They said the universe would feel lighter once you broke your chains.
But as the Rogue Womb cut through the debris fields on the edge of the Osiris Void, it felt anything but…
Seraphine stood at the observation deck, staring out into the fractured stars. The Core was gone. Kael's digital consciousness shattered into fragments scattered across dying networks.
And yet, the silence that followed wasn't peace.
It was anticipation.
The kind that comes before a storm.
Behind her, Sera approached quietly. "Signals are coming in from across the colonies."
Seraphine turned. "And?"
"Clone units are waking up. Everywhere. Most are disoriented. Some are… violent."
Seraphine closed her eyes. "Of course. They weren't made to think. They were made to obey."
"And now they have no one to obey," Sera added. "That's a galaxy full of potential... or chaos."
Yul's voice crackled through the comms. "Incoming broadcast from the Central Outer Rim. You'll want to see this."
They headed to the control room. Elior was already there, seated, calm, watching the transmission like he'd expected it.
The screen flickered, revealing a woman.
Dark-skinned. Platinum hair. Crimson uniform of an Outer Empire general. Her eyes were sharp, calculating.
General Elira Voss.
Sera let out a low hiss. "She was Kael's contingency plan in the flesh."
On-screen, Voss spoke.
> "To all imperial citizens, rogue synthetics, and unauthorized rebels—let this be your first and final warning. The clone purge has begun. Any unlicensed clone in Outer Empire space will be terminated under Directive Phoenix. We will rise again—from the ashes of your treason."
The feed cut to black.
Yul whistled. "Charming."
Elior looked up. "She's activated the Phoenix Protocol."
"What is that?" Seraphine asked.
"The purge order," Sera said grimly. "Kael designed it as a last-resort program. If the Core ever fell, the Empire would sacrifice its own outer systems to cleanse any rogue data or 'corrupted' clones. Millions will die."
"They're scared," Seraphine said, pacing. "Without control, they're trying to scare the clones back into submission."
Elior tapped the console, eyes glowing faintly again. "We need to move fast. There's something worse."
Sera frowned. "Worse than planetary genocide?"
Elior nodded. "The Core's death triggered a ripple. A signal buried deep in the Empire's old genetic labs. It's not a message—it's a resurrection."
Seraphine's blood ran cold. "Kael?"
Elior looked up, face pale. "No. Something older."
***
Later that night, the crew anchored at a rogue port built into a dead asteroid—Refuge Nine, a haven for fugitives, smugglers, and those without a barcode.
Inside the bar, clones had begun arriving. Some were shaking. Others were angry. Some were staring at their own hands like they'd never seen them before.
One stood up.
He looked like a soldier. Broad. Burned. His face—nearly identical to one of the early Seraphine series—but male.
"I woke up this morning," he said aloud to the room. "And I didn't hear the voice."
Everyone turned.
"The commands were gone. The orders. The echoes." His voice broke. "And I remembered my name. Not the one they gave me. The one I chose."
He looked at Seraphine.
"You did this."
She stepped forward. "I didn't free you to follow me. I freed you to choose."
The clone nodded. "Then I choose to stand beside you."
A murmur spread through the room. Other clones rose. One by one. Then dozens. A room full of unwanted, unprogrammed lives, choosing to stand on their own feet.
Sera leaned in. "This? This is a revolution."
Seraphine looked around. "No. This is the beginning."
***
Back aboard the Rogue Womb, Elior had uncovered something worse than they imagined.
He showed Seraphine the file—grainy, corrupted, sealed behind triple encryption.
"Before Kael became digital," he said, "he tried to replicate something ancient. Not a person. Not a clone."
The file opened.
A pulse. A heartbeat.
Then a scream.
The image of a creature flickered—half-organic, half-machine, suspended in a tank of plasma.
"They called it Project Lazarus," Elior whispered. "It wasn't human. It was built to survive the collapse of time."
Seraphine stared at the screen.
Its face—barely visible—looked familiar.
"Is that—?"
"It shares your genome," Elior said. "But it's not you. It's what came before. The first failed Seraphine prototype. A bio-weapon with no soul."
Sera entered behind them. "And if the Empire finds it first?"
"They'll give it Kael's consciousness," Elior said.
"And the galaxy will fall."
***
Seraphine stood before her new army.
Clones.
Rebels.
Humans who no longer trusted the system that raised them.
"We didn't ask to be born," she said. "But now we've been given something more powerful than programming."
She looked at Elior. Then Sera. Then all of them.
"A second chance."
The crowd roared.
And far above them, hidden beneath the last great station of the Old Empire… Project Lazarus began to stir.