Chapter 67: Eye of the Storm
I stood in front of the primary console, watching the data streams from Torres and Grayson weave together into a beautiful, glowing tapestry of administrative dominance. It was poetic, really.
We had the keys, we had the maps, and most importantly, I had a very large, very angry robot-making machine currently humming a low tune of industrial slaughter in the background.
“Status check, Felicity,” I said, tapping a rhythmic beat against the holster of my pistol. “Tell me something that makes me want to start whistling.”
“The credentials have been integrated,” Felicity’s hologram pulsed, her blue light reflecting off the shiny, nervous foreheads of the two remaining scientists. “I have identified the most efficient route to the Eye of Helios. Zarpedon has reinforced the central transit hub, but with the overrides, I can open the maintenance veins.”
“Which we can use to get there?” I checked.
“Obviously.” If she had eyes, they’d be rolling. “We can bypass sixty percent of her heavy turret emplacements. She is currently localized at the primary firing deck, likely preparing for another dramatic speech or a planet-cracking laser blast. Possibly both.”
“Great. I love a good speech. Gives me time to line up the headshot,” I replied, turning to the team. They were a motley crew, sure, but they were my motley crew.
Roland was checking his turret’s heat sinks, Athena was sharpening her Xiphos, and Gaige and Angel were busy whispering about some terrifying new modification they’d dreamt up for Deathtrap.
I let my gaze linger on Lilith. She was leaning against a weapon rack, checking the charge on an SMG with a casualness that would have been intimidating if I weren’t currently hyper-focused on the fact that she was carrying a tiny, Siren-to-be version of me.
“Okay, plan is simple,” I announced, clapping my hands together. “Spearhead formation. The Vault Hunters—and me, obviously, because I’m the face of this operation—take the lead. We’re the scalpel. The upgraded Loaders are the sledgehammer. I’m deploying three full waves from the Constructor immediately. They’ll draw the heat while we slip through the maintenance halls and kick Zarpedon’s armored backside right off my station.”
I walked over to Lilith, lowering my voice so the others wouldn’t hear me being a total sap. “And hey, babe? Maybe stay in the middle of the pack? You know, for tactical... uh, visibility. I don’t want you getting your hair messed up by a stray grenade. Or, you know, being in the line of fire at all. Ever.”
Lilith looked up, her eyes sparking with that familiar violet fire that always made me feel a mix of attraction and genuine fear for my life. “Jack, I love you.”
Off to a great start.
“But,” and here it comes. “If you keep trying to put me in a bubble, I will phase-shift your favorite pair of shoes into the vacuum of space. I’m a Siren. I’m fine. The kid is fine. We’re more likely to die of boredom from your hovering than from a Legionnaire’s bullet.”
“Fine, fine! Geez. Can’t blame a guy for caring about his high-value assets,” I muttered, backing off while holding up my hands in mock surrender. She was terrifying. God, I loved her.
“What about me?!” Claptrap suddenly shrieked, rolling into the center of the room and waving his little metal arms. “I have been practicing my combat maneuvers! Behold: The Whirling Dervish of Doom!”
He started spinning in a circle, immediately lost his balance, and slammed into a supply crate with a pathetic metallic clonk… and he wonders why nobody likes him.
“I am slightly dizzy, but ready for frontline duty!” The sad little robot pressed on. “Assign me a squad of murderous robots! I shall lead them to glory!”
“You’re assigned to rear-guard sanitation, Claptrap,” I said, not even looking at him as I moved toward the Fast Travel pedestal. “If a Loader leaks oil, you’re on mop duty. Don’t touch anything with a trigger.”
“I hate you all so much!” the robot wailed, but he followed us anyway, muttering about his lack of a union representative.
I signaled Felicity, and the massive Constructor in the assembly bay began to roar. The doors hissed open, and rows of brand-new, chrome-plated Loaders marched out in perfect, terrifying unison. Their red eyes flickered to life, weapons cycling with a series of mechanical clicks that sounded like the tallying of a very large debt.
“Fast Travel is primed,” Angel said, her voice steady and confident. She looked at me, and for a second, I saw the little girl I’d raised, but it was buried under the poise of a woman who knew exactly how much power she held. “We’re ready, Dad.”
“Then let’s not keep the lady waiting,” I said, stepping onto the pad as the blue energy began to swirl around us. “Helios is mine. Zarpedon just hasn’t realized she’s already been evicted yet.”
