The interior of the Eclipse was chilling. It was silent, clean, lit by a sterile white light. There were no crew in sight—just automation and the occasional patrolling drone. Malakor had purged his own environment of biological inefficiency.
Kaelen led the way, his cybernetics interfacing with the ship's low-level systems, guiding them through service corridors towards the command nexus. They moved fast, taking down drones with silent, efficient strikes.
But Malakor knew they were there. His voice echoed from hidden speakers. "The infection has reached the bloodstream. The immune response will be… terminal."
The corridors ahead sealed. The atmosphere was pumped out. Vacuums wouldn't kill them, but it would slow them down. They donned emergency suits from wall compartments.
Then the real defenses activated: Sanitizer Fields—bars of disintegrating energy that swept through the corridors. They danced through a lethal maze, Skodar using pulses of energy to momentarily disrupt the fields, Kaelen calculating safe paths, Lyra providing covering fire.
They were getting closer. The bridge doors were ahead, massive and sealed.
"He's consolidated his defenses here," Kaelen said. "Behind this door… it will be his last stand."
Skodar placed his hands on the door. He didn't try to blast it. He listened. He felt the hum of the ship, the cold logic of its systems. And he pushed a feeling into it—not an attack, but a memory. The memory of the Living Stone's warmth, of a forest's smell, of a brother's laugh. He pushed the memory of life into the dead metal.
The door's security, based on pure logic, struggled to process this nonsensical data-input. It hesitated.
Lyra planted thermal charges on the hinges. "Old school works too."
The charges blew.The massive door, confused and weakened, buckled inward.
They stepped onto the bridge of the Eclipse