All my focus was on building the Machine.

It's impossible to properly describe the feeling of being in that war room as the mission failed; I mean, they achieved the goal of destroying the space station I guess, but that led to a worse discovery... Or maybe it was good. If my theory was correct, it might give us a chance to fix things.

That chance felt scarily small.

A part of me had hoped that as I explained my ideas to the others, that other, smarter, better equipped people than me would be able to step in and make things work. Instead everyone was treating me as if I'm the expert, instead of simply being the unlucky person who was there to witness the ghost connection to everything that was happening now. The idiot kid meddling in situations she had no place to be, then and now.

I worked myself to exhaustion, for multiple reasons. I knew that the Staarus plan could go ahead any day now, especially now that they basically probably knew that we knew about it. We needed to finish the work, test everything, give it our best go, as soon as humanly possible. Or paladanianly possible. Or Weraynian-ly. That doesn't really work. Whatever.

But also I felt sick whenever I even stopped for a break, and was just... super dreading when I would eventually be forced to put everything down and try to sleep. I'd played this game before, I knew what awaited me. Dreams, nightmares, memories, getting to relive watching my friends die, getting pulled back into the spiral. Even working so hard that I passed out wouldn't prevent it though, I had no control over my thoughts while asleep. Still, I toiled.

Abigail had obviously decided she was in charge of taking care of everyone. Now that we were on Werayne we shared the room with Jayken and Alexa, and when we weren't there we were in the hangar. Abigail pushed us all to eat and to take our turns resting. I barely saw her some days until she was beside me urging me to put my tools down and go to sleep. She worried and fretted. I worried and fretted about her.

I wished we didn't need her to test the Machine, I'd do anything not to have to put her through that. I knew she hated the thought of it, it reminded her of the scrutiny she was under at HQ. I could tell a part of her wanted to act like Alexa, and refuse to go near the thing. But ever since we'd locked eyes in the monitor room I think we'd both promised ourselves we would do what we could to fix this.

Once we had the core structure of the Machine in place, we set to work laying cables to our monitoring equipment - still tuned into the exact frequencies we would need to make this work. There were cables everywhere in the hangar now, trailing from the ceilings, covering the floors. I had worked on plenty of machines before; mostly small gadgets, the occasional more sophisticated internal mechanism for a larger infrastructure. Nothing like this. This was an amalgamation of all of our ideas and energy and hope and raw fear. Or maybe just of mine.

I knew we needed to figure out who had the go button for this thing. The signals we were trying to destroy. It was probably at HQ. We occasionally were able to wrangle an encoded update from Trista, who was our inside man there still. They had extra defenses aganst the Protector now, apparently. We guessed she would still be able to get in there but it wouldn't help much. We didn't know what we were looking for anyway. This tech was so experimental, it could be connected from anywhere. Even though it was dangerous to test things the way we were planning, it didn't seem like we had any other choice.

We were risking provoking this weapon that we didn't even understand, with no assurance that our countermeasure would be effective in the slightest. But everyone had agreed that it was worth the risk - our Weraynian colleagues in this base, Rintoul and Satah's activist circle, Riowyn's team who was simultaneously working on a legal angle to ending the war - and so this monumental, horrible task had been put into our hands. It was useless to think of any outcome than the one we needed to be true.

The hours and days blurred together. Finally, I found myself stood amidst the completed Machine, fully equipped with digifile and scanner and friction stabiliser and comms.

Abigail stood ready, teleport watch glowing on her wrist, which still threw me a little to see. It had a cable trailing from it into the mass of connections surrounding her, to enhance the testing conditions. Most of the team was manning the monitors. I set to work feeding in the code that Rojjel had been able to decrypt with the help of the data from the Weraynian prison. I didn't know if it was encouraging or upsetting that the code, without all the extra force field stuff, was so familiar. The teleport watch had code just like this; I'd been working in this dimension longer than I'd thought. I mean, it reinforced my theory about the ghosts and staar matter at least.

