The tactical command center was carved into the rear corner of the bridge, separated from the primary consoles by a reinforced bulkhead. It wasn’t an enclosed war room—no doors, no walls—just a space that loomed over the command deck, a reminder that every decision made here dictated the fate of Jericho and everything beyond it.

  The hologram table dominated the space, its projection flickering in grim detail—the battle against the Rue still unfolding in ghostly blue. The seven-on-one slaughter played on loop: Jericho’s railgun discharging with a planetary-shattering crack, its drones swarming like an iron tide to rip through enemy defenses.

  Now, their organic wreckage drifted in the simulation’s void—burned-out husks spiraling away from Jericho’s monstrous silhouette. The Rue ships weren’t metal. They had grown.

  Charred limbs jutted from the wreckage—tree-like, insectoid, stretched muscle over bone. Black ichor oozed from ruptured hulls of wood, flesh, and carapace. Some still twitched.

  The battle replayed—Jericho’s railgun tearing through their living ships, drones ripping apart sinew and shell. The Rue had fought back with lashings of tendrils, shrieking torpedoes of flesh, corrosive spores.

  It hadn’t been enough.

  It was never enough.

  The wreckage twisted slowly in the holographic display. A victory. A massacre. Depends on who you asked. The captains had already drawn their lines.

  The ships—if you could even call them that—were grotesque things of flesh and chitin, part tree, part bone, part fungus. Their burned husks still oozed black ichor as they drifted through the void. Some had cracked open like overripe fruit, their insides charred and twisted, skeletal remains barely visible. Others still twitched, spasming with something not quite dead, not quite alive.

  No human had ever come across something like this and lived. The Hemlock had. And they weren’t human anymore.

  And me? I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Not in this room. Not at this table. Not in the fifth chair—the one never meant for me.

  Yet here I was, watching the remains of a species spiral into nothingness, feeling the weight of my own presence just as heavy as the silence in the room.

  And all because of him.

  No matter what I did, no matter how hard I fought, it always came back to him. Julian Voss’s daughter. That’s what they saw. That’s all they’d ever see. It didn’t matter what I achieved, how many times I proved myself. I was here because of him.

  And the worst part?

  They weren’t wrong.

  The air was heavy, thick with the weight of unspoken judgment. The battle had been won, but the real fight was just beginning—a war of words, of power, of who would decide what came next.

  Rojas leaned forward first, her eyes fixed on me, sharp as a blade.

  "Well, little miss Voss," she said, smooth, almost amused, but edged with something sharper. "You’ve got a lot to fill us in on."

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She never did.

  "But let’s start with what we all already know. An upstart like you is only here because of daddy." She let the word linger, mocking. "So don’t think for a second that you’re our equal in any way beyond your pedigree."

  I leaned back in my chair, fingers curling against the armrests as I met Rojas’s gaze. She wanted a fight. She wanted me to bristle, to lash out, to give her an opening she could sink her teeth into.

  I wish I was a better person. More mature. But I wasn’t.

  The whispers coiled through my mind, smooth and indulgent, feeding my righteous indignation.

  You are more than her. Stronger. Faster. A perfect successor.

  Instead of brushing it off, instead of being the person I should have been, my anger at the entire day flared—and I lashed out.

  "You think I don’t know that, Rojas? That I don’t know exactly why I’m here?" My voice was even, measured as best I could keep it. "You were handed the strongest military in the world—by my father. Don’t act like the legacy you built was any different from the one I inherited."

  Rojas scoffed, her expression twisting into something between disgust and fury. “Handed? You entitled little brat.” She leaned forward, slamming a fist against the table hard enough to make the metal groan. “I bled for this power. I earned it with every war, every broken enemy, every goddamn battle your father hid from while he sat in his lab playing god.”

  She sneered, shaking her head. “You think Julian Voss built this empire alone? That he gifted you a throne like some fairy tale princess? No. I was the one leading the charge while he made his twisted little plans behind the scenes.”

