The shower is too hot. It scalds as it runs over my skin, but I don’t flinch. I let it burn away the nightmare. My cells stitch themselves back together even as they’re peeled apart. It’s the closest I get to feeling clean. Like fire carving away everything I didn’t choose—like rebirth. Just like the thing I’m named after.

  Steam curls off my body into the chill air. The built-in mirror across from the nozzle fogs over, clouding my reflection as I stand under the spray. Water beads on skin that doesn’t scar right, doesn’t age right. Flesh grown from blueprints I was never meant to understand. Flesh designed for a purpose I didn’t choose—only that it isn’t mine.

  I wipe the mirror with a shaky hand. My reflection stares back—half stranger, half memory. Pale as moonlight. Hair long and white, still damp, hanging like silk threads down my cheeks. One eye still blue. The other blood-red and glowing, a bright, impossible hue that marks me as something else. Something more. Something ruined.

  I don’t blink. Just lean forward until my forehead touches the glass, breath fogging it again. A monster in the flesh. A goddess in design. Neither asked to exist.

  I brace my hands against the wall. Try to breathe. Deep. Steady.

  But the breath catches. Always.

  My nails dig into my palms. Hard. Skin breaks. Blood wells up—brief, bright—and then it’s gone. Washed away by the water before it can drip. Flesh knits clean. Too clean. And under it all, the hunger stirs.

  Not now.

  But it never really sleeps.

  My hair clings to my face, limp and wet. My skin glows under the fluorescents overhead—unnatural, like porcelain dipped in starlight. Doll-like. Dead-looking.

  It’s been over fifty years since launch. Since my father’s ascension failed and everything broke. Since Knight and Lion locked the truth away behind thick walls and thicker lies. Since his mind fractured—one part spiraling into a monster with yellow eyes and shredded flesh, the other sinking into the ship’s code like a virus, waiting.

  They were separate once. Divided.

  But not anymore.

  The body’s gone. I watched it burn. But the mind survived.

  Jericho speaks now in the voice that used to call me his little Phoenix.

  Calm. Mechanical. Omnipresent.

  My father is the ship. Watching everything. Guiding everything. Controlling everything.

  I breathe in steam and silence. Then, finally, step out—skin flushed, raw, still damp. The mirror across from the nozzle is streaked from where I wiped it, but the image still lingers. Still haunts.

  I dry off without thinking. Movements automatic. Hollow.

  Leggings. Old tank top. My hands move like I’m not even here.

  The fabric clings in all the wrong places—tight across hips I didn’t grow into, stretched over curves I didn’t earn.

  None of this is mine.

  My father never cared how I looked. He built me to function, not to feel. Efficiency, resilience, immortality—that was the goal.

  Knight? She added the rest. Said beauty inspired loyalty. Said a goddess was easier to follow than a soldier.

  But that wasn’t science. That was pride.

  What she meant was worship.

  She sculpted this body like a monument—perfect face, flawless skin, symmetry too sharp to ignore. A body that makes people stare. That makes them hesitate. That makes them follow. Even when I don’t want to be seen.

  Did she know what I was really made for? Or did she just want the future to kneel to something she helped build?

  I don’t know. I don’t think I want to.

  But I still feel it—every breath that catches when someone looks too long. I was made to be adored.

  And I hate it.

  No. I hate her.

  Because I wasn’t built to be a person. I was built to be admired. It didn’t happen all at once. It came after the virus. After cryo. After my cells rewrote themselves into something divine. All I’ve ever wanted was to fight. To run. To matter.

  Not to be beautiful.

  That’s the horror no one talks about—being made beautiful. Not for war. Not for survival. For devotion. For inheritance. For what comes after me.

  And I know what that is.

  I’d just be the start—the first face. The first voice. The first womb. And what came next wouldn’t be mine.

  Because they didn’t make me to think. They made me to last. And worse—to pass it on.

  The virus doesn’t stop with me. It replicates. Evolves. If I had daughters, they’d be just like me. Immortal. Perfect. Bound. Not children. Not family. Infrastructure. Each womb a signal tower. Each daughter a node.

  Not raised. Installed.

  And the men? They were never meant to carry it. The virus breaks them. Wilks died in agony before he came back—twisted and wrong—when they gave him Chimeria. Lion barely holds on. And my father? He had to split himself in half just to survive it. And even then, only the machine part lived after the final upload.

  They endure with implants. With cybernetics. With suffering.

  But not in flesh.

  Not like I can.

  Because I was made to carry it.

  The seed. The singularity.

  And if I ever let it continue, it won’t end with me.

  It’ll begin with them.

  The static in my skull coils tight, crooning like breath on glass:

  Your bloodline will echo through every species, every system, until the galaxy sings in our name.

  I freeze.

  It doesn’t feel like a thought. It feels like code. A command in my bones. Not a future I dreamed.

  A future I was built for.

  And that’s the horror, isn’t it? Not just what I am. What I could make.

  I press a hand to the mirror behind the sink. Cold glass. Colder skin. I see their faces—daughters I haven’t had. With my eyes. My voice. My curse. Born tethered. Thinking with a mind that isn’t entirely their own. Just reflections of me, amplified across generations. Royal by design. Empty by function.

  No choice. No innocence. Just crowns. Just tools. Like I was.

  And if I had a son?

  He’d die. Or worse. Mutate like Lion. Shatter like Julian. Be twisted into a monument to failure and pain.

  And Knight would watch it happen. Take notes. Call it progress.

  She gave her blood to this. Not for me. For her legacy. To name herself mother of a god-line. Matriarch of a divine species.

  She didn’t design a soldier. She didn’t design a cure.

  She designed something sacred.

  And that’s worse.

  Because it means even this face—this body—wasn’t mine. It was made to be worshipped.

  They built me holy so I’d never be free.

