The Sparrow was no longer a ship; it was a screaming needle of white-hot titanium piercing the veil of God.
Inside the cockpit, the air had turned into a shimmering haze of gold. Elias didn't feel the heat as a burn anymore; he felt it as a symphony. The Thorne Factor in his blood was harmonizing with the dying embers in Lyra's body, creating a bridge of energy that defied the laws of physics.
"Hull failure in ten seconds," the AI's voice was distorted, sounding like a choir echoing from the bottom of a well.
Elias held Lyra tight. He looked at the data drive—the "Thorne-Omega" key. This wasn't just a way to save the colonies; it was a way to undo everything Valerius had built. If he detonated the drive at the precise center of the Vampire Star's gravity well, it wouldn't just stabilize the sun. It would invert it.
The Citadel, the Iron Sovereign, and every drop of stolen power would be sucked into the heart of the sun, leaving the rest of the galaxy free—and cold.
"It's a reset, Lyra," Elias whispered into her white hair, his own skin beginning to flake away into gold dust. "The sun goes back to being just a star. No kings. No gods. Just us."
He looked at the viewport. The Iron Sovereign was visible in the distance, a black speck trying desperately to flee the gravitational vortex Elias was creating. He could see the bridge through his tactical zoom—could almost see Valerius's face contorted in the realization that his god-machine had become his gallows.
"Captain Thorne!" Valerius's voice broke through the static, no longer arrogant, but shrill with terror. "Stop! If you do this, there will be no light left for anyone! You'll be forgotten in the dark!"
"Then let it be dark," Elias said, his thumb hovering over the drive's activation trigger. "At least the dark is honest."
He looked down at Lyra one last time. For a heartbeat, the golden light in the ship seemed to pool in her eyes. He felt a phantom pressure on his hand—a ghostly squeeze.
Go, her voice whispered in the back of his mind. Finish the story.
Elias smiled, a single tear of molten gold tracking down his face.
"I'll see you in the vacuum, Commander."
He slammed his thumb down on the trigger.
The world didn't explode. It imploded.
The Sparrow vanished in a silent, violet flash. A shockwave of pure gravity rippled outward, traveling faster than light. On the bridge of the Iron Sovereign, Valerius had only enough time to scream before the ship's hull was crushed into a single, dense point of matter. The Citadel followed, its spires snapping like glass as they were pulled into the sun's hungry heart.
Then, the sun blinked.
Across the galaxy, the golden light vanished. The brilliant, artificial warmth that had bathed the colonies for hours was replaced by a soft, ancient, and dim amber glow. The "Vampire Star" was gone. In its place was a quiet, stable, and very old sun—a sun that would last for billions of years, but would never again be a weapon.
On the moon of Aethelgard, a young scavenger looked up at the sky. The violet rift was gone. The stars were visible for the first time in three centuries.
But as the scavenger looked toward the sun, they saw something impossible.
A tiny, silver speck was drifting away from the solar corona, untouched by the heat. It wasn't a ship. It was a crystalline shard, glowing with a rhythmic, dual pulse.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Inside the shard, two silhouettes were visible, frozen in an eternal embrace. They weren't moving, and they weren't breathing. But as the shard drifted into the deep dark of the void, a signal began to broadcast from it—a low-frequency transmission that bypassed every receiver in the galaxy and went straight into the hearts of those who listened.
It was a song of a Captain and a Rebel.
But the song didn't end.
The shard suddenly jerked, caught by a new, unknown force. A massive, obsidian shadow loomed out of the dark—a ship unlike anything the Citadel or the Rebels had ever built. It bore a seal that predated the "Great Fracture," and its docking lights flickered to life.
As the shard was pulled into the mysterious vessel, the final transmission from the Sparrow's black box finally reached the colony ships.
It wasn't a log of the explosion. It was a single, recorded heartbeat from Elias Thorne.
And then, a second later, a second heartbeat. One that belonged to someone who should have been ash.
The screen flickered to black, leaving the galaxy in a silence that was no longer empty, but pregnant with a terrifying, hopeful question.
. The End?.. The end.....
THE LAST SYNC