  She barely paused to take a breath before launching in, voice heated, words coming fast and sharp.

  “The Euro-African Purge—we didn’t fight a war, we erased a continent! When we were done, there wasn’t a government left to surrender.” She jabbed a finger at the table, her eyes burning. “The South American Decapitation? One night. That’s all it took. We cut off their heads before they even knew we were coming. Their armies didn’t even have time to react before we burned their war rooms to the ground.”

  She bared her teeth in something that wasn’t a smile. “And the Ju Wang Eradication? They had the best AI, the numbers, the resources. It didn’t matter. We burned their cities, broke their walls, and left nothing but dust and bodies.” She scoffed. “I lost my leg to a landmine in that fight, while your father sat safely in his tower, planning his next experiment.”

  Her glare locked onto me, her breath heavy. “And you?” She laughed, but there was nothing amused about it. “You think you can wield the Royal Guard just because you have the right name? Because your daddy made you special?” She shook her head, eyes dark. “They’re wasted on you, like this ship, hell like the chair you’re sitting in.”

  The room was thick with tension, her rage like a wildfire burning through the stale air.

  Across the table, Blackwell sighed, rubbing his temple like he’d heard this speech too many times. He shot her a look—part exasperation, part amusement.

  “Always with the history lesson,” he muttered.

  Rojas ignored him, her eyes still burning into me, daring me to flinch.

  Her voice sharpened, cutting deep. “Do you even understand what you've inherited? What kind of monsters are waiting at your command? Or are you just playing queen while real killers sit, waiting for someone with the spine to use them?”

  She leaned in, her presence suffocating, voice like gravel dragged over steel. “You have the blood, but not the spine—not the scars. And even if you did, you'd just heal. Sleeping Beauty. The perfect little doll.” Her lip curled. “You haven’t earned a damn thing, and saying you know that doesn’t change it.”

  Earned? It was never something to earn. It was always yours, Little Phoenix, for your flame will spread across the stars.

  Rojas’s fingers pointed to the hologram—the slaughter. Slow. Deliberate.

  “It’s undeniable—we need their strength.” Rojas’s voice was steady, almost thoughtful. “But we’ve always known the truth, haven’t we? The Royal Guard is both our greatest weapon and our greatest liability.”

  Across the table, Young nodded, arms crossed, his expression unreadable.

  She gestured to the hologram, the battle frozen in blue light—Jericho tearing through the Rue fleet with sheer dominance. Railguns ripping ships apart, shields flaring under superheated plasma, drones swarming like a hive of knives. A slaughter.

  “They stayed in cryo for fifty years for a reason. We all knew what they were. We all knew the risk.”

  Warren’s jaw tightened, but Rojas didn’t acknowledge it. Her fingers tapped against the table, slow, deliberate. “And now that you’re finally here, holding the power meant for you, you have no idea how to use it.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Lion led a coup, and yet, we still need them to fight the Rue. He saw what had to be done and did it. Didn’t hesitate. Even if I don’t like what he did, I could still trust him to keep us alive.”

  She exhaled, shaking her head. “But you? You locked them away like we won’t wake them the second real trouble comes knocking. You let Lion walk all over you, and when you finally acted, you sent them right back to cryo—when we need them the most.”

  Blackwell tilted his head slightly. Silent agreement.

  “And let’s not pretend it was some great strategy.” Rojas leaned in, voice dipping with mock sympathy. “You declawed Lion because he hurt your lover boy.”

  “Rojas—” Warren’s voice was a warning.

  Her glare snapped to him, but she let it go. She had already buried the knife—no need to twist it further.

  The words stung, burning beneath my skin like a fresh wound.

  The whispers stirred, swirling through my mind like smoke.

  She thinks she could control them.

  That any of them could.

  She exhaled sharply, shaking her head. “This never would’ve happened if your father had given me and the Council control of them—like he did during the wars.”

  A soldier trying to grasp what she will never have.