The Protector had procured a Staarus ship and gone to meet Rojjel on Halapatov. The site where the ghosts had amassed was being monitored apparently, so they had to be sneaky. But the plan was to test if activating the Machine at that physical location alongside our own made a difference - maybe our signal could intersect theirs. Okay, we were throwing whatever we had at the wall and seeing what stuck. Could you blame us?

As with the day of the attack on the space station, the entire population of the base crammed into the room. All the defences the base had were active. Alexa and Jayken stood as near to the Machine as they were allowed. I noticed Alexa looking between the Machine and Jayken. He didn't appear to notice; he was looking at Abigail, and then at me. He gave me a weak smile, that I did my best to return, but who knew what expression actually showed on my face. I barely felt like a person at this point.

Soon it was go time, all the monitors switched on, tracking similar signals to before, with the range widened to cover the whole Staarus system, but especially the space between our Machine here and Rojjel's on Halapatov. Abigail eased her hands into the gel matrix, and looked at me cooly, waiting. I didn't have a fixed station like the rest of the engineers, I was on standby in case something exploded or stopped working, in the hopes I could fix things. I mean, hopefully everything would go smoothly but I couldn't claim that all of my machines had worked flawlessly in the past. This wasn't just my machine, though. It was part of a much larger amalgamation.

When everything was ready, all the different teams gave me a thumbs-up (well, the Weraynian equivalent) and then I prompted Abi to start. She closed her eyes and activated the controls, suddenly locked in to the field of the gel matrix. The ouput from the machine showed excitation in the trace signals of staar matter around the space we were in, and then growing, like a thousand micro displays of Halapatovian powers. Okay, so far so good.

I watched the same screen I was manning during the attack on the force field station, as the range of the Machine slowly expanded to reach out into space, bouncing against those sites where the force field used to be, including the one we destroyed, then pushing forward. The very grainy feed from Rojjel told me that his Machine was having a similar outreach from their direction.

Abigai's face was screwed up in concentration. It was unlike anything I'd seen from her before. I remembered first seeing her use her powers on Flauraan, how awe inspired I was then. This was less visually impressive but I knew her better now - I could see the strain, the slight movements of the muscles in her face as she searched, and prodded at the energy encompassing her, leaning into the gel matrix.

As the test moved ever nearer to Halapatov, the Machine detected some new signals - with basically identical output to our own. Yes! That must have been Rojjel! Abigail gave only the slightest reaction to the new information as she processed it. I wondered how much of the Staarus System we could reach in this way.

Abi's range reached Rojjel's site, and suddenly she flinched, but quickly recovered. I glanced worriedly at the screen as the signals preexisting there pulsed as if in reaction to the staar matter. But only for a moment. Rojjel must have registered it too, as his signal wavered for a second. Then he continued to expand his reach, and soon he reached the former force field boundary. Abi flinched again, more disturbingly this time, then a much stronger pulse, which stayed sustained instead of disappearing.

She pulled her hands from the Machine as if shocked. She looked terrified. "I could feel it." she said, wrapping her arms across her body and shrinking into herself. She glanced across the room with a haunted expression and I followed her line of sight.

Alexa was crouched with her head in her hands. Jayken knelt beside her, hand placed gently on her back. He glanced at me, eyes glinting with concern.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Abigail was rambling desperately.

"It's fine, we've got all we needed." Nasser, the head engineer, reassured her quickly. "Shut it all down, people."

I ran over to Alexa, and Abigail was at my side in an instant, having extricated herself from the Machine. "Alexa, what happened? Are you okay?" I asked.

"Ugh." She groaned, still clutching her head. "I dunno. I guess I'm sensitive to those signals even if I'm not using the gel matrix." Abi and I exchanged worried looks. I suddenly noticed how shaky she looked, barely any better than Lexie. I put my arm around her and she leaned on my heavily.

