The lift exhales at the base, and the air hits different—colder, denser, laced with a hundred layered scents. Half of them are delicious.
My hunger twitches. The meat in front of me is starting to look better by the second.
The wardens wait—silent, precise, each one packed with rare nutrients, complex gene patterns, the kind of biological variance Phoenix would love to sink its teeth into. When I step out, they part without a word—half melting into the chamber’s edges, the rest locking in behind like a living exoskeleton.
And then I really see them.
Not just with my eyes—through spectrums I usually keep buried. Ultraviolet bleed. Heat signatures. Residual pheromones. Ghostly biosignatures tangled in shadow. Some had been cloaked, veiled by camo tech or biology—but now I can tell.
There are more of them than I realized.
My vision hones. Skin tightens. The scent of alien life presses from every direction, thick and rich. Phoenix stirs.
Fuck. I need to eat again. Soon.
Kael steps out first, eyes on his slate, fingers flying across it as he reads. He leans in slightly, voice low—whispering in English, a language most of the galaxy would never know.
“Spine Three—a private suite has been secured for you and Lion. Councilor Vorathel will join you once you’ve settled in.”
He hesitates, then jerks his chin toward the opposite hall.
“Press overflow’s to the right. Full circus after your little stunt… so just—don’t look that way.”
My stomach growls. Loud.
“Make sure there’s food,” I mutter. “And something strong to drink.”
He glances back—just a flicker, disgust buried under practiced respect. Or fear. Probably fear. He nods. I turn left.
Young peels off at the threshold, juggling three glowing slates. “I’ll handle the press. They’re circling like sharks, and someone’s got to pretend we’re still the sane choice.”
He walks backward a step, eyeing me. “Let Lion do most of the talking with Vorathel. He was one of Earth’s best statesmen—but this is the Galactic Council now. Lion makes people kneel. Vorathel convinces them they want to. So don’t provoke him. And never—ever—underestimate him."
Lion snorts behind me. “He’d give you a run for your money, Young.”
“We’ll see,” I smirk. “I’d hate for you to end up out of a job.”
Young waves without looking back, already halfway to the overflow. “Not likely.”
We move—me, Lion, and half the escort that brought us here. The rest peel away down a cross-spine, banners and orders tugging them elsewhere; the noise of command is already rising—boots, clipped voices, the hiss of opening vents. Light-strips chase ahead under our feet; the walls are glassed alloy banded with sigil-lit ribs. Star-wash from the blue giant filters through a high vein of windows and breaks across Lion’s gold like frostfire.
Too much movement.
I glance at Lion. He’s walking close. Closer than he has in a long time. Not casual—protective.
Something’s wrong.
The guards still flanking us—those who didn’t peel off—are tense. Twitchy. Fingers hovering near triggers. Eyes too sharp. One flinches when my gaze touches him.
“What’s going on?” I ask across the neural link.
“All is well,” Lion thinks back, voice like steel just before the clash. “Just walk. Stay calm.”
“Cut the shit. You’re shielding me with your body and these guys look ready to jump. Tell me the plan.”
He exhales—and the file lands.
It flares across my HUD—bright, sharp.
Takeover orders. Every hallway, every body, every second accounted for. I’m looking at a quiet coup.
I slow.
It isn’t just the guards. The whole station is shifting. Civil departments hollowed out—clerks, schedulers, mid-levels quietly replaced by new faces answering a single encrypted chain. Access keys rewrite mid-step. Corridor doors relock on different hands. Surveillance routes fold. Even the airlocks answer to new credentials. The old staff still exists—technically—but disarmed, sidelined, watched. Prisons once “mothballed” wake without fanfare. Holding rooms for dissidents. Soft disappearances.
Food lines, energy grids, water filtration—rerouted through a sealed layer only Vorathel’s people can touch. Hangars too: drone traffic reassigned, cargo checks looping through a new command spine. Docks and spaceports already wearing different colors, different flags.
By the time anyone notices, the station has changed hands.
“The vote passed,” he says. “Vorathel has emergency power over the station—and the Council. His troops are moving into place now.”
I blink. So this is a purge.
“Not yet,” Lion replies. “A replacement—for now. His guard outnumbers theirs three to one. They’re locking comms, shields, power. Once we’re clear, the handoff completes.”
“And these?” I flick my eyes toward the guards around us.
“Still loyal to the other four,” Lion answers. “That’s why we need privacy. Can’t have babysitters clinging to our every step while history’s being written.”