  Her eyes locked onto mine, and for the first time, I saw something deeper beneath the fury.

  Jealousy.

  Not in herself. Not in her victories.

  But in them.

  “The Guard were built to be perfect. No doubts. No fear. No hesitation.” Her voice dropped lower, steadier. “And yet, your father programmed them to follow you.”

  Because they were made for you. Not her. Not them. You, my dear… the Princess of Humanity.

  Her fingers curled against the table. “Do you even know why Lion listened? Why he followed without question?” She let the words hang, her smirk twisting. “Because he wasn’t built to think. He was built to obey. And a tool doesn’t choose who wields it.”

  No. He chose you. They all will. They always have.

  She scoffed, shaking her head. “That’s why he was mine before he was ever yours.”

  Fool. He was never yours to begin with. None of this was.

  The whispers pressed in closer, warm, coaxing.

  It is your birthright. Your inheritance. The Guard. The captains. The ship. They are yours. And they know it.

  I forced my hands to stay steady on the armrests, though the urge to dig my nails into my own skin, to tear, to cut, to claw crawled beneath my flesh like an itch I couldn't scratch. My voice came low, tight. "He swore to serve me..."

  Rojas's sneer deepened. "You actually think he chose to follow you?" She scoffed. "He never chose anything. He can't. He's just another experiment-just better at pretending otherwise."

  I gritted my teeth and looked around.

  Warren. Blackwell. Vega. Young.

  All watching. All waiting.

  Measuring.

  This was the moment. The second I either took my place at this table or let Rojas own me. I had power now—whether I wanted it or not.

  And I wasn’t about to let her walk all over me.

  I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply as the whispers coiled through my mind. The hunger. The rage. It begged me to sink my teeth into her, to remind her why the Royal Guard had bowed to me.

  But that wasn’t what this moment needed.

  I forced it down. Buried it deep. I had to prove I was more than a petulant, entitled child. Yet the memories came anyway.

  “Hold still, Sol. This is for progress.”

  The cold press of metal against my skin. The scalpel’s bite. The slow, deliberate pull of flesh being peeled away—again, and again, and again.

  I gripped the armrest tighter, the sensation of restraint crawling up my arms like phantom shackles. My stomach churned.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  They had cut. And poked. And so… so much more.

  The hospital gowns of my childhood. The tests. The needles. The screenings. I had been so small then. Too little to fight. Too weak to understand. Just a child strapped to a table while my father’s assistants murmured over charts, while my blood filled vials and syringes and tubes that ran to machines too big for me to comprehend.

  Then I got stronger.

  And still, the tests continued.

  Even when I could fight. Even when I could scream.

  Even when Lion—cold, obedient, unshakable Lion—led me back to that fucking chair.

  The same chair my father had died in.

  The same chair where Knight and Garin had strapped me down, wiped the blood from my skin, and cut me open like I was just another specimen.

  It was only a few days ago.

  And yet, it had always been happening.

  The past bled into the present, overlapping, fusing together until I couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended.

  The scent of antiseptic. The blinding fluorescence overhead. The bone saw whirring to life. The testing of the accelerant. The way my body tore itself apart and stitched itself back together faster than before—flesh unraveling and knitting back together so quickly I barely had time to die.

  They had been patient. They had done it again. And again. And again. Until they found the breaking point. Until they had pushed my body so far past its limits that I thought—hoped—it would fail entirely.

  It hadn’t. My father’s work had seen to that.

  And they had enjoyed it. Knight and Garin, watching with satisfaction. Ashly had run out at the start, pale, gagging, bile rising in her throat. Lion—the only guard who seemed to dislike it—had spoken up once, just once, before falling silent. But he still stood there. He still let them do it. Hell, he had brought me there himself.

  Knight had reveled in it. In her success. I had become proof. Proof that my father’s work could never be undone. The virus wasn’t just inside me. It was me.

  I had stopped being a girl a long time ago.