Some of the medical people from the base appeared at our side, with a stretcher. One of them helped Alexa onto one and I said to another, "Can you take Abigail as well? Make sure she's okay." They nodded and grabbed another stretcher for her, and the two of them were off to the medical lab.

Jayken squeezed my shoulder. "I'll go with them." he said, and I nodded, knowing I was still needed here.

While Abigail and Alexa were being examined, the engineering team gathered for a debrief.

“So what do we all think?” Nasser asked.

“It's promising. The first pulse was when the Machine’s range overlapped at Rojjel’s site, on Halapatov. Then the second not long after when Rojjel reached the force field. It seems to support a hypothesis of these signals being rooted in dimensional space and able to be affected by staar matter.” One of the other engineers, Tai, said very intelligently. I don't think I could be that eloquent if I tried.

Some of the other engineers chimed in with their own comments, minor gripes, analysis of what worked. Generally it was considered that the test was a success, at least technically. They briefly discussed our other, smaller, prototypes of the Machine, and strategic sites they could be situated in, to help strengthen the resonance with trace staar matter. Most people were excited, eager at the results so far.

"What do you think Sophie? This was your design after all." Nasser asked me near the end. I was still distracted, thinking about Abi and Lexie, hoping they were okay.

I thought for a second. "We should call a meeting with the whole base, and call Rojjel, hear his side of things." I suggested and everyone agreed.

I rushed to find Abigail; she was, disturbingly, back in the hangar, with Lexie, poking at the Machine. She turned when she heard me and ran over. They had both been cleared straight away, apparently.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked, glancing at Alexa, who was still staring at the Machine. She at least looked better than before.

"Yes, Sophie." Abigail said, and there was something strange to her voice. "More than okay. Lexie and I have figured it out. She got glimpses of us using the Machine again when we were testing it. In the future. We can use it to counter the signals."

"What?" I asked incredulously. "After how you reacted, I didn't think you'd want to go through that again."

"We have a real chance here to do something to change the course of the war." Abigail said insistently. "I feel certain that we can block this signal, destroy it, and then they won't have access to this weapon anymore... and more than that, I think it will free the Weraynians of whatever the force field worked on their minds." Her eyes were shining, swirling.

"I need to be involved this time." Alexa said firmly. I turned to her in surprise. "Using the gel matrix. I can help Abigail visualise the source of the signal."

"Are you sure?" I asked worriedly. "If it hurt you from a distance, won't it be worse to be plugged into it?"

"Probably." she said. "But if I'm going to be in pain regardless of where I stand, I might as well try to help."

I frowned, unsure.

"She's right, Sophie." Abi placed a hand on my arm and I turned my whole body to look at her. She was looking at Alexa, expression conflicted. She didn't want Lexie in the Machine any more than I did. "We've worked together with the gel matrix before. We know how to make this work."

I chewed my nails as we gathered in the monitor room to discuss the outcome of the test, staring at the screens with all of the information we had displayed haphazardly, overlayed with the data Rojjel had sent from their Machine on Halapatov.

"What do you think?" I asked into my comm.

Rojjel took a moment to respond. I imagined him adjusting his goggles. "By all measures, the test was successful. Your theory about the source of the signal appears to be correct, and both our prototypes of the design performed well enough. The data we've collected suggests that an influx of staar matter would overwhelm their setup and cause a reversal of the signals."

"Hmm." I muttered, brain exploding a little at the immensity of what he was saying. It was better than I could have imagined. But also there was still so much we didn't know.

"On the other hand," Rojjel continued. "The Staarus leaders definitely know at least somewhat of our understanding of this plan, and they could set it off at any time. Why not trigger it immediately, before we have a chance to fight back?" Damn it, Rojjel, why would you say things that make so much sense but are also scary and confusing.

Nasser spoke up. "It's a complicated plan by design, and quite old. Who knows if they have an easy way to trigger it? And with the arrests that have happened on Halapatov it's possible that they have less control than we thought. Things have gotten quite desperate for the Staarus forces, and what little good faith they have won't be retained if they activate it now."

