My mind slammed back into my body like a ship hitting atmosphere too steep. The jump from the edge of the solar system to the penthouse took no time at all, but the whiplash was brutal. A moment ago my awareness had been stretched across billions of kilometres of void. Now all of it had been crammed back into one human head, and the ache behind my eyes was sharp enough to taste.
I stood in the dark living room with Avalon glittering below, oblivious. The quiet hum of the penthouse and the soft sound of Stella's sleep felt impossibly fragile, a whisper in front of a hurricane.
They were coming. A fleet. Thick with miasma, moving faster than light through the higher layers, using the same roads I had only just learned to see. Aegis Luna was a tripwire, and they were already past the edge of where it could look. The war wasn't some future anymore. It was close.
There was no time to sit with it. My family, my team, needed to know.
