“I hope so.” Her brow creased into a worried mess. “What if I’m wrong? What if I missed a step or read the data wrong or—”
“Rivers, stop.” I smiled gently at her and placed my fingers on her lips to silence her. “Do it.”
Zara blinked at me, her brown eyes stricken, then turned back to the console. She looked at Thresk and the two of them initiated the sequence.
This time, the response was different. The crystalline structure glowed, but it was a steady, controlled light instead of the violent flaring from before. The patterns on the walls began to flow again, but they were moving toward the interface in orderly streams, rather than chaotic torrents.
“It’s accepting the input,” Zara breathed. “The genetic verification is working. It knows we’re not attacking. It knows we’re cooperating.”
The Kythrans’ hands moved over the controls, and I watched as the shutdown sequence began to execute. Not all at once, but in careful stages, tower by tower across the planet. The screens showed maps of the weather network, and I saw indicators blinking out one by one as each station received the shutdown command and complied.
One of the Kythrans began speaking rapidly and I didn’t need a translator to hear the wonder and relief in his voice.
“Yes,” Zara said on a broken laugh. “After all these cycles, it’s ending.”
But the tower was still shaking, the storm outside still raging. The system was shutting down, but damage had been done. The atmospheric instability wouldn’t calm immediately just because we’d stopped the source.
“How long?” I asked. “How long until the weather stabilizes?”
Zara asked Thresk, then relayed what he said based on thedata scrolling over the screen, which she couldn’t read. “He says very soon. The system is releasing its control, but the communication between towers is slow.”
I moved to the window and looked out at the apocalyptic landscape. The wind was still tearing at everything in sight, the lightning still crackling across the black sky. But as I watched, I saw the first signs of change.
The lightning was easing. The wind, while still violent, was no longer increasing in intensity. The oily rain had stopped, replaced by ordinary water.
“Look,” I said, pointing.
Everyone crowded to the windows, and we watched as the storm began to die. Not quickly, not peacefully, but unmistakably. The system was releasing its grip on the atmosphere, and nature was taking over.
The clouds started to break apart, revealing patches of sky that weren’t black or green or purple, but a normal, healthy blue. The wind dropped from apocalyptic to merely dangerous, then to strong, then to moderate.
By the time the last tower on the network map blinked out, indicating complete shutdown, the storm outside had calmed to what looked like ordinary rain. Heavy rain, yes, but nothing that would kill us. Nothing that would poison the air or tear the land apart.
Silence fell over the control room, broken only by the sound of normal rainfall against the windows.
“We did it,” Zara whispered. “We actually did it.”
I pulled her against me, careful of my sore marks and burned back, and kissed the top of her head. “We did.”
Around us, the Kythrans were embracing each other, theirusual fear replaced by joy and relief. The D’tran stood quietly, looking dazed and wearing expressions I couldn’t quite read. Pride, maybe. Or shock that it actually worked. Probably both.
Vikkat was the first to move. He crossed to where Thresk stood and placed his large hand on the Kythran’s thin shoulder. The gesture was gentle, respectful.
“You saved us,” Vikkat said. “Your people. Your knowledge. Without it, we would have failed.”
Thresk looked up at the massive D’tran warrior, his dark eyes bright with tears. Zara murmured what Vikkat said to Thresk, who said something in return.
“He says that we saved each other,” Zara said. “That is how it was always meant to be.”
Dorek approached slowly, glancing at his own scarred marks, then at Thresk. “I owe you apology. You and your people. For violence. For hatred. For blaming you for sins of ancestors.”
Again, Zara translated, and I could see the strain around her eyes as she did so. She’d mentioned that the translator gave her headaches, and I was eager to see her role as interpreter for the two species come to an end. Not quite yet, though. “He says that they owe you the same,” Zara replied. “For hiding. For setting traps in the caves that caused injury to your people. For not trying again to reach out. For letting fear control them.”
The two of them stood there for a moment, representatives of species that had been enemies for as long as anyone could remember, and something shifted in the air between them. Understanding, maybe. Or the beginning of forgiveness.
“What happens now?” one of the D’tran warriors asked.
“Now?” Vikkat looked around the control room, at the deactivated systems, at the calm weather outside. “Now we go home. We tell our people what happened here. We begin the work of healing a broken world.”