The corridor bends left— and I see them.
Not the same guards.
A new formation waits—sleek black armor edged in Vorathel’s blue-gold, standing at attention in perfect silence, weapons lowered but ready. The light from the spine windows catches in their trim like veins of fire.
“Captain,” the point man says, calm as a lock. “We’ll take it from here.”
The old guard tightens. A beat of hesitation.
Our escort captain sets his jaw. “That wasn’t in any briefing. They remain under our protection while they’re on our station.”
Tension ripples down the line. The escort is a patchwork of blocs—most hands half-drawn, wavering—while the Iron Blood, almost to a man, clear their weapons fully.
“You’d yield our post to a single bloc detail?” an Iron Blood sergeant snaps, voice rough, visor ticking my way. “Under whose authority?”
A new voice answers from the fresh line as a human steps forward, bare-headed, fine red ink framing his eyes. “Under Emergency Resolution Forty-Two,” he says. “Vorathel’s.”
I know that face. Msv’au—Vorathel’s advisor, the highest-ranking human in the galaxy. Not merely descended; manufactured, back when Earth was a backwater on the edge of Rue space. Olmec stonecutters into Sumerian courtcraft; Zhou scholarship braided with Kushite ironwork. Engineered, crossbred, raised to think like an empire—someone’s idea of a perfect human. My father thought he’d done better.
“Careful, Highness,” Lion murmurs across the link. “Even a dog can be bred to outthink a wolf.”
Ocean-Tide inhales like a hymn is a shield. Meridian holsters; Orpheline unmarks. Vorathel’s trim doesn’t so much as twitch—and then heat-haze ripples as half a dozen cloaks drop, ghosts stepping into his line while a few stay unseen but sight in. Half the escort peels off in a breath; what’s left is mostly Iron Blood and Ocean-Tide—angry, outnumbered, suddenly alone. Phoenix growls low in my ribs.
Lion tilts his head, mild, almost affable. “You don’t want to be the reason the Last Knight is late to his own meeting, Captain.”
The Iron Blood captain’s jaw works.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He cuts a glare across Meridian and Orpheline as they ease back, then flicks to the wavering Ocean-Tide. The liquid behind their helmets hides the uncertainty—but I can see it.
“Cowards,” he spits. “All of you.”
He reads the field—the dead cameras, the numbers, Lion’s shadow—and makes the calculation his pride doesn’t want to.
“Stand down,” he growls, not looking back. “We are not dying in a hallway. Not today. Ocean-Tide, drop your hymn. Iron Blood—eyes front, disengage.”
There’s a heartbeat of refusal—the chorister’s note trembles; Iron Blood fingers hover. The station holds its breath.
Then hands move. Muzzles dip, then settle on the deck. Radio clicks travel the line; status lights flicker back to amber. The air warms by a degree.
“Thanks for the walk,” I say. “Go with your men.” I smile—and nick my tongue as my teeth push longer. Hunger spikes with the taste of iron.
I glance at the walls—no red tally lights, no feeds.
The farce is over.
This was planned.
[SITUATIONAL SHIFT CONFIRMED. COUNCILOR VORATHEL NOW COMMANDS ~3× OPPOSITION SECURITY. FULL GUARD REPLACEMENT PROJECTED < 60 MINUTES.]
“Emergency powers,” Lion thinks. “If the vote had failed, he would’ve arrested the dissenters. But now he doesn’t have to.”
“But he will anyway, won’t he?” I half-ask, already knowing.
“This isn’t over,” the captain mutters—low, but loud enough to carry.
Lion chuckles, low and rich. “Not over? Captain… it’s just getting started.”
The escorts unravel: Meridian and Orpheline step back at once; Vorathel’s men stay casual but ready—both the plants in the old detail and the new guard taking our flanks. Ocean-Tide’s hymn unspools into silence. Iron Blood holds the longest; when they finally holster, it’s more spite than surrender.
Msv’au watches them go, then turns to me. “This way. Your quarters are ready. Councilor Vorathel will join you shortly.”
He glances at Lion, then back to me. “It’s an honor to meet you, Sol. And a pleasure to finally speak face to face, Last Knight—after so many long conversations.”
“I’m sure it is, dog,” Lion says coolly. “Now take us to your leash holder.”
Msv’au grimaces, but recovers fast. “Charming as ever, Last Knight. Shall we?”
I give a tight nod, lips pressed thin.
So Lion’s supposed to be my diplomat, huh.
