Beyond the Dying Light

Chapter 4: Twelve Hours

A corridor. Dim red maintenance lighting. The smell of recycled air and engine heat.

And a guard stationed exactly there, already raising his weapon.

Ben moved before the man could fire — his forearm device pressed to the guard's side, a short silent discharge, and the guard folded and went still. Paralyzed, not dead. He slid down the wall with his eyes still open.

Ben dragged him behind an equipment rack without a word.

Natan stared at the device. "That's not standard issue."

"No."

"It's not commercial either. The discharge pattern is custom." He looked at Ben. "You designed it."

"I had time to prepare," Ben said. "I knew something was going to happen today."

Aria had gone very still. "What does that mean?"

Ben leaned against the corridor wall. For the first time since they'd met him — barely twenty minutes ago, in the middle of a m******e — he looked tired. Like something he'd been holding up for a long time was finally getting heavier.

"The government has had solar projections for eight months," he said. "They've known the whole time. What's happening to the sun isn't a malfunction or a weather event. The core has been destabilizing since last year, and their models have had a consistent endpoint." He looked between them. "Today."

Neither of them spoke.

"No public warnings," he continued. "No evacuation plan for anyone outside the government. They built ships for themselves — select personnel, government assets, people they decided were worth the space. Everyone else was never part of the plan."

Aria's voice came out smaller than usual. "And our planet?"

Ben's answer was quiet. It had the weight of something he'd had eight months to sit with and hadn't gotten lighter.

"Aurelia has maybe twelve hours."

— End of Chapter 4 —