She muttered a quiet prayer to the Mother, not trusting her voice to carry it.
The strategy, in all its desperate brilliance, was simple. Unforgiving, but simple.
They would position the fleet near the small Tear at the fraying end of existence.Silanda, limping now, would bait the Wraith in, drawing them close while the attack wings swept along the flanks, pressing them inward. And once the swarm was exactly where they needed it to be, she would detonate the ship’s main power crystal.Silanda’s heart.
The explosion would be unlike anything their side had ever unleashed, a shattering burst strong enough to rupture the Tear itself. The resulting hole in the Pattern would not just unmake the ship. Itwould tear a wound through reality, sucking everything in behind it, including the enemy.
Aimeena shifted her stance, the hum of theSilanda’score thrumming beneath her boots, steady, for now.
The hope, thin as it was, was that the sheer scale of destruction would force the Pattern to react, snapping closed around the rift like a cauterized wound, sealing off the breach and trapping the Wraith on the other side.
That was the plan. Obliterate herself and almost everyone she’d ever cared about to protect a universe that had never given a damn about her. And pray the Pattern would do the rest.
Moisture burned at the corners of her eyes. Ridiculous. Her kind didn’t cry tears.
“Commander.”
The voice was deep, wet with gravel and vibration. She turned to find Thalen at her side, the shimmer of his scales muted beneath the sharp lines of his uniform. His elongated fingers drummed once against the datapad he held before tucking it behind his back.
“The core is rigged. Flight wings are standing by.”
Everyone onboard knew the plan—that they were about to spring the final trap and end the war with one last glorious act of sacrifice.
Empty night, what the fuck are you doing?A bitter pulse beat low in her throat.You’re a bastard. A mistake made flesh.Nails cut into her palms.So, your father wanted this war to kill you. You didn’t need to bring everyone else down with you.
It was monstrous.
And even if, by some impossible twist of fate, the alternate plan she hadn’t told them about succeeded, even if the Tear collapsed just right and some fragment of the crew or refugees survived, there was no way to know where they’d land. The rupture might spit them into emptyspace, or, just as easily, strand them in a fracture of unbound time. They could vanish. Drift. Or worse, remain trapped behind the seal with the Wraith.
She was sending them all into the dark. Every soul who’d put their trust in her. Every child still clutching a thread of hope. Every fighter who’d stood at her side through fire and ruin.
They deserved more than this.
But she had nothing else to give.
It was madness. And it was the only chance they had to save everything that remained.
As exaggerated as that sounded, it was the truth. The other Wise Ones, including the Aspects themselves, were locked in battle elsewhere, holding back incursions from the original Outsiders. No cavalry was coming. No divine reprieve waited in the wings.
And then there was her father.
His machinations warped through reality like rot through old wood, grasping for power, manipulating the tides of war to suit his own agenda. She was certain that particular truth was the reason she’d been shoved into this mission in the first place.
A convenient sacrifice. If she burned, it would tie up loose ends for him. Nicely.
Either way, she and her crew were alone. Which meant they were the ones who had to make a stand.
These few. These ragged, reckless few—brothers, sisters, and something more—banded together here at the tit’s ass-end of reality.
She turned, letting her gaze sweep the bridge. It was a patchwork of the cosmos—scaled, feathered, furred, and skinned. A dozen species. A dozen worlds. All of them here, crammed into one failing ship, standing elbow to elbow, willing to die for each other. Die together.
From the razor-sharp fighter pilots strapped into launch harnesses to the last food-caster still programming nutrition cubes in the mess, every single soul had chosen this path. Not one had been conscripted. Not one forced.
Even Vexil, the thumb-sized, telepathic protoform spinning in the nav tank, had signed on with a flick of his fronds and a mental whisper of assent.
None of them expected thanks. There’d be no statues, no galactic parade. No record of how close the universe had come to being consumed, or what it had cost to hold the line.
She exhaled, and time warped around the breath. Slowed, then stretched.