Msv’au leads us in silence. The halls shift—less militant, more opulent with every step. Light bends warmer. Floors soften from alloy to polished obsidian veined in gold. Subtle perfume hangs in the air. The walls pulse with soft bioluminescence, casting shifting shadows.
Lion walks just behind me, quiet now. Guards peel off one by one until we’re alone.
At the final door, Msv’au pauses. A retinal scan. A handprint. Then the seal hisses open.
“Enjoy your stay. Everything has been arranged to your…” he glances at me, “taste,” he says, bowing slightly before vanishing down the corridor.
The suite is sealed like a vault.
Velvet-dark walls. A glass floor suspended over a starfield. Runes pulse soft light around the edges like a ritual already in motion. One side is clearly Lion’s—spartan, disciplined, with a corner cleared for sparring and a stripped-down workbench stocked with maintenance tools and weapon oil. The other is unmistakably mine.
Red-gold silks spill over low couches. A moonstone bath steams quietly in the corner. The scent in the air is warm, rich—tailored.
And the food.
Not just a tray—a feast. Bowls of hydroponic fruit still dewed from harvest. Steaming meat. Whole platters of raw alien life, sliced and plated like some high-end sushi bar on the edge of the void. A small handwritten note sits between the platters:
All fresh. Non?sentient. Eat with a clear conscience.
Written in perfect English.
Fucking weird. I stare at it, suspicion crawling up my spine.
I scan the room without thinking. No cams. No drones. Not even a whisper of surveillance in the walls. Clean. Too clean.
Phoenix stirs.
My stomach makes the decision for me. I grab a cut of something deep red and glistening and tear into it like an animal. Cold. Silken. Rich with nutrients I didn’t know I’d been craving.
Lion pulls up an oversized chair built just for him—more throne than seat. The frame groans as he settles into it.
He taps his wrist, and a ripple of gold arcs out—his personal shield blooming into a dome. The lights dim. Sound flattens. My HUD drops to black. The neural link cuts out. Nothing gets in or out.
He pulls off his helmet and sets it down with a quiet thunk. Then he pours two drinks from the amber decanter and slides one toward me.
“Take it easy on the sauce until the meeting’s over,” Lion says, voice low and weighty. “Now we can talk. Don’t trust your scans—if a room’s this clean, it means we’re missing something.”
“Should we have stayed on the ship?” I mutter.
“No,” he answers without pause. “Vorathel won’t meet us there. Appearances matter. We can’t play saviors of the Citadel if we hide off?station. And the Stormbreaker’s only safe because Eagle’s watching it. For now, we speak only under this shield—got it?”
He tips his glass back and takes a long swig. I’ve barely ever seen him drink, yet here we are.
“Yeah, I got it. So let’s talk.” I tear off another mouthful, wipe my fingers on a napkin. “What’s the angle here? What’s Vorathel really getting out of this? Or what does he think he’s getting?”
Lion chuckles low. “Power, of course. He thinks if we play nice and fuck off to Haven when this is done, he gets to crown himself emperor of the galaxy or some shit. Declare humanity a new kind of Elder—something above galactic law. Left alone, or else.”
I stare at him. “That’s not Dad’s plan though, is it.”
“No,” Lion says, leaning back, grin sharp. “But you already know that. Once Father’s got the arsenal ready, the Council won’t matter—hell, it barely matters now. We just have to keep them distracted with the Hive… but not so distracted they go crying to the Elders. Those bastards’ outpost at the center of the galaxy is hard to reach, but not impossible.”
“So that’s it? For humanity to choose its own destiny—and not end up like whatever that freak outside was? All these people are just gonna die to the Hive?”
Lion shakes his head once. “Most’ll die in the war between Jericho and the Elders. Collateral damage.” He raises his glass. “Hell, the only things that might survive are Jericho, the Hive…” He winks his one golden eye. “…and us, of course.”
“So what’s next?” I ask, mouth gritty with meat. The question lands flat—too obvious, too heavy.
He taps the table; a star?map blooms across the surface, rings ticking forward as routes and targets light up. “Now we scale,” Lion says. “We need permanent yards—hidden, mobile, redundant. Mining ops on the graves the Hive left. Clandestine strip?mines in neutral belts. Ship?smelters spun out of old foundries. We seed front companies, shell guilds, merchant leagues—make Vorathel look like he’s propping up the trade while we siphon raw mass into quiet build queues.”
