The sky above Blackthorn territory is the color of a bruised plum, streaked with the fading, sickly violet trails of the retreating Hive.
It is not a beautiful sunset. It is the atmospheric scar of a war fought at the edge of space.
I stand at the edge of the northern perimeter, my boots crunching on a layer of fine, gray ash that blankets the forest floor. It is not wood ash. It is the pulverized remains of the Hive’s geometric drones, shattered by the supercharged kinetic force of human railguns. The alien ash is unnaturally cold, absorbing the ambient light and leaving a faint, oily residue on the air.
Through the permanent merge, I feel Kade’s physical exhaustion mirroring my own. His mind is a fortress of tactical assessments, cataloging the structural damage to the Academy, the ca
