Tessa closed her eyes and turned back to her younger self, felt the smile drop away from her features. The memory of reconnecting with Izzy, of touching her, feeling the link that they had shared flooding back across her mind and into her very being had been like a fix too long denied, a refreshing release, the cool of rain brushing against a desert’s parched heat; sweet, but gone too soon.

“We have to get out of here.” Izzy managed, glancing back at the younger Tessa, eyes lost, roving. “We have to get her to medical, and. . .” She hesitated, fumbled for words, suddenly lost.

“The safest place right now is here, with me.” The older Tessa looked over at her, smiled softly. “I’ve come too far to let you die again, Izzy.”

Swallowing, Izzy looked away, let her eyes slip back to the younger Tessa’s features, the shallow gasping of a body suspended at the edge of death, looking beyond, looking in. Working quickly, the older Tessa pulled the device Blavatsky had given her from her belt and set it on the floor, studied it with tired eyes. There wasn’t much time– the sooner she dived into the device, interfaced with it and let it do whatever magic was locked up inside of it, the more likely she could stop the warships cold, keep them from moving away, keep the one that had taken out the Carl Sagan in her timeline from blowing its drive in this one.

Baring teeth, she pressed her hands against the box’s interface points and reached into it with her mind, forced it to yield up its secrets. All at once, its systems came alive, reached back, drove dozens of tiny, digital tentacles into her brain, each seeking out their own connections so fast that she was left reeling, swimming in a sea of the unknown, grasping for control in a subset of mental reality where the reins of everything had been snapped suddenly into her hands with a quick, solid, almost mechanical precision. Reality coalesced, dropped away and then reformed as a solid network, a map of alien neurons tangled in the body of the Hok, each set leading back to its respective ship, leading deep into systems that had been left open, unprotected. The Coralate had no reason to fear infiltration– they were a group organism, they worked as one, and their technology was so alien that humanity had never had even the slightest inkling of how to interface with it.

Until the Horus project, but that was four years in the future from the when she was stuck in now. Here, now, the Coralate systems had laid themselves open for her, giving her total access, complying immediately as she shut them down one by one, locking reactors, sealing doors, killing life support. As the final coup de grâce, she triggered the internal autonomic defense systems, watched impassively as they shredded every Coralate spread between the three ships into wet, cerulean-stained hamburger, left nothing living in their wake. One quick check revealed the extent of the devastation, the destruction a few simple thoughts had wrought– everything Cygnan that had once been living, everything they’d brought to the Hok, everything they’d infected the warship with, was dead or dying. Slowly, like arteries hardening under the force of age, long veins of liquid steel slowed, became sluggish, stopped. Only the link that bound Tessa’s mind to the Hok’s drive stayed active and vital, and that only long enough for her to bridge the connection the Coralate had been trying to make and disable the ship’s auto destruct.

Somewhere, part of her smiled a smile of relief. There would be no more death. Not today.

“Copperfield.”

A voice caught Tessa’s ear as she came back, hung with her as she withdrew from the device and slumped weakly into herself. Snatches of conversation, hurried words– the voice seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it, almost didn’t care enough anymore to try.

“Ben, she’s hurt.” Izzy stood, crossed back to the younger Tessa. “I need your help– we’ve got to get her to medical.”

“No time.” Murphy shot back, shook his head. “The admiral has the ship set for self destruct.” He glanced at Dimitrov. “We’ve got to go, now.”

Ben’s eyes crossed to the younger Tessa, blinked away the edges of tears as his gaze lingered on her spattered face, her tattered, gasping body. “She’s too far gone.” He swallowed, eyes coming back to meet Izzy’s as he offered her his hand. “Come on, we’ll get you to your rig.”

“Wait.” Tessa stumbled as she forced herself to stand, collapsed back against wall as shaky, tired legs all but gave out beneath her. “The drive isn’t going to blow. I’ve fixed it. Everything will be fine. The cavalry is coming.”

“I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but you’re wrong.” Ben said smoothly, his stare level, firm. “Orders were issued. We’ve got minutes. Maybe.”

“Trust me, Ben.” She shifted, lost her balance for a moment, grabbed the wall with flat-palmed hands to catch herself. “Ugh. . . I’ve been through this before. I’ve seen how this turns out.”

“You’re crazy.” Murphy stared at her, glanced over at Dimitrov, put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Ben. If she wants to chance it, let her stay here.” He swallowed, eyes flicking between the two officers. “I plan to live.”

But Dimitrov didn’t move, didn’t run. He stood there, eyes narrowing as he studied Tessa’s face in the half-light, tried to make sense of what suddenly didn’t make sense. “Who are you?”

“Ultima Thila.” She managed, coughed. “I’m on special assignment.”

“That’s convenient.” Murphy again. “How’d you get on board? I haven’t seen anything Gray Society on the Hok in over a year.”

“Don’t trust her.” Izzy said suddenly, glancing back, hesitating. “She can do things– I saw her move metal the way the Cygnans do.”

“Its an implant,” She made a gesture. “Experimental technology.”

Murphy sneered. “Experimental my ass.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Ben shook his head, sighed as he drew his stunner. “We’ll sort this out later.” He locked the older Tessa with a firm, immovable stare. “No offense.”

There was no time to react, to move, to speak. Before her lips could so much as open, Dimitrov had pulled the trigger and hit her square in the chest with a blast that washed through her body like paralyzing light, dropped her in an instant. Fingers spasmed, struggled, and as darkness closed in, she reached out for Izzy, begged silently, but the other woman didn’t respond, didn’t catch her, only turned away and let her fall into nothingness, let her disappear into another endless, swirling abyss.