Exhaustion nipped at Desa. Her body cried out for rest. Only a few minutes more! Their last trip through a wormhole had been swift. Surely, this one would be equally brief. Right?
Whimpering, she forced such thoughts out of her mind. She could do it. They were all counting on her.
* * *
Bent over with their hands on the engineering consoles, Drayvin narrowed their eyes as they peered into the screen. “It’s time,” they said. “All ships, prepare to modulate the warp field. We’re going to do this nice and gentle. Calibrate along the following dimensional vector.”
* * *
High above the planet’s equator, unbeknownst to anyone in the fleet or on the surface, two women of living crystal floated face to face. Their gemstone eyes glowed as they observed one another.
“They planned this, didn’t