“Why?” I ask. “Isn’t the main goal just to buy him time to finish his research?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “But some of the things he’s planning are megastructures—Dyson?sphere scale, maybe larger. They’ll need obscene amounts of rare elements and mass. If we get lucky and score an Elder cache, it could shave years off the work. We’re not just stalling the galaxy—we’re stockpiling its bones so he can build the God’s Arsenal. Right now it’s blueprints and promises; but when Father returns, the tools will already be waiting.”
I down the rest of the bottle, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and ask before I can swallow the words back.
“What do you know about it? The ascension. The next reality.”
Lion laughs, not cruel—more a bark of recognition. He tilts his head, his red cybernetic eye glowing in the rune-light.
“So. He’s finally spoken to you again, hasn’t he, Highness?”
“Not now,” I snap—sharper than I meant. “For once, call me what I am—and answer the fucking question. Why go along with this if you die too?”
He studies me for a beat, sets the glass down, and his voice softens.
“Sister.”
The word lands heavy.
He leans forward, elbows on the table, grin thinning into something colder. “Time—that’s the scale you’ve never really had to face.”
“We’ve been out here a decade,” I growl. “I’ve been alone, drinking myself to death. What do you mean I haven’t faced it, Leo?”
He chuckles. “I’m talking about a trillion years from now, sister. The universe dies. The last star goes dark, even black holes fade, and entropy eats everything. That’s the end of creation.” He refills his glass, then rolls it slowly in his hand, watching the light catch the amber like trapped fire. “Except you. Father made only one of us eternal. And you know I’m not immortal. I age—Phoenix drags me back, but every cycle leaves a mark. The machines keep me human… barely. And each time, there’s a chance I don’t come back right. That I fall to the virus and become something worse than Wilks.”
I shiver at the thought of a Hive-infused Lion, but he keeps going. “Even so, I have millennia left—longer with cryo. Long enough to help you spread across the stars and for Father to build his machines. Maybe long enough to see my nieces rule humanity before even they are consumed.”
“I… just don’t understand,” I mutter. “Is Father’s dream really worth all this?”
He lets that sit, then chuckles again. “Ever see an old show from about five centuries back? Star Trek. They had a species so advanced they broke free of time and space—could bend reality like clay.” He smirks. “That’s you, someday, sister. Father’s final gift. His higher-dimensional heir.”
“Who decided this? Why me?”
All the suffering. All the tests. The deaths of trillions—all in the name of a fucking alcoholic nepo?baby like me. The thought claws at my skull while Lion takes far too long to answer.
Lion’s good eye narrows, the star?map’s glow painting his scars. “Again, Highness—space and time will be at your command. It’s a paradox. Chicken or egg. Someone gave Father his spark. They weren’t from Earth. Not even from his time.”
He’s saying me. Some future version of me. I gave Father the spark.
“You’re full of shit. How would a cycle like that even start?”
He shrugs, calm as weather. “Only a god could answer that.” Red eye catching the light. “You’ll qualify—eventually.”
“How is that even possible?” I whisper. “You’re basically talking about magic.”
“I’m sure he’s already given you most of the plan,” Lion says. “But you don’t yet grasp what it takes to see beyond our reality.”
He tilts the glass, watching it roll slow against the rim. “You’ll need a mind on a galactic scale—everywhere at once. The strongest organic networks can’t reach it. The greatest machine minds fall short.” He leans closer. “They don’t have to rival each other. Not if they exist in perfect sync. Not if they’re one.”
He lets the silence hang, then drinks. “That’s when you get something else. Something Father only whispers about. Something the Elders fear. A mind that is flesh and processor, spirit and code—alive, infinite, indivisible. Spread across the stars, able to bend the frame of reality itself.”
He grins at me, that crooked, infuriatingly familiar smile. “That isn’t just a queen. That isn’t just a god-engine. That, sister… is a God.”
“You sure are religious for an atheist,” I mutter.
“Forget faith, sister. The universe wasn’t born with a god, one had to be made. Maybe you lit the spark that set Father ablaze. He engineered you in turn, so you’d carry the flame and ignite it again. Call it paradox, call it destiny—either way, you’re the same fire. The same divinity.”
He leaves me with that.
If I become that… maybe all of this will mean something. Maybe if I can reshape time and reality, I can fix what we broke. Maybe I can save us.
A knock at the door.
Lion drops the shield. The gold light flickers out.
“We have company,” he says, rising, golden eye flashing. “Game face, Highness.”
As the door begins to open, a thought flickers like static in my skull. If this is really all just a loop… why would I trap myself in it?
If you could become godlike, would you?