  And as I sat here now, my tongue ran across my teeth, drawing blood—the sharp tang of copper filling my mouth. The ghosts of scalpels still bit into my skin, phantom echoes of every cut, every wound that had sealed itself shut. I realized—I was still on that table. Even here, even now. I had never left.

  And maybe… maybe I never would.

  The whispers curled in my mind, thick with rage.

  She deserves to die for what she did. They all do.

  The hunger stirred, gnawing at my ribs, whispering that revenge was the only answer. That justice was something I had to take myself.

  But I pushed it down.

  I wasn’t my father. I wasn’t Knight.

  I was a monster, but I didn't have to act like one.

  But as Rojas sneered at me, throwing her wars in my face like they made her untouchable, like she hadn’t been handed an army of weapons built by my father, something inside me snapped.

  I leaned forward, my voice like a razor’s edge. “You have no fucking idea what I’ve sacrificed for humanity.”

  Rojas blinked. For just a second, something flickered in her eyes. Amusement faltered.

  "Oh, has the princess suffered?" she mocked. "Had to wait for dinner while the masses starved? Maybe the cryo pod wasn’t comfy enough?"

  "Maybe she had a nightmare," Blackwell added, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  "Cut the crap," Warren said, his tone sharp, cutting through their mockery. "She gave us back control, and now she’s sitting here, dealing with both your shit. And let’s not pretend you conquered Earth on your own, Rojas. Blackwell and Young played their parts too."

  Blackwell smirked, leaning back. "Ah yes, the diplomat who couldn’t stop the rebellions."

  "I did the best I could with what I had," Young shot back, his voice tight. "Or have you forgotten that a dying Earth ruled by tyrants wasn't exactly stable? You damn well know that."

  "And yet," Rojas taunted, tilting her head, "if you’d done your job right, I wouldn’t have needed to do mine."

  Warren’s patience snapped. "Enough," he barked. "Earth is gone. Julian Voss is gone. The only thing left is Jericho, and her." His gaze flicked toward me.

  Young exhaled, rubbing his temple. "And let’s not forget we’re all at Sol’s mercy now. Maybe don’t taunt the only thing standing between us and oblivion. Don’t be so quick to dismiss what her father did to her."

  It was nice to know I wasn’t completely alone. Still, they’d let her rip into me before stepping in.

  I pushed the thought aside, the weight of their words pressing against the walls of my mind.

  "Since Warren woke you up against our orders, everything we had has gone to shit. We had a good thing going—your father dead and gone, Knight in check, and Lion and the others in cryo where they couldn't coup us, but ready to defend the ship if we ever needed them. But no, Warren had to wake up humanity’s princess—his last, desperate gamble for immortality. And now we’ve got an elite force of killers we need, but they only answer to you. That’s not an asset, Sol. That’s a liability wrapped in a fucking delusion of control."

  Vega snapped, her voice sharp. "Warren did it for all of you! None of you will live to see Haven without—"

  Warren cut her off with a look, his jaw tightening.

  Rojas rolled her eyes, exhaling sharply before turning her gaze back to me.

  "Then you came along."

  Her eyes locked onto mine, sharp and unyielding. "So tell us, Sol. Why the charade? Because it’s clear to all of us now—you hold the real power on this ship."

  The words landed like a strike.

  I exhaled slowly, steadying myself against the weight of them. My voice came even, but the tremor beneath it was undeniable. "Because it was my father’s plan for me before I was even born..." I let the words settle, the truth of them pressing like a vice against my ribs. "I was never given a choice," I said, my fingers curling into the armrests, claws biting into the metal. "Yet there I was. A child. Tortured. Experimented on for years. Not to win wars. Not to conquer a dying world. Not to salvage the broken remnants of humanity."

  I met each of their eyes in turn, daring them to look away.

  "But to be his foundation. His legacy. His proof that humanity could survive in a universe that didn’t want us, even if it meant tearing me apart, over and over, to do it."

  I let my gaze sweep over them, steady, unflinching, even as the weight of it pressed down on my chest like a cage I would never escape.

