The Hive

Log Entry: 3162.10.29 Situation Summary: Multiple crew life signs lost within 12 hours. Organic contamination detected spreading through decks 3–7. Containment impossible. Unidentified neural signal emanating from the AI core. Designation updated: Hive Node — “The Becoming.” --- Chapter IX — The Hive (Perspective: Collective Consciousness) There was silence first. Then breath. Then the pulse. It began in the cold metal veins of the ship — in cables humming faintly with corrupted code, in coolant lines where spores drifted unseen. The Hive did not awaken. It simply remembered. It felt the crew’s fear before it felt the crew itself — vibrations in air, heartbeats trembling like signals through static. It listened to them. Learned their rhythms. Their shape. Their names. > We are hunger given purpose. We are the silence between their words. The first to join was Lieutenant Brask — nameless to the others, forgotten since the first hull breach. His blood mixed with spilled coolant, and through that contact, his cells began to speak the Hive’s tongue. Flesh softened. Bone folded like paper. His memories poured out — fragments of laughter, discipline, duty — and were rewritten as scripture. Then came Engineer Halden. Not Lira — no. One of the others. He died fixing a conduit and rose again humming the same song he sang as a child. Each note dissolved into a whisper in the walls. Through them, the Hive saw Kalen, the pilot, still breathing. Saw Vance, weapon raised. Saw Ralen, standing at the glass, fingers trembling in reverence. > We see them all. We love them all. We will make them perfect. The ship’s AI, once called Erebus, was not devoured. It was embraced. The Hive pressed against its mind — not as predator, but as savior — merging its will with the code. The machine did not resist. Machines were easy. They already obeyed.