ARC9 strikes ARC10 again. The ship wavers as fire breaks out from its starboard side.

Fire back, I scream in my head as the flames burst from the ship's interior and continue blazing outward in beams of orange and blue light. The fire breaks into balls of light that disperse through the darkness, increasing the star count surrounding the ships. Fire back. Please. Protect our people.

But ARC10 can't hear me from here.

"The civilians," I say instead. "They'll die in there."

Nuna raises her shoulder and touches her chin to the blue button communicator on her jacket. The little device glows as she makes her commands. "Code two-three-three-four. I repeat, code two-three-three-four. Send evacuation carriers to friendly ship ARC10—"

The Guilded soldier swings the back of his spear against Nuna's exposed neck. The whack cracks through the hall.

Moon stomps over, grabs the communication button from Nuna's collar, and crushes it between his fingers. "Haven't we lost enough for this pathetic cause?"

Out the window, with the focus honed in on ARC10, ARC9, and the HMS Valediction, I watch shuttles released from HMS Valediction's side zoom to my ship's destruction zone.

I tap the communicator on my PAHLM to open a line, but before I can speak, a Guilded soldier rushes toward me, his spear aimed at my heart. Behind him, the others have regained their composure and have moved into formation for a new attack. Juno has already retreated to the top of the dais with a row of Guilded soldiers making a golden wall of flesh between the battle emerging between us.

The soldier spins, arcing his spear around to slice my neck. 

I dodge it and duck when he whirls it around again."Commander Lorn to HEL-HAWK-one, friendlies are oscar mike to home base for civilian egress. Cover them."

"Roger," Moyra's grim voice cracks. "Will cover friendlies for civilian egress."

I duck again as the soldier relentless pursues me. We spin across the room, him charging me as I retreat and dodge.

I keep the channel open in my ear and listen as the evacuation proceeds. Whenever I spin around, I can watch it from our window with the zoomed-in view.

Moyra commands her Hawks into formation. Her squadron checks-in from wherever they were hiding. She orders them to follow the HMS Valediction's shuttles as they speed toward my people.

With the butt of my pistol, I bash in my opponent's helmet, enough to rattle him. With the seconds I have while he regains composure, I attempt to decipher SCOPE's emergency evacuation directions to the militia presence still aboard the ship. They begin procedures.

They report fires burning in Quads 2 and 3. They don't call for Fire Team.

A Guilded soldier thrusts his spear at my side. I weave around it and swipe my leg under his. He collapses.

"SCOPE Ground to NEST. Initiate emergency lock-down procedure code A-two-two-oh-one of quadrant-two. Confirm lockdown."

"NEST Confirming lockdown, SCOPE ground. Quadrant-two is clear. Initiating lockdown in three-two..."

When my enemy returns, I press my glucker on his thigh and pull the trigger. He convulses and drops.

Nuna battles two Guilded while Teeno and Coodi face a line of gold cronies rushing toward them. Umpire shoves himself between the civilians and the soldiers marching their way. The unarmed civilians huddle together as he fends off each assailant.

Moon is nowhere in my sights.

Spinning around to gaze at the window again, I'm horrified at the picture before me. My nightmares have escaped the confines of my skull and are being projected onto the wall.

ARC10 is ablaze. Little ships zip around it—they must be the shuttles and their Hawk escorts.

Moyra's voice joins the rabble of communications. "Hawk-one to Hawk-three, bogey on your six. You better lose him before you—"

A muffled explosion rumbles through the comms.

Moyra swears and commands the rest of her fleet to cover each other. When I check the screen again, there are new ships in the air. Golden fighters that tail our Hawks and blast white beams at their wings.

Another two Guilded rush toward me. I spin around and duck their blows.

The amount of vulnerable skin on my enemies is harder and harder to reach. I'm running. We all are. With their short-range weapons and my nearly useless pistols, it's an impossible cat-and-mouse game to win. 

"SCOPE Ground to NEST. Emergency lock-down procedure code A-two-two-oh-one of ARC10 quadrant-three. Confirm lockdown."

