The shuttle sliced through the void toward the infected cruiser.
Luzian sat in the copilot's seat, Storm-Daughter beside him, her hands steady on the controls. The ship's hull had grown since the last scan, geometry crawling across metal like a vine, angles sharp enough to cut light.
"They're not firing," she said.
"They want me alive."
"That's not reassuring."
He looked at the approaching vessel. The geometric patterns pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The suit was humming, feeding him data, showing him the infection's structure.
It's not just on the hull. It's in the walls. The wiring. The air. The crew is breathing it.
"How close can you get us?"
"Docking bay. It's open." She glanced at him. "They're inviting us in."
"Then let's not keep them waiting."
...
The docking bay was dark.
The shuttle's lights cut across a space that had stopped being a docking bay. The walls were wrong, angles folding into angles, surfaces that reflected light that didn't exist. The crew stood in formation, thirty of them, their faces half-covered in geometric patterns, eyes glowing with the same wrong light.
Luzian stepped out. Storm-Daughter behind him, wings half-open, light building along their edges.
The crew spoke as one.
"The Bonded One. You came."
"You said to come get you."
"We said we would open you. To see what is inside."
One of them stepped forward. A woman, maybe. Her face was more pattern than skin now. Her eyes were holes into something that wasn't there.
"The Builders made a key. You wear it. But a key turns both ways. It opens doors. It also locks them."
Luzian's hands were at his sides. Gold light building.
"You want the gate."
"We want what is behind it. The Haven. A place beyond our reach. The Builders thought they could hide from us. They were wrong."
The crew shifted. Their movements were synchronized, inhuman, a single organism wearing thirty bodies.
"You cut us out of the gate. But we are still here. Still inside your Fleet. Still inside,"
One of them pointed at Storm-Daughter.
"your companion."
Luzian turned. Storm-Daughter stood frozen, her wings locked, her eyes wide. On her neck, a geometric pattern was spreading.
No. No, no, no,
"We have been waiting. Patient. The Armor protects you. But her? She was close to the gate. Close to the infection. Close enough."
Storm-Daughter's hand went to her throat. The pattern pulsed.
"Luzian,"
"She will become us. Unless you give us what we want."
The gold light exploded from him.
He didn't think. The suit moved, and he was across the bay, hand pressed against Storm-Daughter's throat, light burning into the pattern. She screamed. The infected crew screamed. The ship screamed.
"You cannot burn us out! We are inside her! Kill us, and she dies!"
Luzian felt it. The infection in her blood, her nerves, her mind. The suit showed him every thread of it, woven through her like roots through soil.
If I pull, she dies. If I don't, she becomes them.
Storm-Daughter's hand closed over his. Her eyes met his. Terrified. But steady.
"Do it."
"I can't,"
"Do it. Before I'm not me anymore."
The pattern was spreading. Up her neck, across her jaw, toward her eyes.
"Listen to her. Listen to the thing that will die because of you."
Luzian looked at her. At the woman who'd followed him into fire. Who'd promised to kill him if he became the enemy.
She made me a promise. Now I make her one.
He pressed his palm harder against her throat. The gold light intensified.
"You want to see what's inside me?" He looked at the infected crew. At the thing wearing their faces. "Then watch."
He pushed.
The light didn't burn the infection out. It pulled. Dragged it from Storm-Daughter's blood into his own, thread by thread, root by root. She gasped, convulsed, the pattern shrinking as it transferred.
The crew screamed.
"What are you doing?"
Luzian felt it enter him. The cold. The hunger. The geometry trying to rewrite his cells.
But the suit was faster.
Gold and purple and blue, the Armor fought, isolating the infection, containing it, burning it out as fast as it came in.
Storm-Daughter fell. He caught her. The pattern on her neck was gone.
The infection in him screamed.
"You cannot contain us! We are infinite! We are,"
Luzian raised his free hand. The gold light condensed into a point. Brighter than a star.
"You're a parasite. And I'm done carrying you."
He closed his fist.
The light imploded. The infection inside him, every thread, every root, every piece that had transferred, compressed into a single point and vanished.
The infected crew collapsed. The geometric patterns on their faces faded, leaving clean skin beneath. The walls stopped being wrong. The angles stopped folding.
Silence.
Real silence. The kind that comes after a storm.
Luzian stood in the docking bay, Storm-Daughter in his arms, breathing hard.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay."
She opened her eyes. Looked up at him.
"You're an idiot."
He laughed. It came out shaky.
"Yeah. I know."