The Wraith spiraled through the debris field, engines screaming as Brinley weaved past chunks of the shattered relay station. Julius stared at the map flickering in his HUD—new coordinates traced a slow, glowing line toward a system called Doran's Halo, once a fringe colony, now marked "uninhabited."
"Doran's Halo contains ruins of a pre-collapse research station," Echelon said. "Early data suggests traces of compatible symbiotic architecture—non-Hive origin."
Brinley raised an eyebrow. "Another vault?"
"Not exactly," Julius muttered. "It's older. Maybe even something the Hive stole from."
He felt it again—deep in his chest—the way the suit's instincts twitched at something unseen. Not Vorr's presence this time, but something… quieter. Familiar, but alien.
A warning. Or a beacon.
Hours later, they dropped from FTL near Doran's Halo. The system's red dwarf bathed its single, cracked planet in dim light. And orbiting above the surface: a derelict station, half buried in an asteroid belt, its hull coated with centuries of dust.
Brinley checked the scanners. "I'm getting weird echoes from inside. Like someone's bouncing our signal back at us—just slightly out of phase."
Julius tightened his grip on his weapon. "Then let's knock."
The Wraith latched to the station's docking ring, and Julius stepped through into a silent corridor. Thin strands of symbiotic material traced the walls—more plantlike than Echelon's metallic flow, pulsing faintly.
"This doesn't feel like Hive," he muttered.
"Confirmed," Echelon replied. "Resonance frequencies suggest genetic drift… this is from a divergent line."
Then a voice echoed through the speaker system—cracked and filtered, feminine. "Identify yourself."
Julius froze. "We're not Hive. I'm bonded to a Class-Zero interface—non-dominant AI symbiote."
A pause. Then the voice responded. "Step forward. Slowly. Weapons lowered."
As they rounded a corner, a silhouette emerged from behind a forcefield barrier—armor pieced together from scavenged parts, a helm with twin lenses, and a strange shimmer across the figure's left arm. A partial suit—alive and breathing—but different from Echelon.
"My name is Vara Nyx," she said, lowering her rifle. "I thought I was the last of the bonded."
Julius met her gaze through the translucent field. "You're not. And we've got a war coming."
Her eyes narrowed. "Then you'd better come inside. We have much to discuss—and little time."
Brinley raised her brow. "Looks like we found our first friend."
Or our first complication, Julius thought.
Either way, the war was growing. And they weren't alone anymore.