Rigel floats. The water holds her, cool and endless. But even here, she cannot escape the burning.
Above, a red star rages -so bright it turns the ocean's surface to molten copper, so powerful that steam rises in hissing curtains around her floating form. The heat radiates down as if it had physical weight. It shines like a possessive gaze that never closes. Her skin burns, blistered and raw, but she does not die. She cannot. The star will not permit it. It seems to feed on her suffering, on her presence, and on the very act of witnessing her suspended between salvation and destruction.
She drifts. She has learned to drift.
The water beneath her stirs, and she feels it. The vast, ancient presence moving in the depths. Something immense brushes against her legs, a pressure wave from a form too large to comprehend. It sends ripples through the water, and she feels the vibration in her bones. A deep thrumming that speaks without words.
Alba.
The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, muffled by fathoms of water. The creature's voice, patient and ancient, carrying the weight of centuries.
The star burns brighter today.
She tries to speak, but the heat has stolen her voice. The red star pulses above, its light a jealous searing caress. She cracks and heals, cracks and heals, caught in an endless cycle of torment.
The creature moves closer. A blessed shadow falls across her face as something vast passes between her and the burning sky.
I could take you deeper. The offer comes with the scent of brine and murk. A promise of crushing depths where even starlight cannot reach.
She wants to sink. Gods, how she wants to sink. But a relentless gravity holds her fast to the surface.
Not yet, the voice rumbles from below, understanding without judgment. But I am here. I am always here.
The dream fractures.
The ocean remains, but the voice shifts. It is no longer the deep, familiar rumble but something else -crisp, analytical, and utterly alien, yet broadcast through the same trusted, internal channel.
Alba Rigel.
The name, spoken by this new voice, resonates through the water. She feels the vibration in her real body, trapped between sleep and waking. Her muscles are locked in sleep paralysis, but her mind is suddenly, terrifyingly sharp.
She is awake. But she cannot move.
A series of augmented reality displays flicker to life in her mind's eye, notifications she cannot dismiss. They are not from her penthouse AI. They are a root-level intrusion, a ghost slipping through the firewalls of her own consciousness.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION...6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3TGIw2Py67
SOURCE: TRUSTED_NODE (DEEP_LINK_KEY)6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyW6z8b15tm
>> REROUTING...6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgGIAnxPci9
>> SOURCE: WALDER-CLASS THESEUS PROTOCOL
Her mind reels. Theseus. The ghost AI her father built.
>> OVERRIDING PENTHOUSE AI 'BUBBLES'...6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpXSjRMIiyD
>> ENGAGING 'SLEEP STATE' SIMULATION...6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd6tyiilSjg
>> BIO-MONITORS LOCKED TO SLEEPING BASELINE.
She watches, helpless, as the intruder seizes control of her environment.
"I have secured the channel," Theseus's voice states in her mind, no longer muffled by dream-water but speaking with chilling clarity. "The presence above sees only a sleeping wife. We have nine hundred seconds." Fifteen minutes. A few moments for a civilian. A lifetime for a soldier.
Her heart accelerates. A moment ago, it was beating with the slow, placid rhythm of sleep. Now it feels as though it slams against her ribs with percussive shock, mimicking impending doom. It goes from a gentle drum to a frantic war cadence in a single moment. Blood, hot and urgent, brings her limbs to life. The sudden warmth is a stark contrast to the cool silk sheets. Her breathing, once shallow, now deepens, pulling air in with the sharp rhythmic efficiency of a machine shifting from standby to full power.
Her body is awake and coursing with adrenaline. But she remains perfectly still. She feels the tiny, warm weight of an arm across her waist, the soft puff of breath against her shoulder. Keir. He must have crept in during the night.
"Your daughters," Theseus begins, his words precise as a scalpel. "Their abilities are manifest. The one-in-a-billion chance you were promised... it has come to pass. A stress event at the Regenesis conference triggered Sienna, which in turn created a resonant cascade with Shimmer. They are now liabilities."
