The wormhole flares to life outside—I can feel it through the insulation. A ripple in space that makes the hair on my arms rise, even with the suit shielding me. Like the universe is holding its breath.
The pod seals with a hiss.
My voice bounces off the walls now.
No one can hear.
And I brace for the end.
CHAPTER 43
KAZ
We drop out of the skimmer like thunder, wheels barely hitting the rails before we’re sprinting across the deck.
The whole launch platform’s lit up like a goddamn supernova.
Sparks rain from the gantries. Blue light flickers along the seams of the wormhole core—unstable, unregulated,wrong. Every warning alarm on the base should be screaming, but someone’s muted them.
This isn’t a test. It’s a burial.
“Move!” I bark.
Verzius peels off to the left, already clocked the incoming guards before I even finish the word. Stark’s private security—black armor, suppressed rifles, no insignia. Ghost detail. Off-book.
They open fire.
Verzius dances between them like a blade. Two quick shots. A shoulder pivot. Elbow to the throat. One guard crumples. The other gets a knee to the sternum so hard I hear bones crack.
He doesn’t even muss his collar.
I bolt for the far platform—where I see it.
My ship.
My old fighter.
Half-stripped down, rigged for sensor testing. Only it’s not a sensor pod slung under the wing. I know the shape. The casing.
Containment unit.
And I know who’s inside.
“Nova…”
I run harder.
Static buzzes through the air as the wormhole pulses again. The portal’s raw now, blue-white edges fraying at the seams, space itself stuttering like it wants to come undone.
Stark steps out of the command lift.
Big. Grinning. Swathed in an exo-suit that looks like he raided a forgotten war vault. Hydraulic gauntlets, armor plating like he's cosplaying judgment day.
Gun already drawn.
His smile is so wide it borders on madness.
“She was always meant to go further than you, Kaz,” he says, voice magnified through the suit’s modulator. “And look at you—chasing after her like a dog that lost its bone.”