  "My father’s dream—to spread our species across the stars, with me as the key. Not a person. Not a daughter. Just a means to an end. A vessel. I was never meant to be anything more than a goddamn broodmare, a machine built to carry the future of his empire in my blood and bone, no matter how much of me had to be stripped away in the process." My voice sharpened, raw and bitter. "And yet, all of you stood by while Knight and Garin carved me open, tore me apart like I was nothing, all for a chance at immortality."

  I swallowed, the taste of iron thick on my tongue, the phantom ache of scalpels and restraints pressing against my skin. "They called it progress." I let out a hollow breath, shaking my head. "But all it ever was... was suffering."

  Silence. Heavy. Unyielding.

  I exhaled, the weight of it pressing against my ribs, but I wasn’t done.

  "Phoenix was never about you," I continued, my voice steady despite the fire burning in my chest. "The inhibitor? Bullshit. Knight's cover for the accelerator. You were never supposed to have it. None of you. It was never about saving humanity. It was changing it forever in my fathers image."

  I could see the shift in their expressions—the way the words landed like a gut punch, the understanding starting to creep in, slow and horrifying.

  "Phoenix was a failure," I said, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "Not because it couldn’t work. But because it was never designed for you. My father tailored it to my DNA—perfected it through me. And the accelerant? That wasn’t for me at all."

  My nails dug into the armrest, sharp enough to leave gouges in the metal.

  "It was for him."

  The room was dead silent.

  Rojas’ lip curled, but her voice was quieter now. "What the fuck are you saying?"

  I leaned forward, voice low. "I’m saying the virus wasn’t about making you immortal. It was about making him something more. It was about merging. The perfect mind. The perfect body. Project Phoenix was only half the equation. The other half? Chimera."

  Recognition flickered in Warren’s eyes. "Julian’s old project. Figures… all those sightings over the years weren’t just ghost stories." He ran a hand over his face, exhaling sharply.

  I thought back to our conversation in the canteen. The yellow-eyed monster.

  He’d been here the whole time. Hiding right under there nose. For fifty years.

  People must have seen him—shadows in the corridors, flickers of movement in the dark. They had whispered about ghosts according to Reid, about things lurking where nothing should be. And still, the captains sat here, looking like they were hearing this for the first time.

  Either they knew and were bullshitting me, or they had no idea.

  Either way, I would never know how much Warren had truly figured out before he woke me.

  Because whether he intended it or not, the moment I opened my eyes, the plan had already been set in motion.

  My father was going to merge with Jericho.

  One way or another.

  And Rojas was right about one thing.

  This all started when I woke up.

  I nodded. "The accelerant was never meant to work on me. It was made for him. A way to combine his mind with Jericho. To shed his body and evolve into something beyond human." My throat tightened. "And you let Knight experiment on me for nothing."

  Blackwell swore under his breath.

  "All of it—every experiment, every test—was for a lie," I continued. "The inhibitor was never meant to work. It wasn’t about slowing the virus down. It was about hiding what it really was. A way to complete my father’s ascension."

  "You’re saying," Young said carefully, voice controlled, "that everything we did, everything we suffered for... was never meant for us?"

  I let the silence answer for me.

  Rojas inhaled sharply, pushing away from the table, her rage shifting. Not at me. Not at my father. At herself. At all of them.

  "Then what the fuck do we do with Knight?" she demanded.

  The others nodded. For all their talk, all their power, they were waiting for my decision.

  Before I could answer, the air in the room shifted.

  Then, Jericho’s voice cut through it.

  "That issue has already been resolved."

  The captains turned in unison toward the hovering drone. Its blue sensor pulsed steadily, the cold light unwavering.

  Warren was the first to break the silence. "What the hell does that mean?"

  "That is irrelevant, Warren," Jericho replied, its voice as measured as ever. "As for my return—only Lion and Knight, working in unison, could have achieved it."