The world dissolved into a rush of blue static. When the light cleared, we were standing at the edge of the first major security checkpoint. The air smelled of burnt ozone and panic. Behind us, the hum of the Fast Travel network signaled the arrival of my first wave of Loaders.
I pulled my sniper rifle from my back, checked the scope, and flashed my best ‘I’m-the-hero’ grin at the nearest security camera. “Knock, knock, sugar-plum!” I shouted into the comms, knowing Zarpedon was listening. “I’m back. And I brought company.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I just pulled the trigger.
…
Lilith’s boots hit the metal grating of the main transit hub with a heavy thud, and for the first time in her life, she felt the weight of her own body. Usually, being a Siren made her feel like she was barely tethered to the ground, a creature of light and air held down only by choice. Now, she felt solid. Grounded.
And, if she was being entirely honest with herself while she ducked behind a reinforced shipping crate, a little bit terrified. It wasn’t the Lost Legion or the hail of plasma fire whistling over her head that did it. She’d faced gods and monsters. It was the quiet, maternal instinct currently screaming at her to keep her stomach away from anything sharper than a nerf dart.
She can never tell this to Jack, of course. He’d never let her hear the end of it,
“Get down!” Roland yelled, dropping into a crouch beside her and slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle. A Legionnaire’s grenade detonated ten feet away, showering their energy shields in a cascade of blue sparks. “Jack, those turrets are pinning us down! Where’s that air support?”
“Patience, soldier boy! Perfection takes time, and a whole lot of expensive wiring!” Jack’s voice crackled over the comms, brimming with that manic, self-assured energy that usually preceded something exploding.
Ahead of them, the heavy blast doors of the cargo bay hissed open, and the sound of mechanical feet hit the floor in a rhythmic, terrifying stomp. A wave of Gun Loaders surged forward, their red ocular sensors glowing with murderous intent.
They didn’t take cover. They didn’t hesitate. They just walked into the crossfire, their arm-cannons cycling up with a high-pitched whine.
“Die for the cause, my minions!” Jack shouted, standing atop a raised platform with his sniper rifle leveled, looking like the hero of a movie he’d definitely produced and starred in. “Seventy-two PCs wait for you in robot heaven! Don’t worry, the bandwidth is amazing!”
“Hey! ‘Minions’ is my word!” Claptrap shrieked from the rear, where he was currently trying to use a fallen riot shield as a bobsled to avoid getting stepped on.
Jack didn’t even turn around. “I know. Isn’t that just despicable of me? Get it? Did you see what I did there, Roland? Because of the movie? With the yellow guys? Anyone?”
“Focus, Jack!” Lilith snapped. She stepped out from cover, her hands glowing with a shimmering violet hue. She felt the Eridium in her veins pulse, ready to tear a hole in the air and drop a localized singularity on the turret nest. She focused, reached out, and—glitch.
The world didn’t warp into a purple vortex. Instead, the air around her simply chirped, and a half-eaten sandwich she’d been carrying in her pocket suddenly swapped places with the thermal detonator a Legionnaire was about to throw.
The soldier stared at the ham-and-cheese in his hand with profound confusion for exactly one second before the detonator exploded at his feet, taking the entire turret crew with it.
“Okay... I meant to do that,” Lilith muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. She leaned against the crate, taking a shaky breath. She’d had mixed feelings about this kid—confused, overwhelmed, wondering if she was even capable of being a mother when her primary hobby was vaporizing bandits.
But as she watched the smoke clear, a weirdly warm feeling settled in her chest. This kid was definitely going to end up being a Siren. Or at the least, a very chaotic comedian.
She looked down at her stomach with a grimace. “You better not be this much trouble when you’re actually here, kid. Or so help me, I will shake you like a ketchup bottle.” She wouldn’t actually. But threatening was a valid form of mothering.
Right?
Ugh. She’s going to have to read parental books, wasn’t she?
“Nice throw, Lil!” Roland called out, genuinely impressed. “Wait, was that a sandwich?”
“Shut up and move!” she barked, though she couldn’t hide the twitch of a smile.
The team pushed forward, a symphony of destruction in their wake. Athena was a blur of silver, her Aspis shield ricocheting off helmets while Gaige and Angel coordinated a pincer movement that left the Legion’s flank in literal tatters. Deathtrap was currently hovering over a squad of engineers, his claws making a sound like a blender full of silverware. It was beautiful, disciplined, and utterly chaotic.
