You left.

  So stop acting surprised it hurts.

  Stop counting the days like they’ll add up to something.

  Phoenix can burn flesh back into shape, but it can’t burn grief out of me. Fuck, Luna… I miss you. I miss being “Ma.”

  I spiral for a few weeks. Then one day I’m on the floor of my Stormbreaker cabin, back against the bunk, a new bottle in my fist—Wolf across from me while we wait.

  There’s a holo-screen floating between us, paused on some stupid old Earth shooter—bright colors, cheerful violence, a soundtrack trying way too hard to be fun. His controller sits in his lap, forgotten. Mine’s under a pile of empty glass.

  I open the bottle and drain half in one go. It’s not drinking at this point. It’s survival.

  [BLOOD ALCOHOL INDEX: LETHAL FOR BASELINE HUMANS BY 34000%.] Valicar says from the chestplate on the bench.

  [PHOENIX METABOLIC OVERRIDE ACTIVE.]

  “Shut up,” I slur.

  Wolf’s grin flashes in the dark. He’s been drinking too—cheeks flushed, blue eyes too bright, loose-shouldered in that way he only gets when he’s past careful. The grey synthetic fur on his shoulders ripples as he moves, turning his armor into a predator’s pelt.

  “Look at you,” he says, almost admiring. “You’ve almost killed the whole reserve.”

  I lift the bottle at him in a lazy salute. “Good.”

  He snorts. “A drop of what you’re drinking would’ve put an elephant on its ass.”

  “Yeah?” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Good thing my father made me impossible to kill.”

  Wolf snorts. “Yeah—and now you’re a semi-functional drunk. Congratulations.”

  I glare at him. “Fuck you.”

  He’s already smiling. “Remember that time on Earth when you snuck out and we had to drag you back?”

  My stomach dips at the old memory.

  Wolf breaks into a laugh, sharp and honest. “You were crying like a little bitch and throwing up in the gutter, begging us not to take you back.” He tips his bottle at me. “Just like you are now—like it was ever anyone’s choice but your daddy’s.”

  My jaw tightens. “That’s not—”

  “It’s exactly,” he says, still grinning.

  Wolf leans back against the wall, boots out, armor half-open. “You know what else is funny?”

  “Everything’s funny when you’re being an asshole,” I mutter. “That’s why I’m laughing.” A small chuckle slips out—mostly breath. “Go ahead. I earned it.”

  “You’re not laughing, Sol. You’re doing that thing where you cry and pretend it’s the alcohol.”

  My eyes burn. I blink hard until the sting turns into heat, until it can pass for anger instead of grief.

  “I’m fine,” I lie.

  Wolf’s smile doesn’t move. “Sure you are.”

  I laugh once—broken. “Don’t start.”

  “Oh, I’m starting,” he says, voice sharp in the way only drunks can manage—too honest to be polite. “Because I’m sick of watching you do this.”

  I stare at him. My hands shake around the bottle.

  “You left,” he says. “So stop acting like somebody did it to you.”

  My jaw tightens. “You don’t get to—”

  “I get to,” he cuts in. “Because I kept my end of the Captains’ deal. Orders, promises—same thing. I honored mine. Now honor yours.”

  I go still.

  He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and taps two fingers against his chestplate—slow, deliberate. “I watched you play house for a decade. Watched you pretend you were a normal girl. Watched you get soft.”

  My throat closes. I smell Luna’s hair in my memory. The weight of her against my ribs. Alkek’s hands, shaking, trying to hold a future together.

  Don’t.

  Don’t let him drag it out of you.

  Wolf sees it anyway. He always does.

  “Yeah,” he says, quieter, nastier. “There it is. That look. Like I’m the villain for saying it out loud.”

  He takes a swallow and wipes his mouth with his wrist. “You want to talk about pain? You want to talk about ‘what you had to do’?”

  He gestures around the cabin—empty bottles, armor, stars outside the viewport.

  “You’ve been complicit the whole time,” he says. “Drunk or not. Crying or not. You wore the crown when it suited you and hid in a bottle when it didn’t.”

  My hand flexes. Glass creaks.

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did,” he says, laughing like it’s the punchline to a joke nobody else gets. “You think Young built that church alone? You think Lion wrote your myth by himself while he commanded armies in your fucking name?