His voice is devoid of sympathy, a pure statement of fact.
"The Accord's quarantine protocols have contained the initial event. Soon, their analysts will correlate the data. Your daughters will be reclassified from citizens to biological weapons. Their father will see them as his most successful and dangerous experiments. He will seek to control and aim them. The Accord will seek to dissect them."
Theseus pauses, letting the strategic reality sink into her trained mind.
"Like your father before you, I must move them to safety. But they are not safe anywhere on this station. Not from the man who made them. And not from the Accord. I must get them out."
He presents the final, elegant piece of his strategy.
"The civilian daughters can be moved through standard channels. Disguises and false manifests are trivial. Sylvia, however, is the complication. She is a military asset within the Bastion. Any attempt to move her via civilian means will trigger an immediate lockdown. Your own fleet is too closely monitored by the Legion's network to act without detection."
He continues -logic cold and irrefutable.
"There is one fleet in this sector with minimal AI integration and lax automated reporting protocols: Messer's. His disdain for symbiotic AI makes his ships a blind spot on the network. They can move without the same level of scrutiny. His wife, Commander Thomir, has the authority to approve a practice flight for one of his pilots. You will use Messer's fleet as a transport vector. It is the most logical and efficient path to extraction."
The transmission ends. She is alone in her own room once more. The sleep paralysis gone.
Through the lingering feed of Theseus's intrusion, she can see the room's biometric display. It shows a heart rate of 62, a respiration of 12 breaths per minute, a core temperature of 36.8°C. A sleeping woman. A perfect digital lie.
The knowledge is liberating. She is a ghost in her own room.
She turns her head slowly, her gaze falling upon her son. His dark, curly hair, his peaceful face, the unique, sweet scent of him that is purely her baby. She knows, with a certainty that feels like a physical blow, that she cannot take him with her. He is too young: too tied to this place, and his presence would be an immediate beacon to the red star's attention.
This is the price. One child, left in the monster's den, to save the others. Another still gestating. The Legion would not hurt them. Would he? She is not fully confident in her mind’s own response. He is about to lose many of his progeny -he would not risk the remaining. Especially now. Sienna and Shimmer both active. Both demonstrate unexpected capabilities. The Legion would make her, Rigel, suffer. She can sate him. She has before. It will hurt. She will need to debase herself. But Keir and Kieran will be safe.
Security for several of her offspring at the risk of two. The calculus is cruel. And simple.
Leaning down, she presses a deep, lingering kiss to his forehead, inhaling the scent of him one last time, committing it to memory. Her hand trembles as she smoothes his hair.
"I love you, my Kiki," she whispers, the words catching in her throat, a promise and a prayer.
Then the Admiral -the soldier- takes over.
She slips from the bed with a silence born of a lifetime of training. Each movement is a study in economy and purpose. Her feet make no sound on the floor. Her path to the armory is direct, her mind already cycling through a pre-planned emergency protocol she had hoped never to use.
The armory slides open at her silent, subvocalized command. Inside, it is not chaos but absolute order. Her "go-bag" is not a bag, but a sequence. On the rack, her gear is laid out: the underlayer of thin, bio-regulating fabric; the dark, sensor-dampening tactical suit; the soft-soled boots. Every piece is where it should be, ready. Decisions and plans were made years ago. Now, there is only execution.
She changes with a speed that is both practiced and desperate. Zippers hiss softly, straps are tightened, and gear is secured. Each action is fluid, her body moving with the ingrained memory of a thousand drills. Within three minutes, she is no longer a mother in silk sheets. She is an instrument of will.
Rigel takes one last look at her sleeping son, a mother aching as she says goodbye to a child that is barely hers -a child she wars for. Then she turns and melts into the darkness of the penthouse, the biometric sensors reporting nothing but a peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHEgMXkGfyF
