Alarms wail into sudden life. Red strobe pulses flood the cockpit, casting blood-colored shadows across failing instruments. I suck in a breath that tastes like rust and static. My lungs burn like they’ve never known air before. Pain blooms behind my eyes, spiderwebbing across my skull.
The ship’s life support stutters. Gravity shifts erratically beneath me. The grav field whines like it’s dying.
“System reboot… partial. Structural integrity… critical,” the AI slurs in broken Common.
I groan, dragging myself upright. Every joint screams. Blood crusts my temple. My left arm won’t respond. Something in my chest clicks wrong when I inhale.
But I’m alive.
And I heard her.
Ayla.
It wasn’t a dream.
She called to me.
“I’m coming, starborn,” I rasp, voice barely audible over the alarms.
The grav sensors flicker—then stabilize just long enough to show me where I am.
Still inside the gas giant’s upper atmosphere.
No time. No fuel. No exit vector.
But I’m Reaper-born. Ishani-blooded. I don’t need permission to survive.
I grip the console with my good hand and close my eyes. Reach down deep—deeper than bone, deeper than blood—into the ancient core of what I am.
Energy answers.
The old kind. Wild. Pure. Sacred.
Ishani current ripples through my veins, lighting every nerve with fire. The console sparks beneath my touch. The ship trembles, recognizing its alpha again.
I whisper in Ishani, half-prayer, half-command. The emergency sling thrusters groan awake.
“Trajectory locked,” the ship murmurs, obeying.
I look out at the swirling storm, the crushing pressure, the chaos that tried to swallow me whole.
And I smile.
“You picked the wrong bastard to bury.”
I slam the activation rune.
The ship lurches, hurling itself sideways into the wall of gravity that surrounds us. Instead of fighting the pull, I ride it. Channel it. I become the sling, the projectile, the fury.
Hull groans. Plates pop.
The G-force slams me back into the seat, vision narrowing, black blooming at the edges. I grit my teeth. Not yet.
The ship spirals, gains speed, climbs?—
And bursts free.
The stars explode across the viewport like a thousand tiny torches relit.