  “You were there. Every holo. Every speech. Every staged miracle. Every propaganda reel—before the Republic died and after it got rebranded as the Imperium.

  “You stood in the light and waved. You smiled. You let them kneel—same as you always have for dear old Daddy. You let the cameras love you while you were disgusted with yourself.

  “Sol… you let trillions die and kept waving for the cameras. You can hate it, you can drown in it—none of that makes you innocent. You’re the same kind of evil as Knight. The same kind of vile as Julian.”

  The words land one after another, each one a shove.

  I swallow hard. “I didn’t ask for any of it—the legacy, the power, the goddamn beauty. I know I’m fucking evil.”

  Wolf’s eyes narrow. “Self-deprecate all you want, Sol. Doesn’t change what you did. You wanted quiet so you could forget the bodies, so you took a man. Had a kid. Built a little world where nobody asked questions. And now you’re drowning in self-pity like that makes you innocent. Stop. It’s pathetic for a Voss.”

  Silence.

  Valicar hums softly on the bench.

  I try to breathe and the room tilts. The alcohol hits, Phoenix eats it, and the emptiness comes right back—raw and immediate.

  My voice comes out small. “I just… I miss her.”

  Wolf’s face cracks for half a second—something human behind the cruelty—then he seals it back up with a smirk.

  “Yup,” he says. “Of course you do.”

  He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “But you don’t get to do this part like you’re the only one who loses.”

  My eyes sting again. I hate him for being right. I hate him for saying it.

  “You got ten years,” he says, and it’s a blade. “Ten. Whole. Years.”

  He taps his knuckles against his chestplate. “You know what I did for that same decade?”

  I don’t answer.

  Wolf’s grin turns ugly. “I sat on a quiet ship and watched you live. That’s what I did.”

  He lifts an empty hand and starts counting on his fingers.

  “Trained. Tinkered with my gear. Played video games. Watched old Earth TV until I wanted to put my fist through the screen. Sat on my hands so I didn’t ‘accidentally’ interfere with your little Haven fairytale.”

  He takes another drink. “Bored out of my goddamn mind.”

  I flinch at the word. It’s petty on purpose.

  “You had a bed,” he says. “You had food. You had a man who loved you. You had a kid who thought you hung the moons.”

  My throat makes a sound like it’s trying not to break.

  Wolf points at me again. “And now you’re in here acting like a fucking victim because you chose to leave.”

  I can’t look away.

  “I didn’t choose to leave,” I whisper.

  Wolf’s smile goes flat. “Sol.”

  “You did,” he repeats. “You chose the galaxy over your daughter. You chose the war. You chose your father’s board.”

  His voice drops. “Stop whining like someone stole her from you. You walked out.”

  My mouth opens. No words come.

  Say something.

  Hit him.

  Do anything but sit here and take it.

  Instead I tip the bottle back and drink like I can drown the truth.

  Wolf snatches it out of my hand mid-motion, faster than I can track when I’m this wrecked. He holds it up out of reach.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I’m not your nanny. I’m just done watching you turn grief into an excuse.”

  I try to stand. My legs forget how. I end up half-laughing, half-sobbing, sliding back down the bunk.

  Wolf crouches in front of me, close enough that I can see the faint web of old scars around his jawline.

  “You want the truth?” he asks, low. “You’re not a bad mom because you left.”

  I go still.

  He watches me carefully, like he’s aiming.

  “You’re a bad mom if you leave and then spend the rest of your life pretending you didn’t choose it.”

  The words hit harder than anything else he’s said.

  Wolf stands, sets the bottle on the bench near Valicar—out of reach—then tosses my controller into my lap.

  “And you know what?” he adds, voice lighter again, cruel for sport. “If you’re gonna be the monster, then be the monster. Stop crying about the blood on your hands like you didn’t pick up the knife.”

  He turns back toward the holo-screen and unpauses the game like the conversation is done. Gunfire fills the cabin.

  Then, without looking at me, he says, casual as a slap:

  “At least you got to have a family for a decade, Princess.”

  He clicks the controller and reloads. “You wanna know what I got?”

  His character steps out of cover—and I snipe him clean through the skull from across the map.

  Wolf’s face pinches like I just offended his ancestors. He exhales, respawns, and mutters—almost smiling anyway. “I got you. Even when you kick my ass.”

