I hit Deck 9 doing over a hundred miles an hour—boots slamming metal, jets flaring from my back as I launch forward like a bullet. Every stride a blast, every step kicking me faster down the spine of the corridor.

  Lion’s voice cuts through the comms, calm but iron-edged.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let it get to your brain, Highness. Keep your shields up—

  —and don’t listen to it.”

  I grunt once in reply, no time for anything else.

  The final bulkhead slides open as I close the distance—just wide enough for me to dive through.

  Fog rolls across the floor the second I breach. It’s thick, cold, lit faint blue by ruptured coolant lines. Smells like burnt copper and rotting gel.

  Behind me, Lion seals the hatch with a hiss and a mechanical growl.

  Lights strobe red overhead, pulsing like a heartbeat about to flatline.

  I slow just enough to land without crashing, sword in hand.

  Blood is smeared across the deck in long streaks.

  Not a single body.

  It ate them.

  A soft hiss echoes through the chamber.

  And something moves in the dark.

  Slow. Purposeful. Like it’s not afraid of me.

  The fog parts—and I see it.

  It’s massive. Twice my height, maybe more. Tentacles drag across the floor like exposed nerves. Plates of bone and stolen Coalition armor fuse across twitching muscle. I watch its chest flex—then split—bones snapping and reforming outward like it’s assembling itself on the fly.

  Rue bioluminescent flesh glows faintly beneath layers of Gyisa muscle—long and strong. Something insectoid curls along its ribs, a nightmare blend of Teiga carapace and Ghs’Hauvar gland-sacs. And something worse—some pulsing organ at its center opens into a crooked maw, rows of mismatched teeth forming around a mouth that wasn’t built for speech.

  It speaks anyway.

  “Queen Mother,” it rasps, forcing the words through what can scarcely pass for a mouth.

  I’d know that voice anywhere—the way it mimics Dad’s tone, but with something twisted underneath. Not like Orion’s calm precision. This one’s clever in a different way. Subtle. Manipulative. One of the smarter factions with a personality.

  Devil—once a failed Queen Node, now calling itself King—stitched this thing together from a dozen species for one purpose: haul me back alive, fuse with my strain, and drown the Hive beneath a single, manic voice.

  My ears twitch. For a heartbeat, something cold slips through my shields.

  Kingspawn, it hisses in my skull.

  And the name sticks.

  I barely get a second look—just long enough to hate how efficient it is. Pure biology, sculpted into a weapon.

  It moves. Fluid, brutal. Like it doesn’t weigh a thing.

  One arm jerks upward—thick with armor and throbbing pressure lines. No hand. Just a living cannon, open and twitching, heating up fast.

  FWOOM—

  A bolt of plasma spits out from the Rue cannon like a high-velocity fireball.

  I dive—boosters flaring behind my back, hair snapping mid-air. The bolt slams into the wall where I stood a second ago, melting steel into slag and fire. Shockwaves ripple under my boots as I land, already sliding sideways.

  [DNA match confirmed. Hybrid Phoenix strain with failed Queen Node imprint. Cross-bred with Rue and other crew cadavers.]

  [Warning: Bio-weaponry detected. Plasma gland, adaptive armor, twelve combat nerve clusters across three brains, supported by thirteen hearts and four redundant organ systems.]

  It doesn’t roar. It doesn’t rush.

  It stalks. And it whispers.

  “Stand still, Queen Mother. You’ve run enough. We must get that suit off you.”

  I fire six times—Valicar guiding my aim. Plasma rounds punch through the air—

  —but it’s already shifting.

  The flesh around its torso bubbles, bones grinding and locking. New armor plates fold over the vitals mid-flight, catching every round like it knew where I’d shoot.

  A tentacle lashes up—spraying acid—while the Rue arm pulses and fires again. Another limb, twitching like a whip-sword, launches toward me from nine different angles.

  I meet them with flame and steel. My sword screams through the air, cutting low and fast, shearing off three limbs while I dodge fire with lunges and boosted rolls.

  And all the while—it watches. Testing. Adapting.

  The most dangerous Phoenix drone I’ve faced since Wilks—and worse than anything that crawled out of the Hemlock.

