Vice Captain Aria

Log Entry 3162.10.31 Situation Summary: Command deck breached by Hive-controlled Kalen Dorr. Sari’ka Thalen has been killed. Vice Captain Aria Venn is critically injured but engages Kalen in combat. Damage to the console has triggered the Dead-Man signal, placing the ship in extreme peril. Aria must defend herself and regain control while injured. --- Chapter XLIX — Vice Captain Aria Venn Pain lanced through her side with every movement, but Aria forced herself to stay upright. The Hive’s strength surged against her every reflex, but years of training and sheer instinct kept her alert. She could still feel Kalen’s presence—twisted, alien, unrelenting. He lunged, biomass tendrils tearing at the reinforced deck. Her energy gun was offline; plasma conduits sparking from console damage made direct shots unreliable. She had to improvise. Spotting the exposed core of the command console, Aria formulated a desperate plan. Using a combination of her own energy whip and a tethered maintenance drone, she manipulated the console’s unstable power cells. Sparks flew. Kalen advanced, ignoring the danger. “Come on… come closer,” she hissed through gritted teeth, baiting him. When he struck, she triggered a short-circuit overload, funneling a surge of energy into the Hive biomass surrounding his chest. The electricity seared through him, forcing him to stagger back. The concussive shock left him disoriented but alive. Not giving him a chance to recover, Aria swung the energy whip to hook the nearest exposed magnetic rail. She propelled herself onto a raised platform above him, landing with a precision that shocked even her own body into action. From here, she released a second surge through a broken power junction beneath him. Kalen roared—a sound that was no longer human—and stumbled, immobilized temporarily. His regenerative tissue worked rapidly, but she was already moving, plunging a high-voltage maintenance probe into a vulnerable spinal-like node.