"That doesn't mean we can treat this as safe." Rojjel said warningly.

"Of course not!" An older Weraynian general, Hani, replied. "But I for one would rather take the risk rather than wait for them to wipe us all out."

"I agree." Jayken said, and most of the room nodded along with him and mumbled their assent.

"I'm sorry, Hani." Rojjel said, "And all of you. It's not my place to decide what is safe for Werayne."

"Thank you," Hani said. "I know we are asking a lot of you. It's frustrating that Halapatovian powers are the thing we need to counter this, and that that means our lives are in your hands."

"Abigail, Sophie, we're relying on you." Jayken turned to us, speaking gently. "What's our next move?"

I breathed a stressed sigh, glancing at Abigail briefly. She'd already made up her mind, as apparently had everyone else here. Despite my own uncertainty, it felt wrong to stand in the way. "We can have the Machine ready again in a few hours, I think. Rojjel can properly set up his Machine on Halapatov and we have a few other sites and allies that can do the same. Does that work?"

"It will have to." Hani said, taking charge of the room now. "Engineers, that's your role. Everyone else, we have defences to check and reinforce, and must send messages to our allies as to the timing of everything. The attack will need to be precise, and decisive. Take some rest if you are able, and eat and drink. This is a turning moment for the war."

So I toiled again, feeling time pressing in on me, resetting the Machine, readying for the attempt on dismantling the Staarus signals once and for all.

Once I had done all I could do, I returned to my room, and found Abigail lying on her bunk, staring above her silently, contemplatively.

I sat on the edge of her mattress, and looked across at the empty bunks. I searched for something light to talk about and asked, "Where are the others?"

"They wanted to get some fresh air, before the base went into lockdown again." she said.

"And you didn't?" I glanced over and she stared back at me, pausing thoughtfully.

"It wouldn't bring me any relief." she said simply, and I wondered if she was thinking of the fresh air and cool breezes in her home town, on Flauraan, which felt so far away right now.

"I guess not." I replied, still unsure what to think or feel.

All of a sudden she sat up, and swung her legs to sit next to me. "Let's go for a walk anyway." she offered, and I agreed.

We wandered through the base, slowly making our way towards the hangar but taking our time, stopping when we were only a short distance from where everyone would be gathering soon. We stood together in the darkened hallway, knowing that one way or another it would be over after today. I held onto her hand, almost absentmindedly, thinking of better things, better times. It all felt too imminent.

Abigail glanced at the teleport watch. "It's almost time." She said simply and I felt awful. I kept thinking of her expression, her panic, when she was in the Machine. She must've figured out what I was thinking because for a second the neutral mood she'd placed herself in flickered as she turned to me.

"It will be fine. Don't worry." She pulled me into an embrace and I wrapped my arms around her tight as I could. Her chin brushed my cheek.

"I wish it didn't have to be you in there." I said, face pressed into her shoulder. I felt her stiffen against me. For some reason I couldn't stop the words from spilling out of me. "I'm so scared something will go wrong, just like when..." Speaking freely or not, I couldn't bring myself to talk about Riowyn, even now.

Abigail pulled back and cupped my face in her hands. I gazed up at her, uncharacteristically teary. "Everything will be okay." she said softly. "It will it will."

Something in her voice puzzled me, but I was too frazzled to think about it. "

She was still cupping my face, thumb caressing my cheek as if to wipe away tears. She leaned in slightly for a second and I thought she was going to kiss me, but then she pursed her lips and released my face, trailing her hands down my arms. Before she reached my hands she glanced down with concern, and I looked with her at my prosthetic arm, which had a few parts that were loose.

"What are you doing to this thing?" she asked in a light-hearted tone, prodding at it. "You're wearing it out."

I shrugged. "I dunno. I haven't really looked at it much."

She frowned. "But you were so excited about it..." she shook her head and took my hands again properly. "When this is over, we can take it off and you can take it apart and design gadgets for it and take care of it properly."