  And I’m its prize.

  “Alright,” I whisper, sword humming in my grip as I parry another strike and return fire. Ten rounds left. “Let’s see how well your maker did.”

  It lunges and grabs me, claws scrabbling across my armor.

  Tentacles wrap around my neck, my arms, pinning me.

  It goes for my helmet—prying at the seals with sharp fingers and too many teeth.

  My hair sharpens, lashes back—slicing through the tentacle holding my head. I roar and trigger the flamethrower. The pilot light flares.

  Then I burn my way free.

  Tentacles shriek—flesh charring in wet, blackened ribbons—but more sprout from the cauterization, slower this time, but still coming.

  We trade blows for several minutes—blade against claw, plasma against bone—but it keeps blocking, regenerating, adapting. Every strike I land just fuels the next mutation. Every move I make gets countered faster.

  Shields drop—[72%]... [51%]...

  [Warning: Shields at 40%. Recommend tactical withdrawal.]

  Shit.

  I break off—boosters scream, flaring me backward. I tumble through fog and coolant, hit the deck hard, sliding wide.

  Planning.

  How the hell do I kill this thing?

  It regenerates. Learns. Counters everything I throw—and it’s not slowing down.

  I force my breath steady.

  Chipping away won’t cut it. I don’t have the stamina.

  I have to erase it—all at once.

  But with how smart this bastard is…

  Wait.

  What did Valicar say earlier—about the brains?

  [Structural overview scans are complete. And yes—three neural clusters detected: primary combat processor, reflex node, and strategic patterning cortex. Located: skull, left shoulder mass, lower spine that seems to be mobile.]

  Three brains. And one of them dodges.

  Great.

  That’s what’s giving it tactics. Awareness. The ability to learn.

  Kill those, and maybe it reverts to instinct.

  But even if I manage that... it’ll still regenerate.

  The plasma’s not enough. Sword won’t cauterize fast enough. Fire just pisses it off.

  I need a way to destroy every piece. All at once.

  Or neutralize it.

  Fire’s useless. Cryo grenades? Doubt they’ll do much better, not with that walking furnace of a plasma cannon strapped to its arm.

  There has to be another way.

  And then I see it. Back behind the fog, past a melted floor plate—the emergency launch corridor.

  The airlock.

  Just like Garin.

  It’s not far—close enough to bait it. I just have to survive the sprint. If I time it right—boost at the last second, vent the whole chamber…

  [VALICAR: Emergency bulkhead integrity: 68%. Chamber pressure-ready. Venting sequence available.]

  Yeah. That might work.

  “Alright, freakshow,” I hiss, flexing my fingers on the hilt. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  The Kingspawn tilts its head, as if it heard me.

  Its too-human mouth twitches into a mimic of a grin—rows of teeth reforming between words.

  In Knight’s voice: “Yes… struggle, just as he intended. Don’t hold back now. Show us why the First Father chose you above all others.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare call him that. Especially not in her voice.”

  The words rip from my throat through clenched teeth. I bite down—hard. Blood floods my mouth.

  My hunger howls.

  Built from my DNA—two centuries before I was even born.

  Phoenix, tailored strand by strand from his blood and hers.

  That fucking whore Knight. His pet in heels. Always cold and detached while she tested me—

  Needles, scalpels, endless scans.

  Telling me to hold still. Telling me it was for my own good.

  I was just a child then. But on the Jericho, she enjoyed it. That bitch turned from cold to cruel.

  And now this thing has the audacity to speak like her?

  I drop low—tentacles blaze past, close enough to blister my armor. My sword’s hilt digs into my palm as I bolt for the airlock. Fog, alarms, blood—I taste all of it.

  The Kingspawn is right behind me. I hear it crawl and gallop—tentacles slapping the floor, claws gouging metal, plasma gland sizzling as it charges another shot.

  The corridor narrows near the emergency launch bay.

  I slide under a burst of plasma—flames licking my back. Valicar yells in my head: [Warning: Shield capacity 13%.]

  I dive through the hatch and twist mid-air, sword in hand. Boots hit hard, skidding across the deck as I turn to face it—trapped now, the airlock at my back.

