“You should leave this region of space now,” Surtr said to Selene. “Soon it will not be safe here.”
She stood with the Aetheral within the viewing orb of its ship. They"d emerged from metaspace an hour earlier, materialising in the vicinity of the vast weapon Hessia had located. Surtr had taken great care to stay a long way distant while they sucked in further telemetry from Hessia"s nanosensors. Ondo was on the far side of the zone, doing the same from the Radiant Dragon.
Hessia herself was gone. She"d chosen to return to Periarch, an action that Selene had tried and failed to talk her out of: “That"s insane. If they start this device up it will destroy your sun. Everyone will die on Periarch. You know this.”
Hessia had nodded, as if acknowledging a fact of only the slightest import
