"Then we don't waste time on the margins," Gwen said, her voice a sharp, lethal chime that cut through the silent hum of the room. She turned her head slightly, her golden eyes locking onto her children. Her jaw was set, a rigid line of absolute determination that had carried her through a hundred sector purges. "Kael. Luna. Stay behind my line."
"We can't, Mother," Kael said. His voice was too deep for his small frame, carrying that heavy, multi-layered resonance of the vacuum. He stepped forward, his left socket flaring with a violent violet static that spilled down his cheek like a tear. "The white things... they are already inside the sequence. They aren't waiting for the gate to open."
"He's right, Mother," Luna whispered, her fingers already twitching with ancestral lunar balm. "The air... it tastes like lime. They've bypassed the primary dampeners."