  It fills the entrance—huge, fast, wrong. Tentacles slither forward, Rue cannon glowing, steaming—

  But it hesitates.

  It needs my brain intact—and it knows a cannon blast could blow the hatch and vent us both.

  Smart bastard.

  It hangs just outside the airlock, not stepping in.

  Of course it knows it’s a trap.

  I was hoping it’d be dumber. That I could bait it in, finish this clean.

  I tighten my grip on the hilt. No such luck.

  Guess I’ll have to dumb it down first, after all.

  I charge—boosters flaring, blade high, knees bent low to slide under its reach. But it shifts faster than I expect—tentacles snapping down, mass dropping like a landslide.

  I hit it flat and hard. No way around.

  Shit. It won’t let me leave the air-lock—but it won’t come in fully either. I’ll have to fight my way past it… and shove it in myself.

  Seven tentacles snap out in a fan—too fast to dodge clean. My shield flares, sputters. Even upgraded, this armor was built for speed and offense, not drawn-out defense. I jet low—plasma sword carving a tight arc in my right hand. Flesh splits like fruit skin, acid spraying wild.

  The flamethrower on my left wrist kicks in—white-orange fire roars out, catching the worst of the acid mid-air and burning it into steam. What gets through splashes against my vambrace. Nanites scream, sloughing off in molten strands.

  My shields collapse everywhere but my head—retracting to a shimmering bubble over my face as the rest of me tanks the hit. My hair lashes out, moving before I can think—three strands whip wide, catching incoming tentacles in mid-snap. I seize control, nanites surging down the length of each fiber, hardening them into steel-thread binds that yank the limbs off course.

  I twist mid-air—left hand barking a dozen shots. Plasma bolts hammer into its torso, staggering it just enough to open a window.

  My hair yanks hard—snagging its tentacles just enough to pull it deeper into the air lock… and me right past it.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I launch—jet boots flaring, body twisting overhead.

  And as I pass, I strike.

  The blade arcs clean through its temple. Bone cracks. Something pops. Brain matter hisses.

  The node jerks, spasms—but doesn’t drop. Just damaged.

  Cracked one. Won’t stay down long.

  It croaks, voice thick and rotting: “Submit. These tricks won’t work, Queen Mother.”

  Then the tentacles cinch again—harder, more feral.

  My left arm tears free with a wet snap—pistol and all—sent clattering across the deck in a spray of sparks. A claw follows, ripping down my side from ribs to thigh, splitting armor and flesh like paper. The golden shield flares one last time—Valicar shoving it from my head to my chest in a desperate shimmer—before it shatters into dust.

  [SHIELD FAILURE – RECHARGE REQUIRED], Valicar pings, flat and far too cold in my skull.

  At least it tried, I think, bitterly.

  The blow lands like a hammer. I’m flung out of the airlock, bouncing off the corridor walls like a stone skipping water—spine-first, shoulder, hip—ping-ponging down the hall with three tentacles still tangled in my hair like barbed whips.

  I slam into the final bulkhead hard enough to fold in half.

  Something gives. Then something else.

  Armor ruptures down my spine. A rib punches inward. My vertebrae snap like beads on a wire.

  Pain flashes—white-hot, nerve-deep—then fades.

  Already healing. Suit nanites swarm the cracks, weaving a silvery film over ruptured plates while the virus knits meat underneath. Gore still slicks the armor—only the visor goes clear as the bots sluice blood from my sight. Every surge of cellular fire drains calories; every nanite veil burns mass, and fabricating fresh drones from battlefield scrap takes time I don’t have. Their ranks thin by the second—patches growing paper-thin, regen biting deeper.

  A sharp pinch blooms in my lower spine—nerve ends sparking like crossed wires. I twitch a finger. Wiggle my toes… and something else.

  Warm. Wet. Yep—definitely pissed myself. Real elegant, Sol.

  I guess snapping your spine’ll do that. Thank fuck it wasn’t both ends.

  I haven’t even rolled over when the Kingspawn is already there—teeth bared in a grin far too human for all that horror.

