The tentacles at her side flare, snaking around my neck, but she collapses before they can squeeze, shock etched on her paling face as her legs kick feebly, heels scraping, breath rattling.
She tries to talk. Choking instead. Glowing eyes on mine.
“I’m s-sorry,” I whisper. “I’m s-so sorry, Cat.”
And I crawl.
Across the soaking deck. A sluice of red behind. Dragging myself with broken fingernails, holding my pieces together with bloody hands.
Ignoring the pain, the hurt, I crawl.
Like the life of every sentient being in the galaxy depends on it.
I crawl.
I reach the terminal. Scrabbling with red, sticky hands. Black flowers bloom in front of my eye, every breath bubbles in my lungs. But finally, I manage to stab the controls, release the blast doors. I collapse onto my back, gasping, coughing blood, as tech teams and comp crews and security goons all bust into the core room, through the swirling steam, the rising red.
But not too late.
Not too late.
… You can fix this, Tyler …
The laser sights of a dozen disruptor rifles light up my chest.
I slump back against the terminal, light fading in my eye.
“Checkmate,” I whisper.
31
AURIKAL
Aurora
I’m standing in the Echo, the place I lived for half a year, the place I trained to become the Trigger I am.
But it’s nothing like I remember.
To my right, rolling fields of flowers once led to a crystal city on the horizon. To my left, a valley used to dip toward the woods. Before me, a lively river once splashed and chattered its way beneath a sky of perfect blue.
But it’s all broken now. Fractured just like the Neridaa. Cracks run across the gray heavens like the fissures in the Weapon’s skin. The flowers are smashed like glass, the river splintered like ice, the crystal spires on the horizon lopsided and tumbled. Even the air tastes … wrong. And as my heart sinks and I look around the desolation, a familiar figure is floating through the shattered fields of flowers toward me.
Esh is human-shaped but far from human, a creature of light and crystal, rainbows refracting within it, right eye white and glowing, just as mine must be. It looks different now too; thin cracks run through its surface, light leaking from within. But relief rushes through me at the sight of my old teacher, and in an instant I’m running through the broken flowers to meet it.
“Esh! Holy cake, I’m so glad to see you, we—”
G-g-greetings. It cuts me off, tone as musical as ever, gently courteous. Welcome to t-the Echo. I am t-the Eshvaren.
“Yeah, I know,” I tell it. “Esh, what happened here, w—”
You do not meet the p-parameters for training. State your business.
“I know, I don’t need to train, I …”
I trail off as realization hits me, and my heart drops. I remember this isn’t really a person I’m talking to—this is only a projection. An amalgam of the memories and wisdom of the entire Eshvaren race. And just like they told me it would, after I left last time, the amalgam reset. Esh doesn’t remember me, any more than it remembered Caersan the first time I showed up.
Mothercustard.
State your b-business, Esh repeats simply.
“Okay, I’m a Trigger. You trained me. I’m here with another Trigger, who’s an utter sociopath; and why you decided to give all godlike power to a complete …” I shake my head, pushing on. “Anyway, it’s a long story. Point is, the Weapon is damaged and we need to repair it—fast.”
We … Esh’s image flickers, like a faulty viewscreen. We f-feel it. We . . . It looks up to the gray, cracked sky, down to the cracks running through its hands. What … h-have you done?
A flash of pain cuts through my head, and in my mind’s eye, I see a fragment of the battle raging outside. Time moves slow outside the Echo, like ice cream melting on a hot day. But I see more Ra’haam vessels spilling into the cavern, the few remaining ships we have burning in slow motion.
Inside the Neridaa, I feel Tyler—a spark of him, a faint but beautiful molten-gold flame that I never noticed before now. Beside him I feel Lae, a reflection of those same colors. And between them I feel Kal, gold and violet in that smothering cold.
I feel his rage.
I feel his fear.
I know I don’t have long.
“We got thrown through time,” I tell Esh. “Two Triggers together … I don’t know. But the Ra’haam is here! The whole Milky Way is ending! We need to fix the Weapon now—can you help?”
Esh studies me for a long moment.