As they reached the final corridor leading to the Eye of Helios, the station’s PA system crackled to life with a burst of static that set Lilith’s teeth on edge.
“You walk into a tomb, John,” Zarpedon’s voice boomed, cold and hollow, echoing through the hall. “You cling to this station as if it is a throne, but it is merely a pedestal for your hubris. The Vault’s secrets are not for the greedy. They are a burden you are too weak to carry. Turn back, or be consumed by the light you so desperately try to steal.”
“Blah, blah, blah, ‘light and hubris,’ heard it all before, Colonel!” Jack shouted back at the ceiling, his voice echoing through the chamber. “You’re trespassing on my property, you’re threatening my family, and frankly, your fashion sense is a war crime! We’re coming in, and I’m taking my station back. With interest!”
The doors at the end of the hall began to groan, the heavy locks disengaging under Felicity’s digital assault. More Legionnaires poured out, these ones wearing heavy, glowing suits designed to withstand Siren energy.
“They’re reinforcing the approach!” Athena yelled, planting her feet and raising her shield as a wall of lead slammed into her. “We need a breakthrough!”
Lilith felt the heat rising in her palms again. She didn’t think this time; she just let the instinct take over. She felt the baby kick—a sharp, energetic jolt—and she leaned into it. “Okay, kid. Let’s show ‘em.”
She didn’t just phase-walk. She rippled.
The entire hallway seemed to fold like a piece of paper, and for a split second, Lilith existed in six places at once. When the air snapped back into place, she was standing behind the heavy-suit squad, and every single one of them had been stripped of their shields and teleported six inches into the floor. They were stuck, half-buried in the deck plating, waving their arms like drowning men.
“Whoa,” Gaige whispered, pausing mid-reload. “That was... glitchy. But awesome.”
“Yeah,” Lilith panted, her eyes glowing a steady, fierce violet. “I’m starting to like the way this kid thinks.”
“That’s my girl! And my other, smaller girl! Or boy! Whatever!” Jack cheered, charging past her and popping off three quick shots that finished off the stragglers. “The Eye is right through those doors. Roland, Athena—secure the perimeter! Angel, Gaige—get ready to interface with the main core! We’re ending this now!”
They formed up, a solid wall of iron and Siren light, standing before the final threshold. Lilith felt the hum of the Eye through the floor, a deep, thrumming power that made the air feel like it was vibrating. She looked at Jack, who was checking his reflection in his gun’s chrome finish, and then at her friends.
She wasn’t just fighting for a station anymore. She was fighting for the future she was currently carrying. And God help anyone who tried to stand in her way.
…
Brick felt the familiar, rhythmic thrum of adrenaline in his veins, the kind of heavy-metal heartbeat that usually meant someone’s day was about to get significantly shorter. He tightened his grip on his sledgehammer as he stared down the main street of Sanctuary. It was a hellscape.
Psychos were running in circles, some with their hair on fire, others trying to eat the tires off a parked technical. They were all screaming about “treats,” a word that sounded a lot more adorable when it wasn’t being screeched by a man wearing a mask made of human leather.
“Look at ‘em,” Scooter whimpered, crouching behind a stack of rusted barrels. He was shaking so hard his welding mask was rattling. “There’s too many, Brick! And they got the bird! I ain’t dyin’ for no snacks! Maybe we just give ‘em some crackers and call it a day? I’m ready to surrender! My mama didn’t raise no hero, she raised a mechanic with sensitive nerves!”
Moxxi didn’t even look at him.
She just adjusted the fit of her corset and leveled her submachine gun, a predatory glint in her eyes. “Scooter, honey, speaking as your mama, if you drop that wrench, I will shoot you myself. And it’ll be much more painful than anything those boys in the masks have planned. Now stand up and look pretty.”
A sharp, piercing shriek tore through the air. Bloodwing swooped down from the smoggy sky like a feathered meteor, her talons outstretched. She didn’t go for a kill—not yet. She dived straight for Dr. Zed, pecking violently at his head before banking sharply back into the clouds.
“Ow! Dammit, Mordecai, tell your bird to stop practicing neurosurgery on my scalp!” Zed yelled, swatting at the air with a bone saw.
