Chapter 26 Aria
ARIA
The operator’s voice cuts through the buzz of the control deck like a live wire.
“Alpha Signal detected. Whiplash just came online—no pilot inside.”
Everything in me stills. A hush drops over the room like vacuum-seal. The scrape of a mug on metal. The sharp inhale of the comms tech beside me. And my own heartbeat, fast and loud and furious, pounding in my ears like a warning.
Or a homecoming.
I push back from the console before I even register the motion.
My legs move on instinct, not logic. I’m out the door, down the corridor, boots echoing against the reinforced plates.
The others call after me—Lieutenant, Commander, Aria—but I don’t stop.
Can’t stop. My blood is screaming now, hot and frantic.
The Meld hasn’t just sparked. It’s reaching. Grasping.
Calling me.
The bay doors hiss open like they remember me. Like they’ve missed me.
And there she is.
Whiplash stands in the far end of the hangar, towering and still, her obsidian-plated frame crackling with residual current. The lights along her chassis glow amber-gold, pulsing slow and steady. A heartbeat. I stumble forward, stopping only when the heat from the mech’s core makes the air shimmer.
No one else is moving.
They’re scared. The engineers. The cadets. Even the veterans.
They know what this means.
The Meld doesn’t self-initiate. Not without a pilot. Not without a match. It’s not just machinery—never has been. It’s connection. It’s soul. It’s will. And right now, Whiplash isn’t syncing to someone inside her cockpit.
She’s syncing to someone out there.
Naull.
“Where is he?” I whisper, not realizing I’ve spoken aloud.
No one answers.
I press a palm to the mech’s leg. It’s warm. Familiar. Like skin in a fever-dream.
“Talk to me,” I murmur. “Come on. You never shut up when I needed sleep. Don’t go quiet now.”
A low hum vibrates beneath my hand.
Not just sound.
Feeling.
And then—
Flash.
A burst of image. A fragment. Sand ripping past a visor. A shadow the size of a building. Naull’s voice, low and guttural, saying my name like it’s the only thing he remembers.
Then gone.
I stagger back, heart in my throat.
He’s alive. Hurt. Alone. And fighting something I can’t see.
“Commander.”
The voice behind me belongs to one of the Meld technicians. Pale. Sweating. Holding a slate that’s blinking red with unfamiliar telemetry.
“This signal—it’s localized. Not broadcast. She’s not reaching out… she’s pulling in.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, breathless.
“It means Whiplash isn’t looking for a pilot.”
I turn to him, something bitter curling under my ribs.
“She’s waiting.”
He nods. “For you.”
I stare back at the mech. My mech. Our mech.
And I understand.
This isn’t just a call.
It’s a warning.
Naull’s alive. But something’s wrong. The Meld feels warped—off-balance. A frequency out of phase. Something foreign sitting just beneath the surface, like oil on water. I know the signature. I felt it before.
Spectra.
The Meld didn’t just return.
It was breached.
I run.
Straight for the simpad bay. The crew tries to intercept me—protocol this, chain of command that—but I shove past them. I strip my gloves, my jacket, my dog tags. Everything not essential. My hands are shaking, but my spine is steel.
I drop into the interface cradle, slap the neural band against my temple.
“Override protocols. Alpha priority. Commander Aria Reyes. Engage link to unit Whiplash zero-one.”
The system pauses.
Then accepts.
I feel it before I see it. The link snapping into place like a magnetic lock. Not Meld. Not yet.
But something deeper.
Deeper than thought.
Deeper than bone.
“Naull,” I whisper into the silence of the pod. “I swear to God, if you’ve gotten yourself killed again…”
The sync pulses once. And then—
A vision.
Not his. Not mine. Ours.
Sand. Blood. Metal shards in flesh. Naull staggering across a ravine, shoulders torn open, breathing in gasps, one arm dragging useless behind him. And eyes—
God. His eyes.
Gold. Glowing. Unnatural.
Like Garma’s.
I jolt upright, yanking the band from my skin. Alarms scream. Technicians shout. Someone slaps a med scanner against my throat, but I don’t register the data.
I just know one thing.
Naull isn’t alone out there.
And whatever he’s carrying—
It’s changing him.
Or worse.
It’s choosing him.
And I might be the only one who can bring him back.