I smiled. "That sounds nice. What about you? What are you gonna be doing?"

Her expression was a little pained, and then she laughed. "I have no idea! Geez, Sophie, how much of my life have I spent worrying about this war? I don't even know who I am without that fear."

I could tell that thought bothered her more than she wanted to let on. "We'll find out." I said. "You and me together."

"What about when you go back to the Alliance?" her eyes roved my face and I felt a guilty twinge.

"I don't know." I said honestly. I hadn't had the chance to think about it. "We'll figure something out."

I didn't want to admit that I felt similarly to her, that I couldn't imagine my life beyond the war right now. She probably knew anyway. In just a few months both our lives had turned on their heads. After what happened to Beth, and Jayken, and everything we'd witnessed, who knew what the world would be like when we emerged? Who knew what we would become.

And so it all came together. We had our multiple teams, Rojjel at the same site, this time out in the open with the Protector and Terra to defend him from any Staarus forces that might oppose them, as well as another site on Werayne, one where the blockade used to be, one on Aandrigo, and even one on Flauraan. Most of the Machines were nowhere near as sophisticated as ours, and manned by Halapatovians instead of Abigail, but it should be enough. It had to be enough.

Alexa and Abigail both manned the gel matrix, sharing meaningful looks as they plugged in. I took my place again, and locked eyes with Jayken across the room. I realised he was just as worried as I was, despite his bold words in the monitoring room. Well, learning that Lexie was planning to be involved this time couldn't feel good at all.

I struggled to hold onto sentience as we went through all the procedures again. It was as if I was moving automatically, hearing my own voice as if I was outside of myself. Better, far better, than the times my mind shut down and took me with it. But not a pleasant feeling, this haze that I was trapped behind, as the Machine thrummed to life, and everyone poured themselves into this risky attack.

With all the Machines active, it took less time than before for the range to expand to where it had before. And I think Abigail and Lexie had been right, Alexa's powers helped them get a stronger lock on things. They both flinched as the pulses from before started again, and then, they started their ploy, in coordination with the Halapatovians across the Staarus System. Coalescing that staar matter from afar, plunging it into the sources of the signals. The pulsing continued, and suddenly I noticed Jayken flinching too, then shaking violently as if affected by the signals too. Oh no, I realised dully, we'd triggered it somehow, and the signals were having their intended effect, at least on a minor level. But I shoved the fear aside, knowing that we'd half expected this. That it would be almost impossible to affect these signals without some backlash.

We were at the eye of the storm, we had to be. Most of the team here were Weraynians, and though Jayken was the one most obviously affected, I could tell that the others were starting to feel something. I wondered what it felt like, the signal trying to infiltrate their brains. I shook my head to purge my wandering thoughts, focussed on the scanner, on the screens. Abigail and Lexie were doing it! It was working, the signals pushing against each other. I felt giddy. It couldn't be this easy could it? After years and years of suffering to wrap it all up like this? I thought of all the work out there, all the other teams fighting for change in their own way. I'd never felt like I'd done much in my life but make a mess of things, but maybe my Machine could hold off something terrible just long enough for other people to make things better. And Abigail of course, my beautiful, powerful, incredible girlfriend, at the centre of it all. She was stunning, even now, reaching out with her mind, joining the others around the galaxy doing the same. It was wondrous.

Then Alexa started to scream. Not as if something snuck up on her and attacked, but a low, persistent noise, rising each second. As if it was fighting to get out of her, like the scream was a creature of its own and not a sound she had any choice in making. I started to panic, a little, and then I tried to imagine what it was like in Alexa's head, and reminded myself that this wasn't necessarily a bad sign. Understandable to scream, given the situation. We were still under control. Then our signals started to waver, and I whipped my head around and saw people slumping out of chairs, curling into balls on the ground. After a second they joined in the screaming. Jayken fell, hard, and clutched his head. Lexie fell as if yanked by a string. Abigail still stood, shining, plugged into the Machine.