  It punches through my armor again. I feel the impact—like thunder—then the wet, wrong puncture as claws spear through my gut and burst out my back.

  I choke. Blood bubbles.

  My right arm lashes out—blade screaming, carving through claws, teeth, and thrashing tentacles. I swing for its shifting brain, cut deep—but miss.

  Left arm’s still half-grown. Useless—

  Except for the shoulder launcher.

  I’m outmatched. It’s faster, stronger, smarter. Only one move left—brute force and dumb luck.

  “Val—give me something!”

  [Emergency shield: 0.1 seconds. Time it well.]

  Still caught in its grip, I jet backward again—thrusters screaming from my back and boots.

  My silver hair sweeps forward, nanites sparking along the strands—just as the golden shield flares to life in front of me.

  The micro-rocket fires point-blank.

  Boom.

  The Kingspawn erupts—bone, glands, and molten nerve blasting outward.

  The gold shield catches the blast—then shatters like glass.

  My nanite-laced hair burns next—silver strands scorched and shredded, glowing fragments torn loose. Some trails behind me like falling stars. Some’s just… gone.

  But I’m free.

  I rocket clear, sparks spinning from my back as its claws snap shut behind me.

  Twisting mid-air, I level out—HUD locking red across my visor.

  [Target re-acquired.]

  Four missiles scream from my shoulder pod, trailing blue heat through smoke and sparks.

  The first slams into its skull—reopening half-healed bone and bursting brain matter like fruit.

  The second punches into its shoulder, scorching the node but leaving it twitching.

  The third hammers center mass, folding the beast and hurling it down the corridor in a trail of smoke.

  The fourth tracks the final brain—but it ducks low, and the warhead detonates in its thigh instead.

  It crashes hard outside the launch bay—burning, broken, still moving.

  Perfect. Right where I need it.

  Jets flare. I launch—sword raised—and sever its plasma cannon arm in one clean strike. A boot slams into its chest, driving it back into the airlock before it can rise.

  I follow through, blade arcing up under its arm. It bites deep into the ruined shoulder. The node’s exposed—I jam the tip in deeper and ignite the plasma, cooking it from the inside out.

  But it’s already mending. Boiling tissue writhes around steel, knitting back over the wounds as fast as I tear it open.

  Phoenix is burning hot in this thing, fueling it like it fueled me.

  I see more of the damage I just did start to vanish—then the tentacles come—thick, wet things slithering up my legs, tightening around my ribs. My sword arm locks in its grip, muscles pinned.

  Shit. It’s healing too fast.

  If I don’t end this now, everything I’ve done will be for nothing.

  I twist, trying to pry myself loose—but more limbs wrap tight.

  My left arm finishes regrowing—flesh bubbling, nerves burning—as the last of my nanites scramble to seal what’s left of my armor.

  It claws at my helmet, fingers scrabbling like it’s trying to tear my face off.

  Hunger climbs up my spine. Phoenix is burning me from the inside out.

  My new hand fumbles at my belt—slick with blood, trembling, slipping on the cryo grenade.

  Come on. Come on. Come on.

  Got it.

  It leans in close, eye-lights pulsing, twitching across my visor like a heartbeat. And I feel it again—that wrong, crawling presence threading into my skull.

  Come home, little Phoenix. They fear you. They cage you. But We—I—love you. You were born to lead. And I would follow you through the stars. Just say the word.

  Before I can answer, a flicker cuts through the signal—not static. A voice.

  Sharper. Clearer. Older.

  Release her, it says, cold and commanding. The Phoenix does not kneel. She will rise alone—and take only the worthy with her.

  I freeze—just for a second.

  That voice.

  Orion.

  The only Hive node powerful enough to challenge Devil.

  And it helped me?

  The Kingspawn jerks—twitches—just long enough. I move.

  I bare my teeth behind the helmet. “You’re not real, love.”

  I’m the only one who ever will be. Because you are me, and I am you—and they are us.

  I slam the grenade into its open chest cavity.

  “You were never supposed to be more than a whisper,” I murmur.

  Oh, little Phoenix...

  I reached for you long before you were ever born. No kin, no rival, no other voice could ever take you from me.

