59One moment the shuttle is lifting rapidly into the air, and the next it’s exploding, fireballing out through the air in every direction. Flames light up the sky, roiling in clouds of red, black, and gold, their shifting currents a blind from which pieces of wreckage tumble and fall. I watch them plunge to their inevitable end, and all my triumph turns to terror in a single instant. Raspy and raw, my voice explodes from my throat.

“Take cover!”

Suiting action to words, I dive for the nearest ship, hitting the platform and rolling under the outstretched wing as a hail of burning shrapnel comes hurtling toward earth. Startled queries babble from my chit, and I scream into my palm again, hoping my sheer desperation will drive them to move, move, move! No time to babysit, I drop my hand and push up on all fours, scrambling under the wing toward the more substantial belly of the ship, where I might find better cover. My heart is racing, and every muscle in my body is tight, tensed for the inevitable impact of metal on metal.

Screeeaaaggghhh!

The first piece hits, careening across the platform with an earsplitting wail. Instinctively, I drop to the pad, eyes squeezing shut and hands clamping over my ears as I curl tightly into a ball. Shock waves ripple violently through the platform, shuddering through my arms and legs and then vibrating through my chest and back, every tremor like a tiny fist hammering through my flesh. My teeth snap closed with a sudden jolt, and pain explodes in my mouth, followed by the fresh, coppery tang of blood welling up from my tongue.

I grit my teeth against the pain and ride the tremors out, but no sooner have they begun to ease than the next fragment hits, crashing into the platform with a near-deafening boom! It’s followed almost immediately by another, and then another, each smashing down onto the pad with equal fury. A handful of smaller missiles comes next, pattering around me in every direction, and then, like a dark cloud opening up, fragments of all sizes come raining down in a deadly clatter.

Screams ring out across the platform as the sound of metal on metal becomes interspersed with the unmistakable thunk of metal striking flesh. I clamp my hands tighter over my ears, trying to drown out the panicked voices, but still they come, filtering through my fingers. With every cry, my body trembles and my muscles clench, and though I tell myself it’s only the enemy who’s been caught out in this deadly rain, deep down I know better.

Clang!

The carapace above me shudders and jolts as something hard strikes the ship. My eyes fly open, instinctively seeking the source of the sound, and I gasp. Pieces of debris are falling like meteorites, the twisted fragments blazing and brilliant as they plunge through the sky. They smash into the platform in showers of sparks, metallic and bright, lighting up the air in red-gold streaks. Fires lick and burn at the fallen wreckage, flickering along the fuel-soaked metal in tiny lacelike flames that writhe and dance like fallen angels who have lost their wings. Off in the distance, shadowy forms lie motionless on the pad, and I quickly avert my eyes before I can see any more. And still the deadly hail continues to fall, raining down over the world in a never-ending storm, and then—

Silence.

The last few pieces hit, skittering across the pad like tiny marbles, and then it’s over. Drenched in sweat and relief, I lie on the platform under the cover of my ship and just breathe. My heart is pounding and my body is shaking, and it’s all I can do to keep air moving in and out of my lungs at a steady pace. Slowly I scan the platform, looking for any signs of life, but nothing moves. Everything is silent. Everything is still.

My eyes alight on a pile of burning detritus a few meters away. Flames flicker and glow in the center of the pile, almost like a campfire burning low into the night. As I watch, the flames slowly migrate to the edge of the debris, fanning out over the twisted metal until they reach a puddle of black sap pooling on the platform beside it.

Whooosh!

A column of flame suddenly shoots up, and in an instant, the small fire becomes a blaze. A horrible feeling suddenly blooms in the pit of my stomach. My eyes dart over the platform once more, just in time to see half a dozen more fires rise up, leaping toward the sky in orange and red flames. A wave of horror rolls over me as I suddenly realize—

The debris shower may have ended, but the fire is just beginning.

Small blazes, barely more than embers when they hit, are now knee-high and growing. Flames leap and swell, dancing from one pile of wreckage to the next in the blink of an eye, while ribbons of fire snake rapidly along the platform in black-sapped swirls, twisted and serpentine. A band of fire reaches the remains of a craft knocked askew by the flood, and the whole shuttle goes up in a ball of fire. Everywhere is chaos—people running and screaming, blowing smoke and flying ash, bodies slumped atop the platform, their bleeding forms lifeless and still.

I queue up my chit, fingers shaking as I desperately call for the others, but if any of my links are getting through, no one’s answering. Panicked and afraid, I force myself to focus on the situation. Regardless of what has happened to the rest of my team, I can’t stay here. The blaze is already spreading, and it’s only a matter of time before it reaches my hiding place.

Rolling out from under the shuttle, I push up to my feet and start running through the wreckage, zigzagging this way and that as I struggle to navigate around the debris. Fire looms up all around me, and no matter which way I go, I’m never able to get more than a few meters before I run into another obstacle. My pace drops from a run to a jog and a jog to a crawl, and yet somehow I feel more tired than if I were doing an all-out sprint. I stop momentarily to catch my breath, and a curtain of smoke blows directly into my face.

