SILAS
Well, what do you know? It's me. Me, me. Your ol’ pal.
Don't ask me where I was—there’s no real description for it. All I know is that I could sense what Revenant was doing, but only faintly, like listening with my ear pressed against a door, seeing the world through the space of a keyhole. In a very real way, Echo had killed me. I was a ghost.
Well, now I'm back. I can move. I can sense, I can feel, I can act—not just as some ghostly presence in someone’s head.
A lot has happened since I was away. Some of it shocking. Some of it heartbreaking. And for some of it, I just don’t know how to feel, yet. But there’s no time to mull over it right now. There are times to think, and times to act, and this right now is the latter.
There's something called a HERALD coming right toward us. I don’t know exactly what a HERALD is, but I know it made a really big boom when it hit the ground, and even Revenant seems to be afraid of it. I know that if I don’t stop it, it's going to destroy the ship and kill all of us.
Well, not all of us. From what I understand, it intends to capture Shiloh alive. Why, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter.
I can see it now, whatever it is—a bright, glinting cross of light in the sky. The fleet of Corsair ships swarm around it, bombarding it with gunfire and bombs. But so far, it seems to be doing just fine. Its course hasn’t been altered at all.
I take quick stock of myself and my surroundings. I feel light, strong, full of energy. I’ve gone into something called Overcharge. My OS is bleeding off the energy like heat from a pressure release valve. I can actually see and feel it coming off of me like steam.
I’m using some kind of magnetic protocol to keep my feet attached to the hull—the top of the ship. Didn’t realize I had that.
Next to me, Parallax pants and gasps in pain, impaled on a spike attached to the hull of the ship.
She’s dying. But she’s not afraid. She’s determined to meet her end with the same determined ferocity with which she lived.
I reach out and touch the tip of the spike. I undo the Print job with my mind, causing the spike to come apart in a flash of light and sparks.
Parallax falls to her knees, looking up at me, as if daring me to finish the job.
I wave my arms. “Oh, no. Not him. I’m the other guy—”
Something slams into me from the side.
Uh-oh. The white-haired chick.
Slipped my mind, for some reason.
I roll a couple times, bouncing along the top of the ship. I land on my back. The Corsair’s on top of me, straddling me. She pulls a knife from a scabbard hiding inside her jacket. She freezes, then glances over at Parallax, as if to visually confirm something she’s already heard over an earpiece. She looks at me, then stands, panting, her eyes wild as she slowly comes down off an adrenaline high.
I stand, hold out my hand. “Silas. At your service.”
She stares at the hand, then me.
Right.
Her complexion lights up with a bright orange glare. Her gaze shifts.
I follow her eyes.
It’s the Corsair ships. Several of them have exploded in dazzling balls of coruscating light.
A loud boom. A sonic boom. The air around the swarm of ships seems to warp. And then the HERALD accelerates, zipping toward us, leaving behind more ship explosions in its wake.
I don’t know where you went, Revenant, but if you have any advice, now’s the time. Just saying.
Seriously. Right now. Whenever you’re ready.
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The flash of light is getting closer, taking on definition. A human form in brilliant white robes that billow and flap. My vision glitches, turning into segmented blocks that click in and out, going black briefly before popping back in again. Words manifest in front of my eyes.
BE NOT AFRAID.
It’s some kind of virus, intruding into my system. My OS’ defense measures kick into gear, attacking the intruder and restoring my vision.
The HERALD is here.
It slams onto the roof of the ship, causing the entire vessel to creak and tilt. It skids, sliding, its feet tearing into the hull like a can opener. Loose white feathers flutter in the air before being quickly carried away by the wind.
Long trains of fabric from the HERALD’s white robes undulate like wind socks. A pair of massive white wings twitch subtly in the breeze. The HERALD has a male figure. He is tall, and almost waifishly slim, with pale skin, and short, trimmed hair the color and iridescent hue of a raven’s wing. His irises are stark white, the color of bone, and glowing. He holds a sword with a long, slim blade, and a prominent crossguard. As he holds it up, flames travel up the length of the blade, licking hungrily, furiously.
He opens his mouth. Even though he’s speaking from across the length of the roof of the ship, I can hear him clearly, as if his voice is emanating from every place at one. It echoes inside of my head.
