The airship sails through fractured skies, riddled with scars of battle, smoke curling past shattered clouds. Inside the medbay, Lyra, pale and drenched in sweat, struggles upright, one trembling hand clutches her wounded side, the other slams onto the console next to her cot.
"You need to lie down—" the medic insists, voice rising in panic.
"I'm telling you," Lyra gasps, vision doubled. "It's not over yet. Something's coming. I can feel it—"
Then it hits.
Alarms scream.
"INCOMING THREAT DETECTED," the AI blared. "MISSILE LOCK… SOURCE UNKNOWN. TRAJECTORY: UNDEFINED. IMPACT IMMINENT."
Red lights flare across the airship's command hub. Panic ripples through the corridors.
"Twin units, report in!" comes the commanding officer's voice.
Claire and Theresa, already in the skies, bank their jets hard. Claire's overhead display flickers wildly, struggling to get a fix on the incoming heat signatures.
Theresa's eyes dart through the clouds. "We're flying blind—"
"I got them!" Claire suddenly barks. "Shit—two, no, three missiles already here—!"
She dives—hard—too close.
"MISSILE DETONATION DISTANCE: 5 SECONDS."
She fires, breaking through one of the missiles with direct cannon fire—but the blast engulfs her jet, sending it spiraling. Claire ejects just in time, fire licking her boots as she is thrown into the sky.
"Claire!" Theresa's scream shakes through the radio.
The airship's rescue pod launches at once, catches her midfall, and reels her in—Claire's body scorched and bleeding but alive.
Inside the medbay, as Claire is rushed in by emergency crew, Lyra struggles to rise, eyes burning, voice cracking:
"Where's Theresa? Where is she!?"
The medic pushes her back. "Stay down! You'll rip your sutures wide open!"
But even as Lyra screams, Theresa's voice comes in—private channel, that none other can use but the twins, steady and low:
"Claire, listen to me. You've got to be a better pilot now. Stay with them. If I can't buy time… none of us can get out."
Claire, gripping the bed frame she has been thrown onto, sobs through gritted teeth.
"Don't you dare say goodbye."
Theresa's voice softens with a sister's love.
"Then I won't. I'm just—taking out the trash. You better meet me at the other end."
She kills the comms before Claire can respond.
Outside, Theresa's jet arches back, looping into a rising arc. The HUD is filled with red, dozens of enemy crafts, and a stealth battleship looms directly overhead, now uncloaked, a leviathan in the night sky.
She blinks sweat from her eyes, fingers flying over the controls.
"Switching to Manual. AI, standby combat override—deploy all remaining countermeasures."
"Acknowledged, Theresa. Good luck."
She smiles. "Let's give 'em a show."
Then she rises like vengeance from the dark clouds—unleashing flares, chaff, cannon fire and screaming light into the belly of the beast.
Inside the airship, Claire grits her teeth and grabs the command link, barking:
"Max power to rear engines—blast out of range now! Get us to gridpoint Sierra-Zeta! And call all allied support ships—now!"
She doesn't look back. Can't.
But in the medbay, Lyra cries out, dragging herself to the observation window, blood trailing from her side as the medic pleads with her.
Outside, the sky lit up in fire—Theresa's lone jet weaving among a wall of enemies, taking out two, four, six—but they just keep coming. Claire refuses to look at the feed.
But Lyra can't tear her eyes away.
She whispers: "Please... please hold…"
And as the blast waves rock the clouds and missiles light the heavens—
Lyra falls to her knees, hands pressed against the cold metal glass, eyes wide, heart cracking.
The AI's voice crackles over the comms.
"Final signal from pilot unit: lost."
Silence.
Claire's hand clenches into a fist on the bridge.
Lyra collapses back into the medic's arms, breathing shallow, whispering into the void:
"Come back, Theresa… just come back…"
And above them, the last sparks of battle slowly flicker out against the stars.
The airship's engines hum, steady now, but wearied from the hours of evasive flight and desperate defense. Over the bridge, lights blink as emergency systems stabilize one by one.
Claire, her torso still wrapped in fresh, tight bandages, stands hunched over the command console, fingers flying across keys.
"Divert power to the dorsal stabilizers," she snaps. "And call for emergency docking clearance from Zone Delta-Six. We need med units ready the second we land."
Her voice is firm, resolute, but her posture trembles beneath the weight of her sister's absence.
An assistant rushes over. "Commander Claire, the medbay reports… Agent Lyra's up again."
Claire doesn't reply right away.
"She dragged herself to the door, collapsed, got up, crawled to the wall," the assistant continues. "We gave her another sedative, but she's resisting again."
Claire's jaw clenches. She shuts her eyes—long and slow—and turns on her heel without a word.
Inside the dim medbay, Lyra is curled over the edge of the bed, knees on the floor, arms trembling, eyes glassy with fever and sheer defiance of pain. Wires tug from the machines that have been monitoring her vitals, sedative patches ripped from her neck.
"Claire…" Lyra rasps hoarsely, barely looking up. "I—I need to talk to you."
But before she can reach, Claire strides in, her expression hard and unreadable.
And then—SLAP.
The sound cracks through the sterile air like a gunshot. Lyra's face jerks sideways, bloodless lips part in shock.
Claire's voice is sharp and shaking.
"You are not going to die on me, too. Do you hear me?!"
Lyra blinks, silent.
"You keep getting up like it proves something," Claire snarls, tears brimming, "but you're only proving how willing you are to throw away the only thing left of her."
Lyra swallows hard. "I—"
"Theresa's gone." Claire's voice fractured, but she doesn't break. "And your job right now isn't to crawl across the floor like some martyr. Your job is to live. To heal. You think she fought so hard just to see you bleed out in a hallway?"
The air is thick with grief and rage.
Lyra's lips tremble. Her voice is barely a whisper:
"I'm sorry…"
Claire lets out a bitter, hollow laugh.
"Sorry?" she echoes. "Sorry won't bring the dead back, Lyra."
Her words strike harder than the slap, but they are the raw truth. She's well aware how true those words are, words she uttered before now come back to strike her back mercilessly.
The words echoes in Lyra's mind. A fusion of her voice and Claire's.
"Sorry won't bring back the dead." Edric's broken look…how hurt he must've been…and now I too am faced with such bitter truth once again.
Lyra bows her head, tears falling freely now.
Claire turns, wiping her eyes harshly with her sleeve, not letting Lyra see her cry.
"Get better," she states flatly. "That's how you make her sacrifice mean something."
And with that, Claire walks out, her steps sharp and swift, back straight—but as soon as she turns the corner, she presses her back to the wall, slides down, and buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking in silence.
Far behind her, inside the medbay, Lyra clutches her uncle's blade to her chest—her tears hot and silent, as grief drags her to the abyss deeper than any wound ever had.