"So this was Marlon's weapon?" Maribel asked from beside me.
She stood close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed mine as she stared down at the open box on the floor.
Inside, the Starakian rifle rested against its dark padding.
Even after Marlon had explained what it was, the weapon still looked strange to me. It had the shape of a long rifle, but nothing else about it felt familiar. Its white surface was too smooth, almost like it had been grown rather than built, and thin blue lines ran across the body of the weapon like frozen lightning trapped under the material.
I held it carefully in both hands.
"Yeah," I said. "A Resonance Disruptor. That's what they call it."
Maribel looked at it more closely, though she did not reach out and touch it.
"That thing can kill us, right?"
I nodded.
"Any gun can kill us if it hits the right place. The brain. The heart. Somewhere it can do enough damage before we regenerate."