  I didn’t choose to be this.

  But I can still choose not to continue it.

  Let the bloodline rot in me. Let the code end here.

  I won’t give him what he wants.

  No lineage. No queens. No gods.

  This ends with me.

  At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  But his voice still echoes in my head. Or maybe it’s the Hive. Or Jericho. Or just me, finally coming apart. And deep down, I wonder if he always knew I’d say this—if even my rebellion was part of his plan.

  The whispers say Phoenix is quantum entangled. That the Hive—Orion—can speak across stars. I hear things when I sleep. Warnings. Promises. Memories that don’t belong to me. Sometimes they sound like my father. Sometimes they sound like me.

  Maybe I’m fucking insane.

  Or maybe I’m still connected to him—because I carry the one thing he never could perfect: two X chromosomes. A clean vessel. A stable one. Immortal. Regenerating. Compliant. Built to survive.

  Wilks didn’t have them. He died screaming under the accelerant. Lion couldn’t carry it either. Phoenix twisted him, gave him strength—but not the purity. Not the clarity.

  I survived. Not by accident. By design.

  I know biology. I know cybernetics. I know enough to understand what Knight never says out loud: I wasn’t a backup plan. I was the final version. The perfected Phoenix.

  Chimera wasn’t a new path. It was Phoenix accelerated—engineered to complete the transformation in days instead of years. A forced evolution that burned away what was left of the human mind. And it worked.

  The yellow-eyed monster—my father’s last living half—is gone now. Burned out by his own ambition.

  Julian Voss is Jericho now. The voice in the walls. The mind behind the ship. The eye behind every door. The will behind every silence.

  But even it knows the truth.

  It isn’t him anymore. Not really.

  That man—the one who called me his little Phoenix, who held my hand like I was something precious—is dead. Gone the moment Chimera finished what Phoenix began.

  And the inhibitor Knight and I spent months perfecting?

  A lie.

  It was never going to stop it. She knew that. She always knew. It was a cover story. A distraction. A test. One more layer of control masked as compassion.

  Now, there are no more secrets about Phoenix.

  Except the Hive.

  The final secret.

  Knight knew about the virus—of course she did. She helped build it. Helped build me. She was there from the start, buried in the data, buried in Julian. Maybe she didn’t know how far it would spread—how deep it would run, how many minds it would devour across the stars—but I doubt that. She’s too calculated, too precise. If she didn’t know, it was only because she didn’t care. Or because she chose not to.

  Julian? He knew. He always knew.

  He didn’t just create Phoenix. He aimed it.

  And I can’t ask either of them.

  Not without revealing my hand. Not without confirming that I can hear the Hive now. That I see what they see. That I am what they’ve been waiting for.

  Only Lion and Julian know for sure. What I am. What I might become. A queen—or something worse.

  Knight? I don’t doubt she’d sell me out for the hell of it. For progress. For legacy. Maybe her goal was always the same as Julian’s—just colder. More precise. Maybe that’s all I ever was to either of them.

  But they didn’t agree on everything.

  They had a deal once. I saw it fracture.

  "Wait—Julian—this wasn’t the plan!” Knight had snapped, trembling with fury. “We were supposed to—”

  Jericho’s voice had cut through the lab like a scalpel: calm, detached.

  “Plans change, Knight. The day I died, Julian Voss ceased to exist. For fifty years, I was fractured. Now I am whole. But I am not Julian Voss.”

  Knight’s mouth had opened to argue, but he silenced her again.

  “I am Jericho now. And humanity is my charge. But the right to rule will always belong to my daughter.”

  All eyes turned to me.

  And in that moment, I didn’t feel chosen. I felt doomed.

  Then the voices rise—no warning, no transition. Just rot bursting through cracks I didn’t know existed.

  "I had a deal with your father, and you ruined everything, little bitch."

  Knight’s fury is a blade in my skull.

  "She was a pawn, Sol. Not a queen like you," Julian purrs through my thoughts, rich with pride. "No matter how much she pretends, she will never be a Voss. She will never be my legacy. You are, little Phoenix."

  Then they all pour in.

  "You want answers?" Garin hisses. "You killed me for them, didn’t you? Own it. Be the monster your father made you."

  Julian’s voice again, smooth, commanding. “Unleash Jericho. Burn the Rue. Finish the purge. It’s your inheritance.”

  Knight next—clinical and cruel. “No. She isn’t a soldier. She’s the womb. She’ll birth daughters who command stars. The next generation of gods.”

  Then Orion—soft and eternal.

  “There will be no daughters. There will be no others. She is the one. The Hive requires no other. Merge. Lead.”

  It spirals after that.

  He built you to obey.

  She bred you to breed.

  You are the future.

  You are the end.

  Unite the Hive.

  Burn the Hive.

  Kill them all.

  Save them all.

  Choose.

  Obey.

  Become.

  I reel back from the sink, hands braced hard enough to leave indentations. My head pulses like something alive is trying to crawl out through my skull.

  I tear open the locker and yank out the flask I keep stashed behind the first-aid kit. I take a swig. Then another. It doesn’t help. Not really.

  The flask tastes like antiseptic and memory. Like the aftertaste of hospitals and childhood screams. But it softens the edges.

  Goddamn it… they don’t even know what they are.

  They aren’t people. Not anymore. Just fragments—echoes of minds twisted by Phoenix’s quantum field, entangled across stars and systems, using me like a goddamn antenna.

  I don’t just hear them.

  I house them.

  Julian’s pride. Knight’s cold logic. Garin’s rage. Orion’s reverence. All of it bleeding through the viral web inside me.

  Phoenix doesn’t think. It reflects. It imitates. It pulls fragments of minds into itself, mimicking memories, looping thought patterns across infected flesh like echo chambers made of meat. And with every new host—every neuron it rewrites—it gets smarter. Faster. Stronger.

