The hangar was quiet, tucked deep within the labyrinth of Lingshir's outer canyons. Above them, the sky flickered intermittently with the orange glow of war, but within their hidden cradle of rusted metal and reinforced glass, Caleb worked with practiced efficiency.
He was kneeling beneath the hull of their ship—a fusion of the salvaged government aircraft they'd once escaped in and the gutted frame of an older exploratory vessel Helen had pointed them to. Sparks flickered as he sealed and aligned the reinforced engine ducts. Mira watched nearby, perched on the edge of a container, her eyes distant, lips curved into a soft, defiant smile.
It was the smile of someone challenging fate.
"Try me," it seemed to say, aimed at the looming destiny that had pursued them since birth.
Caleb stood, wiping sweat and oil from his forehead as the warp drive Helen had given them powered up beside the backup drive they'd repurposed. The calibration interface blinked green as the AI system buzzed softly to life. Final checks. Final hopes.
A flicker caught his eye. Not on the screens—beyond them. In the distance, nestled under the shade of the last living tree near the canyon wall, an apple detached from its stem and began to fall. It never hit the ground. Suspended mid-air, caught in an invisible field.
A hallucination, or a premonition?
He extended his hand instinctively. Gravity warped. The area surrounding the ship lightened until it hovered in a weightless cradle of air.
"MIRA!" he called.
She was already at his side, strapping into the seat beside him. "Ready for takeoff."
The engines roared, shaking dust from the canyon walls. But with the gravity suppressed, the sound quickly faded, swallowed by the vacuum left in its wake. The ship lifted, silent and elegant.
Outside, swarms of military drones locked onto their position and accelerated toward them—until Caleb's gravitational pulse flared, distorting the landscape. The drones faltered, crashed into each other, fell to the earth without target or sense.
They rose swiftly into the upper atmosphere. The blue of the sky thinned, became black, streaked with fire and chaos from the crumbling planet below. Lingshir—like so many places—was being consumed.
Inside the cockpit, the ship's display shifted. Caleb began loading both warp drives, watching as the interface synchronized them into a twin-core system.
Over the open channels came an urgent military broadcast: "This is an unauthorized vessel. Halt immediately. You are carrying classified test subjects—"
The message cut into static as Caleb disabled external comms.
He looked over at Mira. "The unpredictability of our energies merging... it's what caused their interference modules to collapse. And now they fear what they made—ultimate weapons, with a will of their own."
Mira's voice was soft but resolute. "Thank you for trusting me."
He took her hand. "I will always be by your side. No matter what. I meant it—every time."
She looked at him—truly looked—and something shifted behind her gaze. Not just the rebellion of a manufactured being, but the return of something human. Someone who had chosen her own path.
Suddenly, the AI system let out a blaring alert. Red lights lit up the panel in front of them.
INCOMING DISTORTION FIELD DETECTED.
UNSTABLE ENERGIES APPROACHING WARP ZONE.
Caleb's jaw tightened. Mira's hand gripped his.
The countdown to warp had already begun.