Oliver stared at the woman chained to the pillar. Her glowing green eyes stared back. The System Administrator thought it had built the perfect trap. It expected the Commander to freeze. It expected his heart to break. But Oliver did not freeze. His cold, gray human eye looked at the thick black cables. He noticed that the cables cast no shadows on the floor. He noticed that the woman’s chest did not move up and down. She was not breathing. "You are a hologram," Oliver stated cleanly. His metallic voice cut through the quiet room. "You are an illusion made of light. The real Captain Iris is not here." The fake Iris frowned. Her glowing green eyes flickered and turned to gray static. "I know exactly where the real Captain Iris is," Oliver whispered. He raised his glowing sword of holy light and shattered the false image into a million pieces of harmless dust. Millions of miles above the hollow moon, floating quietly in the dark, freezing void of space, was the largest Wraithborn

The heavy black axe fell toward Commander Oliver’s unprotected neck. Oliver’s hands were glued to the computer console. He was holding the heavy blast doors shut on the video screen. He was keeping the deadly fire away from Captain Iris, Billy, and Sergeant Miller. He only needed two more seconds. The Wraithborn Supreme General swung the weapon with terrifying power. It wanted to chop the human Commander’s head completely off. Oliver did not move his hands. He did not pull away. Oliver closed his eyes. He reached deep into his chest, grabbing the pure white light of the Source Shard. He pushed the holy magic backward, straight through his own spine. Two massive wings of solid, blinding white light exploded out of Oliver’s back. The giant dark axe slammed into the wings of light. The holy energy acted like an unbreakable shield. Bright orange sparks rained down on the black stone floor. The incredible kinetic force pushed the Supreme General a full step backward. On the video scr

The blinding white beam from the human fleet crashed through the ceiling like a falling sun. The heavy laser hit the stone floor exactly between Commander Oliver and the giant Supreme General. The impact shook the entire hollow moon. The ground shattered into a million jagged pieces. The Supreme General was thrown backward and crushed instantly beneath a falling chunk of the roof. Captain Iris screamed as the floor beneath her boots broke apart. She fell into the deep, dark hole. She dropped straight down into the true engine core of the Wraithborn dreadnought. As she fell, heavy titanium-alloy blast doors slammed shut above her. The thick metal locked with a loud, terrible clang.Oliver stood on the broken edge of the floor above. He looked at the thick metal doors. He did not panic. He did not show fear. His mind was a quiet, cold, perfect machine. A loud, mechanical voice echoed from the ships in the sky. "Target locked. Moon destruction sequence initiated. Detonation in six

Commander Oliver stood at the thick glass window of Ship Twenty. He did not blink. His cold gray human eye and his burning red alien eye watched the giant rock. Deep inside that moon, Captain Iris had triggered a massive quantum explosive. She had traded her own life to give them a chance to escape. First, there was no sound. Space was perfectly quiet. Then, a brilliant, blinding white light cracked the dark gray crust of the moon. The cracks spread like glowing spider webs across thousands of miles of stone. The bright light shined so fiercely that the human soldiers on the ship had to cover their faces. "Look at the light," Billy the hacker whispered. He wiped tears from his dirty cheeks. The moon shattered. It was a beautiful, terrible sight. The explosion did not look like normal, orange fire. It was a cosmic chain reaction. Giant pieces of rock blew outward, carried on a massive wave of bright blue and pure white energy. The holy light from the Source Shard mixed perfectly

The red alarms flashed inside the massive silver ship. Outside the giant glass window, the World-Eater filled the entire sky. It was a colossal wall of blinding white light, ready to erase the galaxy. Time was running out. Commander Oliver stood on the bridge. He looked at the glowing blue hologram of Captain Iris. She had just told him the terrible truth. To fire the ship’s main weapon and save the universe, Oliver had to plug the alien black coin into the core. He had to sacrifice his own life. Oliver did not blink. His cold gray human eye and his burning red alien eye showed absolutely no fear. "The math is balanced," Oliver stated flatly. His metallic voice was completely smooth. "One life to save the universe. It is a highly efficient trade. I will proceed to the engine core."He turned around to walk toward the lower decks. "No!" a voice screamed. Billy the hacker threw his cracked computer tablet onto the floor. The glass shattered into tiny pieces. Billy ran forward and