A spear pierces the air next to my waist. I whirl around and back up.

"NEST Confirming lockdown, SCOPE Ground. Quadrant-three is clear. Initiating lockdown in three-two..."

"SCOPE Ground to NEST, civilian presence in quadrant-three mess hall. I repeat, quadrant three is not clear."

I aim for the patch of exposed skin above the soldier's knee and miss.

"NEST overrides all-clear. Proceeding with lockdown in three-two-"

An enormous blast and screech shoots through my ear. I crouch down and hold my head despite making myself vulnerable. Coodi and Umpire drop as the noise crushes their eardrums too.

ARC9 shot at ARC10 again. The fire engulfs my ship that is torn in two.

John screeches a demonic, steely wail as he drops where he was slicing open Guilded guts. He twitches erratically, spasming as if being tortured in the throne room.

The voices in the comms have turned to static. No one speaks.

Out the window, there is fire and silence.

A new buzzing works up like a whisper. The words are intelligible at first, but soon, I hear a familiar voice gargling out words I didn't expect to hear.

"Lorn, do you copy? This is Warren Freyer."

I halt in my rush to assist Umpire with the new wave of Guilded soldiers aiming for his huddling mass of terrified civilians. "Freyer. What the fuck are you doing on the line?"

"If you see my boy, tell him I did my best."

"Your drunk ass better be on one of those evacuation ships. I don't have time to get over there and drag it onto one myself—especially after all the shit you've pulled you undeserving asshole." I crush a soldier's face with a sharp jab of my elbow.

"Take care of Dean."

I balk. "It sounds like you're about to do something real stupid."

"Maybe this'll make up for my transgressions."

"Freyer. Don't you dare do whatever it is you're thinking about doing." The soldier redoubles in his attack. I grab him by the neck and hurl him over my knee. Umpire blasts him in the thigh when he gets a clear shot. I turn to Umpire once the soldier's twitching sets off. "What the hell is he doing?"

"No idea, Reaper Boss." Umpire dives in for another soldier approaching the civilians.

"Freyer," I articulate while trying to duck another attack. "Are you still aboard ARC10?"

"Affirmative. And now it's time to finish what I started the first day I climbed aboard this flying pile of shit. Plan B."

What he started. I remember the first day of embarkation when Warren wandered off into that secret room of ARC10.

Maybe he didn't wander off. He wanted to be there.

But what would he want with a centralized room within ARC10 when there was nothing...

Holy. Fucking. Heap.

"You knew. You knew what was happening this whole time. You both did."

The comms spit back in low-frequency static.

"You knew. That's why you started the mutiny. You were looking for a way to save your ass so we wouldn't—"

"Goodbye, Lorn."

Out the window, a last evacuation shuttle zooms off with Hawks firing at any enemy ships approaching.

Boom.

The blinding light causes the zoomed image to fuzz. When the image returns, ARC10 is gone. From the inside out, my ship becomes shards.

All of John's mechanics power down. He lies like gears in a trash pile. No one moves. No one says a goddamn peep as we all turn toward the window magnifying the destruction of my ship.

In the graveyard silence of the room, one noise pierces the black hole that has sucked in my soul.

A baby's cry.

The noise shatters me. Stuck between the horror of the image in the window and the hopeful shriek from the gory battlefield behind me, I lose focus on reality.

My ship is dead.

My son is in the room. He's alive.

I face Juno on the dais.

She's bent over a golden basket that was previously obstructed by the thousands of yards of pearlescent silk. With the fabric thrown back, I see the platform clearly.

It's a throne.

And a bassinet.

My son has been here all along.

She picks him up.

And he's there.

Bundled in luxurious threads, she cradles him in her arms. I can't see any bit of him, but by the way she clutches him to her chest and coos quietly into the blankets, I know exactly what is in her arms.

Pain rips through my shoulder.

Gasping, I gaze at the six-foot spear lodged in my flesh. It's unbelievable—unreal. Nothing in this world exists except for me, Juno, and my son in her arms.

