Luna didn't wait for the countdown to hit zero.
She stood on the Ark's outer hull, barefoot, wind whipping strands of hair across her face. Below her, Earth turned—blue, fragile, humming with the quiet pulse of David's balance. Above, the stars watched like silent judges.
And she spoke—not through comms, not through the network, but with her whole being.
"No."
One word. Clear. Final.
It echoed through the bloodline, through every healed mind, through the very fabric of the coalition fleet.
Transcendence had offered a choice between silence and erasure.
Luna chose noise.
"Love isn't a variable," she said, voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Healing isn't interference. They're rights. And no experiment—no matter how old, how vast—gets to take that away."
On the bridge, Alexander exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for days. Elena gripped the console, knuckles white. Mireth just nodded once, as if she'd known this was coming all along.
