The storm eased by degrees as they left the refinery behind.

  Not by much. Rain still came hard and slantwise, and lightning still crawled across the low ceiling of cloud. But the worst of the electrical fury stayed massed over the industrial core, drawn to the tangled skeletons of metal and the wounded Vectar spine beneath.

  Out here, the sky was only furious, not apocalyptic.

  Vega led the way.

  The ground between the refinery and the habitats was a patchwork of service tracks, buried conduits, and low, scrub-covered rises. In better times, cargo haulers would have rumbled along the main roads and maintenance crawlers would have run between stations.

  Now, everything was still.

  They stayed off the obvious paths, as Ito had advised, cutting diagonally across shallow gullies and uneven ground, boots slipping on wet stone and sucking mud.

  “Eyes open,” Vega said. “The organism spread along the infrastructure, but that does not mean it stayed there.”

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Watson asked.

  “Anything that moves like it should not,” Park said. “And anything that does not move that should.”

  He grunted. “So… everything.”

  The first sign came sooner than Vega had hoped.

  A few hundred meters out from the refinery, Ito held up a hand. They halted, dropping into a low, ready posture.

  “Look there,” he said quietly, pointing.

  A drainage culvert cut across their path, water rushing through a broad, shallow concrete trough. Low retaining walls held back the slope. The water was filthy gray, streaked with darker swirls where refinery runoff had mixed with soil.

  Along the inside of the nearest wall, something glistened.

  At first glance, Vega took it for algae or oil. Then she saw the pattern: looping strands woven into a lattice, nodules swelling along intersections. Vectar growth had followed the water.

  “It is thinner here,” Ito said, scanning. “But it is present. It is using the drain network as a transport system.”

  “Is it live?” Watson asked.

  “Yes,” Ito said. “Low activity, but live. Think capillaries, not arteries.”

  “Does it lead toward the habitats?” Vega asked.

  “Yes,” Ito said. “And away, into open ground. It is seeding.”

  In another day, a week at most, that thin veil would thicken and creep along the culvert, up the walls, across the ground.

  “How far behind schedule did we wake up?” she muttered.

  “Long enough for them to get overrun,” Park said.

  Vega did not argue.

  They skirted the culvert, giving the slick growth a wide berth, and pressed on.

  As they neared the habitats, the terrain leveled into a broad plain of compacted soil and gravel, pitted by old vehicle tracks now half-washed away. The domes rose ahead: three large primary habitation spheres and a cluster of smaller, boxy buildings around them, all encircled by a low defensive wall.

  From a distance, the domes looked intact.

  Up close, they did not.

  The first breach was obvious.

  A jagged, two-meter-wide hole yawned in the side of a secondary structure, edges melted outward. The material around it had sagged as if half liquefied, then hardened into warped, glossy folds.

  “Dart impact?” Watson asked.

  “Too big,” Ito said. “That looks like extended exposure. Acid eating, then structural failure. The darts are fast—this was slower. More… deliberate.”

  “Leaking atmosphere would have equalized pressure,” Park said. “If they had any left to leak.”

  The gateway in the low wall stood open.

  The gate panel hung from one hinge, twisted. The mechanism that should have pulled it shut was a melted tangle.

  They paused in the shelter of a toppled cargo container a few dozen meters short of the entrance.

  “Plan?” Watson asked.

  “Same as before,” Vega said. “We go in, we see. We do not touch the growth if we can help it. Helmets stay on. We do not split unless we have to.”

  “Objectives?” Ito asked.

  “Three,” Vega said. “One: see if there are any survivors. Two: see how far the organism has penetrated. Three: if there are survivors, try to get them out or behind better walls.”

  “And if there are no survivors?” Park asked.

  “Then we confirm it,” Vega said quietly. “And we leave a mark Admiral Szeto cannot ignore.”

  They moved.

  The gateway offered no resistance.

  Inside the perimeter, the ground was smoother and landscaped, as much as Nemea allowed. Strips of hardy plants along narrow paths lay flattened by rain and neglect. Benches stood half toppled. A children’s play structure listed to one side, its safety net torn.

  No bodies lay in the open.

  “That is wrong,” Watson said softly.

  “It means they were either taken inside,” Park said, “or they fled before this section went.”

  “At least some of them ran,” Watson said. “That is something.”

  They angled toward the nearest primary dome.

  Its outer surface was layered composite and transparent armor, built to shrug off minor impacts and sandstorms. Now, fine cracks veined the clear sections, and a dull film coated the inside.

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  “The growth is in there,” Ito said. “I read activity against the inner surface. It has not breached every section yet, but it is close.”

  “Airlock?” Vega asked.

  “Here,” he said, indicating a recessed entry tunnel at the base.

