"I always envied you..."
G5 Iguazu, or what was left of his mind that piloted the gigantic AI-driven AC, says almost solemnly as he dashes at Raven one last time with his green laser blade as the AC fails catastrophically. Despite how advanced it was, Raven knew a doomed AC when he saw one and didn't even raise a weapon before the arm wielding the green laser blade imploded, as did the rest of the AC, "...The freelancer who had it all."
Raven and Ayre watch in silence as the advanced AC explodes in a flash of blue and white, with only a shattered wreck remaining, floating in space with only a single leg, torso and head left. A fitting fate given what he did to Walter...
The surgery that augmented him to what he now was had frozen his facial muscles making it very difficult to express himself. But despite that he almost manages a scowl behind his bandage-wrapped face.
What was there to envy? Here he now stood, on top of the corpses he had slain for the vain hope of getting enough money for the surgery to return him to normal, and the corpses of those he called comrades that he had to betray...
All for the sake of this Coral Release...Would this be it? A chance at peace? A chance of Coral and Humanity co-existing? A chance for the apocalypse the Institute and OVERSEER cynically predicted to be averted without the sacrifice of millions, maybe billions? Who knows? What other choice did he have but to roll the dice?
Ayre senses his bitterness and he feels her look away in shame, or at least whatever the equivalent of a C-pulse wave mutation like her could do. Through their bond, he could feel her own regret at how things turned out, with the deaths of Walter, Carla, "Chatty" and possibly Rusty weighing on them both. All of them were comrades by the barest definition, but comrades nonetheless.
He reaches out to her mentally. It was the closest they could get to comforting each other physically. He had made this choice out of his own free will, he reminds. The burden was not all on her. He knew what he was doing when he made his choices, and now he must bear the burden of doing so.
Compared to the other choices, burning the Coral and igniting a second Fire of Ibis, or perpetuating the endless Coral War with the RLF against the corporations until they could discover another way for humans and Coral to live in peace, this was the only choice that could lead to true coexistence between their races while averting another Fire. By dispersing the Coral through every human in the universe, a Fire will never again threaten the planet, the system, or even the universe as the OVERSEERS feared. But time will only tell what road this choice leads them to.
"O-our plan." Both of them glance towards the wreck of the advanced AC as ALLMIND speaks through it, "Humanity...Creation's potential..."
"We have the trigger. And we'll pull it ourselves." Ayre speaks for the two of them as always, speaking with conviction in her tone.
He agrees, better for them to pull the trigger than ALLMIND, enslaving both Humanity and Coral under its rule. At least this way, when Contact is made with every human in the universe, they still retain their ability to choose. All the free will, with all the uncertainties that come with it.
There was a saying, something he remembered when he read about Rubicon during one of his downtime between missions. Named after a river on Earth, humanity's cradle, associated with a phrase spoken by a general who uttered upon crossing it, 'Alea Iacta Est'. The die is cast. Passing the point of no return, as Ayre had explained to him.
Fitting for where they are now, they stared at the collapsing Coral pump, as red energy began leaking out before the whole megastructure implodes on itself, in its place a singularity.
