...t controlling her body anymore; she was merely a passenger trapped behind her own eyes.

Her hand moved with horrific, mechanical precision. She watched her blood-stained fingers slide across

...her arm, through her collarbone, and directly into the core of her mind.

Static flared behind her eyelids. Pain dissolved, replaced by a terrible, frictionless clarity. She wasn’

her free thumb, driving her fingernails into flesh until skin split and blood smeared the black metal, but her grip remained absolute. Her tendons were locking, overridden by the cold pulse vibrating up

The comms channel crackled with her own cold, steady tones. *“Coordinate grid delta-nine. All batteries, fire at will.”*

Mara clawed at her own knuckles with

Mara almost laughed. The sound caught behind her broken ribs.

“I was flying point when the barrage hit.”

Vale’s smile softened. “You always did believe what your instruments told you.”

The shapes beyond the hatch stopped crawling.

All at once.

Mara kept the pistol trained on his face. One charge. At this range, even a damaged chamber might erase his head. Whether that would matter was another question.

“Captain Vale died over Cerix.”

“Yes.”

“I watched your reactor breach.”

“I remember.”

“You begged me to leave you.”

His borrowed eyes flickered. Pain—or an exquisite imitation of it.

“I remember that too.”

A tremor ran through the ship. Outside, violet lightning crawled across the planet’s atmosphere. Mara’s display filled with static, then cleared.

For one heartbeat, the tactical overlay returned.

Hundreds of friendly transponders surrounded the wreck.

Her squadron. The carrier group. Rescue craft closing from every vector.

Then the signals vanished.

Vale glanced toward the cockpit. “It’s editing your perceptions faster now.”

“What is?”

“The weapon you brought out of the ruins.”

Mara’s finger tightened.

They had recovered nothing. Their mission had been reconnaissance: map the dead moon, verify Imperial activity, withdraw. She remembered the dust. The cyclopean vault doors. Lieutenant Orrin screaming over comms before the channel cut—

No.

She remembered sealing the relic in a containment cylinder.

No.

She remembered carrying it onto her fighter herself.

Behind her eyes, something shifted.

Mara staggered, and Vale moved.

She fired.

The last charge tore through his chest, opening a hole rimmed with molten armor. Darkness spilled out in twisting ribbons, but Vale did not fall. He caught her before she struck the deck, lowering her with impossible gentleness.

“Look at your hand,” he whispered.

Her pistol clicked uselessly against his breastplate.

Her other hand—the one she had believed crushed against her ribs—was wrapped around a black metal spindle no longer than a finger. Its surface pulsed beneath her bloodied palm.

With every pulse, the stars outside changed.

Wreckage became warships. Warships became wreckage. Dead pilots screamed and then laughed and then begged for firing solutions.

Memory split open.

Mara saw herself in the squadron command channel, voice calm, authentication codes accepted.

All batteries, fire.

She saw friendly ships turning their guns toward one another.

She saw the sky ignite.

“No,” she breathed.

Vale closed his burned hand around hers. “It needs a living commander. Someone everyone trusts.”

The black-armored figures entered the corridor, silent as mourners.

Mara tried to release the spindle.

Her fingers would not open.

Across every dead channel, her own voice suddenly spoke:

“Second barrage authorized.”

Vale looked toward the planet.

Deep beneath its violet storms, something vast opened its eyes.