SURRENDER YOURSELF. BOW BEFORE THE ALMIGHTY. GIVE YOURSELF UP TO SOMETHING GREATER. ONLY THEN WILL YOU KNOW PEACE.
Yeah, that’s a no from me, I think. Whatever’s going on with this space angel, I’m pretty sure it’s not biblically accurate, anyway. More like an abomination. How and why, I don’t know. But I’m not gonna let it win.
“Up yours!” I yell.
I tap into the process I remember Revenant using when he summoned his sword. Only, I’m gonna make my own sword. It pops into existence in my hand, amid a flash of light and skittering sparks that drift briefly before sputtering out.
It’s a katana, still in its sheath. The sheath is black as night, as is the handle.
I fasten the sheath magnetically to a belt I didn’t realize I was wearing before. Maybe the belt is part of Revenant's garb. Maybe I summoned the belt myself, subconsciously. Who knows.
I grip the handle. I draw the sword. The blade is black. There’s a clicking, grinding sound as the sword is pulled from its sheath, and the edge of the blade turns blue, glowing and humming like a living thing.
“Not bad,” Revenant says grimly, appearing next to Silas. “You have some instincts at least. The high energy output from that blade will be able to block the HERALD’s sword. It might be one of the only ways you can. Anything else the HERALD’s sword comes into contact with is going to burn. And I do mean anything.”
“Thanks. I guess you do want to live.”
“I do,” Revenant says, staring me down. “The odds aren’t good, unfortunately, with you at the helm. But they’re even worse if you don’t know what to do.”
“And what do I need to do? Besides getting my hands on that nifty sword. Looks like a max-level raid reward if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Revenant says, glancing over at the HERALD. “It’s SERAPHIM tech. It only activates in contact with the right energy signature. It would shut off the moment you touched it.”
“Oh. Way to bum a guy out.”
“And here I thought you were going to take this seriously.”
“I am taking this seriously. I’m just trying to lighten the mood. Keep things from getting too tense, you know?”
Revenant glares at me. “If you let this thing kill Echo, or take Shiloh, I’m going to make every conscious moment a living hell for you. How’s that for moody?”
I brandish the sword, getting used to the feel of it in my hands. “You know what? You and Daimon would get along great, I bet.”
“No,” Revenant says. “No, I don’t think we would. I— look alive.”
It’s the HERALD, swiping upward with its sword. A massive beam of energy shoots outward along the angle of the swipe. It cuts across the roof of the ship toward me.
I sidestep the blast. There’s a thick rift in the surface of the hull cutting all the way from where I am to where the HERALD is standing.
“Didn’t know he could do that,” I say, putting my weight on the balls of my feet.
“He can do a lot more,” Revenant says. “And he’s got his eyes on you. He knows you’re the biggest threat her. He— Silas, he’s coming.”
The HERALD was crouching, like a runner waiting for the starter pistol to go off. His wings unfurled, fanning behind his body.
His wings flap, furling. He shoots toward me. A split-second after he’s airborne, a sonic boom rends the air.
No time to dodge. No time to move. I barely have enough time to bring up my sword and block the attack.
Our swords lock. The force of the hit lifts my feet off the roof of the ship. We both go careening, off into space, like twin comets in the sky.
Who’s to say if I’m spinning, or the atmosphere of the planet, the duality of the earth and sky, are what’s spinning around me. Even the HERALD revolves inside of my orbit, periodically in and out of my view. I rotate my body as I fly through the air, working to keep him the HERALD in my view so I don’t get blindsided by an attack.
The wind whistles in my ears. Feathers rustle and snap all across the HERALD’s massive wings. If this were an anime, there would be motion lines etched in the air between and around us.
The air burns hot as the sword of flame swipes in my direction. I deflect the blade with my own. The force of the block creates momentum, pushing me away, but then the air whooshes with the sound of the HERALD’s wings, and he’s right up against me again.
We are, the both of us, flying almost parallel to the ground, like a jet getting ready to come in for a landing. It’s a strange, deadly dance—perhaps more deadly for me than the HERALD, seeing as he can slow his descent anytime he chooses. I have no backup, no survival plan. At this point, I can only hope to survive the—