  The outer door to the lock hung open, a dark mouth. The environmental panel beside it was cracked, lights dead.

  “Any pressure difference?” Vega asked.

  Ito checked. “Minimal,” he said. “Either the dome is compromised somewhere else, or they vented it deliberately.”

  “Less for us to equalize,” Park said.

  They approached the lock.

  The interior was a short tube, barely wide enough for two suits side by side. Claw marks scarred the walls. Dried blood stained one corner of the floor, a dark pool with a smear leading inward.

  Vega went first.

  The inner door had been forced.

  It sagged partially open, mechanism jammed. Beyond it, the dome opened like a cavern.

  Habitats tended to look similar: ring of quarters and communal spaces around a central open area of hydroponics, scrubbers, and recreation. Nemea Nine’s were no different.

  What was different was what had grown over everything.

  The Vectar had made a nest.

  Veins and mats climbed the inner shell, radiating from several floor points where thick, root-like structures anchored. The central area was a forest of vertical hydroponic columns once green with crops, now choked by alien growth wrapped in concentric layers.

  Hanging sacs dangled from the dome ceiling.

  These were larger than those under the refinery and, worse, more organized. They hung in clusters, each networked by thick cords to a central node on the floor. Fluid sloshed inside. Some were opaque. Others were translucent enough to show silhouettes.

  She saw human shapes in some.

  “God,” Watson whispered. “They are using them as… as…”

  “Incubators,” Ito said dully. “Hybridization chambers. It is not just growing more Vectars. It is doing something with the colonists.”

  Bodies lay among the growth.

  Some were half-embedded, faces visible, eyes open, mouths frozen mid-scream or slack with emptiness. Fine filaments had penetrated skin at multiple points, fusing them to the mat. Others were cocooned almost entirely, only a hand or a foot protruding.

  “Life signs?” Vega asked, voice low.

  Ito’s scanner whirred.

  “Faint,” he said. “Scattered. Many of these… hosts… are dead. Some, though…” He swallowed. “Some are still reading as alive. Weak.”

  “Conscious?” Park asked.

  “I cannot tell,” he said. “The organism is modulating signals. It is… interfacing.”

  Vega stepped forward, boots sinking slightly into a thinner layer of growth near the lock. Sensors flared, then steadied. The air was humid and thick; her suit filters worked hard.

  “Captain,” Watson said. “We cannot just leave them like this.”

  “No,” Vega said. “We cannot.”

  She approached the nearest partially cocooned colonist.

  A woman, mid-fifties by Vega’s guess. Hair matted to her forehead with sweat. Eyes closed. Filaments buried in arms, neck, chest, disappearing under skin that bulged slightly around the insertion points. Her chest rose and fell in slow, labored breaths. The growth twitched in time.

  “Can we cut her out?” Watson asked.

  “If we sever the connections abruptly, we might kill her,” Ito said. “Or trigger a defensive reaction. Or both.”

  “If we leave her, she dies anyway,” Park said. “Slowly.”

  “We do not even know if there is anything left of her,” Ito added quietly. “Her nervous system may already be more Vectar than human.”

  Watson rounded on him. “You going to volunteer to make that call for your friends?” he snapped. “Let them choke on alien roots because maybe they are already gone?”

  Ito’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said. “I am telling you the risk. The choice is the Captain’s.”

  All three looked at Vega.

  Taggart’s words echoed: You may be able to do something no one else can. Your biocode.

  Her fists tightened.

  “If this thing recognizes my code,” she said slowly, “maybe I can get closer without triggering as much of a reaction. Or make it mad enough to focus on me, not them.”

  “Captain—” Ito began.

  “We do not have time to be gentle,” she said. “If we try to surgically free every host, we die here. We need information and proof of concept. We take one. See if it is even possible.”

  “And if it is not?” Park asked.

  “Then we stop trying to save and focus entirely on killing,” Vega said.

  She stepped closer to the cocooned woman and knelt, careful not to let her knee sink deep into the mat.

  “Do it clean,” she told Ito. “Pick three major connections. Cut them in sequence. If the organism tries to spike through her, you call it.”

  Ito swallowed and nodded.

  He extended a small cutting tool from his rig, its tip glowing. He selected the thickest filament cluster at the woman’s neck and positioned the blade.

  “On your mark,” he said.

  “Mark,” Vega said.

  Ito made the first cut.

  The filament severed with a flash and a hiss. The mat twitched. The woman’s back arched; muscles spasmed. Her eyes flew open.

  They were wrong.

  Pale patterning traced her irises, faint but there, like the circuitry burned into the security man’s neck in control. For a moment, her gaze locked with Vega’s.

  Then she screamed.