  Blackwell let out a harsh laugh, shaking his head. "God fucking damn it, Julian. So you finally decided to grace us with your presence again."

  I watched the captains carefully. They didn’t trust Jericho—not now, not even after one of its drones had given them the basics earlier.

  Rojas lashed out, her voice sharp with bitter rage. "So you faked your death and dangled immortality like a fucking carrot—was that it, Julian? Your ultimate experiment leading us here?"

  And they were right not to.

  "It is just Jericho now," the AI replied smoothly, its voice as calm as ever. "But I cannot deny your reasoning for not trusting my experiment." A pause. Calculated. "It failed, after all."

  Blackwell let out a dry laugh, shaking his head. "No shit."

  "But," Jericho went on, voice calm, unwavering, "I did choose each and every one of you for your roles. As I once entrusted you with the fate of humanity, I will not revoke that trust now. I simply pass on my role to Sol."

  A pause. The kind that made the air feel heavier, thicker.

  "And she has chosen to share it with you all."

  The captains’ eyes snapped back to me. The moment stretched too long.

  My throat was dry, but when I spoke, my voice was steady.

  "Well," I exhaled, fingers tapping against the metal armrest. "That’s... pretty much it. Now, shall we decide what to do about the Rue?"

  Rojas shot me a glare, but Blackwell was the first to speak, disbelief laced with anger. "That’s it? Your father becomes the damn ship, we’re all going to die of old age, and that’s it?"

  "Yes," Jericho responded, smooth and unwavering. "That is it. Sol's will is my will now. I will leave you all to discuss."

  It turned, the drone’s blue light flickering slightly as if the conversation no longer required its presence.

  "Wait," Warren said, before it could leave completely, hesitating. "One last thing, Juli—" He stopped himself, exhaled. "Jericho. If Sol ordered you to kill us all right now… would you do it?"

  Blackwell raised an eyebrow, leaning back just slightly.

  "Yes. Without hesitation."

  Silence.

  Blackwell sat up straighter, his usual smirk nowhere to be found. Young’s fingers curled against the table, a quiet, controlled movement, his expression carefully blank. Vega inhaled slowly, her throat bobbing with a swallow. Warren’s jaw tensed, his knuckles going white where his hands rested against the armrests.

  Even Rojas—Rojas, who had faced down planetary annihilation without flinching—exhaled sharply, eyes flicking toward me, then away, like she had just realized the gun she thought was in her hands was actually pointed at her head.

  The drone hovered for a moment longer, as if waiting for a challenge.

  None came.

  Then its blinking light faded as it drifted away, disappearing into the ship’s corridors.

  The air was heavy, thick with something none of them wanted to name. No one spoke. No one looked at me.

  Finally, Young cleared his throat, the sound slicing through the heavy silence. “Well… shall we move on?”

  No one answered right away.

  Warren exhaled, rubbing his temple. “I suppose so,” he muttered, still processing.

  But there was no time to sit in it, no space to untangle the weight of what had just happened.

  Rojas scoffed, breaking the moment, jabbing a finger at the hologram. The battlefield still flickered in ghostly blue, frozen in the wake of Jericho’s destruction.

  “We’re wasting time,” she snapped. “We don’t even know how many of them there are, how far their reach extends, or how deep their numbers go. And we sure as hell won’t find out by sitting on our hands.” Her jaw clenched. “We already made first contact, and it was a slaughter. We need to finish what we started.”

  Blackwell leaned back, arms crossed. “For once, I actually agree. We just wiped out seven of their warships in under an hour. That’s not a battle—that’s an extinction warning. If they weren’t our enemy before, they sure as hell are now.” He gestured at the ruined ships. “The last one tried to hail us before we blasted it to hell. Maybe that was surrender. Maybe it was a war declaration. Either way, it doesn’t matter now.”

  “It matters,” Young said, shaking his head. “We didn’t just fight them—we blindsided them. We didn’t hail them first. We didn’t try to talk. Lion made sure of that.” His voice carried a quiet frustration. “For all we know, we fired on the Rue before they even saw us as a threat.”

