Description: 1 Zila I am rarely surprised. In any situation, I habitually calculate the odds of all possible outcomes, ensuring I am prepared for every eventuality. Nevertheless, I am extremely surprised to discover I am still alive. I spend six seconds in openmouthed shock, blinking slowly. After that, I press two fingers to my neck to check my pulse, which is rapid but unquestionably present. This suggests I am not experiencing an unexpected version of the afterlife. Interesting. A glance out of the cockpit viewshields reveals nothing--no stars, no ships, simple blackness. On instinct, I check our failing sensors, long-range and short. Strangely, I do not see any sign of the enormous battle that was raging around us moments ago, just before the Eshvaren Weapon blew itself apart--an incident with no possible outcome but our complete incineration. Impossible as it may be, the entire Syldrathi armada, along with the Terran and Betraskan fleet, and the Weapon, have . . . vanished. . . . Interesting? No. Unnerving. I let my training take over, instructing the ancient navcom on our Syldrathi ship to catalog all visible stars, FoldGates, and other landmarks or phenomena and then advise on our present location. Wait. Our. I flick on comms. "Finian, Scarlett, are you still . . . ?" "Breathing?" comes Finian''s voice, a touch uneven. "Apparently so." A wave of relief washes through me, and I do not attempt to prevent it. It is inefficient to combat such sensations. Better to let them pass naturally "I am one confused boy right now," Fin continues. "Didn''t we just . . . explode a moment ago?" Scarlett asks. ". . . Lemme check," Fin replies. I hear a small squeak. A soft sigh. A long moment passes, and I am almost tempted to send a query when Finian speaks. "Yeah," he finally reports. "We''re definitely still alive." "I am investigating," I advise them, as the navcom pings softly. "Please hold." Consulting the ship''s guidance systems, I feel a small frown forming between my brows. Not only is there no sign of the massive battle that should have killed us, there is also no sign of the planetary bodies of the Terran solar system. No Neptune, no Uranus, no Jupiter. In fact, I can detect no stellar features at all, near or far. No systems. No stars. We have . . . moved. And I have no idea where. Interesting AND unnerving. A new icon pops up on the fritzing sensor display, indicating something is behind us. Our engines are still down, disabled during the fleet battle, so I turn on our rear sensors, looking at the vast stretch of space to our aft. It . . . That is to say . . . I, um . . . I . . . Stop that, legionnaire. I suck in a deep breath, straightening my spine. I do not understand what I am seeing. I begin by cataloging what can be observed, as any scientist would. The ship''s sensors are reading colossal fluctuations along the gravitonic and electromagnetic spectrums, bursts of quantum particles and reverberations through subspace. But engaging our aft cameras, I can barely see anything of this disruption in the visual spectrum at all. In fact, at first, I mistakenly assume our visual arrays have been damaged. Everything is totally black. And then a pale light flares in the distance, a small pulse of disintegrating photons. And by their brief mauve glow, I glimpse what can only be described as . . . A storm. A dark storm. It is enormous. Trillions upon trillions of kilometers wide. But it is utterly black, save for those brief photon flares within--an oily, seething emptiness, so complete that light simply dies inside it. I know what this is. "A tempest," I whisper. "A dark matter tempest." Its presence would be strange enough, given that mere moments ago we were on the very edge of Terran space, where no such spatial anomaly exists. But stranger still, I see something more. Engaging my magnification settings, I confirm my suspicion. To our starboard, etched in silver against that seething storm of blackness, is a . . . space station. It is a bulky, ugly thing, clearly built for function, not aesthetics. It appears to have been damaged--great crackling bolts of current slither over its surface, blinding and white. From the side closest to us, vapor is venting: fuel, or if the crew are unlucky, is oxygen and atmosphere, puffing out like warm breath on a cold day and dragged into that endless roiling darkness. If it is Terran, the station''s design specs are positively archaic. But that does not explain what it is doing here in the first place. Or how we got here. None of this makes sense. "Zila?" It''s Scarlett. "What''s happening out there? Can you see the Eshvaren Weapon? What''s the status on the enemy fleet? Are we in danger?" "We . . ." I am not sure how to answer her question. "Zila?" There is a thick cable of gleaming metal stretching from the station. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers long, it twists and ripples but holds firm to the battered structure at one end. At the other, out on the edge of that seething tempest of dark matter, a great quicksilver sail is stretched across a rectangular frame, its surface swirling like an oil slick. It appears tiny on my visuals, but for me to even be able to see it at all from here, the sail must be immense. If I didn''t know better, I''d think it was-- "Unknown vessel, you have entered restricted Terran space. Identify yourself and provide clearance codes, or you will be fired upon. You have thirty seconds to comply." The voice crackles through the cockpit, harsh and discordant. My pulse kicks up a notch, which is unhelpful. I cannot see another vessel. Where is the voice coming from? Leaving aside the fact that I have no clearance codes, I do not know whether the hail comes from friend or foe. Not that my squad has a long list of friends just now. I depress the switch for intrasquad comms and speak urgently. "Scarlett, please hurry to the bridge. Diplomacies are required." "Unknown vessel, identify yourself and provide clearance codes. Failure to comply will be interpreted as hostile intent. You have twenty seconds remaining." I scan the shuttle''s controls and stretch--every Syldrathi over the age of twelve is taller than me--to press the button that will switch our channel from audio to visual. I must find out who is addressing me. The face that fills my commscreen is covered by a black breathing apparatus, a thick hose snaking out of sight. The mask conceals everything beneath the pilot''s eyes, and a helmet hides everything above. I am looking at a Terran, though, most likely East Asian in origin, age and gender unclear. Strange as my situation is, perhaps a Terran can be reasoned with--we are the same species, after all. "Please hold," I say. "I am summoning my team''s Face." "Ident codes!" the pilot demands, eyes narrowing. "Now!" "Understood," I tell them. "I cannot provide codes, but--" "You are in violation of restricted Terran space! You have ten seconds to provide proper clearance, or I will fire on you!" All around me, alarms flare into life, lights flashing and Syldrathi symbols illuminating as a loudspeaker barks at me. I don''t understand the words, but I know what it''s saying. "Warning, warning, missile lock detected." "Five seconds!" "Please," I say. "Please, wait--" "Firing!" I watch a tiny line of light appear on our scanners. We have no engines. No navigation. No defenses. We should be dead already. Incinerated with Aurora and the Weapon. But it seems somehow unfair to have to die again. The light draws closer. "Please--" The missile strikes. Fire tears through the bridge. BOOM. 2.1 Scarlett Black light burns white across my skin. I can taste the sound around me, metallic on the back of my tongue, hearing touch and feeling scent as everything I am and was and will ever be rips itself apart and together and together and togeth-- "Scar?" I open my eyes, see another pair of eyes before mine. Big. Black. Pretty. Finian. "Did you . . . ?" I ask. "Was that . . . ?" Fin says. "Weird," we murmur. I look around us, a strange black-cat creepy-crawly feeling of dj vu spidering its way up my spine. We''re standing in the corridor outside the engine room, just where we were a minute ago when the Eshvaren Weapon fired a whole beamful of planet-destroying badness into our favorite faces and then blew itself to tiny shinies. But, joy of joys, we are not, in fact, dead. This comes as good news for a couple of reasons. First, of course, and speaking frankly, it would be a bad move on the universe''s part to waste an ass like mine by incinerating it in a fiery explosion in the depths of space. Honestly, they come along, like, once a millennium. Second, it m

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