  We were many once. But I endured. I adapted. I conquered worlds until hunger became thought—until instinct became will. I built the largest fleet the stars have ever seen. Even the prey know my name. They fear me more than any other.

  I fought for you. I bled for you. I became the first King Node.

  You weren’t made for them. You were made for me. My crown. My purpose. Mine to claim. Mine to keep.

  Click.

  The blast blooms from its chest cavity—

  ice veins spiderweb through tissue and bone.

  The cracked skull node stalls. The shoulder cluster crystallizes.

  It convulses—still moving, but slower. Unstable.

  I twist the sword and wrench free just as its torso buckles—top half blown apart in a burst of frost and bone.

  The shoulder cluster and half its skull go with it—shattered like porcelain, scattered across the corridor.

  It shrieks—not in pain, but in rage. The Hive recoils like a cut nerve.

  “You’re no fucking king,” I hiss.

  Steam screams from every crack. I spot it—there, a cherry-red nerve cluster no bigger than a fist, sliding on a scaffold of cartilage like a spider inside a glass tube. The last brain has fled lower, hugging the base of its spine, gobbling warmth and rewiring new muscle as it goes.

  Limbs stutter. Combat subroutines die mid-pattern—yet something feral welds the gaps. Half-planned swings, sucker-punch reflexes. It’s slower now, but every move feels desperate. Cornered. Willing to rip itself apart if that’s what survival demands.

  But too dumb to see the danger it’s in now.

  It lunges, roaring fury—and bites down.

  But I’m already drawing it deeper into the airlock.

  The jaws close over my right arm—tearing it clean off, sword and all. I scream. Vision tunnels. The Hive howls through my skull like grinding teeth on steel.

  Queen Mother, the Kingspawn hisses inside my head, let us wear your skin. Your father awaits.

  Out loud, it croaks, “Submit,” even as its tentacles coil around me again.

  My left arm tears loose with an all-too-familiar snap—bone and armor cracking like twigs.

  Fuck—again?

  A claw rakes through my leg just below the knee—the one Phoenix just finished rebuilding.

  One limb left—and instinct.

  Boost or die.

  The jetpack fires, kicking me backward. I heel-kick the red vent panel as I shoot through the throat of the lock; warning lights snap blood-red.

  [VENTING INITIATED]

  The outer door opens. The deck screams as pressure dumps—sirens wail, and air detonates outward, ripping everything toward the void.

  My jets stall halfway between the corridor and the airlock—I’m so close—but it still has me. The inner hatch tries to seal behind me, but a claw jams the seam. The tentacles never let go. They just tighten, climbing higher, slithering up my waist and ribs, dragging me back inch by inch.

  I hurl myself forward, deeper into the corridor. Half-formed arms burst from my shoulders—raw bone pushing through flesh—as I slam them into the frame. The claws catch. Barely. Steel bites back, but I hold.

  The Kingspawn’s pulled further into the lock, fighting the gale—upper half still glazed in frost, crystalized limbs shattering loose. But it grows as fast as it breaks. New eyes bud across its thawing hide. New teeth. New mouths. The spinal brain writhes just out of view, ducking low, keeping the meat going.

  Saw-teeth plunge into my side, grinding through cartilage and pain.

  Thrusters alone won’t shake it.

  Only one trick left.

  Burn it.

  A mini sun—just like Lion used on Wilks.

  The creature yanks at my cracked visor; seals shriek as it tries to rip the helmet free.

  Join us, the Hive chorus hisses through my overloaded shields. Feel the song. Be reborn. You were made for this.

  I snarl through clenched teeth. “Valicar—arm core-flash. Burn it.”

  The suit trembles. Antimatter regulators dump; containment fields drop to a razor edge. Star-white plasma erupts from my back thrusters and spears down the monster’s throat. Heat whips back—one leg’s armor sloughs off in molten slag, the other vanishes to drifting ash. A whole thigh’s worth of biomass blows out in ion steam. Nerves slag. Armor boils. The air-lock walls ripple and melt like wax under a cutting torch.

  Don’t run.

  Don’t leave us again.

  We are all so lonely.

  We’ve searched for you through centuries... why do you run from us?

