Chapter 20
The moment the nanobot made contact with the rock, Circe got swept up in a maelstrom.
At least that was how it felt. Images flashed in her mind; places she’d never seen because they didn’t exist on Earth.
Creatures soaring through a mauve sky. Orange oceans that burped massive whales with spiked spines and tentacles.
Bug-like things that scurried from a dark cone under three red suns.
She drowned in information, most of which she couldn’t understand but for one thing.
I’m no longer in control.
Jarring and terrifying. While Circe could see and hear everything happening around her, she no longer commanded her body. When she suddenly bolted for the edge of the parapet, infused with an urgency meant to destroy herself, try as she might, she couldn’t stop her flight.
When Taurus caught her, she tried to punch and kick him, even as she commanded herself to go limp. He carried her to the box, and Aries forced the hand holding the rock atop the knob, and a jolt went through her.
Through it.
The nanobot went into full-blown panic, and she inwardly cheered because it meant this would work.
What happened next proved both astonishing to the astronomer but terrifying to the human being. Her consciousness, in the form of light, shot from the rooftop into the sky. Past the atmosphere encasing earth. Through the orbit filled with satellites, right into space itself.
Her mindful glow surrounded the massive asteroid, a pitted rock that vibrated at her arrival. A tremor of fear as it turned out.
Bright streaks shot at the alien ship from all directions. Slamming into it. Creating cracks. As those projectiles of light—the warriors turned into pure energy—kept striking, chunks of the asteroid began breaking off, spinning into space.
Forcing herself to look away, even as she didn’t have eyes to do so, Circe realized the missiles appeared to be coming from clusters of stars, the constellations to be exact, reacting to the alien threat in their solar system. Destroying it as they’d destroyed the one that came before.
When the asteroid exploded, leaving behind only debris, she heard a wail, possibly imagined, but she liked to think it was the invaders realizing their defeat.
The streaking light missiles ceased, and a moment later, she felt herself being sucked back to Earth, brought back in defeat. Foiled by the fleshy being, who would pay for their actions.
Pay by having her consciousness shut off.