The silence that gripped the lower solar corona was more terrifying than the roar of any cataclysm. Forty thousand miles below the Aethelgard’s silver-steel keel, the boiling ocean of golden heat-rising star-fire had ceased its churning. The massive solar prominence arches, looping millions of miles into the black void, stood frozen like bridges of carved amber glass. For five painful seconds, the carrier signal tracking Pip’s living life-signs remained fully flat, a solid line of dead green phosphorus on Kira’s tracking data display.
Chief Szabo stood motionless in the engine trench, his heavy torque wrench hanging limp from his calloused hand, his mouth open in stunned disbelief. Kira sat frozen in her flight seat, tears glistening on her eyelashes. Her fingers shook above the dead control yoke. Beside Arthur, Grimm pressed his massive black shoulder hard against the tamer’s knee, his lone intact ear pinned flat against his skull. His yellow eyes were wide and searching as he stared down through the quartz floor.
“Arthur...” Kira’s voice broke in a ragged, scared whisper. “The carrier wave... It’s still zero. At that chromospheric depth, the surrounding pressure is two hundred billion sea-weights. Even crushed-star matter should collapse...”
“Be quiet, Kira,” Arthur said softly.