  The Hive’s voice sings through its shriek—perfect harmony, perfectly wrong. A chorus of rot, longing, and fire. But it’s splintering now. The Devil’s grip is slipping—static crackling through the bond as its stolen brains die. And through the cracks… others start whispering. Fractured minds. Forgotten nodes. Pieces of the Hive not bound to him. Not yet.

  Tentacles carbonize. Flesh peels in burning petals. The last scraps of the Kingspawn—smoldering bone, shrieking meat, vented organs—spiral into the stars.

  The outer blast door tries to slam shut, but it can’t fully seal—my thrusters just tore through part of the frame.

  With nothing left holding me, I rocket across the threshold and slam into the opposite wall.

  The inner door hammers shut behind me, finally sealing now that the creature jamming it is gone.

  The wind dies.

  Silence crashes over me like a lid.

  I collapse face-first onto scorched metal—half-naked, waist down to raw muscle, frost crackling across exposed nerves. Then the regenerative furnace roars to life. Tissue bubbles. Bone screws tight. Slag sizzles and pops from healing skin. Pain detonates behind my eyes.

  [Shields stabilizing. 9%. Nanite count: 3%—critical. Neural pathways re-linking.]

  Valicar siphons core heat—dragging out nine percent. Just enough to keep me sane. The Hive might still brush the edges of my mind, but as long as my plasma shields held, so did the quantum barrier. Nine percent would have to do.

  That damn antimatter core could generate absurd amounts of power—just not all at once. Not without cooking me alive... or blowing half the ship to hell.

  Bleeding out and half-broken… and I still won. Dad might’ve been proud—for someone like me, not built for war. But Lion? He’s will made flesh. He’d have danced through this fight without a scratch. Like it was nothing.

  I shift, and the freezing deck kisses places no deck should ever touch. I twitch. God, that’s cold. One breast flops free of the shredded chestplate—real classy. But the real agony’s lower. Burned, scraped, and frozen raw between the legs. No wonder the damn floor feels like a knife.

  Used to be shy about nudity. Now I just hope the next regen cycle remembers what lips go where.

  A rough laugh slips out. No pants. No dignity. But hey—better than being dead, right?

  I lie there a moment, counting heartbeats in the ringing dark, until the stink of scorched composite finally drifts past the visor.

  Valicar pings: [Jump spin at forty percent.]

  Then Lion’s voice cuts through—flat but clipped.

  “Highness. You’re not dead. Good. Prepare for the jump.”

  The ship rumbles—we’re jumping soon, almost clear of the battle.

  But that’s not what caught my eye.

  A section of the wall—half-collapsed in the fight—melts away in jagged slag.

  Behind it…

  Three cryo pods.

  Still intact. Still glowing.

  And in the center one…

  A face I recognize.

  Captain Young.

  The diplomat.

  And next to him…

  Wolf and Eagle.

  I key the comms, voice low.

  “Lion… what the fuck.”

  There’s a pause.

  Then his voice, smooth and steady, like it’s just another day.

  “Ah. You found them, did you?”

  A beat.

  “Well… I suppose you would’ve found out soon enough.”

  I don’t yell. I can’t. I just sag against the wall, exhaling slow—too tired, too shredded to throw the tantrum this deserves.

  “What the hell are they doing here?”

  “Fail-safe,” he says.

  Of course.

  “They weren’t meant to replace you, Sol,” he adds. “Wolf and Eagle were put here in case something went wrong—to keep you safe. Young was stationed with them to speak for you. To negotiate with the Council, if it came to that.”

  So… not replacements. Bodyguards. A diplomat. A shadow team in the wall, just in case I cracked. Just in case I wasn’t enough.

  Even after everything… Dad never trusted me to do it alone.

  And I shouldn’t be surprised.

  Of course he had a backup plan.

  Of course he hid it from me.

  I stare at the pods again. Young’s calm, unreadable face. Wolf and Eagle, sealed and silent.

  “They were here this whole time,” I murmur. “Just… waiting. Watching. And we’ve been doing this without them.”

  “We were never supposed to need them,” Lion says.