  Raw, animal sound—pain, terror, and something else that scraped along Vega’s nerves. The growth convulsed, tendrils tightening, trying to reattach or constrict.

  “Second,” Vega snapped.

  Ito cut the next cluster.

  The scream pitched higher, then broke into ragged sobbing. Lights in nearby veins flared and dimmed wildly. Deeper in the dome, other sacs and cocoons shuddered in sympathy.

  “Third!”

  Ito sliced the last filament.

  For a heartbeat, everything held.

  Then the connection broke.

  The cut filaments withered, shrinking back like severed worms. The mat under the woman loosened and sagged. Sensors registered a sharp chemical spike, then a rapid drop.

  The woman collapsed forward, freed of the worst bindings, held only by thin strands on her limbs.

  Her breathing was shallow. Her eyes rolled, then found Vega again.

  She blinked once.

  “Help…” she whispered, voice shredded.

  “We have you,” Vega said.

  She grabbed the remaining filaments with her gauntlets and tore them free, ignoring their spasms. Each left a small, weeping wound.

  Watson stepped in, sliding his arms under the woman’s shoulders and knees, cradling her carefully.

  “Got you,” he murmured. “Got you.”

  The woman shivered.

  “Cold,” she whispered. “So cold. In my head. In my…”

  Her words dissolved into a low moan.

  “Vitals?” Vega asked.

  “Fragile,” Ito said, scanning. “But human. Brain activity chaotic, but not flat. There is noise, but it is hers.”

  “Does the organism react?” Park asked, eyes on the dome.

  “Yes,” Ito said. “Everywhere. It felt that. It is… looking.”

  The nearest veins dimmed to a deeper hue, then brightened, pulsing in a tighter rhythm. The hanging sacs swayed as if in a wind that was not there.

  “Then we just taught it what we can do,” Park said.

  “And what we will do,” Vega said. “To every one of these, if we can.”

  She looked past the immediate cluster.

  The dome was full of them. Dozens, maybe hundreds, in various stages of incorporation. Some might still be reachable. Others were too far gone, bodies already reshaped.

  “We cannot save them all,” Ito said softly.

  “No,” Vega said. “But we can save some. And we can make damn sure Szeto knows what they died for.”

  She shifted her grip on her rifle.

  “We have enough proof,” she said. “We record as much as we can, then we get out. If we stay, the organism will send more than darts.”

  “Queen?” Park asked quietly.

  “Maybe not here,” Vega said. “But this is a hatchery. We are standing in its nursery. It will not let that go unanswered.”

  Watson adjusted his hold on the rescued woman, now unconscious.

  “Captain,” he said. “Where do we put her? We cannot exactly tuck her under one arm and sprint across open ground while Vectars chase us.”

  “We take her as far as we can,” Vega said. “If we have to leave her halfway, we find a place the organism has not reached yet and pray the storm keeps her hidden.”

  Ito hesitated. “There is another option,” he said.

  “Spit it out,” Vega said.

  “The airlock systems in the other domes,” he said. “If any are intact, we could seal her in one with limited growth and minimal presence. Cold, sterile, but protected. A lifeboat. If Szeto sends ground teams later, they could find her.”

  “Assuming she survives that long,” Park said.

  “Assuming we tell Szeto exactly which dome,” Vega said.

  “Assuming Szeto does not just burn the site from orbit,” Watson added.

  Silence for a heartbeat.

  “Nothing we do changes that choice now,” Vega said at last. “All we can do is give her reasons to hesitate. Data. Faces. Voices.”

  She looked down at the woman in Watson’s arms.

  “Can you hear me?” Vega asked.

  No answer.

  “Record this,” Vega said to Ito.

  He nodded. A new file icon blinked red.

  “Admiral Szeto,” Vega said, voice steady, “this is Captain Isabel Vega, Nemea Nine. We have confirmed the Vectar organism is not just using the colony as a power source. It uses colonists as hosts for integration. We have forcibly separated one subject from the network. She is alive. I repeat: at least some hosts are alive after separation.”

  She looked around the grotesque nursery.

  “This is no longer just a question of containment,” she said. “It is a question of what you are willing to burn.”

  She cut the recording.

  “Park,” she said, “pick us a path out that takes us past as many key structures as we can afford. Medical, if it exists. Security. Anywhere we might find records off the main grid.”

  “We are shopping while we run,” Watson muttered.

  “Yes,” Vega said. “If we die, we die hauling as much truth as we can carry.”

  Park nodded and started plotting, eyes flicking over the dome layout. Ito’s scanners hummed, recording every grotesque detail.

  Above them, in the thickening hum of the growth, something new stirred, listening to the stolen biocode it had been built from, deciding how to answer.