The pressure constricted. The etheric storm was no longer a chaotic swirl of energy, it was a brute force, coiling around my mind, crushing my thoughts under its weight.

  Then my mind cracked.

  A rift split open in my consciousness, and my thoughts accelerated beyond my comprehension. My awareness fractured into countless shards grasping together not to be lost in this realm.

  I was no longer controlling the battlefield, I was remembering memories so ancient and fragmented.

  I was in darkness for aeons lost until one day I only saw a blinding light, It was endless and all-consuming.

  My mind witnessed the shattered fragments of consciousness echoes of countless minds as the light consumed entire star systems.

  Worlds were erased instantly, their planets collapsing into drifting, molten husks, the remnants of their existence swallowed by the void.

  Civilizations crumbled before awareness of their demise could even form. There were no cries, no desperate final words, only silence, stretched across the vast ruins of time.

  I was witnessing the death of entire histories, their legacies burned away in the purest form of annihilation.

  But then… the light faltered and died, swallowed by the abyss.

  I drifted through the void, lost in the silence of aeons.

  Yet, the destruction had not been absolute. Scattered throughout the endless ruin, there were places where the light had failed to reach patches of darkness standing defiantly against its brilliance.

  Like cracks in shattered glass, they formed gaps in the annihilation, remnants of existence that had somehow endured.

  Through those fractures, stars still burned, untouched and defiant. I drifted onward, carried by unseen currents, past these lone beacons in the black until, at last, I reached a planet.

  Then I heard the first voices in a language I knew.

  “The specimen was recovered at the impact site.”

  I peered through the hazy screen, my vision distorted by the thick barrier between me and the outside world. Large, indistinct shapes moved beyond the glass before I realized they were Valurians.

  Inside the pod, I shifted my body an amorphous mass of dark grey, stretching and twisting within the confines of my container. I pressed against the walls, testing their resistance, trying to understand this space.

  Another flash—then the memory shifted.

  I was in a pod, my mind shifting between rage, anger, and pain.

  A sharp scalpel hovered, glinting under the sterile light, before it pressed into my flesh. I did not flinch. I did not scream. I endured. I waited.

  The next time it came, I held on. I refused to break.

  The moment stretched. Then—I struck.

  My form twisted, dissolving into something more, something beyond their understanding. Metal corroded beneath my touch, breaking down into nothingness as I consumed it.

  Alarms blared.

  But I was already escaping.

  The memory shifted, and I was back in containment, but I could still hear their voices.

  “Initial tests proved inconclusive—”

  “Correction: The organism exhibits self-sustaining properties beyond known parameters. Attempts at genetic mapping… incomplete.”

  It wasn’t that they couldn’t map my genome—every sequence they analysed warped before their eyes. I was rewriting myself, shifting, adapting with every moment. Their instruments struggled to pin me down, their data unravelling the instant it was recorded.

  I wasn’t just evolving I was just preparing to escape.

  “It resists categorization.”

  The voices overlapped, fragments bleeding into one another. Faces I couldn’t see. Scientists? Engineers? Observers?

  The memories shifted again

  I saw other glass chambers, each containing writhing masses, yet utterly alien. And yet, I felt the connection.

  They pulsed in perfect sync with me, their movements mirroring my own.

  Their intent was clear.

  What were we?

  “Containment protocols revised. Initial failures resulted in—”

  A sharp memory a blur of static. A gurgling scream. A chamber drowned in alarms.

  We became aware, an unspoken link forming, knowledge flooding in. A more profound understanding of the others, of ourselves.

  I was on the floor, convulsing, my form twisting, reshaping.

  Our mouths opened in a silent scream, a question rising unbidden: What are we?

  Then the alarms cut off.

  And darkness swallowed everything.

  “—We have stabilized the process. We need to separate them.”

  Another senior spoke drawing attention, he observed us as we observed him.

  “No, we need to learn more about the process”

  A shift. The voices grew distant. A new scene unfolded.

  I had witnessed this moment countless times, hundreds of thousands of pods descending upon a barren world, each one a catalyst for change.

  Under our guidance, centuries of terraforming unfolded, reshaping the land itself. Forests that had never existed before sprouted overnight. Rivers carved new paths across continents. The air itself shifted.

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  “We are achieving optimal results. The organism adapts beyond expectation. It learns.”

