Last chapter. The Heaven's Wing

Mercer will keep to the plan and fire.

The war bot’s servos whirred as Corbin, fully locked into its interface, pivoted the machine toward the doorway. Through the bot’s visual sensors, the hallway sprang into sharp, red-lit focus—there, hulking and furious, was the pyrokinetic monster. Flashes of laser fire zipped past it from Mercer and the others, illuminating the smoke-streaked corridor in strobing bursts.

Corbin adjusted the aim reticle for the war bot’s plasma cannon, centering it just behind the creature to account for its next movement. Target acquired. With a quick command, he fired.

The cannon belched a glowing orb of plasma that tore across the room and detonated with a thunderous whump just behind the target. The blast didn’t strike the creature directly—but the shockwave was brutal. Chilled meat, racks of preserved organs, and shattered containment cases from the Cold Storage behind it were obliterated in the explosion. Frozen food and animal remains rained down in chunks, hissing and steaming from sudden heat.

The monster hissed and ducked back, momentarily driven to cover.

Seizing the moment, Mercer stepped out from behind his cover, rifle leveled. He squeezed the trigger, letting out another burst—this time the beams sliced into the creature’s shoulder and side. The thing reeled and howled, ichor-like fluid leaking from its wounds, clearly heavily injured now.But it wasn't finished.

With a sweeping gesture, the monster sent another wave of superheated air toward the war bot. The heat shimmered around the machine, warping the air and curling paint, but the bot’s armored shell held firm—systems remained online, undeterred.Just ahead of the war bot, Douklan ducked instinctively, eyes wide. He realized with a sharp intake of breath that he was directly between the beast and the massive cannon controlled by Corbin. Should I fall back? he wondered, glancing toward Mercer and Hank across the room, both still firing from solid cover. The hallway was rapidly becoming a killing field—and Douklan wasn’t sure he wanted to stay at this side.

Mercerlets out another burst of shots.

Douklan backs up north, away from the corridor, but still taking a shot through the open doorway.

Corbin adjusts his aim, takes a second to calibrate the targeting system. Lines up and fires again.

Yeah, that's better. "Whoop!"

Hank takes another burst shot, hoping against hope ...

Geez ... At least the others are keeping the damage up. I think I used up all my luck in a different game I GM. :-(

Mercer narrowed his eyes, ignoring the heat bleeding from the walls and the acrid smoke thickening in the air. He fired another controlled burst, laser bolts streaking past the flickering red light like slashes of molten lightning. One struck home—right in the creature’s shoulder—blasting off a chunk of its sinewy mass and staggering it back.

From the opposite side, Douklan retreated into the north side of the room, heart pounding. He still kept his rifle leveled, the barrel shaking just slightly as he squeezed the trigger one more time. The shot nicked the beast’s thigh, nothing lethal, but enough to keep its focus fractured, its rage spread thin.

Inside the war bot, Corbin’s fingers danced across his forearm pad, mind syncing with the machine’s systems in practiced rhythm. The targeting HUD flickered green... Locked... "Let’s end this," he muttered.

He aligned the plasma cannon down the hallway. The monster turned just as the glowing coils of the weapon charged with a rising hum. Corbin pulled the trigger.

The blast was thunder.

A lance of searing plasma roared from the war bot’s cannon, engulfing the corridor in a wave of blue fire and incandescent light. The projectile struck the creature dead center—just as it reared back to unleash another pyrokinetic burst.

For a heartbeat, it stood there, framed in a halo of light and fire. Then, with a crack of ruptured bone and a hiss like a dying engine, the beast exploded into ash and gore, vaporized from the inside out. The force of the blast rattled the walls, blowing out a section of the doorway behind it and showering Douklan with sparks and bits of scorched lab-coat fabric.

Silence fell.

Then—

Pew! A single laser bolt whizzed over the destroyed corridor and struck the far wall harmlessly. Everyone turned.

Hank stood there, blinking, rifle smoking. Just trying. =)

---

The nightmare was over. The air still sizzled faintly with ozone as the team regrouped in the aftermath of the battle. The hallways were strewn with debris, scorch marks, and the foul remnants of the monster’s demise, but no more threats stirred. For the first time in what felt like days, there was quiet.

Corbin disconnected from the war bot, his forearm pad dimming as control returned to standby. He gave the lifeless machine a grateful pat before moving to the wormhole machinery. "Alright, let’s finish this," he said, his voice low but steady.

With practiced hands and steady resolve, he unmounted the last components of the wormhole array. The field coils came free with a satisfying hiss of depressurizing seals. Cables, glimmering with dormant power, were coiled and packed. The singularity housing unit—now inert—was lifted carefully onto one of the grav sleds. With the power core and advanced drive components from the Heaven’s Wing already secured, they left.

No alarms sounded. No monsters stirred. Whatever had haunted this place had been burned away.

