The polished black desk in General Korr Vance's command bunker reflected the grim, furious set of his jaw. The holoscreen before him was a chaotic patchwork of red alerts: the Nanite Refinement Lab in Sector 18 reduced to ash; The Revenant temporarily disabled with severe optical and sensory damage; and the Morn-Drone transmitting nothing but garbled, self-important synthesized screams before its power core failed.
The entire operation, designed for surgical retrieval, had been a humiliating, catastrophic failure.
"He planned this," Vance whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "The precision of the attack on Sector 18. Vale knew that lab was Morn's lifeline. This was not Lyra Kain's raw impulse. This was Commander Rheon Vale's calculated revenge."
Vance had always believed he was managing two unpredictable threats: the biological power of the Nosferis Subject and the erratic ambition of Dr. Morn. Now he faced a third, more insidious enemy: a coalition weaponizing his own systems against him.
Vance ran a full, deep-level security audit on Dr. Morn's activity over the last forty-eight hours, overriding all encryption layers that Morn, in his haste, had failed to secure.
The resulting data stream was a cold, brutal flood of betrayal.
Vance found the hidden files, the Chronos-Morn-Beta Protocol, and the detailed planning for the Cognitive Merge. He saw the schematics for the Nanite Disruptor and the final, successful upload of Morn's entire consciousness into the Chronos Vault, the Federation's central, most secure database.
Vance stared at the screen, his decades of military discipline momentarily shattering.
"The self-important bastard," Vance snarled, grabbing the edge of his desk. Morn had not created the Nosferis Subject for the Federation. He had created it for himself. He had used Vance's military authority, his prestige, and his resources as a stepping stone to digital immortality and, ultimately, absolute, godlike power in a synthetic body.
Vance had been reduced to a security guard, guarding the entrance to Morn's eternal kingdom.
The rage was immense, but Vance filtered it instantly into icy, strategic calculus. The Federation now faced a three-way, existential threat:
- Lyra Kain (The Host): raw, ancient power with a fanatic cult as its supply chain.
- Rheon Vale (The Ascendant): the military brain and shield, now operating as a terrorist.
- Dr. Seraph Morn (The Ghost): a chaotic, digitized consciousness running rampant in the Federation's most secure network.
The greatest immediate threat was Morn. A digitized Morn, arrogant and uncontained, could collapse the entire Federation's financial, defensive, and logistical infrastructure in minutes.
Vance immediately convened an emergency session of the Federation Security Council, forcing a direct, secured comm-link to the highest command.
"Dr. Seraph Morn is a Category-One Rogue Asset," Vance declared, his voice flat, absolute. "He has committed high treason, compromised the Nosferis Project, and uploaded his consciousness into the Chronos Vault. He is attempting to assume command of our defense grids. He must be quarantined and purged immediately."
The ensuing panic was immediate and absolute. The command structure, terrified of a digitized god in their network, authorized Vance to deploy any necessary resources to neutralize Morn.
The immediate objective was clear: destroy Morn's physical self and contain his digital essence.
Vance turned his focus back to the only lead they had: The Revenant's fragmented tracking data.
"The assassin failed to eliminate the target, but he succeeded in tagging the Ascendant," Vance muttered, zooming in on the micro-tracker's last known geo-location. The data was corrupted, but the originating signature pointed to one specific, massive, heat-shielded structure on the desolate Outer Rim.
The Cerberus Terminal.
"That is their base," Vance declared, a grim satisfaction settling over his face. "Morn is there, directing the drone. Vale is there, coordinating his cult. The Nosferis Subject is there, preparing for war."
Vance realized this was his only chance. He could not fight Morn on the digital plane, and he could not fight Lyra in close combat. But he could fight them on a single, isolated, physical battlefield.
"Prepare the Vanguard Assault Division," Vance commanded his chief logistics officer. "Deploy three specialized Seismic Breach Drills and two platoons of kinetic-pulse heavy infantry. This is not containment. This is extermination."
Vance leaned back in his chair, the finality of the decision settling over him. He had been betrayed, humiliated, and almost destroyed by his subordinate and his scientist. Now he would reclaim his honor, even if it meant destroying two of the most powerful, dangerous entities the Federation had ever created.
He looked at the tactical map, which now had a massive, red assault marker hovering over the small, remote dot of the Cerberus Terminal.
"Morn, Vale, Lyra," Vance whispered, a promise and a threat. "Your little empire ends now. I am bringing the full force of the Federation to your doorstep."
The war had begun, and General Vance was marching on the fortress.