But I can’t leave him—they’re coming!
Kal!
29
KAL
We meet in a broad corridor inside the Neridaa. I am bathed in the color of rainbows, surrounded by the roar of the battle raging overhead.
The invaders are a multitude, spilling from their boarding pods into the Weapon’s halls. A dozen races, a dozen shapes, all the same mind. Their skin is mottled with mold, flowers in their eyes, and behind those stares, I sense the creature they encompass. A being that was old when my homeworld was a new pebble, slowly cooling around a now-dead sun.
A will that has waited a million years for this triumph.
The rainbow light around me is strobing, the great vaulted ceiling overhead echoes with the death screams of our dwindling fleet. My blades are feathers in my hands, and I make a slaughter of the Ra’haam puppets, dancing the dance of blood as easily as breathing. But I feel another strike against the Neridaa’s hull. Another. More boarding pods, I realize. Their numbers endless. And I know against this foe, there can be no victory.
All I can win is time.
On they come through the glimmering halls—another wave. I fall back to narrower ground, where their numbers count for less. A thing comes at me through the flickering rainbow glow, curling leaves where its eyes should be, its horns entwined with a crown of thorns. I slice off its grasping hand, but its other sends me into the wall. Something strikes my back as I stumble to cover—a pulse cannon blast, perhaps. I am not sure, there are so many… .
“… Stop fighting, Kaliis… .”
Too many.
“… Give yourselves to us… .”
A part of me always knew I would fall in battle. I am not afraid to die fighting for something I believe in. But I am afraid of leaving her. My Aurora. My beloved. I was a pale shadow before I met her. An unlit fire, waiting for the spark that would let me burn.
Twisted hands reach for me.
Eyes like flowers, glowing blue.
I did not want it to end like this.
The things charging at me burst apart, showering me with blood and gore. I hear more weapon fire, grenades, the hissing whisper of a null blade slicing flesh, and then, above the carnage, a voice that makes my heart soar.
“Toshh, report status!” Tyler shouts.
“Clear, Commander!” the big woman replies, reloading her weapon and checking a scanner. “But we got more inbound! Seventy meters!”
I wipe the mess from my eyes and see Lae standing above me, illuminated by the crackling purple null blade in her fist. As I grasp the bloody hand she offers, I am struck again by the notion that I know this woman. It is a foolish thought, I know—she was not even born when Aurora and I walked through time. And yet …
“You fought well,” Lae says softly, eyeing the abattoir around me.
I look down the gleaming crystal corridor, back toward the throne room.
“I was taught well.”
Her stare hardens. Hate in her eyes.
“He is every bit the monster you think him,” I tell her, wiping my blades clean. “But family is … complicated.”
“You all right, Kal?”
I turn as Tyler strides out of the smoke toward me, his hulking suit of power armor just as war-worn and battered as the man inside it. But I manage a smile despite the pain in me, the death raining all around us.
“You are always a welcome sight, Tyler Jones.”
“Keep it in your pants, kid,” he grins. “I didn’t brush my teeth today.” Turning to his people, he begins barking orders. “Dacca, cover that breach! Toshh, get a fire screen on this hallway now! We got more hostiles inbound, and they cannot get past us. Twenty seconds to contact, move, move!”
I watch his people scramble, preparing for the next onslaught. The battle overhead is growing quieter now, the last of our defenders falling. Each of the remainder knows this battle is unwinnable. But still, they obey without question, buoyed by the fire in Tyler’s eye, the steel in his voice.
They bear the same love for him that we all did.
Some things never change.
Tyler tosses me a spare rifle. Taking up position behind a rainbow spire of crystal, in the calm before the storm, he glances to Lae.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
She nods, tossing one silver-gold braid off her shoulder. “I am well.”
“If you want to fall back …”
He nods to the throne room behind us, fixing her with his one good eye.
“To guard Aurora …”
Lae raises her null blade, the crackling glow setting her irises aflame. I can sense the Ra’haam coming now, feel the pressure of its mind pressing down on my own. I can see the cracks around Lae’s eyes, the toll of the countless battles she has fought—that they have all fought—to keep this tiny flame alive. And even in the face of its fading …