The signal was impossibly faint, flickering like a candle in a storm. A human life sign. Here, in the heart of the infestation. It had to be a trick, a lure from the hive mind. Valerius's journal had said it was intelligent, that it learned.
"Mother, do you see this? Is it real?"
"The signal is weak and the interference is extreme… but the modulation is consistent with a standard emergency transponder. It is possible." Her voice was breaking up, laced with static. "Exercise… extreme… caution."
Caution. The word was a whisper against the pounding of his heart. Every instinct told him to stick to the mission, to go left and destroy the core. But what if it was real? What if someone had survived down here, trapped for who knows how long? Could he condemn them to death by ignoring them?
The weight of being the Steward settled on him. He was responsible for every life on the ship. If there was even a chance…
He turned right.
The tunnel sloped downward, the organic growth becoming thicker, more aggressive. Strange, pitcher-like plants dripped a viscous fluid, and his suit's sensors warned of highly corrosive enzymes. He moved carefully, his rifle raised. The clicking sound grew louder, resolving into a complex, chittering language. He was getting closer to something.
The tunnel opened into a vast cavern. It had once been a cargo bay, but now it was a grotesque cathedral of flesh. The ceiling was lost in a web of glowing tendrils, and the floor was a seething mass of the chitinous, multi-legged creatures he'd glimpsed in the hydroponics bay. There were dozens of them, scuttling around a central structure.
In the center of the bay was a large, pod-like object, woven from the same organic material as the walls. It was translucent, and inside, he could see a human form, hooked up to a network of pulsating veins. The life sign was coming from there.
The pod was a prison. And the prisoner was alive.
As he watched, one of the larger creatures, a six-foot-tall monstrosity with scythe-like claws, approached the pod. It extended a slender proboscis and inserted it into a port in the pod, as if feeding or… extracting information.
The hive mind wasn't just consuming biomass. It was consuming knowledge. It was studying its captive.
Rage, hot and pure, washed over Kaelen. This was an abomination beyond murder. He didn't think. He acted.
He raised his pulse rifle and fired.
The blue energy bolt tore through the darkness, striking the large creature in its thorax. It screeched, a sound of pure agony and surprise, and stumbled back from the pod. The entire cavern erupted into chaos. The smaller creatures turned as one, their glowing green eyes fixing on him.
He was massively outnumbered. Tactics flooded his mind—a maintenance worker's understanding of spaces. He saw a gantry crane overhead, running the length of the bay.
"Target the ceiling supports!" he yelled, though Mother couldn't hear him. He switched his rifle to a higher power setting and fired at the base of the nearest thick, fleshy column that held up the web of tendrils.
The plasma bolt burned deep. The column shuddered, and a section of the glowing ceiling collapsed, crushing several creatures below. He fired again and again, creating a cascade of falling debris, cutting off the horde's direct path to him.
He used the distraction to sprint towards the pod. The large creature he'd shot was recovering, its claws clacking in fury. Kaelen didn't stop. He fired a sustained burst into its face, forcing it back, and reached the pod.
The material was tough, rubbery. He slung his rifle and used the suit's enhanced strength to tear at the membrane. It ripped with a sound like tearing meat. Inside, the prisoner was a woman, emaciated, her skin pale and crisscrossed with organic filaments. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing.
He ripped the filaments away and gathered her into his arms. She was light as a feather. A name tag on the tattered remains of her uniform read: DR. E. SILVA, XENOBIOLOGY.
Dr. Silva. One of the scientists who had worked with the samples. Valerius's colleague… or victim?
There was no time to find out. The creatures were already finding new paths around the rubble, their chittering rising to a fever pitch. He had to go. The mission to the core was aborted. He had a new priority: get her out alive.
He fired his rifle one-handed, creating a suppressing wall of plasma, and ran back the way he came, clutching the unconscious doctor to his chest. The suit's power was draining rapidly with the heavy load and constant firing.
He reached the conduit and began the arduous climb, pulling himself up with one arm while holding Dr. Silva with the other. The creatures swarmed into the tunnel below, climbing the walls after him with terrifying speed. He dropped a thermal grenade. The explosion filled the shaft with fire and heat, and the screeches from below turned to screams.
He climbed and climbed, his muscles screaming even with the suit's assistance. Finally, he saw the hatch above. He burst through, back into the clean, metallic corridor of the upper deck, and slammed the hatch shut, engaging all its manual locks.
He collapsed against the wall, the suit's systems whining in protest. He carefully laid Dr. Silva on the floor. Her eyes fluttered open. They were clouded with pain and fear, but they focused on him.
"Who…?" she whispered, her voice a dry rasp.
"Kaelen. I'm the Steward."
A look of profound confusion crossed her face. "Steward? The chip… it worked? But… he said it failed. Valerius said the succession protocol failed…"
Then her eyes widened in terror. "The core… it knows you now. It tasted your mind through the suit. It's afraid of you. That's why it showed you me. To distract you."
Kaelen felt a cold dread wash over him. The life sign hadn't been a lucky find. It had been bait. The hive mind had used his own humanity, his sense of duty, against him. It had lured him away from its heart.
And now, it knew its enemy.
Dr. Silva grasped his armored wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. "It's not just a plant… it's a symbiote. It merged with… with the others. The ones who survived the initial days. It's learning… becoming… it has a plan for the planet."
She fell back, exhausted. Kaelen looked down at her, then back towards the sealed hatch. He had saved a life, but he may have doomed everything else. The simple mission was over. He was no longer just fighting an infestation. He was fighting an intelligent enemy that knew him better than he knew himself.
The war for the Elysian had truly begun.