The Captain

Log Entry 3162.10.29 Situation Summary: Command deck compromised. Primary containment fields unstable. Captain—identity [REDACTED]—regained consciousness within Node 03. Hive presence confirmed. Encounter logged. --- Chapter XII — The Captain She woke to silence. Not the silence of death—but one alive with breath, with pulse, with whispering flesh. The medbay glowed like a cathedral of veins, the air humid and sweetly metallic. She sat up too fast. Pain seared through her ribs. Her throat was dry, her uniform torn and half-fused to the table beneath her. “Elara…” she rasped. From the gloom, Dr. Korr emerged—changed, radiant and terrible. Her skin shimmered with pale light, and the air bent faintly around her as if she were underwater. “You live,” Elara said—no, they said, a choir of calm voices in one body. “We mended you. You were dying.” The Captain’s eyes hardened. “You shouldn’t have.” Elara tilted her head, smiling faintly. “We saved you. As you saved others. There is no need to fight, Captain. The Hive brings peace. Wholeness.” She stepped closer, extending a glimmering hand. The scent of ozone and blood filled the air. The Captain let her approach—let the hand nearly touch her chest. Then she smiled. “You forgot one thing about me, Doctor.” Elara’s expression flickered. “We forget nothing.” “Then you know,” the Captain whispered, “I built this ship’s failsafes myself.” She slammed her palm against the biobed’s control panel—hidden beneath a film of grown tissue. It sparked violently. The Hive’s filaments recoiled with a shriek of static. The Captain rolled from the table, hitting the floor hard but moving fast. She snatched a dropped injector, jamming it into her thigh. Adrenaline surged through her like fire. Elara straightened, the serene smile gone. “You cannot run from us.” The Captain slammed her hand onto a wall panel; then emergency bulkheads folded inward, slamming shut, locking Elara inside.