“M-Bot, that’s not him!” I yelled.

“Life signs are the same. I cannot see what happened above, but it is the same ship, with the same pilot. It’s him.”

He destroyed another ship in front of my eyes. He was a terror on the battlefield. A disaster of steel and fire.

“No.”

Ironsides and Mongrel fell in together, tailing my father. He shot down someone else. That was four of the First Citizens he’d killed.

“I…” I felt empty. I slumped to the ground.

Mongrel fired. My father dodged, but Mongrel stayed on him—hunting him. Until finally he scored a hit.

My father’s ship exploded in a tiny inferno, the pieces spiraling down before me, raining as burning debris.

I barely watched the rest of the battle. I just stared at the spot where my father’s ship had vanished. Eventually, the humans were victorious. The remaining Krell fled in defeat.

Fourteen survivors.

Twenty-five dead.

One traitor.

The hologram vanished.

“Spensa?” M-Bot said. “I can read your emotional state as dazed.”

“You’re sure this data couldn’t be faked?”

“The plausibility of this record being falsified without my ability to detect? Considering your people’s technology? Highly improbable. In human terms, no, Spensa. There’s no way this is fake. I’m… sorry.”

“Why?” I whispered. “Why would he do that? Was he one of them all along? Or… or what did he see up there?”

“I have no data that could help answer those questions. I have voice recordings of the battle, but my analysis considers it normal battle chatter—at least until your father saw the hole in the sky.”

“Play that,” I said. “Let me listen to it.”

“I can hear the stars.”

I’d asked for it, but hearing my father’s voice again—after all these years—still hit me with a wave of emotion. Pain, love. I was a little girl again, in that moment.

“I can see them too, Cobb,” my father said. “Like I saw them earlier today. A hole in the debris field. I can get through.”

“Chaser!” Ironsides said. “Stay in ranks.”

“I can get through, Judy. I’ve got to try. I’ve got to see.” He paused, then his voice grew softer. “I can hear the stars.”

The line was silent for a short time. And then Ironsides spoke. “Go,” she said. “I trust you.”

The audio cut out.

“After that,” M-Bot said, “your father flew up out of the debris field. The sensors don’t record what happened up there. Then, approximately five minutes and thirty-nine seconds later, he returns and attacks.”

“Does he say anything?”

“I have only one little clip,” M-Bot said. “I assume you want to hear it?”

I didn’t. But I had to anyway. Tears streaming down my face, I listened as M-Bot played the recording. The open channel, with many voices talking in the chaos of the battle. I distinctly heard Cobb shouting at my father.

“Why? Why, Chaser?”

Then, almost inaudible over the chatter, my father’s voice. Soft. Mournful.

“I will kill you,” he said. “I will kill you all.”