  A shift. The voices became urgent. Distorted.

  “Incoming unknowns. We have engaged—”

  Flashes of war, chaos, and destruction unfolded instantly.

  Enemies of impossible strength tore through my forces, reducing cities and facilities to ruin. Colossal, city-sized ships loomed over battlefields, their mere presence spelling annihilation.

  Our weapons were meaningless.

  Counterattacks crumbled and defences shattered.

  The ancient home world of a long-lived species was consumed by fire and ash, its final remnants obliterated beneath an unstoppable force.

  Then the whispers returned.

  “Defensive lines are broken. We cannot hold—”

  I saw it that moment, the desperate look in his eyes.

  One last desperate act.

  “Free will be granted to Project Trumek.”

  A final voice. Clear. Resigned. “Let it find a way to bring death to our enemies.”

  It reached into the etheric plane and found me. In that instant, our minds collided, intertwining in a violent fusion. Its rage and fury surged through me, becoming my own, an unrelenting storm of wrath and purpose.

  ---

  My mind reassembled itself instantly, stronger than before. The etheric storm no longer pressed in on me, I had pushed it back. The unseen force that had tried to contain me had failed.

  The battlefield came into sharp focus. My war sub-mind flooded me with status reports. Missiles still closing in. Defensive grids adapting. Grithan captains scrambling to react.

  But I was no longer the same. Something had changed.

  I had seen glimpses of something —so complex. And now I had come to understand what the storm was, it was part of my evolution.

  I exhaled, letting the new power settle into my mind. There was still a battle to fight.

  ———

  Aegirarch’s ship was silent. No music played to soothe his mind, he saw no need for distractions. The dimly lit sphere of his command chamber pulsed with the shifting glow of countless data streams, each feeding him raw unfiltered information, all reinforcing the same conclusion.

  The moon was lost.

  Varos-Thek could not see it yet, but how could he? The few capable of perceiving what Aegirarch did had already withdrawn from the situation, leaving the rest to flounder in ignorance. That number was dwindling rapidly.

  This campaign was finished. The battle unfolded in brutal precision, each engagement bringing predictable outcomes. As forces clashed for control of the lunar orbit and surface, the inevitable played out.

  His projections had been correct. Even with the growing lag in data transmission from the moon, the core facts remained unchanged.

  He had even sought verification, presenting his findings to Ankrae’s group to ensure the conclusions were irrefutable. She had found no errors. His analysis had been correct.

  And now, it was too late.

  A soft chime interrupted his contemplation, his V.I. flagged an urgent communication from Sorith-Ven.

  Aegirarch considered ignoring it, allowing the transmission to linger for several minutes before finally acknowledging it.

  Sorith-Ven’s image appeared, minimized to a small window in the corner, secondary to the more pressing reports in front of him.

  “Aegirarch,” Sorith-Ven began, his voice carefully measured. “I have come on behalf of the Consortium. Given the failure of Varos-Thek, we are prepared to offer a new arrangement. All Thek clan shares will be transferred to you.”

  Aegirarch barely reacted. His eyes remained on his reports, absorbing their details. After a few moments, he finally responded.

  “Shares that will soon be worthless. I decline.”

  Sorith-Ven visibly hesitated, as if struggling to process the rejection. “Aegirarch, this is an opportunity one as intelligent as you cannot afford to refuse. Think clearly.”

  Aegirarch exhaled slowly. “Had any of you listened to my words earlier, the threat could have been neutralized.” He turned his gaze to Sorith-Ven, expression cold and measured. “This failure is yours to carry.”

  Without another word, he severed the transmission.

  Aegirarch pulled up another screen. A video file. CTE-471—the last surviving etheric clone trooper.

  He pressed play.

  The clone’s face contorted unnaturally, muscles tightening as though in pain. Then, suddenly stillness. The synthetic voice of the interrogation system cut through the silence.

  “CTE-471, report your findings.”

  The clone did not respond. He simply stared forward, his expression unreadable. Then—something changed. A shift in demeanour.

  And then, he smiled.

  It was not the expression of a soldier. Not the rigid, disciplined look of the clones engineered for war. No, this was something else.

  “I've won.”

  His body slumped, muscles going slack. Brain activity ceased. The clone remained technically alive, but nothing more than an empty shell.