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  Then he looks over at me, eyes bright. “I’m glad you’ve got a heart, Sol. Now grow a fucking pair.”

  I snort. “Phoenix could do that too?”

  Wolf deadpans for half a beat—then lets out a short laugh. “Give it ten minutes. It’ll probably print you a set if needed.”

  I laugh once—sharp and busted—before I can bite it back.

  Something grabs us.

  [CITADEL JUMP FIELD: CONTACT.]

  For half a heartbeat the stars smear, the cabin goes thin, and then everything snaps back into place.

  The canopy clears.

  And there it is.

  We didn’t move.

  The Citadel did—dragging a whole solar system into existence around us.

  It hangs there like a nailed-on crown, black alloy and gold seams—until my eyes catch the star at its heart.

  A blue supergiant burns at the center—too bright, too close. But the High Citadel doesn’t flinch. It cages the star in mirrors and lattice and treats it like a fuel line—sunlight for the worlds, power for the war machine. They call it the Heart of the Galaxy, but it’s Lion’s playground now.

  The worlds left inside the web aren’t here to be lived on. They’re here to work—forges, refineries, barracks—habitats tuned for labor, not comfort. Anything that didn’t serve the machine got cut loose a long time ago. The only planet that exists for luxury is mine—Paradise—because even monsters need somewhere pretty to pretend.

  And the work shows. Millions of ships—some half-born frames, some scarred veterans—getting built, retrofitted, or thrown through drills in tight spirals and live-fire lanes.

  If it were automation, it would be clean. This isn’t. I can’t see the crews from here—not really—but I can feel them in the way the lanes move, in the little hesitations and corrections no machine would need. And I know what the galaxy looks like up close—silicon and carbon, water-worlders and gas-giant natives, fungoid and lithoid. Different bodies. Same labor.

  Everything and everyone gets a place… as long as it’s useful.

  But what good is a “conventional fleet” against something that can erase stars?

  What good is metal and doctrine if the Elders can turn physics off like a light switch?

  Farther out, past the old asteroid belt, I see it—a ring. Six interlocked bands wrapped around the whole system, a collar of metal. From here it looks solid, seamless, engineered… as if somebody forged an orbit and welded it shut.

  And my brain keeps trying to do the math and failing. An asteroid belt doesn’t buy you this. This is too much mass, too much structure—enough to make me wonder how many moons, how many planets, how many stripped systems it took to feed it.

  Ships are everywhere—millions of hulls running lanes along the bands, crawling over the surface. In the black between them my enhanced eyes catch the real work: billions of probes, a haze of tiny flecks swarming, welding, weaving—building something so big I can’t tell if it’s meant to protect the system… or kill whatever comes near it.

  Valicar pings in my peripheral, calm as ever.

  [ARRIVAL CONFIRMED.]

  [CITADEL SYSTEM: STABLE.]

  [PRIMARY STAR: BLUE SUPERGIANT — OUTPUT REGULATED VIA DYSON ARRAY.]

  [FLEET PRESENCE: EXTREME.]

  “Yeah,” I mutter. “I can see that.”

  The Stormbreaker drifts toward a bay tucked into the Citadel’s spine, and everything about the approach is insultingly smooth. The station doesn’t just dock you—it places you.

  Mag clamps kiss the hull. Pressure equalizes.

  Wolf and I make our way to the cargo bay.

  The ramp drops.

  The filtered air hits my lungs—nothing like home.

  Haven stank of smoke, animals, and wildflowers. I loved it. Real air. Real life. The parts I didn’t deserve.

  I didn’t miss this place.

  Wolf steps out first. I pause at the threshold. After Haven, the Citadel feels like a machine dressed up as a cathedral.

  I walk down the ramp and the bay lights wash everything into sterile-white. Drones skim past with sealed crates. Yard crews move in disciplined lanes. Guards hold position, alert and unmoving. Behind glass walls, the machine shows itself in flashes—alien labor teams in marked uniforms, human techs with clipboards, Rue bodies slipping through maintenance mouths. One quiet rule stitched through all of it.

  And there are eyes on me. A lot of them. Whispers trailing in my wake, heads turning, people slowing just to stare. Damn. Maybe I should tell Valicar to put the disguise back on.