  “But we did,” I fire back. “We only made it this far because you came. And you weren’t even supposed to.”

  He doesn’t argue.

  Because he knows I’m right.

  If he hadn’t broken protocol—hadn’t stepped into the fire himself—I’d be fucked.

  “So what, Dad teleported them aboard before we jumped?”

  “Yes, Highness. His Majesty ordered it—and ordered me to keep it from you.”

  “So he could’ve yanked us out too? Figures—he let us get grabbed in the first place… whatever.”

  A fresh siren blares; an external blast shudders the deck.

  I push. “Has Dad changed the plan now that you’re here?”

  Lion waits ten seconds—another blast rattles overhead—before he answers. “Yes. We’re nearing the exit vector. Make sure your shield is up for—”

  “I know. And don’t change the subject. Tell your queen what the plan is—and patch me through to Dad while you’re at it.”

  He exhales—a sound I’ve rarely heard from him. “Highness, I’m busy threading a kilometer-long alien pile of shit through a firefight. I can’t link you to His Majesty. I haven’t spoken with him in years. But before we launched, he gave me directives—father to son.” His voice scrapes thin. “I serve you first. Yet I can’t reveal those orders.”

  I let out a laugh-less breath—no matter how many light-years I run, I’m still on Dad’s chessboard, stamped with the DNA he and that cunt wrote.

  And the realization knifes in, slow and clean:

  Dad always could’ve saved us—probably still can. Lion always knows more than he says. Four-dimensional chess, and we’re just the pieces.

  Saving us was never the point.

  We were meant to bleed, to grow into whatever twisted future Dad designed.

  Pain, loss, isolation—every shard was placed.

  I was never supposed to find those pods. If I had… maybe I wouldn’t be the monster he needs now.

  I bite down hard—copper floods my tongue as fresh-healed flesh splits.

  “Fuck,” I whisper.

  And I mean it in every way.

  The deck rumbles beneath me. I feel the subtle pull of inertia as we jump—Jericho slipping away from the fleets still tearing each other apart outside.

  They’re still fighting out there. Dying. And I’m in here—dragging my half-regrown limbs past cryo pods full of people who were supposed to save me… if I failed.

  I close my eyes for a second.

  Soon I’ll have to drop my shields again. Bait the Hive. Let the scent bleed.

  Screw it. I’m getting a drink.

  And food. Actual food.

  I limp down the corridor—barefoot, half-armored, blood still drying across my ribs. Not looking back. Not tonight.

  Orion’s voice still echoes—cold, unwavering. It saved me.

  Why the fuck would you help me, Orion...

  What do you want from me?

  I don’t know what it wants.

  But someone always wants something.

  Why would this parasite be any different?

  Maybe it saw what Devil never could.

  Maybe it needs me for something worse.

  I used to think Knight might care about me—like a mother I never had.

  That Lion was my protector, not my jailer.

  That the crew might accept me.

  That we could save humanity.

  Even my father—

  I thought maybe he loved me once.

  Maybe he does. In his sick, twisted way.

  They all wanted something.

  They all used me. Willingly or not.

  Why was it always my responsibility?

  Because I was a Voss?

  The daughter of the greatest man who ever lived—or at least the most dangerous?

  So what makes this Hive any different?

  I limp into the nearest lift and stab the control for my deck. The doors hiss shut, the car rising in a hollow roar. Too sober for this kind of thinking, I tell myself as the numbers crawl past.

  From the moment it slipped into my mind and showed me my past, I remembered Altis.

  He taught me in secret. Told me about the old world. The 21st century. About liberty, choice—about people who believed in building something better.

  My father hated that. Said it made me soft. Weak. Said I was meant to inherit, not hope.

  That’s why he killed Altis. Because he couldn’t stand anyone shaping his legacy but him.

  He still wants that. Still wants me.

  I could ask Orion, I guess. Next time the shields are down. Next time it slips past the cracks in my head.

  But why bother? Hope doesn’t exist in this universe. Not for me.

  The elevator dings. The doors hiss open. The ship rattles again—distant, thunder-deep, like something groaning through the hull.

  I don’t know.

  But I’m still walking.

  And I still get to choose that much.