Page 81 of Phoenix's Last Heist
I curl my filthy, sweat-soaked body around the transceiver like it might help put me back together.
“Orion,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry. I forgot to tell you about how to find Vega—I should’ve helped you out before I erased everything. I wasn’t thinking! I didn’t mean to?—”
“I found him,” he says, and that’s all. No lecture. No anger. Just quiet truth, steady as his hands.
“You should be back on Xylothia,” I admonish, my voice watery beneath my tears.
“I couldn’t just leave, Lyra,” he says with a sigh that perfectly encapsulates how doomed and inevitable this was. “I won’t. Not until you tell me to go—and really mean it.”
My face crumples, and it feels like every nerve is raw and singing with pain.
“I drag ruin behind me, Orion. I’m like a parade leader steering supernovas of destruction in my wake! You don’t know what it’s like being me. I don’t know how to be anything else,” I sob, quietly breaking in this room of forgotten, useless things.
“I know exactly what you are,” he insists. “And I’m here. I’m still here.”
There’s silence on my end now, but it’s not empty. It's full of everything I can’t say: the comfort of his breath in my ear, the ache of memory, the way the stars never seemed worthreaching for until he was there beside me in the cockpit, his hand brushing mine in the dark.
“I don’t want to run anymore,” I whisper, the enormity of it sinking into me like a too-big bite of food I’m struggling to swallow.
“Then don’t.”
Ada chimes in, gentle, like a candle lit between us.
Secure channel established. Lyra, I am initiating preliminary intrusion into Brill’s security system. I require access to a local node.
I wipe my sleeve across my face, fingers tightening into something that almost feels like resolve.
“There’s a sub-panel near the eastern wing. It’s here on the maintenance level that I’m already on. I can reach it,” I sniff.
“I’m going to patch you through to Vega,” Orion says. “He’s got a plan for getting you out of there.”
Thank the stars.
I lean back, the sound of Orion’s breathing still in my ear, and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I’m not just hiding. I’m moving forward.
From the crawlspaceabove the garage, I watch an entire galaxy of villains arrive.
The ships come down in gliding arcs, flaring their retro thrusters and disgorging passengers like dribbling retinues of entitled vomit. Buyers, bodyguards, high-stakes parasites in polished boots, sweeping capes, and expensive jackets—move through the docking bays with that slow, entitled grace that says they’ve never bled for anything, never wanted for anything.
I track them through the vents, through slits in rust-streaked grates, their faces half-lit by the pulsing overheads and the stuttering crimson glow of exhaust lights.
The scents of ozone and engine grease rise up to my hiding place, and I can feel the vibration of landings in my ribs. The landing bay and garage are twin hives of activity—cargo lifts grind and ascend to the upper floors of the compound, voices echo in languages I half-recognize—the laughter a little too sharp, a little too loud. With a prickle of unease, I notice there are weapons absolutely everywhere. Plasma rifles slung loose over shoulders, elegant daggers and plasma pistols holstered in places of pride. It’s alarmingly lethal on the guards and mercenaries, but hilariously ostentatious on the buyers who’ve come to bid.
Void Stalkers are out in full force now, running patrols, scanning manifests, barking orders no one dares ignore. I count at least three new craft bearing Triumvirate insignia—one from Mallorus, even.
Hmm. I wonder if Fobos is here.
Beneath me, two guards pause near the service station, arguing quietly over whether I’m still in the compound. One of them says Brill’s upped the bounty again, adding another million credits. The second guard suggests my pussy’s the priciest thing for light-years around, making the first guard laugh like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. My fingers tighten against the grate, but I don’t let myself react.
Instead, I breathe—shallow, controlled. Every inch of me is pressed flat against the metal, watching. Waiting. I know what’s coming. Vega explained that the blackout’s been timed down to the second. Ada will trigger it. Orion will be in position, hiding in Vega’s otherwise empty cruiser. Vega’s already here, masquerading as the kind of buyer who traffics in people. His fake idol is still with a faction of Void Stalkers, quietly feedingdata to the by-the-book Feds who have to put together a case before they can so much as sneeze.
Even though I know it’s a ruse, disgust leaks from my pores and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Vega’s plan is meant to extract me, sure, but for as long as I’ve been crouched in these damn air ducts and ventilation shafts, I haven’t been able to work out what else is being auctioned off. Or who else is being auctioned off. With all the millionaire, billionaire, trillionaire assholes arriving to purchase people like cuts of meat, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to burn the whole fucking thing down.
Maybe that’s a dream for another day.
For now, I’m above it all, tucked into the stars-forsaken shadows, sweating through desert and exhaust-fueled heat. Through the copper-smelling dust coating me from head to toe, I’m finally bearing witness to the last calm before the chaos I helped design.
Despite everything that’s at stake and my habit of nervous, rumbling intestinal distress, I’m remarkably calm. Maybe it’s the dehydration, or the days with only scraps of food, or the fact that either we’re going to succeed or we’re all going to die. Whatever it is, I’m grateful for the oddly out-of-place sense of peace. There’s a finality to everything that feels…comforting, somehow.