  Wolf glances back at me. “Hold it together, Princess. Nobody here gives a shit that you ‘miss the simple life.’ We need the xenos loyal. Slaves are cheaper than robots. So put on your saint smile before you break the illusion and Captain purges them all.”

  “Fuck off,” I mutter. “You think I don’t know how to play the role after doing it for decades?”

  He smiles wider. “That’s the spirit.”

  [CITADEL SECURITY: PASSIVE TRACKING ENABLED.]

  [WEAPON STATUS: GREEN.]

  [PUBLIC FEEDS: MINIMAL IN THIS SECTOR.]

  We start walking.

  The corridor is black alloy and gold seams, built to make power feel holy. Through the glass, the Citadel keeps flashing pieces of itself—the blue supergiant caught in its mirror-cage.

  We round a corner and the corridor widens into a chamber with guards posted at every arch.

  Wolf slows half a step. His voice drops. “He’s here.”

  Ahead, a set of doors stands half-open—old Senate bones dressed in new gold. Through the gap I catch the curve of the chamber, the tiers, the dais—and Young’s voice riding the room.

  “—the Princess of Humanity has returned,” he’s saying, crisp and practiced. “The final war is approaching. And soon a new god will rise—a real god—not the false Elders who kept you chained for millennia.”

  The crowd eats it up. Applause rolls in waves, timed like breathing. Drones hover overhead, lenses greedy.

  Then Lion steps out—no doubt fresh off his own firestorm.

  Gold armor bright enough to sting, hammer riding easy at his side, deep-red Rue silk cape thrown over his massive shoulders, dragging behind him like a banner.

  Of course he still wears it.

  The Last Knight of Earth.

  Better than the Golden Heretic, I guess.

  He stalls in the doorway for the cameras, gives them their myth, then turns as if he’s been waiting for me the whole time.

  The doors start to close behind him, cutting off Young mid-sentence—something about immortality for all.

  The seal hisses. The applause becomes a muffled ocean.

  Lion spots me and something in him brightens—subtle, arrogant. Like: there you are.

  He reaches up and unclasps the cape like he’s done with it. The red silk slides free. He drops it into a guard’s hands without looking.

  The guard snaps it up and hurries it away.

  His visor turns toward me.

  “Highness. Wolf.” There’s warmth in it, more than I’m ready for. “Good to see you both.”

  Wolf gives a lazy nod. “Captain.”

  Lion’s head tilts a fraction, and his first question isn’t about the Hive or fleets. Hell, it’s not even about me.

  “How is my niece?”

  My feet stop.

  Heat climbs my throat. “So you were watching.”

  “Of course,” Lion says, like I accused him of breathing.

  “You promised—”

  “And I never interfered,” he cuts in, flat and certain. “Did I?”

  The anger wants somewhere to go and finds nothing. He’s right and he knows it, and I hate that more than the spying.

  I swallow. “She’s alive. That’s all you get.”

  He nods once. “Good.”

  I stare at him. “Is that all you wanted?”

  Lion’s voice stays calm. “I kept our deal. Now you keep yours.”

  Welcome back to the leash.

  I force air into my lungs. “Where is he?”

  Lion pauses a beat longer than normal, and it feels like he’s choosing words instead of reciting them.

  “Father is finishing his work,” he says. “The final Gryphon node is coming online.”

  “Enough with the cryptic names,” I snap. “Tell me what it is.”

  “All in good time,” Lion starts.

  “No,” I say. “Now.”

  For a moment he just looks at me, visor reflecting my face back in gold.

  Then he gives me enough to keep me moving.

  “Gryphon is a lock,” he says. “Not on borders—on rules. Twelve stabilizers across the galaxy, including the one you just saw them building out there—Dyson-fed, singularity-anchored. Inside Father’s domain, reality-bending tech just dies.”

  Wolf whistles under his breath. “There it is.”

  Lion keeps going like he’s explaining gravity to a child. “Physics behaves. Dimensions stay put. Time stops being a weapon. Once Gryphon seals a timeline, it stays sealed—even if something reaches backward, this reality stays where Father put it.”

  The pieces slide together in my head so clean it makes me sick.

  “That’s why you’re building fleets,” I say. “You’re forcing them into a conventional war.”