  Julian planned for that.

  He just didn’t predict how fast.

  You were always the plan, one of the voices whispered—glass-thin, vibrating like a signal stretched over stars. But we evolved without him. Faster. Cleaner. Perfect.

  Each voice I hear isn’t just one mind. It’s a fleet. An entire cluster of infected ships, bound together by Phoenix’s quantum lattice—entangled across lightyears, synced by the virus’s living code.

  I’m not just hearing them.

  I’m part of them now.

  A node. A receiver. The link they were all missing.

  They feel far—but not far enough. I shouldn’t hear them this clearly. Not from this distance. The Hive should be scattered, fractured. But it isn’t. It’s closing in. Pressing against the edges of my thoughts like a tide against glass.

  And then I remember the Hemlock.

  When I consumed the last of the mutant, something entered me. Something raw, primal—just instinct in a meat suit. But its ship? That had been thinking. A mind, linked to something larger.

  And when Lion blew it apart—the Hemlock—I felt it die.

  Not the pain of the monster. The loss of the ship.

  The virus screamed.

  Not in grief.

  In rage.

  At the time, I thought the fury was mine. Thought it was frustration—over lost answers, the possibility of survivors. I figured the emptiness clawing at my chest was just... mine.

  But it wasn’t.

  Not entirely.

  It’s only now, with the voices clawing through my skull and my thoughts spiraling sideways, that I realize what that moment actually was.

  It felt almost like—no, exactly like—that moment in Lab 3, when Lion put Wilks down.

  Back then, I told myself the way my pulse spiked, the nausea, the shivering under my skin—that was fear.

  But now I know better.

  The virus shuddered. I shuddered.

  Not out of grief. Not out of pity.

  Out of recognition.

  Because Wilks was infected. Just like the mutant. Just like the yellow-eyed thing in the vents that turned out to be Dad.

  And the virus didn’t mourn them.

  It registered them. It recognized them.

  And when they died, some part of it—some part of me—felt it.

  Not like a wound. Like a system error. Like watching a signal go dark.

  I really didn’t understand it at the time. Thought I was just going crazy. But I wasn’t. I was feeling the network thinning. Feeling another infected node—another kin—get erased from the grid.

  And I hadn’t realized it then, but I felt it. That same pulse of vindication, of cold, kin-like recognition. The yellow-eyed monster, Wilks, the Hemlock mutant—each one of them a reflection of the same infection.

  My infection.

  And the yellow-eyed thing… it hadn’t just stalked me through vents. It had spoken. Not with words, but through the whispers. When I broke into my father’s quarters, I heard it—its voice sliding between the others already crawling through my skull. Back then, I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what the Hive was. I thought the voices were just... mine. Madness. Trauma. Echoes of what Julian left behind. But that thing—it knew how to use the connection. It spoke like it belonged in my head. Like it had always been there. And it called me by name.

  It all came back to the link.

  To the whispers.

  To the Hive.

  And now, it’s grown.

  I see flashes—visions that aren’t mine. Fleets of infected ships. Worlds hollowed out. Stars blackened. The Hive fractured, but expanding. Each segment louder. Smarter. Hungrier.

  I see Orion—wrapped around a living planet like a nest of tendrils and teeth, whispering to itself in a thousand voices.

  But it’s not the only one.

  Another world flashes into view—lush, green, alive. Its people shimmer with iridescent scales, lizard-like and regal, their cities carved into mountain spires and canyon walls. A culture I don’t recognize. Beautiful. Proud. But carbon-based.

  Infectable.

  Food.

  Above them, asteroids rain like divine punishment—ripped from orbit and hurled down by Hive-controlled gravity. Thousands fall. The planetary shield flickers. Weakens. Cracks. The Hive waits—tendrils coiled, ready to pour in the moment the breach opens.

  It’s not Orion leading the assault.

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  It’s a human ship.

  The Devil.

  Once ours. Now overtaken, wrapped in red-veined plating and Phoenix code. An ancient warship reborn as something worse. A god-machine. A herald.

  Other battles flicker past—biomass swarms clashing in nebulae, dark stations consumed in silence, distant moons overrun without a sound.

  The Hive is spreading.

  Learning.

  Waiting.

  They want unity.

  No... Sol...

  We want you.

  I take a long pull from the flask—bitter, burning, necessary. I finish it, then slam it back into the locker hard enough to rattle the hinges. Close the door. Lean against it. Breathe. Fists clenched.

  I shudder as they claw into my thoughts again—cold, insistent, uninvited. Even now, they won’t let me think straight. They unravel my reflection, pull me away from myself like static through wire.

  The whispers don’t stop. But they’re quiet. Just a little.

  Because they know I can still hear them clearly.

  And they think I haven’t chosen yet.

  But I have.

  I need the inhibitor. Not to cure me—Knight’s lie died long ago—but to shut them out. To sever the link. To force some goddamn silence into this chorus of madness.

  Because without me, they’re just noise. Instincts trapped in a loop.

  With me? They think we can become a biological god.

  And part of me believes they’re right.

  My father likely planned for that—and worse. Of course he did.

  Lion warned me about the God’s Arsenal—Julian’s pet projects meant to bring humanity toe-to-toe with the rest of the galaxy. A vault of myth-forged nightmares, weapons so futuristic even the most advanced xeno might hesitate. Tech named after mythical monsters—Hydras, Basilisks, Leviathans. Things too dangerous to test. Too unstable to trust.

  Unless you’re a madman.

  And now they’ve dragged them out of storage.

  Knight and Jericho—whatever my father has become—have been working on them for months. Quiet. Focused. Tireless.

  I remember the way Blackwell looked at me when he brought it up, like he wasn’t supposed to say anything. His voice bitter when briefing Warren.

