Detonation. Slicing debris. A sense of falling—then impact.
Tearing pain in her shoulder and head. A waking sense of horror and understanding.
Kaplan—dead in her sights.
Dead.
Everything inside her fell screaming into the void.
She didn't fall alone.
Psychic talons yanked her back from the numbing black, back into hell: scrambling metal legs—Xykeree all around her. Clanging footfalls: the Qua-zi, right next to her. A mech hand reaching out—
The world wrenched sideways; a jarring, unnatural shift of perspective. An image flashed: her body passive on the deck, powerless. Compliant.
Inhuman anticipation flooded her: a hunger for knowledge; the desire to take her apart. Visions of dead and dissected humans reeled, feeding a cold wave of purpose. For an instant, the need to terminate every psionic or psi-latent human made absolute sense.
Horror broke through—hers. She'd lost her mind; had it goddamn taken. Terror choked her, then pain as psychic claws shoved deeper. Beyond the agony, she felt her alien torturer's interest in her brain activity, the obscure areas lighting up ... and understood this would be just the first of many "examinations".
Panic surged. Cal's insanity, recall of his pain and rage, overlaid reality. That howling demand to burn, end it all, tore through her, vivid enough to be real—lightning blazing in her blood.
She didn't fight the madness as psychic talons ripped into her. She welcomed it, let it burn through every neuron.
Then she set it loose.
An instant of utter agony: soul-searing heat.
A thunderclap of noise and force.
Everything slammed into darkness.
Silence.