The world dissolved into a scream of twisted space and blinding blue light. For Tia, the ninety-second channel had felt like an eternity of agony watching her comrades fall one by one, seeing Resmond's final, sacrificial act, feeling the searing gaze of the galactic-eyed serpent burning into her soul.
The pull of the teleportation was violent, yanking her through a void that seemed to resent her escape.
With a final, bone-jarring THUMP and the sound of shattering crystal, reality slammed back into place. The acrid scents of blood and ozone were replaced by the sterile smell of antiseptic, stone, and oiled metal. The chaotic roar of battle gave way to a sudden, ringing silence, broken by alarmed shouts.
They were in the Forward Outpost's Secure Receiving Chamber—a small, circular room of reinforced stone, etched with concentric circles of teleportation-stabilizing runes that now smoked and flickered, spent.
