The sky went black. It wasn't a cloud and it wasn't the night cycle. The Shadow Fleet had moved into position and they were interlocking their hulls until the stars disappeared. They were building a wall around the world and they were choking the light out of the atmosphere. I stood on the surface as I watched the last sliver of the sun vanish behind a million tons of cold iron."They’re cutting us off," Sora’s voice said through the comms. She sounded like she was talking from inside a coffin. "The temperature is already dropping. The plants are going into shock and the grid is failing. Osric, we can't fight a million ships.""I know," I said. I looked at my hands and I felt the Pearl’s heat. It was enough to burn a city, but it was nothing against a galaxy. "I can't win this war alone. I'm one man. I need Generals.""Generals?" Kael asked. "The Drowned are scattered. The elite units were wiped out by the Anchor. Who is left?""The ones we didn't want," I said. I turned away from t

The coin in Drax’s hand turned white. A sharp crack followed, and then the air in the bone-ship simply gave up. There was no fire, just a hard push of pressure that threw me backward. I hit the wall, but I didn't stop. I went right through the bone and out into the dark water of the trench.I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel the weight of the ocean pressing down on my lungs. I opened my eyes and looked at my hands. They looked like smoke. I could see the light of the sinking ship through my palms."Osric?" Kael’s voice sounded like it was coming from a mile away. It was thin and echoed. "I can't hear you," I said. My voice didn't make a sound. I tried to shout, but nothing happened.I drifted back toward the wreckage. The ship hadn't vanished. It was broken in two, resting on the sand. I saw Drax. He was standing near the center of the debris. He wasn't wearing a suit. He didn't need one. He was holding a ragged piece of metal, and he was walking toward the other generals.The An

The box was about twelve feet across. Four walls, a floor, a ceiling, all the same flat black material that absorbed light instead of reflecting it. No door I had walked through, which meant there was no door.I sat down in the center and waited. Two minutes passed. I pressed my palm against the floor and felt the resistance. Whatever this material was, it existed in both states simultaneously, physical and phase-locked. Someone had built a room specifically for catching things like me.That takes either preparation or genius, and I had met the S.I. exactly once. So it was probably both. The air in the box shifted. It wasn't the temperature, just the pressure, like the room took a breath. Then Marcus was standing against the far wall.It wasn't a Marcus I had invented in my head, the exact one. The glasses was slightly crooked, the left lens had a crack in the lower corner he had never bothered to fix because he said it gave him character. He wore a collared shirt, two buttons undone.

The copy missed me by a full foot. Not a half-beat. A full foot, swinging through the space where I had been standing like I had told it where I was going and then changed my mind without telling myself. I was already three steps to the left, pressing forward, and the copy turned to track me but the turn was late. "Recalibration in progress," the S.I. said."Take your time," I said again. I meant it the same way I had meant it before, which was not at all.I hit the copy in the chest with an open palm and felt the impact travel up my arm. I was moving sideways before the copy could grab the arm. The copy's hand closed on empty air. It turned and I was already behind it. I put both hands on the back of its neck and drove its face into the grey nothing where the street used to be.The copy peeled itself off the ground and stood up. It looked at me, and for the first time it looked uncertain. Not afraid, just behind."You're processing differently," the S.I. said. A trace of something

My claws were out. The alien child looked at them. It pressed harder into the back of the wall cavity, both sets of arms folded over its face now.Jax's voice came through the comms. "Osric.""I heard you," I said. "Then do it." I stood there. The yellow emergency light made everything look worse than it probably was. The child had stopped making sounds. It was just watching me through a gap between its arms, waiting.Elara hadn't moved. She was standing right next to me, close enough that I could hear her breathing. She wasn't saying anything now. She had made her argument. She was just waiting too.I thought about Marcus. Not the S.I.'s version, the real one. The Glasses with the cracked lens, the way he would talk about his daughter like she was the funniest person he had ever met. He showed me a picture once, on a scratched tablet with a broken corner. She was maybe six and she had his eyes. I retracted my claws."Osric—" Jax started. "It's done," I said. I looked at the child.