The warning came as a static tremor—too fast for sensors, too quiet for alarms. A ripple across space like a predator's breath on the back of the neck.
Echelon spoke with rare urgency. "Incoming biosignatures—Hive. Cloaked. Four minutes to breach."
"Four minutes?" Brinley spun toward the exterior monitors. "We're in deep orbital shadow. They shouldn't have seen us."
"They didn't," Vara said darkly. "They felt us. Seraphel stirred, and they came hunting."
Julius turned to the barely-awake symbiote core resting on the floor. Its heartbeat had quickened—erratic, panicked.
"She's not ready," Vara muttered.
"She doesn't have to be," Julius snapped. "She just has to wake up."
From the outer corridors, a deep reverberation began—metal grinding on metal. The Hive wasn't subtle anymore.
Brinley checked her rifle. "I'll hold the main corridor."
"No," Julius said. "We hold the chamber. If they get Seraphel, it's over."
Vara hesitated only a second before moving to the core. "She'll fight, but if she rejects the bond…"
"Then we all die anyway."
Vara knelt, pressing both hands to the surface of Seraphel's shell. Her symbiotic veins lit up like circuitry—reactive, jagged, wild. The air smelled of ozone and ancient rot.
"Synchronization attempt initiated," Echelon confirmed.
Julius took position near the chamber's entrance, eyes locked on the hatch. His arm transformed—plates folding, weapon modules growing.
The sound came again. Closer now. A sharp click, like teeth on metal.
Then the first Hive brute burst through. Towering, chitinous, its arms were tipped with drill-like claws and a face that melted and reformed like wax.
Julius fired. The blast tore through its shoulder, but the creature barely flinched. Behind it, others scrambled and crawled—smaller, faster, shrieking like starving crows.
"Vara!" he shouted.
"I'm trying!" she screamed. "She's resisting the merge—too much trauma—too much missing!"
Seraphel pulsed violently, her shell fracturing. Light poured from the cracks—green, violet, flickers of something ancient and furious.
Vara gritted her teeth and leaned in. "You know me, Sera. I was your voice, your blade. I buried you with my bare hands. Come back to me."
The next Hive creature leapt through—only for its head to explode in a flash of searing plasma.
Seraphel had moved.
The symbiote shell uncoiled, wrapping around Vara like a storm of fireflies and liquid steel. Her scream turned into a roar as the pieces latched into her nervous system, merging old scars with new flame.
Julius watched in awe as the transformation took shape—not as clean or sleek as his Echelon, but raw, primal, radiant.
Vara rose, symbiote fully active, eyes glowing with a dangerous light.
"Round two, Vorr," she whispered. "Let's finish what we started."
The Hive surged forward.
And this time, Vara Nyx was ready.