The hangar of the Wrecking Ball was a hive of feverish activity. Jett's crew, now fully committed to their suicide mission, moved with a purpose Leo had never seen in them. They checked weapons, rerouted power, and shouted good-natured insults at each other, their fear masked by bravado.
Leo stood beside the 'Phantom', his own preparation much quieter. He checked his ion cannons, making sure they were fully charged. He calibrated his new shield, its readouts glowing green on the scooter's small monitor.
Kael approached, his cybernetic arm humming softly. He handed Leo a small device, an earpiece that linked to Yuki's Shadow Whisperer.
"This will patch you directly into my tactical station," Kael explained, his voice all business. "There will be no delay. The coordinates I give you will appear as holographic overlays in your vision. You will see the path. Don't think. Just react."
Leo nodded, putting the device in. Immediately, his vision filled with data, a stream of numbers and vectors he didn't understand but trusted Kael did.
"And Leo," Kael said, his voice hesitating for a fraction of a second. "Don't fail."
There was no threat in his tone. Just the simple acknowledgment of what was at stake.
On the bridge, Jett gave the order. "All hands, prepare for the ugliest dance of your lives! Throw everything you've got at the edge of that storm! Make them notice us!"
The Wrecking Ball and its small fleet of salvage skiffs moved forward. They stopped at a safe distance from the chronal storm, a ragged battle line of rust and hope.
And then, they opened fire.
It was an unfocused and gloriously chaotic barrage. Jett's kinetic cannon threw a broken freighter engine into the storm. The engine disintegrated, but its death created a massive energy wave that made the storm flicker. Mining lasers cut through the void, exploding floating debris, filling the battlefield with shrapnel and light.
The reaction was immediate. From its position in the eye of the storm, the Hunter's ship moved. Its priority was to protect the Chronal Anchors. It couldn't allow a lucky shot to get through. It began to intercept the biggest threats, its ship moving with a lethal grace, its point-defense systems shooting down the largest pieces of junk.
"He took the bait!" Jett yelled. "He's distracted! Kael, work your magic!"
"Analyzing harmonics," Kael replied, his voice tense. "The fluctuations are immense. Searching for a window..."
Leo, in the hangar, waited, his heart beating to the rhythm of the distant cannons. The hangar bay door was open, revealing the terrifying and hypnotic sight of the chronal storm.
"Window located!" Kael shouted. "Duration: 4.7 seconds! Leo, now! Go, go, go!"
Leo didn't think. He reacted.
The 'Phantom' shot out of the hangar and into hell.
The moment he entered the storm, the universe became pain. His scooter was whipped by winds of time. He saw his own hand age and turn to dust, then rejuvenate to that of a child, all in a fraction of a second. His mind was flooded with the echoes of a thousand lives he'd never lived.
But Kael's data was perfect. A holographic overlay of a green tunnel appeared before him, a path through the madness. He followed it, his body and his machine protesting under the strain.
"The window is closing!" Kael's voice screamed in his head. "Next coordinate coming up!"
He shot out of the first pocket of calm and back into the chaos, only to find a new holographic tunnel opening just ahead. It was a desperate dance, a leap from lily pad to lily pad in a boiling river of time.
He was getting closer. Through the blur of light and color, he could see one of the massive rings that surrounded the Regulator. Its surface was a smooth black, absorbing the storm's energy. And at its center, the Harmonic Resonator glowed, a pulsing diamond of light.
But the Hunter wasn't stupid. It had seen the launch.
As Leo jumped into his third pocket of calm, the dagger-shaped ship appeared before him. It was waiting for him. It hadn't come to fight him. It had come to close his path.
Its Reality Anchor weapon began to charge. It wasn't aiming at Leo. It was aiming at the next pocket of calm Kael was about to create. It was going to erase his next step from existence.
"He's in front of you!" Kael shouted. "I'm losing signal lock! He's jamming the sensors!"
Leo was on his own. No path. No guide. With his annihilation charging up right in front of him.
He looked at his scooter. At his new short-range displacement drive. His "blink" ability. It was unstable, dangerous to use in a chronal storm. It could throw him into a forgotten timeline or inside himself.
It was his only option.
He closed his eyes, focusing on his target, the glowing Resonator on the Chronal Anchor. He couldn't see a path. But he knew where he wanted to be.
He activated the displacement drive.
The universe folded. For an instant, he was everywhere and nowhere.
Then, he was there.
He had jumped. He had teleported through the last stretch of the storm. He was meters from the Anchor, the Resonator pulsing directly in front of him.
The Hunter's ship was caught by surprise. Its weapon was aimed at where Leo had been.
Leo didn't waste the moment. He fired everything he had. His ion cannons, his EMP, even a small signaling missile Griz had installed as a last-minute bonus.
The barrage of energy slammed into the Harmonic Resonator.
The diamond of light didn't shatter. It flickered. And then, it emitted a single, dissonant note, a high, wrong sound that cut through the storm.
The effect was immediate. The chronal storm, deprived of its tuning note, stuttered. The chaotic dance of time fluctuations stopped. For a single, glorious second, the chaos receded, and a perfectly calm, stable path opened, from the edge of the storm to the Regulator at its center.
They had done it. They had created an opening.
But the shockwave from the dissonant note slammed into the 'Phantom'. Leo's systems screamed in protest. His screen went black. The engine sputtered and died.
He had opened the way. But now, he was adrift, powerless, in the eye of the storm, with a furious Hunter turning its weapon on him.