Page 22 of Sy

“That’s not right,” she muttered, expanding the diagnostic display. The Hell-Vs shouldn’t be responding to nonexistent seismic activity. Their fail-safes were designed to prevent exactly this kind of malfunction. The discrepancy between her readings and physical reality made her skin prickle with unease. Equipment malfunctions she could handle, but this felt different, wrong in a way she couldn’t work out.

She strode toward the nearest unit. The vibrations grew stronger as she approached, making her teeth chatter. The Hell-V’s massive frame shuddered, its frame pulsing with an uneven rhythm that set her nerves on edge.

“What’s going on?” Sy asked, following her.

“This looks like seismic activity, but why aren’t the sensors picking it up?”

It was more than that. The Hell-V’s emergency shutdown sequence should have engaged automatically at the first sign of ground instability. Instead, the machine continued its erraticoperation, lights strobing across its control panel in patterns that didn’t match any fault code she recognized.

“Michelle!” she bellowed, her eyes still on the console as she initiated a manual diagnostic.

“On it!”

She nodded, even though Michelle probably couldn’t see her, the conversation with Sy gone from her mind as she focused on the more immediate task of stopping several million credits worth of equipment from tearing itself apart and killing everyone in the vicinity.

He moved silentlythrough the forest on a path he’d followed so often he could walk it in his sleep. The afternoon sun filtered through the branches above, creating shifting patterns of light on the forest floor. His heightened senses picked up the subtle changes in the air… the way the breeze carried different scents, the slight variations in temperature between shade and patches of sunlight.

A flash of movement caught his eye—at first, just one krevasta scuttling through the underbrush followed by another and another. Their eight-legged forms moved with unnatural speed, abandoning their usual hunting grounds.

His muscles tensed, immediately dropping into a defensive stance. Where krevasta fled, danger followed. These creatures possessed senses that surpassed even Izaean capabilities, detecting threats long before they manifested. He’d learned this lesson years ago, watching countless krevasta colonies respond to threats his own enhanced senses couldn’t detect until much later.

The legion infection had changed these creatures, making them more sensitive to approaching dangers. He’d spent years studying their behavior, watching how the symbiont altered their patterns and responses. What might take decades to manifest in an Izaean would show up in krevasta within months.

Their shortened lifespans made them perfect subjects for understanding the legion’s influence. He’d witnessed entire generations succumb to the infection, their behavior shifting dramatically as the symbiont took hold. Some became more aggressive, others more erratic, but all showed heightened survival instincts.

A larger krevasta darted past his feet, its carapace gleaming with the telltale iridescence of legion infection. The creature’s movements were jerky, desperate—a clear sign that whatever threat approached was significant. He’d observed enough infected specimens to know this wasn’t typical behavior, even for their enhanced state.

He pressed his back against a thick tree trunk, scanning the forest with all his senses. The krevasta’s mass exodus had to mean something was coming—something that even their legion-enhanced awareness deemed too dangerous to face.

He continued through the forest despite the krevasta’s warning, his path taking him deeper into territory few dared to venture.

At a seemingly unremarkable pile of large rocks, the remnants of an ancient mountain ridge in the area, he pressed his palm against a specific pattern of moss. A hidden panel slid aside, revealing a biometric scanner. The security system recognized him immediately.

The entrance sealed behind him as he descended into the facility, emergency lighting activating with each step. The contrast between the primitive forest above and the advanced technology below always struck him. Sterile white walls replaceddirt and stone, the air carrying the sharp scent of recycled and filtered air as he triggered the door release.

For a moment, he paused in the doorway, looking around him.

His laboratory sprawled before him. Holographic displays streamed data from his various experiments while specimen containers lined the shelves on the wall opposite like a small army, each holding carefully preserved krevasta at different stages of legion infection. The creatures’ carapaces showed the telltale signs of the symbiotic mutation he’d been tracking for the past thirty years.

He approached his main workstation, his fingers dancing across the holographic interface as he pulled up the latest readings. The Izaean on the planet would never understand the scope of his work here. They saw the legion symbiont as a curse, a mutation to be controlled or eliminated. But he saw the bigger picture.

His research had revealed a pattern. The parasitic DNA required multiple generations to fully integrate with a host species. The krevasta, with their simple nervous systems, succumbed quickly. But they were nothing more than biological automatons for the legion to control. More complex organisms, like the Izaean, required time and generations of subtle genetic changes before the legion could truly take hold.

But the most fascinating part was the origin of the infection. His research had led him to a planet halfway across the galaxy, where ancient records spoke of a similar outbreak. In the records he’d been able to recover, those that weren’t corrupted beyond repair anyway, the genetic markers had matched perfectly—evidence that it wasn’t a random mutation but something far more deliberate.

Moving between his workstations, he checked the status of various experiments. The lab hummed with the sound ofprocessing computers and environmental systems… sounds that were more familiar to him than the voices of his supposed peers at the garrison. Here, surrounded by the research of countless iterations, he didn’t have to maintain the facade of being one of them. Here, he could pursue the truth without their limited understanding of science.

He settled down at the analysis station, preparing the genetic scanner with practiced efficiency. He’d always used his own DNA as the baseline, both to ensure he hadn’t been infected and because his was the only DNA he knew was pre-legion infection. The scanner hummed to life, its blue light washing over his skin as it collected cellular data.

While the system processed his results, he examined the latest batch of krevasta tissue samples. Their cellular structure showed advanced stages of legion integration, far more aggressive than anything he’d documented in Izaean subjects. The parasitic DNA had completely rewritten their genetic code within a few generations.

The scanner chimed, displaying his results on the holographic interface. Negative for legion infection. He sighed in relief. After three decades of research, he couldn’t afford contamination now. One positive result would destroy everything he’d worked for and expose his presence here among the Izaean.

His mind drifted as he logged his test results. The Lathar had taken the early work on genetic manipulation that had created the Vorrtan and used it. They’d altered themselves to survive on dozens of worlds, adapting their bodies to toxic atmospheres, extreme gravities, and hostile environments. Each modification was a triumph of science over nature.

But they hadn’t been careful, and they’d paid the price for it.

He pulled up the ancient genetic maps, tracing the branching paths of Latharian clans through the galaxy. There, in thehistorical data, lay the first hints of what would become the legion infection. A containment failure in an orbital facility had exposed an entire clan to unknown genetic material.

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