The Wraith hurtled through hyperspace, engines whining like ghosts clawing at the walls of reality.
Nova tapped rapidly at her console in the cockpit, frustration growing with every passing second. "This system isn't in any of the Republic star charts. It's like someone tore a hole in the galaxy and buried it."
"That's the point," Valen said, leaning over her shoulder. "Marrek Voss didn't want to be found. He scrubbed his identity, faked his death, and sealed his records with Architect-grade encryption. He knew they'd come for him."
Elara stood behind them, arms crossed, her jaw tight. "And now we're dragging him out of hiding."
Nova arched a brow. "You're worried?"
"I'm... concerned," Elara replied. "Anyone smart enough to ghost the Architects is either a genius or mad. Maybe both."
Damien entered, tossing a data pad onto the console. "I've triangulated the drift signatures from the message packet we found. Cross-referenced it with deep-space mining logs. There's one place it could've come from."
He brought up a hologram of a derelict system a shattered moon orbiting a dying star.
Valen squinted at it. "That's Arkos Belt. Nothing but rogue asteroids and abandoned salvage posts."
"Exactly," Damien said. "Perfect place to disappear."
Elara nodded. "Then that's where we're going."
The Wraith dropped out of hyperspace into a graveyard of metal and silence. The Arkos Belt stretched like a frozen battlefield chunks of old mining rigs, shattered satellites, and entire ship hulls drifting lifelessly in the void.
Nova adjusted the shields. "This place is a scrapyard for regrets."
Damien scanned the wreckage. "I'm picking up minimal life signs could be rats, or survivors. Or traps."
Elara pointed toward a massive asteroid with a hangar carved into its side. "There. That's not just a mining post. That's a lab."
Valen narrowed his eyes. "Or a tomb."
As the Wraith descended, Elara placed a hand on Aeron's shoulder. He had recovered from the Architect possession, but shadows lingered in his eyes like storm clouds.
"You good?" she asked.
He nodded. "Good enough to want answers."
Nova muttered, "Aren't we all."
They suited up. The hangar bay was dark when they entered, lit only by flickering guidance lights and the hum of old tech.
Inside, silence reigned.
Too silent.
They found him deep within the structure curled in a chair, surrounded by walls of monitors and cables snaking across the floor like veins.
Dr. Marrek Voss was gaunt, half-machine, and wholly suspicious. A metal brace cradled his spine, and his eyes glowed faintly with neural implants.
He didn't move as they entered. "I knew you would come."
Valen stepped forward. "You sent the message."
"I scattered a hundred of them across the Drift. Only the right ones would decode it."
Elara narrowed her eyes. "You knew someone like me would come."
"I built the framework for your mind, Elara-Prime. Of course I knew."
She froze.
Voss tilted his head. "You were Version 0. The others... they were iterations. Clones of potential. You were the template."
Damien stepped forward. "So what's the Architect plan?"
Voss looked away. "The Architects don't want control. They want recursion. They believe in perfect replication—not just of bodies, but of thought, instinct, evolution."
Nova scowled. "And we're just beta tests?"
Voss nodded grimly. "Prototypes. Faulty ones. But Elara... you were the anomaly. The choice. And anomalies must be... corrected."
While they interrogated Voss, Aeron stood near a terminal.
Something pulsed in him. A call.
The screen flickered to life.
Lines of code spiraled familiar, haunting.
Aeron in a tube, wires in his skull, surrounded by beings cloaked in light and machine.
A voice: "Subject shows recursive instability. Elara-Prime's genetic code fragment is incompatible with Class Delta Replicant scaffold."
Another voice: "Then we let it evolve. Let the chaos birth purpose."
Aeron stumbled back.
Voss turned. "They spliced you with her code," he muttered. "Of course they did. Two halves of the same failed miracle."
Elara moved to Aeron, panic in her eyes. "What does this mean?"
Voss sighed. "You're connected. Beyond biology. You're designed to converge."
Valen's eyes widened. "They're trying to recombine you."
Aeron whispered, "That's why I hear her voice in dreams."
The walls trembled.
An alarm blared.
Valen checked the sensors. "We've got incoming—unmarked Replicant ships. Multiple. Fast."
Voss grabbed a data drive and shoved it at Elara. "Take this. It has everything—the code, their patterns, their origin. But if they get it... we all die."
Nova grabbed his arm. "You're coming with us."
Voss laughed bitterly. "My body's wired into this base. I can't leave. I'm the failsafe."
Damien swore. "They'll swarm the station in minutes."
Elara hesitated then took the drive. "We won't let them win."
They ran.
Behind them, Voss interfaced with the console, eyes fluttering as the station began to overload.
"You'll understand one day," he whispered. "We build monsters to remember what it means to be human."
The Wraith lifted off seconds before the asteroid burst in a fiery bloom.
Nova swerved between Replicant ships, dodging plasma fire with practiced rage.
Valen returned fire, silent and cold.
In the med bay, Elara clutched the drive, feeling its weight like a heart in her hands.
Aeron sat beside her. "What if we're not meant to win?"
Elara looked at him. "Then we prove them wrong."
Far across the galaxy, a cathedral of metal drifted in orbit above a black star.
The Architects watched.
A voice echoed in the darkness. "The Prime resists. The Mirror echoes."
"Then activate the Third Seed," another said. "It's time the future remembered who built it."
Below them, another pod opened inside, a being neither man nor machine, but something in between.
Its eyes opened.
And it smiled.