I hurried over to the nearest desk, levelled the appropriate dials, then ducked over to the next. There weren't too many things to fix, a lot of it was preprogrammed. I couldn't risk something being off though.

Then Abigail started to scream too, just like the others, and my heart dropped to my stomach.

I felt like I was in a waking nightmare. It was as if the whole room was on fire and I had somehow been spared from succumbing to the flames, the only survivor. Everyone in the room screamed and writhed. I ran from machine to machine, trying not to visualise the whole world in this madness, Weraynians with their brains burning everywhere, everywhere.

The Halapatovian Machines were still active, as far as I could tell. And we were regaining effect after the brief wavering. Abigail had seemingly doubled her effort, and I could see it on her face. She was pale and trembling, eyes still closed but a fierce look of concentration on her face. She was still upright, but she wasn't here, in the room with me. She continued to scream, the air around her seemed electrified.

Was this how Riowyn felt? When Abi and I slipped into the ghost world and she was the only one still conscious? At least she had her powers, and she could try to pull us back out. I would give anything to be in her position right now, to have anything I could do right now rather than frantically maintain the Machine. I would happily die if it meant that this could be over, that this room, these people I loved, could be safe. That was a really scary thought.

I dared to move over to Alexa, drag her out of the vicinity of the gel matrix, of Abigail. Carried her over to Jayken, made sure they were both still alive. Breathed a sigh of relief as Jayken clutched at my hand and squeezed in response to me calling his name. Watched Lexie relax as well, Glanced around the room, took in Weraynian after Weraynian who was still alive, thankfully. I scrambled back up, watched the signals on the screen, hoping and praying for any sign that we were making any progress, that we could defeat it rather than just holding it at bay.

It was only a few moments before things started to change but it felt like eons. The first Staarus signal source flickered and died, extinguished, within the void of the force field generator we'd destroyed. Abigail took a breath, and then screamed again, more high pitched this time. Another signal, then another, disappeared. The pressure in the room lessened, Jayken lifted his head, though his face was still twitching.

None of this felt real. I couldn't believe my eyes as the final signal - of course it was the one on Halapatov, which other would it be? - was destroyed, and the feedback to the Machine was a cacophany. Abigail gasped and emerged from it all. Sweat streamed down her face, her arms. She swayed on the spot, arms half out of the Machine.

Then she fell. I watched her fall like it was in slow motion. As the rest of the room woke up around us I ran over to her. I rolled her over. She wasn't breathing. Everything was spinning. Even though the chaos from before had stopped the room was still screaming, only for me. I was nine and I was thirteen and I was fourteen and I was sixteen losing my dad, ammi, Aldred, Riowyn forever and they were all her. It was like a part of me had been wrenched out and twisted and stabbed and then returned so I could go through it again. I couldn't think. I had to think. Did CPR work on Paladanians? Her skin was still warm. I couldn't let this happen again. I placed her on her back, tried not to scream as her head lolled back. I placed my hands on her chest and thrust them desperately downwards, hearing bones bend as I tried to maintain a rhythm. I watched her for a response. I had no idea if this was working or I was just breaking her body.

Then there was something. A flicker of life. Maybe I imagined it. The base was havoc around me. I could hear people speaking but nothing was getting through to me. I was so close to saving her. I went to start the next round of compressions and then out of nowhere hands grabbed mine. I looked up and saw Alexa's eyes looking bloodshot into mine. I tried to snatch my hands back but someone grabbed me from behind and I was dragged away from her body. NO.

I kicked and screamed and struggled, watching as other people, people who didn't know her, surrounded her. It was Jayken pulling me back, I realised, and Alexa was following us. I spewed the worst things I could think of at them. How could they leave her? After everything she'd done for them? How could they separate me from her?

"Abi!! Abi!" I screamed and screamed, but she was beyond my reach.

Tears streamed down my face. It couldn't end like this. I'd killed her. I'd killed her. I heard muttering around me, felt a sharp prick on my arm and then I heard no more.

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