Soot flies into my mouth, and I double over, coughing uncontrollably as particles of ash lodge in my trachea. Now that the fire has spread, the smoke is getting exponentially worse, billowing and rolling through the hot air in an endless wave. Breathing is becoming difficult, and as my breaths get shallower and shallower, a strange lightheadedness steals over me. I blink a few times, trying to focus on the problem at hand, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate. If only I had a gas mask or an air filter, something to shield me from that terrible smoke!

A sudden idea occurs to me. No time to waste, I reach into my pockets, frantically searching for the one thing that could save me. My hand closes over a familiar shape. With a wave of triumph, I yank out the puffer sponge and shove it into my mouth. Relief comes instantly as my next inhale delivers a burst of clean oxygen. I take in several cleansing breaths, and immediately my head starts to clear. A few more, and I’m suddenly able to think again. Knowing my only chance is to get off the platform, and fast, I start heading north. I’ve only gone a handful of meters when a wall of flame whooshes up from the platform in front of me. I stop, quickly backpedaling away from the fire and turning west instead. Again I’m stopped short, hemmed in by a massive pile of debris blocking my way. I start to turn south, only to pause again as more obstacles loom up in my path.

My heart starts to race. Oh stars, which way do I go? My head pounds as I suddenly realize that not only do I have no idea how far the fire has spread, I don’t even know where I am! Between the debris shower and my aborted attempts to navigate the blaze, I’ve gotten so turned around that I have no idea which direction will lead me to the edge of the platform fastest.

Torn with indecision, I shift rapidly back and forth on the balls of my feet, scanning desperately over the flames for an opening, an exit, a gap of any kind that might provide a way out, but no matter where I turn, all I see is red. Fire is everywhere, leaping and twisting in lurid flames so hot my skin crackles and my lungs heave with each scorching breath, but although I know I have to go—now, before all avenues of escape are completely cut off—I can’t seem to move. The fire is closing in, and no sooner do I take a step that my intended path closes, cut off by a noose of flame that only tightens more with each passing second.

Hand shading my eyes, I frantically cast my gaze south again. Spotting a path, I start to run for a small gap situated between a pair of ships. I’m nearly there when one of the transports lets out a long, high-pitched groan. Metal screeches against metal, and suddenly one massive wing comes crashing down across the gap. I skid to a halt, my heart plummeting as I frantically backpedal away from the burning debris. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I have to stay calm—retreat, regroup, restrategize—but my capacity for rational thought is fading fast. Panic is taking hold, fueled by the frantic writhing of my heart and the twisting of my lungs, and even my vaunted rationality has been reduced to little more than panicked murmuring. I can’t move, I can’t think, I can’t breathe.

Head in my hands, I sink down into a crouch. Heat is rising from the platform in great waves, frying my skin from the inside out, but at least the air is a little cleaner. I suck in a long, scalding breath. Tears are streaming down my face now, torn from my eyes by drifting smoke and flying ash. The world dissolves into a flickering blur, and for a moment it’s almost like hell’s flames have been exchanged for heaven’s glow. Briefly, I close my eyes. Taking a centering breath, I open them once more . . . and gasp.

There, not three meters away from me, she stands in the midst of the flames, her rippling form more mirage than human within the heat-soaked air—my nemesis and my ally, my future and my past, the girl I knew for a traitor, and yet still the one riddle I could never seem to unravel no matter how hard I tried.

Shar.

Time stops, and for a moment it’s as though all the universe has gone still, quelled into submission beneath the shadow of our gaze. Her presence here is as unexpected as it ever was, and yet despite that, some small part of me feels only acceptance. She’s been with me this entire time, a silent shadow watching over me as I schemed and plotted and battled and fought. She was never meant to be here; she was never part of my plan. And yet for all that, I should have known I would find her anyway. I should have known I would see her one last time, here and now at the end of the world.

Gazes locked, we stare at each other through the shifting flames. Though the fire rages around us in every direction, something in her demeanor seems strangely untouched by it all, as though the flames themselves mean nothing to her, and in her eyes . . .

In her eyes is eternity.

My heart leaps. With one look, she sees through to my very soul, and in that moment, all of my secrets are laid bare. I fooled everyone on this planet, myself included. Even Zane, with his strange powers of perception, didn’t quite manage to see the truth that Shar has uncovered with a single glance—that it was never penance I was seeking.

It was punishment.

It’s been two years, six months, and twenty-one days since that fateful morning when Lia went Nova, and after all this time, my day of reckoning has finally come—a reckoning that brings, not the absolution of heaven, but the flames of hell. And yet now that I stand here within this inferno of my own making, I suddenly realize I’m not ready for the end. I’m not ready for my punishment, no matter how much I may deserve it, because the truth is—

I don’t want to die.

Tears form in my eyes as I realize the truth of those words—Mario’s words, now only months later become my own. I traded her life for that truth, a truth she gladly would have given me if only I had asked, and now, with the end closing in, I have only to decide if my terrible trade was completely in vain. Heart in my throat, I hover atop the platform, lips moving in a soundless query to a girl long gone. Then, with the flames closing in around me, I open my mouth and utter the two words I never thought to ask of anyone, let alone Shar.

“Help me.”

A strange smile touches her lips. Our eyes meet in silent accord, and then, as if she was only waiting for me to ask, she slowly crooks a single finger in silent beckon.

Together we plunge into the maze of fire.