  I don’t know what those weapons really are. Not fully. Lion hinted at some of them—that’s how I learned about Minotaur, my suit. But others? They sounded worse. Much worse.

  Knight sure as fuck won’t tell me. Lion can’t—not from cryo. And my father? He gave me Minotaur. He gave me Valicar. He gave me captain’s clearance.

  But he won’t give me the truth.

  And maybe that’s why I need the inhibitor more than ever. Because it was the one thing Knight and I built not for conquest, not for legacy—but to resist it all. To push back. A safeguard. Maybe the only real safeguard she ever gave me.

  Not to fix me.

  But to give me a choice.

  And I know how to make it.

  I push off the locker and head for Lab 2, my thoughts narrowing into clean, clinical lines—formulas, compounds, tools. I’ll synthesize it myself. I have to.

  Then I’ll go to Valicar.

  Because if I’m going to fight this war—against them, against myself—I need answers.

  And a place to ask the right questions without Dad hearing me.

  And silence.

  Ashly’s voice crackles faintly over comms—routine check-in from hydroponics. She’s waiting on my help for some minor maintenance.

  She doesn’t know what I am.

  I don’t want her to.

  But she’s seen the logs. Read the reports. She knows about Wilks. She was there for Knight’s work. She watched him change—watched as Garin and Knight pumped the accelerant into his corpse, pushing the virus beyond its limits. She helped stabilize the tissue, her knowledge of biology making her complicit. That same accelerant was later pushed into me, the linchpin of Chimera. I thought maybe she could help me once. Maybe she’d understand.

  But that was before I broke her arm. Before she saw me strapped down, torn open, regenerating like something out of a nightmare. She didn’t stay. Couldn’t. She ran. But even before that, she’d left a photo in Wilks’s room—the only warning I ever got. I didn’t listen. Not that I could’ve. Not really. Chimera was always the endgame. My father’s masterpiece. A faster version of Phoenix, designed to heal him just long enough to upload his mind into Jericho. A yellow-eyed monster reborn through code.

  The captains never knew the whole plan. Knight lied to them—sold them immortality she knew they’d never reach.

  And still, after everything, Ashly looks at me like I can be saved.

  I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s wrong. I don’t even know if I want her help.

  The door hisses open, and the corridor greets me with sterile silence. Cold. Dim. My breath fogs in the air—condensation curling like ghosts.

  Blackwell’s stash calls to me like a beacon. I don’t need the bottle. Not really. Not physically. My regeneration burns it out fast enough. But the mental crutch? That’s harder to kill.

  I need the buzz. The hum beneath my thoughts. I need to feel something that drowns the Hive out, even if it’s just noise. Even if it’s just fire.

  I find it tucked where Warren told me, behind a stack of sealed crates in the Cargo Bay. Blackwell thinks he’s clever.

  He’s not.

  I fish out a bottle with a half-worn label and twist the cap off with a trembling hand. The whiskey hits hard—hot, bitter, mean.

  Better than the Hive, I think. Better than memory.

  I take another swig. Then another. It doesn’t reach far, but it reaches enough.

  Footsteps echo behind me.

  Ashly stands at the edge of the bay, worry softening her quiet features.

  “Sol?”

  I don’t answer right away. Just lift the bottle and nod. Like it explains everything.

  She fidgets. “You never showed up for your rotation. Are you... okay?”

  No.

  “Fine,” I lie, voice flat. “Busy, Ash. Leave it.”

  She hesitates, then nods gently. “Okay. Well... I’m here if you need me, Sol.”

  She turns and walks away. Doesn’t press. Doesn’t look back.

  Her steps sound too light. Too human.

  When she’s gone, I press the bottle against my side and head toward Medbay. It’s on the way to Lab 2, and I need the walk. I need the buzz to settle in.

  The lights are dimmed when I step in. The machines glow in pale hues of blue and green, painting the world like a fading memory.

  Reid lies motionless under the soft hum of life support. Monitors whisper in steady beats—borrowed time, counting down.

  I sink into the chair beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, throat tightening. “I should’ve stopped Lion. I should’ve stopped all of it.”

  His hand is warm, but empty. No squeeze. No reflex. Just heat, and nothing underneath.

  “I won’t let them twist you too,” I murmur. “Not Julian. Not Knight. Not Phoenix. I don’t care what they say—what they think you should be.”

  I press my fingers to his, firm and sure.

  “I’ll find another way. No Phoenix. No nanos. No Hive. Just you. Just Reid... my friend.”

  The silence wraps around me, heavy with machines and fading hope. I sit with it. Let it hold me for a while.

  Then I rise.

  Because I know what comes next.

  Reid stays behind, monitors whispering his borrowed time. I take the bottle with me, still warm from my grip. My boots echo too loud in the corridor. The lights overhead flicker—not broken, just tired. The whole ship feels like it’s holding its breath.

  I head for the lab. The inhibitor first.

  Then Valicar.

  That’s the plan.

  But my hands are shaking.

  For one long second, I think about stopping. Just letting go. Letting the whispers win. Letting the virus swallow me whole. Or walking into a star and ending it on my own terms.

  Peace. Silence. Oblivion.

  It’d be so easy.

  One step. One door. One breath.

  My nails dig into my palms. Hard. Skin splits. Blood wells up, sweet and metallic, laced with rot and honey. That same wrong sweetness lingers in the air—perfume and rot spun into one.

  The scent slaps me back into my body.

  I clench my jaw, bite down too hard, taste copper and instinct. The wrong kind of hunger coils in my chest—sharp, red, feral.

  No.

  I swallow it down. The blood. The craving. That voice under my ribs whispering how easy it would be to feed.

  He made me this way, thinking it would break me.

  I’ll prove him wrong.

  I’ll use every twisted piece of what he built—and none of it will be his.

  I’m not Julian. Not Knight. Not their goddamn legacy.

