by it is inconsequential.

I don’t like the thought that Orbs knowingly play a part inanywar – but especially the great war, and to provide power to the legendary Planet-Killers.

A weapon should not have a mind of its own – especially not if it is unencumbered by any form of morality

My hand trembles as I take my finger off the tiny Orb where a trigger would normally be. I look back at the scorched wall I’d blasted – where there had used to be those chunks of metal and large rocks.

If the targets had been living men, would the Orb have been so eager to eviscerate them?

Would it have been evenmoreeager?

Suddenly, I want to switch the topic of conversation –needto.

“So, where exactly did Brennan go?”

Lazar shrugs. “You set his senses ablaze, Natali. He had to cool off.”

Ablaze? He says I inflamed him like that? Lazar says it almost accusingly – as if it’s my fault that Brennan’s hardwired mating frenzy nearly overwhelmed him. They blame me foreverything.