Mordecai didn’t answer. He was staring up at the sky, his rifle hanging limp in his hands.
His heart was visibly breaking, his face a mask of grief as he watched his best friend lead a literal circus of madness. “Shut up, Zed. She’s fine. She’s just... she’s cranky. Must be all the Eridium in the air, or something. Blood, girl, come on! It’s me!”
Bloodwing answered with another dive, this time pecking at Marcus’s shoulder as he tried to reload a shotgun. “That is a five-hundred dollar jacket! You pay for that, bird! Someone shoot the chicken!”
“Nobody shoots the bird!” Brick bellowed, stepping out into the open. A Psycho lunged at him, screaming about “shiny meat-bicycles,” and Brick caught him by the throat mid-air.
Heh. Nice.
He looked the masked lunatic in the eye while the rest of the horde paused to watch. “Listen up, you unwashed, snack-obsessed pieces of crap! You think you can just come into my town and demand treats? You think because the robots are gone, you’re the bosses now?”
He squeezed, the Psycho’s neck giving a satisfying crack as he tossed the body aside like a sack of garbage. Brick turned to his ragtag army, his voice rising to a roar that drowned out the sound of the burning buildings.
“They’ll take our snacks over my dead body!” Brick shouted, his face turning a vibrant shade of purple. “So if you want your treats, you crazy bastards, come and get ‘em! But I promise you, the only thing you’re gonna be eating today is my fist!”
“YEAH! EAT FISTS! AND SPARKLE-BOMBS!” Tiny Tina shrieked. She was perched on top of a dumpster, her tiny hands flying as she lobbed a cluster of dynamite sticks into the center of the Psycho pack. “Make ‘em go pop-pop, Uncle Brick! I want to see the meat-confetti!”
The explosion was magnificent. It sent a shower of dirt and Psycho parts into the air, the perfect signal for the charge. Brick didn’t wait; he sprinted forward, swinging his hammer in a massive arc that sent three Psychos flying into a nearby vending machine.
Behind him, the rest of the crew found their courage—or at least their survival instincts.
Marcus began firing wildly, screaming about profit margins, while Moxxi moved with a lethal grace, her bullets finding gaps in armor with terrifying precision. Scooter, spurred on by his mother’s threats, began hurlng heavy tools and shouting insults that would have made a sailor blush.
Mordecai finally snapped out of it. He didn’t fire at Bloodwing, but he began picking off the Psychos who got too close to Brick, his aim true even through the tears. “I’m sorry, girl! We’re gonna fix this! Just stay in the air!”
Brick felt a Psycho climb onto his back, stabbing at his shoulders with a shiv. He didn’t even break the skin. So, Brick just reached back, grabbed the man by his pants, and swung him around like a flail to clear a path toward the center of the square.
“Is that all you got?!” Brick laughed, the sound booming over the chaos. “I’ve had harder fights with my morning coffee! Come on! Who’s next?!”
They were gaining ground, pushing the horde back toward the gates of the city. The Psychos were losing their momentum, the promise of “treats” not quite being enough to justify getting pulverized by a giant in a Mayor’s sash. But high above, Bloodwing let out one last, defiant scream before disappearing behind the soot-stained spire of the Crimson Raider headquarters.
Brick stood in the middle of the street, breathing hard, his hammer slick with grime. They’d pushed them back for now, but the bird was still out there, and the night was young. He wiped a smear of blood off his cheek and looked at his team. They were battered, bruised, and covered in soot, but they were still standing.
“Good work, everyone!” Brick grunted, giving a thumbs up to a trembling Scooter. “Tina, how many bombs we got left?”
“Enough to turn this whole crater into a disco, big man!” Tina chirped, already prepping her next masterpiece.
“Good,” Brick said, looking back up at the sky where Bloodwing had vanished. “Because we’re just getting started.”
For Mordecai’s sake, he really hoped that bird would get herself under control.
Otherwise, they were all eating chicken tonight.
…
The air in the Eye of Helios control room didn’t just hum; it throbbed. It was a deep, bone-rattling vibration that made my teeth ache and my ego swell.
There she was. Colonel Tungsteena Zarpedon, standing on the observation deck like she owned the place, her silhouette framed by the terrifying violet glow of the laser as it gorged itself on the station’s power grid. Below her, the massive iris of the weapon was slowly dilating, fixing its lethal gaze squarely on Concordia.
