Then the clamp struck home.
The magnetic lock engaged automatically, drawing on Vitro’s full antigrav lifting capacity. Lily had once watched this very crane tow another cruiser into a service bay without the smallest strain.
The Colossus might be unstoppable in combat, but it was still metal.
Metal could be moved.
Khar hit the deck beside it and rolled away with trained precision.
Static filled the air as Vitro fought the load.
The Colossus did not budge.
It did not even look away from Lily.
It lifted one arm and crushed the clamp into powder, shorting the lift system in one simple squeeze.
Then it turned, kicked Khar hard enough to slam him to the floor, and dropped a knee onto him.
Lily screamed.
Aros caught her from behind, trying to drag her out, but Lily saw only Khar.
Khar tried to batter the Colossus away, but his blows bounced off it as if he were striking a wall.
The obsidian giant lay helpless beneath the white-and-gold executioner.
“No,” Lily choked. “Please.”
She knew her begging meant nothing. She did not care.
She had never asked Horos for anything. She would give the Colossus her entire life if it would spare Khar.
Aros hooked her legs out from under her and began to drag her toward the gate, farther and farther from the center of her world. Lily did not look away even once.
As Khar’s resistance slowed, as his motions turned heavy and painful, he searched for her with his glowing, demonic eyes.
When their gazes locked, Khar’s luminous eyes cut through the chaos like a path to Heaven, one she would never walk again. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Only watch as her world collapsed in a single moment.
“Go, my queen,” she heard, as clear as if Khar stood beside her, not an insurmountable distance away.
The Colossus drew back its arm.
Prepared the final strike.
A blow that would shatter the center of Lily’s world and, with it, every reason she had left to survive.
Chapter 25
Trouble Comes in Threes
Khar
“Not you three again? By the Cradle, you can cause more damage than a whole squad with heavy weaponson a bender!”
Divani Youth Drill Instructor, shouting at the Themeshvar brothers
All things considered, this was not the worst-case scenario.