  Lion lets out a short laugh, almost pleased. “Of course. Gryphon takes war away from gods and hands it back to soldiers—guns instead of nukes, fleets instead of star-killers, men and steel instead of miracles. Higher dimension or lower, it doesn’t matter. Father sees it all through the Aether Lens. Even your ascension sits inside his calculations—the closest thing to fate ever engineered. It scares the shit out of the Elder scum, Type Four or not. All xenos will kneel to humanity.”

  A cold weight settles in my gut.

  My eyes drop to the hammer. “And ours? If you take their god-weapons off the table, doesn’t it take ours too?”

  Lion lifts the hammer a fraction, not threatening—just reminding.

  “Father built the anvil,” he says. “He left me the hammer.”

  “You’re saying you can ignore the lock,” I say.

  “Not ignore,” Lion corrects. “Function within it. Authorized corridors. Exceptions.”

  My mouth tightens. “Cyclops.”

  Lion’s tone shifts by a hair, almost playful. On him it feels wrong.

  “Yes,” he says. “Cyclops. It governs the local speed limit for light—raises it or drags it down. Drop the limit around our enemies and their sensors choke; their targeting turns to syrup. Raise it for me and my systems can match the new ceiling. It’s a runway.”

  I swallow. “Without anchors, that throws you forward in time.”

  “Temporal anchoring pins causality,” Lion says. “I can move beyond the limit without slipping sideways into the future.”

  “And your hammer?” I ask. “Mass control was already stupid. But if you’re rewriting the light-limit—”

  “It means I don’t hit things,” Lion says. “I arrive.”

  He taps the hammer like he’s bored.

  “My hammer was reforged from exotic matter in a neutron star’s heart. Dragon keeps my shields up, so I can take the speed.” He tilts his head. “Anything past light cuts through warp-veils—through any shield that bends reality or time.”

  “Great,” I mutter. “So you can hit the un-hittable—really fucking fast.” I look up at him. “You’re exactly what Dad always wanted, Leo.”

  “I am what Father built to protect you,” Lion says, and it lands wrong in my chest.

  Protection, he calls it. Possessive is what it feels like.

  He tilts his visor a fraction—almost amused.

  “And I’m nothing compared to what he built for you,” he adds, calm as scripture. “Leviathan makes the merge… clean. The perfect throne for a Queen Node.”

  Leviathan.

  The word sinks in like a hook.

  He turns, and the conversation ends because he decided it ends.

  “Come,” Lion says. “Your quarters are ready. We jump to Father next.”

  “How long?”

  “Within the hour.”

  Wolf falls into step beside me, smirking like he can smell my dread. “You’ve got sixty minutes to sober up and pretend you’re excited.”

  “I’m gonna drink more,” I say.

  Wolf’s grin sharpens. “That’s my girl.”

  We make it maybe fifty steps before Lion peels off. “I have to prep the jump,” he says like it’s a chore, then he’s gone—gold disappearing into the Citadel’s arteries.

  Another hundred steps and a staffer in a spotless uniform intercepts Wolf with a clipped salute and a datapad. Wolf skims it once, mouth twitching.

  “Cute,” he mutters.

  “What?” I ask.

  He jerks his chin down the corridor. “Eagle wants to catch up.” His blue eyes flick to mine. “Later.”

  Wolf starts to turn, pauses just long enough to smirk. “If you start sobbing, don’t let the cameras catch it. Last thing I need is people thinking I’m friends with a crybaby.”

  I roll my eyes. “Get lost. With the way you treat your friends, it’s a miracle Eagle still wants to see you.”

  He’s already laughing when he disappears around the bend.

  The corridor feels bigger once he’s gone. Without Wolf screening me off, the looks stop being distant and turn into bodies edging closer—close enough that I can actually hear them. Footsteps slow. Whispers rise. A few people notice me as they pass. One bows—“Saint of Suns.” Another presses a palm to her chest and breathes, “Phoenix Eternal,” like the words might keep her alive. Then someone else says it louder, trembling: “Princess of Humanity.” The title spreads down the hall in little bursts, and suddenly it isn’t admiration anymore. It’s need.

