Page 64

ADRIANA

A we and horror fill my being at the power we are about to command. Everything in my life seems inconsequential. My election. The deal with the Aurelians. Everything was leading up to this moment.

Destroying it will harm no one. It will protect us from Toad advances.

It will harm no one, unless Doman’s brother Cal and the prophets of Etherion were right. A vision of the mighty krakens fills my mind, the behemoths twisting and recoiling from us.

“Open the deep hangar,” Doman commands. He is a titan beside me, his body protected by the Orb-Armor that gleams darkly, the crown that he was born to resting on his mane.

His battle-brothers are to the left of me, taut, standing rigid and peering out like ancient generals watching the battle from a hilltop.

From the corner of my eye, the movement catches my eye. “Opening the deep hangar,” says a technician, a young, thin Aurelian who flicks his fingers against the display. There’s a depth to his tone, a gravity that infects the room.

Everyone in attendance knows we are witnessing history.

The first use of the Planet-Killers by the Aurelian Empire since over a millennia ago, a relic from the Galactic War’s era of chaos and bloodshed that nearly engulfed the universe into a night without end.

“Sector clear,” reports another technician. I pull my eyes off the planet we are about to obliterate to cast a glance back at him. His eyes are glued to the map display in front of his seat, his voice steady. He has been reporting every thirty seconds like clockwork.

Pure white Reavers are positioned in a protective embrace around the Imperator, darting and flicking, battle-ready triads weaving around us. If Obsidian is going to attack, it will be now.

We’re outside of Pentaris space, vulnerable to ambush.

If Obsidian has word of this mission, he will flash in his entire force to destroy us.

Doman prepared for it. Warships are poised, ready to counter-attack, put in place months ago by his parents who planned this demonstration.

But it is not the three warships which were positioned here that are the true ambush.

Gallien believes that Obsidian will sense the results of the test results even before news reaches Colossus. He wants him to come. We’ve laid a minefield of nuclear bombs ready to destroy his fleet the instant they shift in.

Doman tried to convince me to stay safe inside my territory. I refused. I am culpable for my part in this. I must bear witness.

“Marcus. Disruption check.” Doman’s voice is crisp.

“Clear,” comes the ice-cold reply. The slightest hint of Obsidian’s approach could change the course of an ambush. Last night was sleepless in the triad’s chambers, fear and anticipation gnawing at my belly.

The Rift was thought to be impenetrable, but if Obsidian is shifting in, we might get a small advance notice.

Might.

Doman’s brother Cal is working with Prince Bruton’s human Mate Evelyn back on Colossus, studying the Rift.

They’ve made little progress, but the one development in studying the void between worlds is subtle changes in gravity which precede an opening in reality for Obsidian to transport his fleet.

We’ll be lucky to get three seconds to react.

The Planet-Killer appears before us. It looks so small, a fleck of white in the vast darkness of space.

So much death, so much destruction concentrated into its angular lines.

The entirety of it is nothing but a conduit for the Orb which is exposed to space, glowing darkly behind it.

The Orb pulses faster than when I witnessed it in the hangar bay.

It is like a heart quickening before a battle.

A cold frisson rushes down my spine.

The Orb wants to unleash its pent-up energy. It has been sitting, dormant, for over a thousand years, hidden in the depths of Colossus. If it is alive, if it has thoughts beyond my comprehension, then what it wants is chaos and death.

It moves unerringly towards the planet.

Doman flicks his fingers, and the view from the cockpit opens in front of us.

We get a split view, one of the pilot, and one of the planet growing in his viewport.

It is an older Aurelian piloting, perhaps in his eight-hundreds, an Elite who has shed the Orb-Armor of his station in the cramped quarters of the PK.

His expression is unreadable, but despite his discipline, a bead of sweat is on his wrinkled forehead. He volunteered for the job.

“Akarix. Power the weapon.”

I watch as thin, marble fingers flitter over a tiny holographic display in the PK cockpit.

Akarix moves his fingers upwards, and the Orb that is the bulk of the ship glows a darker black, like staring at a sun at the moment it is sucked into a black hole, the energy inverting and offending the senses.

“The weapon is active.”

The feed is direct to our ship. We are not transmitting data to the Aurelian Empire, not even through encrypted channels.

It’s too risky. My mind races over everyone who knows where we are.

