Page 225 of Star Bringer
Seconds later, we’re clearing the atmosphere and flying straight into space, the entire solar system spread out in front of us.
Freedom has never looked so good.
But twenty minutes later, with a long-term course set for Serati—we’ve got some wanted posters to deal with—the feeling is so bad it’s all I can do to stay in my seat. And that’s before something else strange happens.
Ian’s HUD lights up, and the screen shows a perfect view of the heptosphere, which is still following behind us. But it looks different. It’s all lit up, with a red light coming out of the top and a bunch of numbers running across its black center.
“What is that?” I ask, changing the front right viewing screen to show the image so we can all get a better look.
30 – 07 – 10 – 15
As we watch, it changes.
30 – 07 – 10 – 14
30 – 07 – 10 – 13
30 – 07 – 10 – 12
“It’s a countdown,” Max says.
30 – 07 – 10 – 11
“But to what?” Rain wonders.
“Oh, fuck no,” Milla says, coming to stand next to me, her eyes glued to the heptosphere. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”
She looks down at me then, and our eyes meet. “Depends on what you think it is?”
“Out in the Wilds, people talk. Lots of it is just rumors, but there was one thing I kept hearing over and over again, and you just don’t hear the same story that many times without a little bit of truth. That there was a large device the Empire was trying to use to save us, but in reality it’s dangerous. Dangerous to humans in a way we might never fully understand before it’s too late.”
Something about the way she says it turns all the blood in my veins to ice. Because what could be more dangerous to humans than a sun about to explode?
Before I can ask Milla for an explanation, more lights flash on the heptosphere, all different colors shining into space.
“What the hell is it doing now?” Max asks.
I don’t know. But the more those lights flash on the heptosphere, the more impossible the compulsion inside me is to ignore, until finally I can’t resist anymore. While everyone else crowds around the screen, waiting to see what happens next, I unbuckle my harness, stand, and walk down the hall.
For the first time since we’ve been on board theStarlight, the locked door is open. Wide open.
“What the hell?” Ian says from behind me. Turns out he and the others have followed me from the bridge. “You finally figured out how to open it?”
I shake my head, because I had nothing to do with this.
“Well, theStarlightobviously wants us to see something.” Rain gives us an impatient look before squeezing past me and walking in.
Despite the hollowness inside me—and the compulsion all but screaming at me—I don’t want to go in that room. But staying out here won’t change whatever’s in there, so I exchange an oh-shit glance with Ian and then walk inside.
It’s not as bad as I feared. I don’t know what I was thinking we’d find, but it’s not the giant rectangular display that takes up an entire wall of the room.
“What does it do?” Max asks as we get closer to it.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Maybe Gage—” I break off as it hits me, really hits me, that he’ll never fix another problem on theStarlightagain.
No matter how angry I am at him for what he did back there on the asteroid, there’s a part of me that grieves for him and what could have been, too.
Ian rubs a comforting hand down my back, but before I can tell him I’m okay, a laser shoots out of a tiny device above the display and scans Rain, who is standing closest to it.