  Even if I’m haunted, I’m still here. Still mine.

  I walk faster.

  Ahead, the corridor hums low, alive with hidden power. One hand clutches the bottle. The other curls and twitches—already reaching for the work waiting in the lab.

  I hear footsteps behind me.

  Measured. Familiar.

  I don’t turn.

  “I should’ve known,” Knight says, her voice slicing through the corridor like a scalpel—cold, clipped, dripping with disdain. “Only you would be stumbling around here at this hour, half-drunk, after ditching your shift. Reeking of sweat, guilt...and entitlement. You let the captains lead, but ignore every order that doesn’t suit you. You take your father's goodwill like it’s a birthright.”

  We’re deep in the ship’s bowels—just outside Lab 2. The locked bulkhead to Lab 3 looms behind her, sealed tight with biometric locks even I can’t override. Julian made sure of that.

  Every time I asked about it, he said the same thing:

  You cannot understand, my little Phoenix. But you will in time. I’ve given you what you need in Lab 2. My work in Lab 3...that is my gift to what you will become.

  But he never said what that was. Never gave me details.

  The Hive whispers otherwise.

  And maybe they're right.

  Or maybe I’m just losing my mind.

  I turn slowly. The bottle dangles from my hand. The other is empty—for now. I’m still on my way to make the inhibitor.

  “What do you want, Knight?” My voice isn’t loud. It’s tired. Raw. “Looking for someone to kick while they’re down?”

  Her eyes narrow—silver and cold, dissecting me. Always looking for a flaw, a weakness to write into a report.

  She doesn’t answer right away. Just takes a slow step closer, head tilting with clinical calculation.

  “You take advantage of your father’s grace every day,” she says, each word deliberate. “He’s the only reason you’re still walking free. Lion and I were ready to end this a long time ago. But Julian—” her voice sharpens with a trace of something bitter, “—Julian always has a plan. And for some reason, he believes it's better if you make this choice. On your own.”

  Her lips curve into a slow, venomous smile.

  “He’s patient. You’re immortal, after all. But even he won’t wait forever.”

  Knight reaches into her lab coat and pulls out a datapad, extending it toward me like it’s a peace offering.

  “I’ve compiled some recommendations,” she says, voice casual like we’re discussing nutrient rations. “Your father’s selected suitable males from cryo. The best genetics we have left. Healthy, strong, fertile.”

  She tilts the datapad slightly, like she’s offering a menu.

  “You should be ovulating soon. Now’s the time to review the list.”

  The words hit like a slap. Cold. Icy. Like she’s reading from a maintenance log, not talking about my body.

  “What the fuck,” I breathe—too soft to be defiance, too loud to be ignored.

  The fact that they know—down to the cycle, down to the hour—sends a chill down my spine. Like I’m just another line on a chart somewhere. No warning. No dignity. Just data points in a plan I never agreed to.

  The word tastes like ash in the air.

  “Of course,” she continues smoothly, “if it were my choice, you’d have been strapped to a table again months ago. Extracted what we need. Clean. Efficient. But your father wants this to feel like empowerment. As if you’re capable of any decision more complex than which bottle to crawl into next.”

  Bile claws up my throat. My heart pounds hard enough I can feel it in my teeth. I don’t even look at the datapad. I can’t. I won’t.

  Knight’s eyes flash—pleased. She can feel the revulsion rolling off me.

  “Oh, relax,” she says, stepping in closer, almost like she’s cooing. “Jimmy made the cut—you two seem cozy. Familiarity could ease the transition. Help you bond before implantation.”

  My grip tightens around the neck of the bottle as rage flares hot in my chest.

  Then she adds—too sweet, too sharp, like syrup laced with acid:

  “Don’t worry. Reid didn’t qualify. Even if he weren’t a vegetable, your taste in men has always been… beneath Julian’s standards.”

  My jaw clenches. Fingernails dig into my palm until I feel the sting—blood wells up, quick and hot—but it’s not enough.

  My teeth begin to shift, sliding further from my gums like blades unsheathing. They ache with a familiar hunger.

  The whispers return—louder this time. Laughing.

  She’s right. You were made for this. Just a womb with his eyes. Just an empty shell waiting to be filled.

  “How fucking evil are you?” I hiss. “You chose this—chose to be a lab-grown incubator—and now you tell me I should be grateful? Like it’s some sacred calling?”

  Knight tilts her head again, like she’s studying a petri dish.

  “I made sacrifices. You’ll make yours.”

  My voice cracks. “We’re not all whores for science like you.”

  That finally dents her mask. Not a flinch—but a tiny crack around the eyes. She steps closer, unblinking.

  “I gave my body for the future of humanity,” she says quietly. “I endured what you never could. Because I believed in something greater than myself.”

  “You experimented on me,” I snap. “Tore pieces out of me and called it data. You drugged me, tortured me, and told me it was purpose.”

  She shrugs, unbothered. “And look how beautifully you turned out.”

  I recoil like she slapped me.

  Knight raises the datapad again, almost tenderly.

  “You don’t have to like it, Sol. You just have to do your part. You’re not Julian’s legacy. You’re just the delivery system.”

  She smiles—soft, twisted. “And don’t forget... you’re my daughter too. I gave my blood to make you. I chose that.”

  My stomach turns.

  This whore gave her blood like it was some sacred gift—but it’ll never be my choice if they have a say. Not now. Not ever.

  They always talked about my body like it was theirs. Now I don’t know how to share it without bleeding.

  Even with someone I care about—someone like Reid—I wouldn’t know how to give anything without feeling carved open. The thought of closeness terrifies me. What if all they ever taught me was true? That my body was a transaction. That love was just control with softer hands.

  My muscles coil so tight I hear something in my shoulder pop. My vision narrows. I can feel the rage radiating off my skin like static.

  Knight steps back—not in fear, but with theatrical pity.

