Chapter 10
THE SHIP’S viewport filled with the forest’s burning color and the smoke of its own breathing hush.
Emmy stood just inside the open ramp of their ship, with her pulse thudding high in her throat, Lume perched on her shoulder chattering frantically. The air tasted like metal and sap. Every leaf glowed, then dimmed, then glowed again, as if the trees could not decide whether to breathe.
She could still see the last image stamped behind her eyes. The Echo Predator a dark sweep of sinew and teeth. Voss turning too late. The impact that should have shattered him.
Silence fell so hard that the motes of light seemed to freeze.
Apex didn’t move. He stood protectively close, tall and still, weapon sighting the Predator.
Then he fired—clean, deliberate, a single burst of light that slammed into its flank and sent it crashing back into the trees with a roar.
Smoke curled through the air. The faint shimmer that rolled off his skin looked like heat haze.
He didn’t fire again because he never wasted a shot.
He did nothing without deciding first that he’d win.
He lowered the weapon with a measured breath. “Voss lives.”
Her head jerked. “You saw that thing hit him. There’s no way.”
“I know what I said.” His gaze held to the dark line of trees where the Predator had disappeared. “Death would be too merciful for a man like him.”
She wanted to call him wrong. The word stuck. Somewhere inside the black edge of the clearing an engine throbbed to life. Blue light strobed across trunks and vines. Voss’s ship awakened from its crouch like some metal beast smelling blood.
Figures spilled from the shadows and ran in a broken wedge toward the place where Voss had fallen. She couldn’t help herself. She stepped closer, stopped an instant later by Apex’s hand. Light swung over broken brush and a slice of trampled growth.
They lifted him between them. His face was a ruin of blood and ash. His eyes were closed. His chest rose once. Then again. Alive.
“No,” she whispered.
Apex watched without expression while they carried Voss into the open hatch.
The engines climbed from snarl to roar. Heat slammed across the clearing and flattened the nearest fronds.
The ship lifted, spat dust and sparks, then knifed up through the canopy.
It was gone in seconds, a streak of dim fire swallowed by cloud, swiftly followed by the Councilor’s ship.
Her heartbeat tripped and stuttered. “He’s going to come back.”
“He will try,” Apex said. “We will not be here.”
The forest brightened by degrees. The glow rolled out from the trees as if the world exhaled.
The air stroked her skin in a cool, charged caress.
Emmy couldn’t decide whether the sensation comforted or unnerved her.
She lifted her hand and the hair along her arm rose.
The planet awoke, aware, impossibly present.
She said it under her breath anyway. “I think it’s listening.”
“It is.” Apex turned toward a narrow path where the ground gleamed like old glass. “This world observes. It will remember you.”
“For what?”
“For surviving,” he said. “For choosing.”
The path beyond the ramp was already alive with light, vines swaying back as though bowing farewell.
From the ramp, she could still see the pale stream to their left, clear as spun glass and pricked with tiny stars.
The sound reached them even here, a steady pulse against the metallic hum of the ship.
She breathed with it and tried to let the tremor bleed out of her hands.
Apex stood protectively near the ramp controls, one hand on the hull beside her as if securing her to what was safe. Behind them, the ship spilled a wedge of warm interior glow. He looked back the way they had come, measuring. Wind shifted through the canopy outside. The light rippled once, twice.
“It knows we are leaving,” he said.
Lume chittered in agreement, then added, “Leaving. Yes.”
“Will the planet be all right?”
He didn’t look at her right away. When he did, his eyes had softened by a fraction. “If Echo Light has the will and the ability to continue, it will do so.”
Her laugh came out thin. “You almost sound like you care.”
He inclined his head. “I respect resilience. Say goodbye to Lume. Then back inside. Now.”
Emmy crouched near the ramp, and Lume fluttered closer, her wings trembling with light. The tiny creature chirped a string of soft notes that sounded heartbreakingly close to words.
Emmy reached out a finger, brushing Lume’s silken fur.
“You’ll be safe here,” she whispered. “Keep the lights alive for me.” Lume pressed her small head into Emmy’s hand, then drew back, eyes bright with color shifting from blue to gold.
Emmy’s throat tightened as she stepped back toward the ramp.
“I’ll come back if I can,” she said, voice catching.
The creature’s answering hum was pure and sad and beautiful.