Together, the battered team moved with quiet coordination, pushing the loaded grav sleds through the dim corridors. Emergency lighting still bathed everything in deep crimson, but even that seemed less menacing now. Erin, limping slightly but alert, stayed close to Maya. Hank checked the rear, rifle still in hand, while Mercer kept pace at the front with sword and rifle both at the ready. Douklan walked near the sleds, watching for any signs of system flickers or traps.

They reached the Heaven’s Wing bay without incident. The old hull loomed in the half-light like a sleeping giant, scarred but waiting. As they crossed the threshold, the tension that had gripped each of them began to ease.

They were going home. And they were bringing back something extraordinary.

The End

When Mercer would retell the story later, he would only tell bits and pieces: how they arrived to a strangely quiet station with the strange feeling of threat and quiet, being hounded by strange experiments, the way they could never let their guard down because they never knew what was coming next, seeing Corbin arrive with that WarBot (which they still had, depending on how you answer the Ship of Thesius theorum), watching for threats, fingers tapping along the hilt of his vibroblade, as the Heaven's Wing was being fixed, sure that there was still something else coming.
And collapsing into sleep when they made it off that cursed station, from exhaustion and wounds.

The crew later made reports to the ITC about what was going on. Mercer wasn't one to go running to get help from power-structures normally, but for something like this.... The things they saw could prove dangerous for the general populus.
....
Of course when the crew handed over all the data they found: the datapads and data tower and storage unit, Mercer told the truth, that was indeed everything they found..... Maybe he should have mentioned they made a backup of all that info but....
Well what they found, and what they did with it ... That was a whole story for another time. But he did feel better knowing that there was a copy of all those records... And that strange tech... Not in the hands of the ITC.

Mercer changed after that, after the strangeness in the Zyronis underworld with Peter and the impossible things on the the Cursed Station, and the things they found on Altairia when they came by to trade (that was the excuse) and ended up spending time to help Captain Governor Valeria Zaytsev (where those nanobots in his system ended up being useful). Before he joined her crew he thought he had seen a lot, and to be fair for any normal person he had, but since then he witnessed, touched, fought and talked to impossibilities.
He flew through the void in one, visiting and trading on new planets, with new people. The Heaven's Wing, when they got it all those years ago, was already near-unmatched. In those years since, it has become something un-replicable. A mix of ancient, lost tech and cutting-edge possibility. (Mercer had made the mistake of asking Corbin how it all worked together once and ended up only understanding about one-tenth of the explanation.)
He became one too. An impossibility.
He became more than a little obsessed with meeting the might of the things that had threatened his crew and nearly killed him. The first changes were external: more advanced armors, an incredibly dangerous sword, and his ancient, radiant Force Pavice. The rest of his crew had similarly advanced armorments, custom to their needs and styles. He had gone further than the rest of them. He kept the work going, on himself; becoming something new. Between RB(who did end up being fixed, and eventually upgraded), Maya and VIREN they were able to use information from the Cursed Station and some ancient tech they found to find safer, less unstable, genetic modifications. Then later he added a mix of advanced, and a couple more mundane), bioware modifications. (As a bonus the Heaven's Wing has a cutting edge medical facility from the small fortune he poured into it.)
As he explains it he is as much the person he used to be as any of us. His changes have just been reflected outwardly.

His investment on Zyronis were the first of several; most of them profitable. But trading was still his main source of income. He had been burned on more than one deal, but overall... Well the things he has been able to do with his wealth speaks for itself.

Though there is one more place his wealth has gone; not investments or trades or strange advancements. Back home, in the Undercities of New Jordan; there were some changes, less desperation. Between Mercer and Slaine there were several more targeted charity facilities: food, shelter and medical care made available to the kids that grew up as desperate as they once were. After all, you don't make it out of a pit just to leave others in it.

Other than that there were the stars. The infinite mysteries held in the ancient places and new reaches, all the things that light revealed and shadows concealed. To touch them was to touch the infinite, to leave a mark was to become part of it.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Its been a few years since the adventure where they were able to claim the Heaven's Wing, and the core crew still occasionally reminisced of that adventure. However, they have had several new adventure in those years, and there have been new members added to (and lost from) the crew in that time. All of it treasured by Hank.

He thinks of how he has changed. Going from a wanna-be research student who no one but Valeria was willing to hire, to the captain of the Heaven's Wing. He learned so much from her and the others who helped him gain the skills needed along the way. Even with so much to still learn, he is amazed at how far he has been able to come. And with relationships established over those years, the Wing now had a strong hold on the trade corridor between Zyronis and Astralon.

It didn't hurt that he was able to gain even more control over his psychic powers. Not too long after the Heaven's Wing adventure, he was able to really start understanding the power and really begin taking advantage of them. While only able to provide subtle benefit, it was enough to be able to give the crew of the Wing an important edge over their competition and enemies.

And Astralon! Hank thinks back to the end of their first trip there. He was so glad to finally be able to make it to Astralon and talk with Evelyn again. The progress made by Evelyn, Mariella and their team was impressive given that they had the chance to research with direct physical Elder artifacts. The discoveries made were amazing, even if only for helping clear up historical questions. And he even finally got to find out what the purpose of his pendant was! That was a truly exciting find!