The ultimatum from Regent Vorlag hung in the silent air of the Odyssey's bridge, as cold and as sharp as a shard of ice. Erased. The word was so simple, so clean, and so utterly final.
Vorlag hadn't threatened to destroy them in a blaze of fire and fury. It had threatened to simply delete them, as if they were a flawed line of code in its perfect, ordered universe.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The crew of the Odyssey, the heroes who had just saved the galaxy, now stood at a terrible crossroads.
Behind them was the long, hard road of their struggle, a path paved with sacrifice and loss. Before them were two new paths. One was the path of surrender, of giving up the last, precious piece of the man they loved, consigning his soul to an eternal, silent prison. The other path was unthinkable.
It was the path of rebellion. It would mean declaring war on the very center of the god verse, on the very system they had just fought and bled to protect.
