Chapter 35 · Wake the Monster

The recall core wasn't the kind of thing you could just shut down with a button.

I knew that the second the file stopped rolling. Senna was still staring at the screen like maybe if she looked hard enough the timestamp would change, the orbital trajectory would be wrong, something.

It wasn't.

Victor's core was already up there. Spinning quiet in high orbit, waiting for whatever signal he'd rigged to pull every Starfire ghost out of the dark and into the light. He didn't need my black box. He didn't need Echo. He just needed time.

And we were out of it.

"How long?" I asked.

Senna didn't look away from the screen. "File says it launched six hours ago. Standard relay buoys pick it up in another four."

"So we have four hours."

"Less." She finally turned. Her face was locked down tight, but I could see the crack running underneath. "Once it pings the network, every fleet node in three sectors gets a clone of the data. You can't kill it after that. It's everywhere."

I leaned back against the wall. My ribs still hurt from the last round of running.