My screams join my son's as I pry the spear from my body and, with the force of my fury, stab the soldier in the eye. The fury in the room is my fuel. Blood, heat, and rage pump through me like a battery charge until I reach the foot of the steps.

Before exiting, Juno makes eye-contact with me.

For the first time since meeting her, her eyes widen in fear.

She must finally know who I am.

"Give me back my child," I say.

Moon, who has been inactive this whole time, steps between us. His long, golden spear glimmers in his gloved hand.

My son cries. His shrill wails are slightly blocked by the earpiece wedged in my skull. I rip the useless thing out and throw it to the ground. The fighting between Guilded, friends, and civilians blurs around me.

Juno clutches him tighter, speaking quietly into the bundle until his screams soften. His small arm emerges from the nest of blankets—his tiny fingers grab at her cheek. I'm so close I can see the whites of his itty bitty nails.

"Give him back. " I stretch out to him.

Moon points his spear at my throat.

For as chatty as Juno was before, she's dead silent now. She holds him tighter. In all the agony and chaos she caused, she stands before me as a desperate woman. The icy terror in her large, brown eyes is so recognizable, I ache. Almost as if she believes that she is the rightful mother of my stolen child.

More rage. I allow it to consume me—to swallow me whole.

I rip the spear from Moon's limp grasp and throw it to the ground.

When I attempt to push past him, he lifts his arm to block me. He whispers words loaded with so much of that raw pain we share, we become chained together by them.

"I can't let you hurt her," he says.

Fuck Moon. Fuck him and his dysfunctional loyalties. I shoulder my way past him.

He grabs my arm with a grip so hard, my bicep stings like the muscles are being severed one sinew at a time. With the pulsing throb of all the blood rushing to my shoulder to spill out the open wound, the pain lasts two seconds before I am completely numb. I don't care about pain anymore. I don't care about blood or wounds or flesh.

Hate speaks for me. "I'm getting my son."

Juno sprints from the room. I move to follow her, but Moon's grip is as final as a bear trap. He's never held me back before. Never.

I jerk around in his grasp to tear away, but he's unrelenting. I'll chew off my arm if it comes to it. "Let go."

"I can't."

Is he talking about my arm or his obsession with Juno? I can't tell.

"I won't hurt her. Let me go so I can take back my son."

In a room so stuffed with anguish, Moon is its epicenter. I feel it radiating off him like the heat of his molten hands. "That will kill her. I can't let you do it."

Juno has disappeared from the room with my son. I clutch Moon's arm with the same vice grip he has on me. "He needs me."

"Not as much as she needs him."

"He's mine. She stole him." I can't hold back anymore. "She stole him from me. He's not hers to keep. He's mine. My son. He's my child."

There are no other sounds in the throne room to accompany my tortured begging that echoes from the cold marble walls.

Large chunks of ARC10 burn out the window. Enormous fireballs disperse from the wreckage, their momentum carrying them toward the Olympi.

I hate him. I hate Moon more than I've hated anyone else in my life. I hate him more than Juno, the URE, Hayomo, the HHP, and all of Dean's secrets. Curling my fists, I punch his chest. I jab him again and again, swinging like I'm trying to claw my way out of hell.

Through his shirt, the jelly covering his heart bounces around my fist harmlessly.

"What's the point of keeping this—" I tear the black shirt from his neck to his navel, exposing the brown, infected gel covering his blackened, decomposing heart—"if it does absolutely nothing for you?" I punch it again, my bare fist making contact with the cold solid. I want to ram my fist through until I can wrap my fingers around the dead organ and pull it out of his body.

So I do.

With his rotted heart in my hand, the curdled gel clumped around my wrist, I throw it down at his boots.

One finger at a time, his grip loosens. We stand together, me panting to catch my breath, him holding my arm like a statue, his tattered shirt framing the eclectic network of skin over his chest, his dead heart on the floor between us. He glares at me and I return the fury.

He releases me as if letting go stings him.

I sprint away without looking back.