Inside Ferand's Sphere. Command Core.
The roar of plasma arcs splits the air, searing the dark.
Combat screens burn with feverish flashes.
Officers exchange clipped words—
sharp, precise—
as if they were the pulse of a single organism
driven to the brink of overload.
At the very center stands the alien, Ferand.
Still as an ancient general.
His gaze fixed on the holographic projection:
a choreography of destruction
redrawing reality itself.
He sees everything.
Almost everything.
No one notices—
in the shadow of a forgotten maintenance bay,
a micro-container no larger than a grain of sand
dissolves into nothing.
At first—silence.
No light.
No warning.
Then—
a shriek cuts the air,
like a white-hot spike tearing through steel.
"Alert!
Foreign object detected.
Toxic nanite spread confirmed.
Threat level: CRITICAL."
Officers flinch.
Hands dart across their interfaces.
Panic has not broken loose yet—
but its shadow already lingers in their eyes.
"The container pierced the hull,"
an operator reports, his face draining of color.
"Infiltration at the molecular level."
"Execute protocol,"
Ferand commands,
without so much as turning his head.
"Already in progress,"
his aide answers,
eyes locked on the cascading data.
"The section has been sealed. Sterilization initiated."
For a heartbeat, everything stills.
Even the firelit projections,
as if forced to hold their breath.
Then—
the image shifts.
On the outer screen,
Kairus's sphere, moments ago pressing its assault,
suddenly retreats.
Swift. Decisive.
As if the performance is over
and the curtain has already begun to fall.
"They… they are withdrawing?"
someone whispers,
his voice like an echo in a crypt.
Ferand whirls toward the projection.
His eyes race across lines and vectors,
trajectories, layers of data.
And it all fits together.
"They deceived us,"
he murmurs.
No rage in his voice.
Only revelation.
"This was never an attack.
It was a distraction.
The container was the true strike.
Everything else—smoke.
And the real target—Marcus's fleet."
He points to the map.
Red traces pull away,
arcing toward Mars.
"They are going there, to our kindred believers…"
Ferand's voice is barely audible.
"Not to annihilate them, but to overwrite them.
Their creed spreads like a virus.
It does not burn.
It consumes."
"We cannot allow that!"
the aide bursts out.
"Set the course! Bring engines online!"
The chamber thrums louder,
as if the darkness itself answers the call.
The Sphere stirs to life.
Light gathers at its core,
swelling like a wave before the strike.
"Status of the contaminated section?"
Ferand asks.
His voice trembles.
Quiet.
But sharp.
"Cleared.
Sterile by protocol,"
the operator replies.
"Threat eliminated."
"But how did it breach?"
Ferand's fist tightens with fury.
"That was a sealed sector.
Armor. Double filters.
A flawless perimeter."
"They broke the legacy code.
The container was smaller than dust.
Scanners could not register it.
Vulnerability… patched,"
the aide says quickly,
though tension coils in every syllable.
Ferand falls silent.
Counting in his mind.
Something does not add up.
"Is it not strange,"
he says at last, slowly,
"that we found the threat… too easily?
And eradicated it… too quickly?"
He snaps his head around.
"Recheck that section."
---
Minutes later,
two figures in hazard suits
enter the airlock.
Decontamination.
Scans.
Protocols.
Blue beams rake the air.
Every corner. Every cubic span.
The Sphere's neurons—under control.
"All clear.
Atmosphere stable.
No trace of contamination."
The technicians remove their helmets.
The air is cold. Sterile.
As if all is behind them.
But—
at the edge of perception,
something flickers.
A spark on glass.
A flaw in the simulation.
Nanoparticles.
Survivors of sterilization.
Still adrift.
Searching.
Finding.
They slip inside—
silently.
No pain.
Only a flash.
Hungry. Predatory.
Within the body—
mutation.
Neurons rewoven.
The virus does not merely infect.
It rewrites thought itself.
It does not die.
It settles.
And no one notices.
Not now.
Not later.
---
Ferand's command core braces for war.
Holograms blaze.
Shields flare alive.
The Sphere poises for the leap.
But death is already within.
And it does not hunger for blood.
It hungers for faith.