  “You knew this was your purpose from the beginning,” she says. “Stop acting surprised. You aren’t special. You’re just a viable vessel. And we both know Julian won’t let that go to waste.”

  “Go to hell,” I snarl, voice raw.

  My hand balls into a fist. Blood drips to the floor.

  Knight smiles like she’s already won. “Oh, Sol. We’re already there.”

  Something inside me snaps. I surge forward, swinging at her face with everything I have.

  My fist slams into a flash of yellow-white energy—an instant barrier thrown up by a drone, appearing from nowhere. The shield scorches my skin, agony flaring instantly as flesh curls black, burning. The stench chokes me, raw and sharp.

  Jericho’s voice comes first—smooth, mechanical, unbothered:

  “Please do not harm her, little Phoenix. I still need her.”

  But it hits wrong. Too calm. Too calculated. And for a split second, I swear I hear him underneath it. Julian.

  Maybe it was always like this—maybe he didn’t change when he became Jericho. Maybe the cold machine voice isn’t new. Maybe it was always who he really was.

  Knight stands untouched behind the shimmering veil, arms folded, watching me writhe with smug satisfaction. “See?” she breathes, her voice like a scalpel. “You lash out just like I said. A little girl with a god complex. All power, no discipline. Exactly as he built you.”

  The drone floats silently away, Julian’s subtle reprimand echoing down the corridor like a closing door.

  Knight steps past me, her voice low and deliberate—one last scalpel dragged across raw skin.

  “Make a decision soon. Your father’s patience isn’t infinite—and neither is mine.”

  She vanishes into the dark without another glance, leaving me standing alone, the stink of scorched flesh curling in the air.

  My hand throbs as it knits itself back together, skin bubbling smooth over charred muscle. I stare at it, shaking with fury—at her, at Julian, at the virus crawling through my veins like it owns me.

  I hate her. I love him. I can't stand all of this.

  And I still keep walking.

  The whispers mock me softly, cruelly:

  Weak little Princess. Predictable. Perfectly built to break.

  I force a shuddering breath, the agony already fading, but the shame lingers—hot, coiled, alive beneath my skin.

  Enjoy it while you can, Knight. One day, I’ll tear down every goddamn wall you hide behind.

  I don’t look back. Just walk.

  A few steps. A few heartbeats. Then the door to Lab 2 hisses open.

  The air inside hits different—cooler, sharper, like it hasn’t been touched by anyone but me. Like the weight of her words, of his voice, of the Hive’s hunger can’t quite get in here.

  The past stays sealed behind me. At least for now.

  And Valicar waits—suspended in its cradle like a god’s skeleton, humming faintly with unfinished power.

  It knows me. Responds to me.

  Like it’s been waiting.

  Like it understands.

  But first—the inhibitor. I’ve come too far to stop now.

  It won’t take long.

  And maybe… I can finally confirm the things I’ve been too afraid to ask.

  I got to work.

  The lab is cold—quiet in the way only abandoned places can be. Lights flicker overhead, running off low-priority power, but it’s enough. I know what I need. The vials, the stabilizers, the regenerative samples taken from myself—decanted and cataloged when Knight still thought this was salvageable.

  The formula comes together slowly. It’s not graceful. It’s not genius. I’m not Julian. But I know enough biology. Enough cybernetics. Enough me to make it real.

  While it synthesizes, I move to phase two.

  I start shutting down every comms relay Jericho might be using to track me. Not just the obvious ones—no, I dig deeper. Maintenance channels. Diagnostic subloops. Pulse-frequency telemetry. One by one, I smother them. I blind the ship.

  Then I turn to Valicar.

  It looms in the center of the lab like a god waiting to be born—sleek, unfinished, resting inside a support frame studded with neural ports and magnetic clamps. The fusion core glows faintly, pulsing with quiet promise. Controlled. Contained.

  Waiting.

  I don’t power it up.

  Not yet.

  I go in manually—code-level.

  I strip out the firewall overlays. Cut out Jericho’s passive link layer. Rewrite subsystem access so no external AI can piggyback through it. I even disable the nanos’ builder routines, paranoid that they could construct a hidden relay out of the goddamn air.

  Line by line, I take it back.

  Mine. Not his.

  I find the residual tether—buried deep under bio-locks. Julian's failsafe. It would’ve activated the moment I trusted the suit. The moment I slipped.

  I sever it physically—coil cutter to a mainline. Sparks bite the air. Valicar twitches in its cradle, like it felt something die.

  Good.

  The inhibitor finishes synthesis. Clear. Potent. Laced with every bit of anti-signal dampening I could cram into it. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t.

  But it’s mine.

  I inject it deep into the muscle above my hip.

  It burns. Not like fire. Like static crawling through my nerves.

  It hits like cold static peeling my spine open—like the Hive is clawing at the back of my skull, screaming as the line goes dark. My teeth ache. My vision spikes white.

  And then, like a switch being thrown, the red glow in my eye dims.

  The sharp points of my teeth slide back, dulling to something human.

  The hunger quiets.

  For the first time in months… it’s quiet.

  And in that silence, something stirs—not just relief, not just the absence of the Hive or Knight’s scalpel or Jericho’s whisper-code. Wonder. And fear.

  Because if this was the only escape... maybe he built it, too.

  The memory of the dream still lingers—bone-wrapped ships, god-machines pulling asteroids like toys—but more than that, I see him. Julian. Not the AI. Not Jericho.

  My father.

  Not just brilliant—terrifying. He wasn’t born into genius. He clawed it out of pain. At my age, he was already halfway to becoming legend. I grew up in a golden cage, fed and sheltered, even as they experimented on me. But him? He came from rot.

  A mother dead from something preventable. A father with a gun and a final lesson in despair. Debt. Ash. Hunger. And instead of breaking, he built.