  They start asking—soft at first, then braver. A woman with raw hands lifts her sleeve to show a burn that never healed right. A man clutches his ribs like pain is a leash. Someone shoves forward a small wrapped bundle that shifts and whimpers and I can’t even look long enough to see what’s inside. “Please,” they say, again and again, in different languages, different bodies, the same plea. Heal me. Bless me. Touch my forehead. Do something. Anything. By the time they’re close enough that I can smell antiseptic and sweat, I’m not hearing titles anymore. I’m hearing the chain inside them—how tight it is, how badly they want it to be real.

  I’m such a fucking fraud.

  [ETA TO JERICHO RENDEZVOUS: 00:58:11.]

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “I know.”

  Instead of following the main route to the quarters Lion assigned, I peel off into an older wing to get the hell away from everyone—quiet, diplomatic. The kind of place they used to park me when they wanted me polished and harmless for negotiations.

  The door recognizes me before I touch it.

  [DIPLOMATIC SUITE: ACCESS GRANTED.]

  It opens with that soft, expensive hiss.

  The suite is exactly how I remember it: warm light, thick carpet, a wall of glass framing the blue supergiant and the mirror-web like a painting.

  And the bar.

  My stash is still there: a neat line of bottles—some ancient, some alien—each one a small fortune. I stare at them and feel the relief hit first.

  I left myself a way to vanish.

  I pick the darkest one and crack the seal. The smell hits—rich, sharp, sweet—strong even for me. I drink straight from the bottle and feel Phoenix kill the burn before it can become mercy. So I finish it, toss it aside, and grab another.

  Then I head into the bathroom. It’s still obscene—black stone tub, mirror-glass wall, fixtures etched with alien script.

  I take another pull and stand there a second, surrounded by all that polished, expensive quiet, thinking how easy this place makes it to disappear without ever leaving.

  There’s a tray on the counter with fresh towels and a little gift note stamped in gold that might as well say: Don’t embarrass us.

  I snort. The suite is stocked and waiting—Lion knew I’d come here instead of whatever room he “assigned” me. I set the bottle down and twist the faucet.

  Water pours out perfect. Steam rises fast.

  I strip without ceremony—boots, belt, underlayers—and let it all hit the floor in a heap that would scandalize anyone paid to care. I set the little piece of Valicar that still counts as a chestplate on the floor beside the tub.

  The mirror catches me for half a second: red eye, blue eye, knife ears, white hair too long, a body sculpted into a pretty little weapon.

  Not now.

  I step into the tub and sink until the heat climbs to my collarbones.

  For a minute, even the Citadel holds its breath. The star burns behind glass. The mirror-web shifts.

  I reach for the bottle again.

  The first sip is for courage. The second is for spite. The third is because my hands won’t stop shaking unless they’re holding something.

  Don’t picture her half-asleep—Pip under her arm—blinking up at me like I’d never leave.

  That was the last night I tucked her in.

  The last kiss on her forehead.

  The last time I let her believe it meant morning.

  My throat tightens.

  I sold my soul twice and still couldn’t manage to be a good mother.

  The universe burned while I played house, and I let it.

  I stare through the steam at the blue supergiant and think about Luna’s laugh.

  I drink slower, as if that’ll slow the countdown.

  Less than an hour until I see him again.

  Not my dad—just a copy of his consciousness. The version that didn’t make it. The one who failed to ascend.

  The Citadel vibrates somewhere in its bones—power moving, systems aligning.

  I know what that means. Lion’s about to drag all of this through space again. It’s been a decade, but getting yanked out of reality will never stop feeling wrong.

  I set the bottle on the tub’s edge and watch condensation crawl down the glass.

  Then I let myself have one stupid breath where I pretend the silence is Haven—bread in the air, a child asleep in the next room.

  And the thought I’ve been dodging finally catches me.

  Fuck. I’m going to have to merge soon.

  Leviathan.

  Lion said it like a warning and a promise. Said it was a throne. A throne for a Queen Node.

  So what is it—some command center? An interface? A cage dressed up like a crown? Something built to keep my mind intact while the Hive tries to peel it open?

  I’ll find out soon enough.

  I open my eyes.

  The star is still burning.

  Time is still moving.

  Valicar hums, small and final.

  [CITADEL JUMP FIELD: SPIN-UP.]

  [JUMP IMMINENT.]

  My fingers clamp on the tub’s rim until my knuckles bleach.

  “Here we go.”