Who could betray us? Who would? Would Aeris leak the information, to stop the test from ever being conducted?

We went over every possibility last night.

No one would dare. The Toads have already tested the Planet-Killers and reality did not cease to exist. But no one knows the consequences of a Planet-Killer being destroyed in an ambush, and even Aeris knows that we would not go down without a fight. The weapon will be used, no matter what.

It is an open threat to the Toads to do the demonstration in the space between our borders, and bait for Obsidian if he is able to sense a disturbance in the Rift.

I look up at Doman. His side profile is like a mountain face, hard lines, eyes set forward. His blue eyes never blink. He is riveted on the scene in front of him.

This is him in his element, commanding, authority inherent to his being. He has never looked so beautiful, so handsome, as when he is wielding death in his hands. His battle-brothers mirror his energy, hard, slate-gray gazes fixed on the scene in front of us.

Though X4-Z is only a third the size of my home planet, I can’t help but imagine Virelia, teeming with life. If we don’t conduct this test, it could be the Toads wielding their weapons on my homeworld.

I don’t know if I’m justifying this to myself, or if it’s the truth. All I know is that events are in motion I cannot control.

“Fire.” Doman’s voice is a low rumble. A single word. A single word, and my heart skips a beat, fixated on the planet ahead of us, dwarfing his warship, an enormous hunk of metal and rock that would withstand barrages of even nuclear warheads.

I nearly miss it. It’s so subtle, a sliver of midnight lightning that leaps back from the planet target to the Planet-Killer, then flicks back onto the planet.

And then it is gone. There’s no dramatic explosion. No deafening roar, no fireworks show. There’s only an eerie, silent void where a world once was.

“Akarix, return.” Doman’s voice is steady. He’s seen horrors in his centuries beyond my imagination, and while I have a pressure in my head so tight it feels like my brain is about to burst through my eyes, he is unshakeable.

The Planet-Killer turns with cumbersome, slow movements, so unlike the way it veered into position.

It is flanked by agile Reavers, darting in to protect it.

The Orb has dimmed, its pulsations slowing like a dying star, but I know that it is merely dormant, merely waiting for another chance to be used again to wreak obliteration.

“I’m operating at minimal power,” Akarix reports. “The Orb is nearly depleted.”

“Maintain course. Marcus, status?” Doman’s presence commands the room. Every technician is intent on his words, and there’s an energy of pure focus, tension filling the atmosphere.

“Clear,” Marcus replies, his voice precise. He’s a battle-hardened warrior, just like every man under Doman’s command.

“Area’s secure,” echoes the technician, but his hands are white-knuckled on the console as he stares into lines of text and numbers floating holographically in front of him, searching for any minute change that will spell the ambush.

“Hold steady. Reavers, scout. Transmit feed.”

Two Reavers break off from the Planet-Killer, darting in towards the empty space where there was an entire planet moments before.

The feed shows the view from their cockpits, overlaid on the glass before us as the Planet-Killer disappears into our ship, deep into the armored recesses where it lays in wait.

I never knew nothing could be so terrifying. I don’t know what I was expecting. A black hole, a burning ember, something, anything. My mind reels at it, where an entire planet was moments ago, there is simply empty space.

“Doman!” an Aurelian commanding from the bridge barks out, alarmed. “We’ve been displaced!”

“Displaced? Explain.” Doman doesn’t take his eyes off the Reavers in front of him. His eyes are never taken off them—but they shifted, ever so slightly, as if pushed back by an invisible force in an instant.

“Our coordinates. We’re… we’re not where we should be. We’re 3.28 kilometers back.”

Gallien whips around to face the man. “Check the logs. Tell me what time we were previously at this coordinate.”

“The time?”

“Do it. The logs will show we were at these exact coordinates. I need to know when.”

The Aurelian who is at the pilot’s seat while Doman surveys frowns in confusion, but he checks the data. “6.34 seconds prior to the Planet-Killer fire.”

“Cross-reference with the Reavers.”

There’s a quick exchange of words from the bridge. The Aurelian nods and looks back to Gallien. “Same time frame. Reavers displaced to 6.34 seconds prior to Planet-Killer activation.”

“Good,” says Gallien, and turns back to the viewport, as if it is nothing, as if the fact that we somehow moved through time and space was expected.

“Reavers, continue towards the scene.”