She stepped into the ship and the hush of the forest fell away.
The door seals met with a soft hiss. The coldness of the interior made her shiver after the charged warmth outside.
She slid into the co-pilot chair and buckled in.
Apex took the pilot seat, long hands already moving across the array.
He didn’t crowd her, but his presence filled the small space.
The cabin light made him look carved from shadow and starlight.
“Vector,” he said without looking.
She blinked back tears, already missing Lume. “Anywhere that’s like here.”
His mouth tugged at one corner. It barely counted as a smile. “That is not a coordinate.”
“Then pick one. Somewhere as beautiful as Echo Light.”
“That is not an easy request.”
He entered flight commands in a sequence like a language.
The deck thrummed. The engines spooled up.
She watched his hands and the fine web of tendons over his knuckles and had a vivid, unruly thought about those hands on her skin.
Heat rushed into her face. She blamed adrenaline.
She blamed everything except the truth, which was that she wanted him.
The ship rose clean from the hollow. The view poured across the canopy. Light broke around them like surf. For a long breath she forgot danger. The planet below was a luminous ocean and the ship skimmed its crown.
The higher they climbed, the more beautiful it became. Below, the entire forest blazed like a sea of stars. For a heartbeat, Emmy forgot fear entirely. The planet’s light became a benediction.
A warning tone cut the moment in two.
“Incoming transmission. Source: Councilor Thalen Vire.”
Her stomach dipped. Apex didn’t look at her. He spoke as if to the night. “Play it.”
The Councilor’s voice filled the cabin with a cool authority that made her skin crawl. “Lord Vettar. Your crimes are recorded. Your bond to the human violates Council law. You will surrender at once or Echo Light will be purged.”
Emmy’s throat constricted. “He can’t mean—”
“He can,” Apex said. “He believes mercy is weakness. Despite this world being protected, he thinks destruction is order and burning a world makes him righteous.” His tone stayed cold, but there was knowledge in it, old and certain.
“Then he’s insane.”
“No. I know him. He is logical. And of more significance, I know how the Council thinks. Vire believes we are still on the surface and he means to prove a point.”
“Then he’ll fire,” she whispered. “He’ll destroy it.”
“Unless we vanish first.”
The engines deepened. Light flickered across the window. Emmy looked down at the ghostly forest, the first pinch of dread settling under her ribs.
“Weapon capacitors on the Sovereign cruiser at ninety percent. Firing cycle has begun.”
Her mouth went dry. “He’s going to fire.”
Apex’s voice went quiet and absolute. “Brace. All power to main engines. Shield bias forward.”
The sky lit up. The first plasma strike tore through the upper atmosphere, white fire streaking across the darkness. The blast slammed into the planet below, a blinding flare that turned night to day. A shockwave rippled outward, visible from orbit.
The ship lurched violently. Emmy gasped as gravity twisted. The harness cut into her shoulders. Lights flickered. Sparks burst from the ceiling.
She didn’t realize she was already gripping the armrests until her fingers hurt.
A river of plasma raked the upper atmosphere and turned cloud to burning silk.
The first strike had hit far to starboard.
The shock came late, rolled the ship hard, then picked them up and shook them again for the pleasure of it.
The console spat sparks. Smoke stung her eyes. She heard Core’s voice through the crackle.
“Stabilizers offline. Primary thrusters at sixty. Auxiliary readied.”
Apex didn’t flinch. He moved like water under pressure. “Reroute auxiliary now. Engage secondary trim. Cut bleed from port.”
Emmy fought to keep her eyes on her screen. She saw the second barrage fall. It walked across the night with terrifying grace. The ground below them answered in a bloom of fire. The luminous skin of the world went dark in a widening crescent that broke her heart to see.
“He’s killing it,” she said. The words hurt her throat.
“Not all,” Apex said. “The core will endure.”
“But Lume!” Tears filled Emmy’s eyes. “I made her stay behind.”
Heat ran across the cabin like a physical thing.
The ship bucked again. Something under the deck tore with a sound she would remember in her bones.
She tasted copper and fear. A fine line of blood warmed her forearm where a shard had kissed her skin.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered except not dying.
“Apex—”
“Stay with me.” He reached across and covered her hand with his. His grip was hot and strong and steady. “Look at me. We will live. Do you understand me?”