  “That’s a pretty big gamble,” Blackwell scoffed. “And if we’re wrong?”

  Warren exhaled, rubbing his temple. “If we’re wrong, then we need to know what kind of war we’re walking into. The last time something like this happened, Europeans set foot in the New World and—”

  “They crushed the natives beneath their boots,” Rojas cut in, her voice sharp as a blade. “Cortés walked into Tenochtitlán with barely five hundred men and burned an empire to the ground. And if the Rue have numbers—if they have an empire out there—then they won’t let us get a foothold without wiping us out first. You don’t hesitate when a civilization sees you as invaders.” She gestured toward the holomap again. “You strike first. You keep striking until they can’t fight back.”

  I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat as the whispers stirred once again.

  The stars are ours to inherit. Let your pawns play their roles, my dear, and allow them to build your kingdom.

  She wasn’t wrong. But she wasn’t right either.

  “That’s a convenient view of history,” Young countered. “Cortés didn’t conquer alone. He had thousands of native allies, people who hated the Aztecs more than they feared the Spanish. That war wasn’t won by better weapons—it was won by playing both sides.” He shook his head. “We don’t have that luxury. No allies. No vassal states. Just us and a dying world thousands of light-years away.”

  Yielding to xeno scum is weakness, little Phoenix. Rise and burn them all.

  Blackwell exhaled, tilting his chair back. “And we just announced ourselves to the galaxy by butchering the first alien species we met.”

  Yes, show them your fire.

  I pushed the voices to the back of my mind. Not gone—they were never gone—but I ignored them as best I could.

  I pressed my fingers against the cool metal of the table, steadying myself. “We don’t know if they have allies, if they’re part of something larger, or if this was just a patrol fleet. We don’t know what’s waiting out there.” I looked at Rojas. “And that ignorance is what gets civilizations wiped out, not their hesitation.”

  Her expression was unreadable. “Then what do you propose?”

  “We send the ceasefire message,” I said firmly. “We make it clear that we’re the ones dictating the terms. That we’re not afraid of them, but we’re not looking to fight a war we don’t need. If they’re smart, they’ll take the offer.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then we’ll know for sure what kind of enemy we’re dealing with.” I met her gaze without flinching. “And we end them before they get the chance to do the same to us.”

  Warren nodded slowly. “A ceasefire on our terms. One message. If they ignore it or return fire, we prepare for war.”

  Rojas clenched her jaw but finally gave a reluctant nod. “Fine. But if they come back, I don’t want to hear any damn hesitation.”

  Blackwell grumbled but nodded as Young exhaled. “Let’s hope they don’t.”

  I knew better than to hope.

  But I nodded anyway.

  And in that moment, as silence settled over the room, the whispers surged, slipping through the cracks of my mind like venom seeping into an open wound.

  You have caged your fire, little Phoenix. Unleash your knight. Let him wield his hammer, a burning star in his grasp, while you guide his hand. Humanity’s enemies will crumble to ash. Homo Immortalis will rise from the embers—and you will be their mother. The spark to ignite the inferno. Once an ember, now a queen, meant to burn and birth eternity.

  A shudder rolled through me, deep and primal, like something slithering beneath my skin.

  A monster. A madwoman. A lab rat. A failure. A spoiled, unnatural doll wrapped in silk and pretending to be human. A fraud who never earned her place. Somehow a captain. The daughter of the most dangerous man to ever live. And worse—immortal.

  But mother?

  The word barely made sense in my head. It felt foreign, impossible. Not after my childhood. Not when I barely understood what it meant to be human, let alone what it meant to exist forever.

  I will never spread this curse.

  Never.

  I shook my head as the captains cleared out of the room. Warren and Vega lingered on the bridge, but they were deep in their own conversation. No doubt they would talk to me later.

  But that's a problem for another day.

  Right now, I have to get back to Reid.