Running away is not a dignified act for a hero.
It is even less dignified for a man who claims to be the Savior of Humanity and carries a reality-altering pen in his pocket.
Yet here we are…
Ragia Quarso was sprinting down the metallic corridor of Gyra. His boots slammed against the organic floor plates with a rhythm that screamed desperation rather than tactical retreat.
Beside him, Raya and Gin were matching his pace. They were not screaming. They were not panicking. They were professionals, but I could see the tension in their shoulders, and the way they checked their six every few seconds.
Behind them, the darkness roared.
It was the heavy, rhythmic thud of hooves hitting metal. It was the sound of four tons of armored Centaur muscle charging through the narrow hallway with the intent to turn us into paste.
Hey, Capt.
I have a question.
Why are you running?
You are an Inquor. You have the Queen form. You have the blaster. You have the Chef and the Professor. You just cleared a room full of sleeping soldiers without breaking a sweat.
And now?
You are fleeing from a family reunion.
Ragia did not slow down. He vaulted over a pile of debris, his leather jacket flapping behind him like a broken wing.
"Shut up, Narrator," Ragia thought, his internal voice tight with stress. "I am not fleeing. I am performing a strategic withdrawal."
It looks like fleeing to me, Ragia.
And honestly, it is a bit disappointing. You have the poison. Why didn't you just shoot them?
"I did shoot them!" Ragia argued in his head. "Didn't you see? I put a bolt right between the eyes of the lead Centaur."
"It didn't even flinch!"
He was right.
I saw it.
The blue energy bolt hit the Centaur. It should have dissolved the creature. It should have turned the red chitin into purple ash, just like it did to the Troopers in the barracks.
But it didn't…
The Centaur just absorbed it. The armor glowed for a second, pulsing with a strange, golden hue, and then the creature kept coming.
"The serum isn't working on them," Ragia thought. "They adapted. Labradlle wasn't lying. She evolved."
"And if she evolved, her hive evolved with her."
Ragia took a sharp left turn, skidding on the slick floor. Gin and Raya followed close behind.
"This way!" Ragia shouted aloud. "The shuttle pod is two sectors down! Move!"
"They are gaining on us, Capt!" Gin yelled back.
She spun around while running, unleashing a burst of blue fire from her hand to create a wall of heat behind them.
It wouldn't stop them, but it might slow them down.
"My clones are depleted," Raya stated calmly, though she was running faster than I had ever seen her move. "I require thirty seconds to reconstruct a solid barrier. We do not have thirty seconds."
"Just run!" Ragia ordered.
He looked straight ahead, but his mind was looking back.
He was thinking about Labradlle.
He was thinking about the woman sitting on the bone throne. The woman who wore the face of his mentor and the body of a monster.
"It is not just about the poison, Narrator," Ragia confessed to me. "It is the aura."
What aura?
"Can't you feel it?" Ragia asked. "The energy coming from that throne room. It is not just Krall pheromones."
"It is not just the Queen's hunger."
He clenched his fists as he ran.
"It feels like... home. It feels like Melios."
I paused my narration for a microsecond.
He was right…
Underneath the stench of the Krall, underneath the rot and the decay of Gyra, there was a familiar frequency. It was the same energy that powered the Gatling Rose. The same energy that fueled the Mech Titan.
It was the energy of an Inquor bonded to his squad.
"La Recon V," Ragia whispered.
Labradlle's squad.
The women who fought beside Labradlle for years. The elite Melitos who were rumored to be the strongest unit in the Reagalus fleet before they vanished.
"If Labradlle turned," Ragia thought, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck. "If the Inquor became the Queen... then what happened to his Melitos?"
I realized the implication.
If the source of the power changed, the receivers changed too.
"They are not dead," Ragia concluded grimly. "They are worse. They are hybrids. Imagine a Melito with the instincts of a Krall. Imagine the Gatling Rose without a conscience. Imagine the Mech Titan fueled by hunger instead of duty."
He looked at Gin. He looked at Raya. They were strong. They were Explorer 7.
But…
They were tired. They were running on limited reserves.
"If La Recon V is here," Ragia thought. "If they are hunting us... then this isn't a fight. It is a slaughter. I cannot let them face that. Not here. Not now."
So you are saving them.
"I am prioritizing my family," Ragia corrected. "I am getting my family off this floating coffin before the ghosts of my past decide to eat them."
Ragia raised his hand to his ear. He tapped his communicator.
"Navi!" Ragia barked. "Come in! Status!"
Static crackled in his ear, then Tonix's voice cut through.
"Capt!" Tonix sounded relieved but tense. "I read you. The sensors are going crazy. The Gyra is waking up. The energy spikes are off the charts. What is happening down there?"
"We kicked the hornet's nest, Navi," Ragia said, breathing hard. "And the hornets are bigger than we thought. Prep the engines. We are coming in hot."
"I want Xeca ready to jump the second we dock."
"Jump?"
Another voice joined the channel.
It was Iya…
"Ragia," Iya said. Her voice was calm, authoritative, the voice of the Vice Captain. "Why are we jumping? Did you neutralize the target? Is Labradlle secure?"
"Labradlle is the target!" Gin shouted into her own comms, interrupting before Ragia could answer. "And he... no! She... it is not secure! It is a Queen, Vice! A big, red, sexy Queen!"
"What?" Iya's voice faltered. "A Queen?"
"Confirming Chef's assessment," Raya added, tapping her earpiece while dodging a falling piece of organic debris. "The target has undergone a total biological metamorphosis."
"However, the morphology is distinct. It differs significantly from the Captain's Queen Form."
"Different how?" Iya asked.
