Mankind without Earth is Humanity without a Home

The ceiling shattered, and the vacuum created yanked her into the air. Her face grazed a shard of the ceiling as it broke off. Then she was in space.

Her left hand unlatched the breather mask and slid it on while her right felt for the helmet trigger.

Her finger slipped past it, fumbled back for it.

Found it.

Pressed it.

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. “Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?”

Despite Caleb’s attempts at caution—at circumspection and even suspicion—the man’s words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.

“I am.

The Anadens have a somewhat different perspective on death.”

“On account of not having to deal with it, sure. Personally, I think their little immortality contrivance has destroyed the value of life for them.”

“It brought you back.”

“Thus I reserve the right to be hypocritical on this particular topic.

She returned his salute with a sly smile—a rare enough event that he eyed her suspiciously.

“Admiral Solovy, are you wearing a shit-eating grin because we won here today, or is there something else I should know?”

“There’s something else you should know.

She skidded around a corner, slamming her shoulder into the wall and bouncing off of it without slowing.

Caleb?

Silence. Forty-six meters. A long stretch of hallway. She pushed faster, harder. Twenty meters.

She burst into the room in unison with a deafening crash of metal shearing metal.