6. Draevik #3
We reach the Sector Seven suites. These quarters sit in the shadow of one of my sanctums, a more secure wing where the walls are thicker and the stasis fields are absolute.
I command the door to retract, revealing a space far more opulent than the holding wing.
The sleeping dais is larger. The air holds a perfect temper.
Along the far wall, a plexiglass-fronted storage locker sits recessed into the obsidian, and behind the thick glass, her sterilized suit hangs neatly beside the helmet, while K-Seven rests in a cradle below them, its lenses dark and its limbs folded tight against its chassis in enforced stasis.
Nyra stops at the threshold, her eyes widening as she sees her gear. She rushes toward the locker, her hands flying to the plexiglass over her helmet. She stops when she realizes the mag-lock is active.
"It's locked." The words emerge as a low, grinding rasp, sounding like stone dragging over stone in a dark, forgotten corner of the ship.
"It is secure," I clarify, stepping into the room to tower over her. "You have no need for salvage tools in a sanctuary. You will have access to your machine when I deem your temperament stable enough to handle it."
"My temperament?" She spins around to face me. "You kidnapped me! You branded me! And now you're telling me I need to settle down? I’m a scavenger, you oversized paperweight! I move! I fix things! I don't sit in pretty rooms waiting for a monster to check my pulse!"
"I am telling you that you are exhausted.
" My response leaves no room for argument.
"Your heart rate is erratic, and your cognitive functions are beginning to lag.
You are a defective engine running on fumes.
You will rest, Nyra. The ship will monitor your cycles.
I suggest you use this time to accept the reality of your situation. "
The urge to spit at me is written across her face, yet she forces a long, shaky breath through her teeth, her fingers curling into tight fists at her sides. "I refuse to sleep. I'm going to stay awake and think of all the ways I can dismantle you. I’ll start with the joint seals in your knees."
"Then you will be a very tired revolutionary," I drawl, finding it amusing that she believes my whole body to be metal. "Though I suspect you will find the biological components of my anatomy far more difficult to unbolt than a joint seal."
I back away toward the door, my optical sensors taking one final sweep of her.
She looks small against the vast architecture of the room, a spark of brown and amber lost in a sea of shadow.
Yet, the bond tells me she is the brightest thing on this ship.
The marker on her chest quivers one last time before I break line of sight, a violet heartbeat that matches my own.
"Rest." I turn and head towards the corridor.
I step into the corridor, and the door slides shut with a heavy, pressurized hiss. The stasis field engages immediately, a subsonic shockwave that seals the room more effectively than any physical bolt.
I rest my hand on the bulkhead, the hallway empty of sound.
My heart rate is still high, the violet sheen of my armor is taking a long time to dim.
I can still feel the echo of her anger humming through the wall, a tether I cannot cut.
Hailing from a fringe world, the scavenger functions as a biological anomaly.
This disruption to the equilibrium outweighs the devastation of any battle fought in the stars.
The static that has plagued my mind since awakening vanishes, and the relentless, tracking pulse of her bio-signature takes its place.
I move her through the ship for reasons beyond structural stability.
The realization arrives with cold, brutal clarity: the distance is degrading my own operational capacity.
Sector Seven creates an unacceptable lag in the bond's feedback loop.
The separation is an unforced tactical error; the physical absence of my marker threatens the coherence of my command matrix.
I live as a Reaper Commander, and I have just rearranged the architecture of an entire warship simply to secure my most vital biological claim within my immediate defensive perimeter.
The need for control proves to be a physical pressure in my chest. I turn and walk toward the bridge, my mind already diving into the tactical archives.
I need answers. I need to delve into the ancient records of the Hegemony and find out why Virex Prime chose a human—a creature so fragile and insignificant—as a marker for a Reaper Commander.
I need to understand the mechanics of this link before it consumes my ability to lead.
I reach the bridge and stare out at the stars, the console's indigo haze reflecting in her eyes.
The conquest of the systems can wait. For now, the only war that matters is happening within the confines of my own hull.
I am the Reaper, the warlord of the Veln Expanse, and I have just found the one entity in the universe completely immune to my force.
The silence returns, but it is no longer empty.
It fills with the ghost of her voice and the relentless, unwavering pitter-patter of a human heart that now beats in time with mine.
I begin the search through the neural archives, my hands moving across the controls with a focus I haven't felt in centuries. The hunt for the truth has begun.