“I’m gonna be honest, Zarpedon, the whole ‘doomsday villain’ aesthetic is a bit mid-2000s,” I said, my voice cutting through the mechanical roar as I stepped into the room.
I didn’t hide. I didn’t crouch.
I walked in like I was coming home from a long day at the office, mostly because I was. This is pretty much my Tuesday. “And charging my own laser to blow up my own moon? That’s just tacky. It’s like stealing a guy’s car just to drive it into his mailbox.”
Zarpedon turned slowly.
She looked different up close—exhausted, her skin etched with glowing purple veins that suggested she’d been spending way too much time hugging Eridian artifacts. She didn’t look like a conqueror; she looked like a fanatic who hadn’t slept since the Fall of the Eridians.
“You understand nothing, John,” Zarpedon replied, her voice surprisingly calm despite the fact that I had a small army of robots currently deconstructing her hallway guards. “This station is a parasite. The Eye is a key to a door that must never be opened. If I have to cauterize Elpis to keep the Vault’s contents from a man like you, I will do so with a clear conscience.”
“Ummm… fuck you? For one, it’s Jack. And two, a man like me? You mean a handsome, successful, soon-to-be father of two, who just wants his space station back?” I scoffed, taking a few steps closer while keeping my hand inches from my pistol.
Behind me, I could hear Lilith and Roland fan out, their footsteps rhythmic and professional. Normally, I’d applaud it. But as priorly mentioned, my hands were itching to grab my guns.
“You’re talking about ‘destiny’ and ‘burdens,’ but all I see is a lady who’s really bad at sharing.” I said, and yes, the hypocrisy is glaring at me. “The Vault is a resource. A big, shiny, potentially planet-saving resource. And you’re trying to break the toy just because you don’t want anyone else to play with it.”
“It is not a toy! It is an end!” Zarpedon’s composure finally cracked, her eyes flashing with a desperate, luminous fire. “I have seen the visions, John. I have walked the ruins of a civilization that thought as you did. The greed of the few will lead to the extinction of the many. You think you are the hero of this story, but you are merely the catalyst for the final chapter.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve always liked sequels anyway,” I snapped. I signaled the air, and the room suddenly erupted in mechanical noise. “Felicity! Show her what a real workforce looks like!”
The ceiling panels hissed open, and my upgraded Loaders dropped into the room like heavy metal rain. They hit the deck with thunderous clangs, immediately rotating their torsos and unleashing a rhythmic barrage of lead and plasma. Zarpedon didn’t even flinch; she simply raised her hand, and a shimmering barrier of Eridian energy deflected the first volley.
“Legion! Protect the core!” she commanded, and suddenly the catwalks were crawling with elites. These guys weren’t the standard cannon fodder; they were the Heavy hitters, sporting suits that glowed with the same unsettling energy as their leader.
“This is it, people! No holding back!” I yelled, finally drawing my pistol and popping two shots into a Legionnaire’s visor. “Roland, keep that turret hummin’! Lilith, do that thing where everyone explodes! Gaige, Angel—get to the sub-terminals!”
The battle was a beautiful, chaotic mess. My Loaders were doing god’s work, walking straight through plasma fire to deliver close-quarters justice. One of them actually used a Legionnaire as a human shield while it reloaded, which honestly brought a tear to my eye. That was some grade-A programming right there. I felt a surge of genuine pride in Felicity; her coordination was making Zarpedon’s elite squad look like a high school theater troupe.
I ducked behind a terminal as a pulse of violet energy from Zarpedon’s staff vaporized the air where my head had been a second ago. “Hey! Watch the face! I’ve got a brand to maintain!”
Lilith was a blur of violet light, reappearing in the middle of a Legion squad and letting out a blast of Siren energy that sent them spiraling into the cooling vats. She looked at me, her eyes glowing, and gave a sharp nod.
She was handling the ‘pregnancy glitches’ with a terrifying level of grace now—instead of accidentally swapping sandwiches, she was currently causing the Legion’s gravity boots to fail intermittently.
“The charging sequence is at eighty percent!” Felicity’s voice rang out over the din of gunfire. “Jack, if we do not disable the primary coupling soon, the firing sequence will become irreversible!”
“Working on it!” I shouted back, taking out a sniper who had been pinning down Athena. I looked toward the observation deck, where Zarpedon was retreating toward the main firing controls, her staff glowing with an intensity that suggested she was about to do something very dramatic and very annoying.
