The doors to the Bridge slid open with a silent, majestic grace, revealing a chamber frozen in time. It was vast, with a panoramic viewport that showed the breathtaking curve of the planet below and the infinite starfield beyond. Workstations lined the room, their screens dark. In the center, on a raised dais, sat the Captain's Chair.
It was here that the fate of 1.1 billion people had been decided. Now, it held the fate of one man, one woman, and the remains of two civilizations.
The room was pristine, untouched by the battle that had ravaged the antechamber. The explosion had blown outwards, preserving the sanctum within. Dust motes danced in the light from the viewport.
"Secure the perimeter," Kaelen ordered the androids. They moved with silent efficiency, checking behind consoles and stationing themselves at the doors.
Elara went straight to the science station, her fingers flying over the console as it powered up. "I'm accessing the long-range sensors. I want another look at our friends down there."
Kaelen approached the Captain's Chair. It felt like a sacrilege to sit in it. He was a Grade 4 Maintenance Worker. This chair was meant for men like Captain Thorne. But Thorne was gone. He was the Steward.
He sat down.
The moment he did, the entire Bridge hummed to life. Consoles lit up, holographic displays flickered into being, and a soft, ambient light filled the room. A holographic interface appeared in front of him, far more complex than the one projected by his neural chip.
"Bridge systems online," Mother's voice echoed through the chamber's speakers. "Full command interface available to you, Steward."
A schematic of the Elysian appeared before him. This time, he could see everything. The glowing red mass of the Gestalt, concentrated in the ship's stern. The thousands of blue icons representing the dormant android army. And the millions of grey icons for the inactive maintenance drones.
"Mother, initiate the system-wide activation sequence for all M-Series androids."
"Initiating. The signal will take several minutes to propagate throughout the ship."
On the schematic, the blue icons began to blink, one by one, turning from dormant blue to active green. All over the ship, in storage bays and security posts, 50,000 military androids were waking up.
But then, alarms flashed on Kaelen's display. A cluster of several hundred android icons, located near the Gestalt's core, turned red and vanished.
"Alert. The Gestalt is reacting. It is releasing a highly corrosive enzyme in the areas where androids are activating. It is destroying them before they can fully come online."
The Gestalt was smart. It couldn't control the androids, but it could anticipate where they would be and destroy them in their cradles.
"We've lost the element of surprise," Kaelen said. "We need to get the androids we have activated moving now, before it adapts further. M-77, can you assume command of the active units?"
"Affirmative," the android replied. "Establishing battlenet now."
"Your orders: clear a path from the Armory Decks to the front of the ship. Secure a corridor. We need a safe zone to operate from."
"Acknowledged. Deploying units."
On the hologram, the scattered green icons of the awakened androids began to move, coalescing into spearheads that pushed into the infected zones. Red icons representing Gestalt life signs swarmed to meet them. It was a silent, brutal war being waged in the bowels of the ship, displayed as cool, tactical data.
"Kaelen, look at this," Elara called from the science station. She had pulled up the planetary scan. She zoomed in on the alien city. The image was sharper now, with the Bridge's superior sensors.
The city wasn't just made of organic-looking material. It was organic. The "buildings" pulsed with a slow, rhythmic light. And moving through the streets were the inhabitants. They were tall, graceful beings, with shimmering, iridescent skin and large, calm eyes. They looked like idealized humans, but utterly alien.
"They're beautiful," Elara whispered.
Then, the image changed. One of the beings looked up, directly at the sensor satellite, as if it knew it was being watched. It raised a slender hand. In its palm, it grew a perfect, glowing replica of the flower symbol it had been sending.
But then, the flower withered and died in the being's hand. It was replaced by a new image: a simplistic hologram of the Elysian, with a red, pulsing dot over the engineering section—the Gestalt's core. Then, the hologram showed the Elysian breaking apart in orbit.
The message was unmistakable. Destroy the contamination. Or we will destroy you.
"They've given us a deadline," Kaelen said grimly.
Before he could react further, a new alert flashed—this one from the internal comms. It was a distress call, weak and garbled, originating from the Ship's Archive, just a few decks below the Bridge.
"…anyone… please… systems failing… they're at the door…" The voice was synthetic, but laced with panic. …Archivist… need assistance…"
An AI? Another survivor? The Archive held the sum total of human knowledge. And something was trying to break in.
"The Gestalt," Elara said, her eyes distant as she sensed it. "It's not just attacking the androids. It's going for the Archive. It wants the data. It wants to know everything we know."
The war had just expanded to a new front. They had to save the Archive.