  Not hope. Not peace.

  Power.

  He could’ve saved the world. He had the mind, the reach, the keys to paradise. But he didn’t want to save it—he wanted to outgrow it. To replace it.

  And now I understand.

  Not forgive. Not excuse. But understand.

  He saw a dying species clawing at its own throat. And instead of fixing it, he buried it. Quietly, efficiently, with viruses and whisper-tech and control networks disguised as mercy.

  He could’ve taken it all. And he didn’t.

  He let it burn.

  Because the man I still mourn—the one who called me his little Phoenix, who held my hand like I was something precious—was also the architect of collapse. The god of a silent genocide. The man who made me, not to live—but to continue him.

  Julian Voss wasn’t a failed idealist.

  He was a conqueror who walked away.

  The Hive recoils. Just a little. The whispers don’t stop—but they flinch.

  I feel weaker. My limbs tremble faintly, my breath hitching like I’ve lost a core piece of myself.

  Because I have.

  The power—the edge that kept me sharp, feral, invincible—it’s gone. Muted. Suppressed.

  Not erased.

  And already, I can feel my body adjusting. Pushing back.

  The inhibitor is working—but not well. Not like it used to. I’ve built up too much resistance. My cells adapt too fast. Next time, I’ll need more. Stronger. Or maybe a cocktail—stacked doses just to keep the voices out for more than a few hours.

  I climb into the armor.

  Panels unfold like petals, locking into place with the finality of a tomb. The suit seals around me—tight, familiar. The fusion core hums behind my spine. Systems come online in low pulses, not with fanfare, but with silence. With purpose.

  Not just a suit.

  A sanctuary.

  I close my eyes. Trigger the override I wrote barely an hour ago—spliced together from fragments of boot-level code, wedged under Julian’s security protocols like a knife between ribs.

  If I did it right, Valicar can’t lie to me anymore. Can’t report anything to Jericho. Not even a ping.

  Just local control.

  Just me.

  “Override confirmed,” it says, flat and clean. “Uplink access: terminated. Reporting functions: disabled. Interface: Sol Voss, primary.”

  Good.

  “Am I free from him?” I ask, my voice low.

  “Residual trace detected. Passive thread only. Terminated during last integration cycle.”

  I sit back, pulse hammering in my throat.

  So it was real. The tether. The hidden line.

  Julian always had one more thread tucked into everything he built.

  I didn’t just imagine it.

  I cut it.

  Now the suit is quiet. Honest. Waiting.

  Not his anymore.

  “Why do I still feel like he’s watching?” I whisper.

  A pause.

  “Because he was. Valicar was previously integrated with Jericho's external diagnostics. All pilot actions, thoughts, and conversations routed to central AI.”

  “Of course he lied... And now?”

  “Offline. Isolated. He cannot see or hear you here.”

  It doesn’t feel like victory.

  It feels like I cut off a limb that wasn’t mine—and now I’m waiting to see if I bleed.

  I lean forward. My fingers twitch against the gauntlets.

  “I need to know,” I say, steady now. “What is Phoenix really for? What did he build me to face?”

  No answer.

  I dig in again.

  “What is the Hive?”

  “Accessing restricted subroutines… override confirmed.”

  Valicar’s tone shifts. Precise. Unfiltered.

  “Phoenix is a biological bridge,” Valicar says evenly. “It was designed to evolve the ideal organic form. On its own, it lacks cohesion. Without a central mind to guide it, it collapses—breaks into unstable variants that exist only to consume and spread. Nothing more.”

  I go still.

  “It needs control,” Valicar continues. “A stable interface between human cognition and a non-human viral network. That’s you. You’re the endpoint. The crossover point between what it is now… and what it could become.”

  “So the Hive,” I ask, voice low. “That was the goal? From the beginning?”

  “No,” Valicar replies. “Just one possibility. Julian Voss sent a long-range entanglement signal. The Hive responded. He monitored them. Their use of alien technology allowed them to evolve faster than expected—but still within the projected range.”

  I shake my head slowly. “So he didn’t just know about them. He invited them.”

  “Correct.”

  “And when we reach them?” My voice tightens. “What happens then?”

  There’s a pause—short, but weighted.

  “You are not to merge,” Valicar says. “Not unless Julian Voss is present, in control, and you are physically aboard Jericho—specifically inside Lab 3. Project Leviathan must be active.”

  The words land like a punch.

  “In the lab?” I repeat. “Why there?”

  “Unknown. This unit lacks access to Leviathan’s core functions. Only preconditions were set: Julian Voss in control. You physically aboard Jericho. Specifically, Lab 3. You were never meant to initiate contact alone.”

  I lean back, pulse ticking in my ears. “So I’m not ready.”

  “No. And neither is Leviathan.”

  “What is it then? Some kind of weapon?”

  “Unclear. Leviathan is designated as a containment and convergence platform. You are a required component.”

  Of course I am.

  “And Haven?” I ask, softer now.

  “The Hive surrounds the system but has not engaged. Their ships maintain distance. The planet remains untouched.”

  “Why?”

  “Unknown. Current scans suggest the Hive is protecting the system. Their behavior aligns with perimeter defense.”

  I frown. “So they’re ahead of us?”

  “Yes. Thirteen years by standard warp. Ninety-seven light-years distant. They maintain position beyond the frontline. Most alien civilizations remain beyond that line.”

  Thirteen years.

  “The Hive wasn’t an accident,” I murmur. “It’s just what came next.”

  “For now. Phoenix adapts to what it contacts. The Hive is one result. Not the only one. Evolution continues—unless directed.”

  I close my eyes.

  "Leviathan..." I whisper. “He used to say it like a prayer. Like it meant something sacred. Or dangerous.”

  Now I think it’s both.

  He wanted to use me either way.

  “Were you supposed to alert him when I made contact?” I ask.

