Chapter 114: Chaos
“Stop it!” Chloe's fists cracked against Ferrill's wooden desk, but her eyes remained fixed on the scene playing out overhead. She didn't even know who she was talking to.
Otto Algreil? But she could feel the panic rolling off him, knew he wouldn't stop because he couldn't.
Rhetta Ferrill? The president had already resolved to die if that was what it took to preserve her principles, had already shown her willingness to kill for them.
Who, then?
Everybody.
She cried, “Stop it!”
But no one listened.
“Madame President, please,” Marcel Avalon was saying, “you must reinstate me now.” I have a plan, he thought. It is desperate and dangerous, but it is not doomed. If I were in command it might yet save the republic and Etemenos. There is no excusing Otto Algreil's crime, and so help me Principle it falls to me to punish it.
But he couldn't, not with any certainty, not without an even more devastating battle.
Her dad was hurling himself against the composite-armored arms of the Marchess Wardens marines lifting him from the deck, shouting for Otto to stop, listen to reason, what the hell did he think he was doing? I know damn well what you're doing, he thought, but it doesn't matter. We don't matter. You think I give a damn if I die here? I've been ready for that for a long time. Maybe you should've thought of that before you let me think we were on death row for three months!
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But he couldn't break free, and even if he did, the most he could accomplish was to change who won the battle.
Milissa Kyrillos was huddling in Chloe's mom's arms, sobbing. The Limiters are starting to break down, she thought, but I can't tell Ellie. She needs to try to be strong so she can tell Rudolf we're alright. He has to think of Her Highness. We all do. B-but, we're not all right. Everybody's so scared, it's too much to block out. And we're right to be scared. We're all going to die here. Chloe was wrong.
Ellie herself simply thought, This is it, then. Jack, Chloe, I miss you. I'm sorry we won't see each other again.
The surface of Etemenos's core crumpled half a kilometer over her head. Ruined blobs of nanopaste rained down, and ruined bodies – then, as quickly as it fell, before anyone even had a chance to scream, the gaping hole into the vacuum began to pull everything it had scattered back toward it.
Errard Zelph, for the first time since Chloe had known him, stiffened in real fear. His eyes widened. He tensed. He bombarded her with his panic. There is nothing you can do. If you try –
But Chloe ignored him.
For a moment, her physical eyes settled on the one person she couldn't read.
But Rudy didn't even look up. He'd lost to his brother again. It hadn't even been a competition. Every bit of progress he'd thought he'd made in life, he saw slipping through his fingers. Chloe didn't have to read his mind to see the shame on his face.
She wanted to tell him it was enough, more than enough, that he'd tried.
But deep down she didn't feel it was.
Trying and failing sounded noble on paper. Lost causes were romantic.
In reality, it all just hurt.
No more hurting.
Stop it, Chloe repeated, and the universe answered.