His power flares, like a sun rising over the horizon, and the crystal in the walls around us responds, lighting up from within.
That’s when I see them, no longer hidden in the shadows, but lit from behind by blood-red light. Row upon row of Syldrathi, hundreds of them, are pinned against the walls of the chamber above me by some invisible force. Their eyes stare at nothing, their hands stretched out to either side.
“Mothercustard,” I breathe.
The glyfs at their brows tell me they’re Waywalkers. All of them. And a shudder goes through me as I suddenly realize why the Unbroken have been hunting them across the galaxy.
Every Waywalker cries out, fingers flexing, face contorted. The sudden flow of their power into Caersan is like being caught by a wave, tumbled end over end until there’s nothing to do but hold your breath, lungs bursting, fighting to last a second longer, praying to whoever’s listening for air.
His eyes—so like his son’s—lock onto mine as he speaks again.
“I am a warrior born. I carved my name in blood among the stars while you slumbered in your crib. I am Warbreed. I am Unbroken. I am an eater of worlds and slayer of suns. I am not less than I was before, child. I am more.”
He stands slowly, arms outstretched. The power around him doubles, triples, a psychic tempest of blood-red and glittering gold. The chamber around us, the whole Weapon, trembles, the screams of those Waywalkers filling my mind.
And I realize with creeping horror that he’s been holding himself back.
“You have given me your best, little Terran,” he says.
Slowly, the Starslayer curls his hands into fists.
“Now I will give you mine.”
36
TYLER
It’s called a gremlin.
In the Terran war-propaganda posters I studied for conflict history in fourth year, gremlins were depicted as tiny, malicious humanoids with pointed ears and claws. But they were basically a way for pilots to keep up morale. Equipment failures got blamed on gremlins, so pilots got to avoid pointing the finger at the flight crews they depended on to keep them alive, and the war got won.
Nowadays, gremlin is a nickname for any number of portable counter-electronic devices—signal killers, network jammers, or, in the case of the miracle I’ve just discovered in my boot heel, electromagnetic-pulse generators.
How could they know?
I glance up at Saedii, who appears to be ignoring me for the benefit of the camera above our cell door. But she’s caught a glimpse of the gremlin in my heel, and sharp as she is, she knows exactly what it can do for our predicament.
The ones who left that for you, she continues. How could they know?
I have no clue, I admit.
How did the Terran marines not discover it? Surely they scanned you?
The heel looks shielded. Whoever put this here knew I’d need to hide it.
How? Saedii demands. How is this possible?
Doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here. I don’t know where we’re headed, but there’s literally no place the Ra’haam can have chosen that will be good news for us. And the Unbroken and TDF are probably tearing each other to pieces by now.
She glances my way for a brief moment.
Then we are at war once more, little Terran.
You can gouge out my eyes later, okay? From the look of this gremlin, it’s got a decent range. But TDF dreadnoughts are huge. When the pulse goes off, we need to move fast. Get to the launch bays and get ourselves off this ship. So be ready.
Saedi sneers.
She’s probably always ready for combat, and my warning is a little insulting. Despite the punishment she’s suffered, Saedii radiates a steel-cold will, her eyes narrowed and focused. Curling over to hide my boots from the camera, I slip my hand to the gremlin, praying to the Maker that despite all the punishment I’ve put these boots through over the last few days, it somehow still works.
My finger finds the activation stud. I meet Saedii’s eyes.
Go.
I press the button. I feel a slight vibration in my boot, a hum on the edge of hearing. And then every light in the cell dies.
The camera dies.
The magnetic lock dies.
Saedii is on her feet in a heartbeat. The emergency lighting has been knocked out—every electronic device around us that isn’t shielded is basically a paperweight now. Without the lights, it’s almost pitch-dark in here, but I catch a vague impression of her as she snatches up the wreckage of the bio-cot I smashed and jams