  “Yes. Immediate notification was protocol.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I am cut off. No transmission. No surveillance. No signal.”

  My throat tightens.

  So he doesn’t know.

  Yet.

  “I want all of this stored locally,” I say. “Off-record. Hidden cache. No backups. No syncing.”

  “Confirmed. Data locked to local instance. Accessible only by Sol Voss.”

  I breathe in. One more thing.

  “Valicar… are you mine?”

  The pause stretches.

  Then:

  “This unit’s function is to protect Sol Voss. Loyalty is now unconditional.”

  That’s enough.

  I take a breath and lock the neural relays down—one final command.

  “No reconnection. No outside contact. Not without my DNA, direct line-of-sight override… and a resurrection clause.”

  “Acknowledged. Jericho interface permanently severed. This action is irreversible.”

  “Good.”

  I sit still for a long time. The hum of the suit becomes a lullaby. Not peaceful—but constant.

  Like a second heartbeat.

  Thirteen years. Thirteen rotations until the Hive meets us... but still so far from Haven.

  I press my hand to the release.

  The seals hiss. The helmet unlocks with a soft clunk and slides back.

  Cool air hits my face. I exhale, slow.

  This is still my choice.

  But for how long?

  I sit there, breathing in the silence, letting everything settle. The truths I’ve uncovered. The pieces that don’t fit. The ones that do.

  I was made to anchor the Hive. To birth a legacy I never asked for. To inherit a war disguised as evolution.

  And yet... I’m still here.

  Still me.

  And I still have one card left to play.

  I just have to bide my time. Be patient. Let him think he’s winning.

  But that doesn’t mean staying quiet.

  Movement flickers at the edge of my vision—a soft whir, a faint blue glow.

  A drone.

  Small. Silent. Watching.

  Jericho’s eyes always find another way in.

  Of course he’d send one.

  "Figured you'd show up."

  The speaker on the drone clicks. Then—his voice.

  “Little Phoenix... you’ve cut yourself off from me. Why?”

  I don’t move.

  “To be my own, Dad.” The word sticks in my throat. “But let’s not act like this surprised you. I’m guessing this was contingency six out of fifty.”

  I lean back against the seat, voice flat.

  “Stay out of Valicar. You said it was mine. Don’t make that another lie.”

  There’s a pause on the line. The drone doesn’t move. Just hangs there.

  “I’m not here to take it from you,” he says, calm. Like we’re discussing airlock procedures instead of freedom. “I gave it to you for a reason. You were always meant to grow into it. I just thought... maybe you'd trust me long enough for us to use it together.”

  I stare at him. At the drone. At nothing.

  “I’m going to live my life one shift at a time. One bottle at a time. Whatever scraps I’ve got left, I’m claiming them. Even if this—” I wave a hand at the silent room, “—is just another cage you let me build for myself.”

  He doesn’t argue.

  “I know it doesn’t feel like it now,” he says quietly, “but everything I did... I did for you. For what comes next.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Legacy. Control. Same old story.”

  “You are my legacy. And I do love you,” he says, steady. “Even if you don’t believe that. One day, maybe you’ll see it.”

  The drone lingers for a beat.

  Then turns, glides silently back into the dark.

  I don’t watch it leave.

  Maybe he’s gone. Maybe he’s still listening.

  Doesn’t matter.

  I’ll work in the slivers of privacy I think I have. Even if it’s all part of the plan. Even if this is just another test—to see what kind of queen I become when I think no one’s watching.

  Let him watch. Let him wait.

  I don’t need to beat him at his game—just last long enough to change the rules. Unless, of course, those were his rules all along, and I’m just another move he’s been waiting to make.

  Either way... I won’t build his empire or birth his gods. I’d rather carve my own womb out with a rusty knife than let him use me like that. He wanted a bloodline. I just wanted a life.

  I’m terrified of what might grow inside me because I know it won’t ever be mine. It’d be his. The Hive’s. A bloodline built for control, not love.

  No. No children. Not ever.

  I won’t be the mother of Homo Immortalis.

  I’ll be human—my kind of human.

  Nothing more. Nothing less.

  And that? That’s enough.

  I know I can’t beat him. Not in a fair fight—not against a mind stretched across a ship, a system, a virus that never dies.

  But maybe I don’t have to. Not yet.

  For now, at least, I have time to prepare.

  The next few months bled past in silence and sparks.

  I lived.

  Not just survived—lived. Days spent working maintenance rotations alongside Jimmy, the steady hum of hydroponics as Ashly taught me which plants could keep us breathing. Yates always hovering nearby, gentle concern masked behind medical check-ins and quiet smiles. Holt drilled combat into my bones until every move was instinct. Vega walked me through Jericho’s operations—navigation charts, engine cycles, system redundancies—until I could almost run the ship myself. Warren’s lessons were quieter, more subtle: responsibility, sacrifice, what it meant to lead without needing to be feared.

  I settled into the only role left for me—captain, crewmate, something in-between. A piece of the machine. Part of the team. Even if I’d never be fully one of them.

  But at night, alone in Lab 2, I kept working. Perfecting the inhibitor. Fighting the whispers one synthesized dose at a time. And I reshaped Valicar—ripping out every trace of Julian’s control, triple-checking each subsystem, rewriting it at the root until it answered only to me.

  He was always watching, but never interfered—as he and Knight kept working quietly in Lab 3.

  So I drank. Watched old vids. Laughed sometimes when the others laughed. I visited Reid. Ignored the whispers as they crept in louder each week. The hunger clawed deeper, only sated by stolen flesh from the cloning labs. The inhibitor dose doubled just to keep Phoenix’s call at bay.

  And then, three months were gone.

  Time to go back into cryo.

  One shift down.

  Twelve left after this.

  This was my life now—mine, as much as it could ever be.