"It is stable," Raya said. "It is not a temporary state induced by serum or trauma. It is a permanent evolution. And it is generating a hive mind frequency that is overriding the local Krall protocols."
"He is controlling them," Ragia said. "He is the Alpha. We have to go, Vice. If we stay, we get swarmed."
"Understood," Iya said instantly. "Navi, warm up the warp drive. Chef, Prof, get to the pod. Ragia… watch your six."
"Always," Ragia said.
He cut the link.
They reached a long, straight section of the corridor. The shuttle bay was just ahead. He could see the airlock door.
"Almost there!" Ragia shouted.
But…
The universe, as always, had other plans. The floor behind them exploded. It wasn't a bomb. It was sheer brute force. The metal plates buckled and tore apart as the Centaurs caught up.
They galloped into view.
There were four of them. Their lower bodies were armored horses of bone and muscle, their hooves striking sparks against the deck. Their upper bodies were female, red-skinned and four-armed, wielding massive energy pikes that crackled with green electricity.
"They are fast!" Gin yelled.
She stopped running. She spun around, planting her feet.
"Go!" Gin screamed at Ragia. "I will hold them back! Get Prof to the shuttle!"
"Chef, no!" Ragia shouted.
Gin didn't listen. She raised her hands.
"Flambe!"
Blue fire erupted from her palms. It wasn't a stream. It was a wall. A roaring inferno of plasma heat that filled the corridor, blocking the path of the charging Centaurs.
The Centaurs didn't stop. They charged right through the fire. Their bone armor blackened, but they didn't slow down.
"Inefficient," Raya noted.
"Shadow Construct." She stopped beside Gin. "Wall Phalanx!"
Four clones materialized from the shadows on the floor. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Gin, linking arms. They solidified, turning from smoky silhouettes into a barrier of hard light and dark matter.
The Centaurs slammed into the clones. The impact shook the entire ship. The clones flickered, their forms straining against the tonnage of the alien beasts.
"The barrier will hold for twelve seconds," Raya stated, her face pale. "Capt, the shuttle. Now."
"I am not leaving you!" Ragia roared.
He drew his blaster. He aimed at the lead Centaur, looking for a weak point in the armor.
"Chef!" Ragia commanded. "Hit them harder! Use the Phoenix! Melt them down!"
Gin gritted her teeth. Her eyes glowed with blue light.
"You want them melted?" Gin growled. "Fine. I will turn them into soup."
She took a deep breath. The air around her began to shimmer. White flames licked at the edges of her apron. The temperature in the corridor skyrocketed.
"Phoenix..." Gin started to shout.
But…
She never finished the word. From the darkness behind the Centaurs, a voice spoke.
It was a female voice. Cheerful. Energetic. Almost playful.
"Rocket Punchier!"
There was a sound like a jet engine igniting. Something flew over the heads of the Centaurs. It was fast. Too fast to track with the naked eye. It looked like a blur of red metal and fire.
It slammed into Gin.
There was no explosion. Just a sickening thud of heavy impact.
The white flames around Gin vanished instantly. The air was knocked out of her lungs. She was lifted off her feet and thrown backward, crashing into the wall with enough force to dent the metal.
She slid down to the floor. Limp. Unconscious.
"Chef!" Ragia screamed.
He looked at the object that had hit her. It was hovering in the air, smoke trailing from its wrist.
It was a fist.
A disembodied, rocket-propelled fist. It was armored in red and gold plating. The fingers flexed slowly, mechanical joints whirring. It then turned around and flew back into the darkness.
Ragia froze.
He knew that fist. He had seen that fist punch through the hull of a pirate ship. He had seen that fist arm-wrestle a Wif and win.
"Ricey," Ragia whispered.
Ricey…
The Vanguard of La Recon V. The girl who laughed too loud and hit too hard. The girl who could detach her hands and turn them into missiles.
She was here.
Raya stepped back, her clones wavering as her concentration broke. She looked at Gin's unconscious body, then at Ragia.
"Capt," Raya said, her voice losing its clinical detachment for the first time. "That kinetic energy signature... it matches the database for..."
"Lazy Pointer..."
A second voice cut through the chaos.
This one was different. It was cold. Bored. It sounded like a woman who was filing her nails while watching the world burn.
A thin beam of red light sliced through the darkness.
It was silent. Surgical. It hit the datapad in Raya's hand, and exploded.
Raya yelped, dropping the burning wreckage of her datapad. She clutched her hand, staring at the singed glove.
"My scanner..." Raya gasped. "She targeted the power cell. The precision is... statistically improbable."
Ragia looked into the dark corridor beyond the Centaurs. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there.
De Ville….
The Sniper. The woman who never missed. The woman who could hit a coin from orbit with her finger.
They were not showing themselves. They didn't have to. They were toying with them.
Ragia stood there, his empty hand still raised.
The Centaurs had stopped their charge. They stood waiting, their heavy breathing filling the silence.
Ragia looked at Gin, crumpled on the floor. He looked at Raya, defenseless and shaking. He looked at me.
"Narrator," Ragia thought.
I am here, Capt.
"They are real," Ragia thought. His mental voice was trembling. "It is not just Labradlle. It is all of them."
I looked at his face.
I have seen Ragia Quarso angry. I have seen him annoyed. I have seen him bored in the face of death, but I had never seen him like this. His golden eyes were wide. His pupils were dilated.
It wasn't the fear of dying. Ragia Quarso didn't care about dying. He had died before. It was boring. This was the fear of a man who realized he was holding a paper shield in a hurricane.
He was afraid for them.
He was afraid that the family he built, the chaotic, dysfunctional family he loved, was about to be torn apart by the family he had lost.