The room was filled with the smell of scorched metal and the sound of my robot army winning the war of attrition. We were close. I could feel the victory in my bones, right next to the slight tremor caused by the station’s impending doom. Zarpedon was desperate, the Eye was hungry, and I was about five minutes away from being the most powerful man in the system.
“You can’t stop the inevitable, John!” Zarpedon screamed over the roar of the laser.
“Maybe not!” I yelled back, slamming a fresh magazine into my gun. “But I can sure as hell can stop you… and fuck you again for making me sound cliché!”
…
The boardroom was quiet, a vacuum of sound that usually felt like power, but today, it felt like an insult. Harold Tassiter leaned forward, his liver-spotted hands gripping the edge of the mahogany table. He looked around at the Board of Directors—men and women who had grown soft on dividends and quarterly reports, people who couldn’t see the tumor growing in their own ranks.
“You’re missing the point,” Tassiter said, his voice a low, raspy gravel. “John isn’t just a rogue element anymore. He is a virus. He’s taking over Elpis, he’s building private armies, and he’s doing it with our budget. Terminate him. Now. Give him the boot, put a boot to his neck—honestly, just cut the man’s throat and be done with it before he decides this table belongs to him.”
The Chairman, a man whose skin looked like stretched parchment, sighed and adjusted his spectacles. “John is currently retaking Helios, Harold. He has secured a massive tactical advantage for the company. We won’t be removing him during a successful campaign. The matter is closed.”
Tassiter leaned back, a cold, thin smile touching his lips. He’d spent decades playing the long game, and if there was one thing he knew, it was that some people only understood a change in management when it was written in blood. He had tried the civilized route. He had made the plea.
“As expected,” Tassiter murmured, more to himself than to them. “Oh, well. I tried.”
He reached into his breast pocket and clicked a small, unassuming transmitter.
The heavy blast doors at the rear of the boardroom hissed open, and the silence was instantly replaced by the heavy, hydraulic thud of Wilhelm’s footsteps. Beside the towering mercenary stood Nisha, spinning one of her revolvers with a bored, predatory grace. They didn’t look like employees; they looked like the end of the world.
“What is the meaning of this?” the Chairman demanded, rising from his seat.
He didn’t get a second sentence.
Wilhelm didn’t waste breath on banter. He raised his cybernetic arm, and a burst of high-caliber fire shredded the Chairman’s chest, painting the expensive wallpaper in a gruesome, corporate red. Wilhelm moved with the terrifying economy of a machine—no wasted movement, no hesitation. He was just a series of calculations ending in a death toll.
Nisha, on the other hand, was an artist. She laughed, a sharp, jagged sound, as she vaulted onto the conference table. Her guns barked in a rhythmic staccato, each shot finding a throat or an eye. She didn’t just kill; she hunted.
One director tried to scramble for the emergency exit, but Nisha caught him with a whip crack that snapped his neck like a dry twig before finishing him with a bullet to the brain.
Tassiter watched it all from his seat at the head of the table.
He didn’t flinch as a spray of blood speckled his white collar. In fact, he felt a surge of megalomaniacal heat in his chest that he hadn’t felt in years. John was a useful idiot, a blunt instrument who thought he was a hero because he had a pretty face and a Siren on his arm.
But John was a clown. John was chaos. Tassiter was order.
Once the board was purged, he would reshape Hyperion into a monolithic monument to his own will. John would be dealt with later, of course—after he’d finished cleaning up the mess on Helios. Why waste good mercenaries when the boy was currently doing the heavy lifting for free?
Nisha spun her pistol one last time and holstered it, stepping over the crumpled body of the Chief Financial Officer. She looked at Tassiter, her eyes dark and dancing with a serial killer’s glee. “All done, boss. Anyone else need an early retirement?”
“No, dear. That will suffice,” Tassiter said, standing up. He smoothed his suit jacket, looking down at the carnage. The Board was gone. The old guard had been swept away in a flurry of lead and hubris.
He walked to the window, looking out at the sprawling Hyperion cityscape below. He could almost see the light of Helios in the distance, a tiny speck in the sky where a dead man walking was currently playing at being a king.
“Enjoy your little victory, John,” Tassiter whispered, his reflection in the glass smiling back at him with predatory satisfaction. “I’ll be seeing you very soon.”
…
The core of the Eye was a cathedral of violence and light. Standing in the center of the chamber, I could feel the heat radiating off the massive, crystalline lens—the Eye of the Destroyer—housed within a rotating gantry that looked like the ribcage of a dead god. It was beautiful, in a “I’m about to murder a moon” kind of way.
Zarpedon stood on the primary control dais, her silhouette flickering against the intensifying violet glare.
“Last chance, Tungsteena!” I yelled, diving behind a reinforced coolant pipe as a bolt of Eridian energy turned the deck plating above my head into molten slag. “Surrender now, and I’ll let you pick your own cell! I’ll even give you the one with the window! You can watch me rebuild the galaxy from your very own five-by-five suite!”
“You are a flea bargaining with a flood, John!” Zarpedon’s voice was amplified by the station’s acoustics, sounding less like a woman and more like a tectonic shift. She slammed her staff into the floor, and the gravity in the room suddenly inverted.
I felt my stomach lurch as I floated upward, my boots losing their grip on reality. “Whoa! Okay, gravity is officially on the list of things I’m fixing when I’m CEO!” I squeezed the trigger of my pistol, the recoil sending me spinning backward in the zero-G environment.
Lilith was already ahead of me, her Siren wings erupting in a brilliant flash of amethyst fire. She didn’t need gravity. She propelled herself through the air like a comet, colliding with Zarpedon’s personal shield in a spray of sparks. “Jack! The secondary couplings! If we don’t break them, she’s going to fire!”
“I’m on it! Angel, Gaige—cover me!” I kicked off a floating terminal, soaring toward the manual override lever.
The room was a kaleidoscope of gunfire and Eridian light. Roland’s turret was anchored to the ceiling, raining lead down on the Legion Elites who were trying to swarm the gantry. Athena was a blur of motion, her Aspis absorbing a barrage of plasma before she hurled it back, the disc shearing through a support pillar. It was the best show in the galaxy, and I had the front-row seat.
Zarpedon snarled, her eyes glowing with a blinding, terrifying purity. She shoved Lilith back with a wave of force and turned toward the main console. “If I cannot save the Vault from you, I will bury it under the ash of Elpis! The Eye is primed! The sequence is locked!”
“Felicity, talk to me!” I screamed, finally slamming into the override console and frantically punching in the codes. “Tell me I can stop this!”
“The logic loops are being bypassed by a physical hard-lock, Jack,” Felicity’s voice was strained, competing with the roar of the charging weapon. “She has slaved the firing mechanism to her own bio-signature. To stop the beam, you must kill the host or destroy the core. But the core’s current energy state is... volatile. Destroying it now will vaporize the station.”
I looked at the massive Eye. It was humming a low, hungry note now, the air in the room beginning to ionize. Below us, through the reinforced glass of the floor, I could see Elpis—beautiful, scarred, and currently sitting in the crosshairs of a god-tier laser. Concordia was right there. All those people. Janey. The Meriff’s old office. My future.
“You think you’ve won?” Zarpedon laughed, a sound of pure, desperate madness. She reached for the final activation switch, her hand trembling with the weight of her conviction. “This is the mercy of the Watcher, John! A quick death for a world that would otherwise suffer an eternity of your greed!”
“My greed? Sweetheart, I’m the guy who brought snacks to a war zone,” I snarled, leveling my rifle at her head. “I’m the soul of charity.” I could see the sweat on her brow, the cracks in her armor. We were seconds away from the end of everything.
Lilith landed beside me, her hand gripping my shoulder, her eyes wide with the realization of what was coming. The room was shaking so hard my vision was blurring. The violet light was no longer just a glow; it was a physical weight, pressing against my chest, demanding to be let loose.
Zarpedon locked eyes with me, a tragic, hateful smile on her face, and slammed her fist down on the activation trigger.
The sound that followed wasn’t a bang. It was a roar that swallowed the universe. The Eye of the Destroyer opened wide, a beam of pure, concentrated annihilation beginning to bleed from the lens, tearing through the station’s dampeners. The vibration was so intense I could feel my own teeth rattling in my skull.
I looked at the screen, at the glowing icons of my team, at the woman I loved, and at the moon I was supposed to rule. This was the moment. The hero’s choice. The hero’s sacrifice.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, my finger tightening on the trigger as the world turned blindingly, impossibly white.