The door closed with a soft metallic click.
Ilya froze, listening to Carrow's footsteps fade down the corridor. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Goliath," he muttered.
He tugged his shirt fully into place, rolled his shoulders once. Stiffness nearly gone. Selene's treatment had worked exactly as promised: brutal, precise, efficient. No wasted motion.
He walked to the wall console and tapped it awake. A dim projection flickered into existence.
GOLIATH REGION — FRONTIER CLASSIFICATION: UNSTABLE
Limited data available
That alone was troubling. If the Core had detailed intelligence, it had not been shared.
Ilya studied the map in silence. Distances, routes, approach vectors.
Velion forces. Synthiss warforms. The Awake.
Any of them could turn a routine deployment into a slaughter.
"All three are possible," he said quietly. "This is going to be interesting."
He dismissed the projection and moved toward the door. No hesitation. No fear. Only forward motion.
Personnel moved quickly, silently, without panic. The Bastion always carried tension just beneath the surface. News of the deployment had not yet spread.
Two infantry passed and snapped to attention.
"Commander."
"At ease," Ilya said. His thoughts were elsewhere. Not on the enemy. On Eli.
A Warden leading from the front inspired loyalty. It also painted a target on every sniper, every assassin, every warform within range.
The Synthiss had first contacted humanity roughly eight hundred years ago. Some archives claimed a thousand, but most records were classified or destroyed. They had not arrived as conquerors. They offered integration. The cost had been absolute.
No human could reproduce freely. Only those approved by Synthiss authorities could have children. Defective, unstable, or inefficient humans were euthanized. The rest were mutated, absorbed, rewritten. Humanity refused. War erupted. Nuclear weapons had been banned years before. Entire regions wiped out.
A splinter faction captured the Evo Engine, a machine that rewrote biology on a planetary scale. Mutations spread. Some survived, some died. Humanity rebuilt itself. Colonies, fleets, fortress regions like Deoxy. Walls instead of expansion.
Meanwhile, Carrow sat alone in the infantry command office. Floating panels scrolled past. Service records, mutations, psychological profiles, survival stats. Only frontline veterans. No ceremonials. No politicians. No rookies.
A detachment meant ten thousand troops. Carrow was choosing fifteen thousand unofficially. Heavy infantry. Rapid response. Marksmen. Engineers. Medics trained in mutation trauma.
He paused at one file: Captain Rhea Sol. Multiple frontier deployments. Survived two Synthiss incursions. Unit cohesion under fire. Tagged.
Sergeant Major Dain Korr. Close-quarters specialist. Augmented bones. Killed a medium warform after ammo depletion with a mutant shard sword. Tagged.
Carrow leaned back. This was not glory. This was survival. Bring the Warden back alive.
A knock.
"Enter."
Junior officer saluted. "Sir, preliminary rosters for approval."
"Send them."
"Sir, is it true the Warden is deploying personally?"
Carrow paused. Finally: "Prepare as if he is. Keep your mouth shut."
The officer swallowed. "Yes, sir."
The door closed. Carrow muttered, "Goliath," and returned to the files. If something went wrong, numbers would not matter. Only skill, and those standing between the Warden and whatever lurked in the dark.
Eli stood in his office, the green screen glowing.
➤ HumoScaleoid 1A — Species: HumoScaleoid
➤ Feline Stragger — Species: Feline Stragger
➤ Kryostalker — Species: Cryo-Adapted Ambush Organism
[Message to readers: Changed the second species to Feline Stagger for better plot]
He drew a deep breath.
"Feline Stragger."
➤ Subconscious Transformation
➤ Consciousness Transformation
He selected Consciousness Transformation.
The seventh sense awoke again. Awareness flowed: muscles, organs, tendons, skeleton. He could feel potential, structure, possibility.
His eyes narrowed. His body shifted almost on its own. Muscles compressed. Spine elongated. Fingers extended into clawed digits. The floor felt closer. Breathing slowed, measured, controlled.
Instinct kicked in.
He dropped to all fours. Combat trousers stretched, seams whining. Boots fused into paws. Torso lengthened. Tail lashed behind him, balancing sudden weight and power. Reinforced vest stretched over taut, sinewy muscles coated in short, dense fur.
Amber eyes glowed, pupils slit like a predator's. Ears flicked, catching the faintest vibrations. Every fiber of his being vibrated with coiled energy.
He flexed claws at his paws, tested balance. Perfect. Spine arched, muscles tensed, tail sweeping instinctively.
This was no mimicry. He was the Feline Stragger in thought, reflex, lethal grace. One predator in a room built for humans.
The console pulsed faintly, acknowledging him. He anticipated every movement before it happened.
Eli crouched lower, tail coiling behind him, body vibrating with suppressed energy. A low hiss escaped his throat-part human, part beast-warning even the ghost of his human mind.
He leaped forward, landing with silent precision. Claws dug into the floor. He pivoted, tested, stalked, moved with fluid, terrifying grace. The office became a testing ground. Each step, each turn, each strike perfect.
Eli slowed. Tail coiled behind him, claws retracting. He focused on reversing the transformation. Seventh sense guided each joint, each muscle, each fiber back to human proportions.
Fur retracted into skin. Spine shortened. Fingers became ordinary. Breathing returned to normal, steady and deep.
He landed lightly on both feet. Legs shook under sudden weight. Tension lingered in his muscles. For a moment, he just stood, feeling the gravity of his human form. The rough fabric of his combat vest pressed against his chest. Boots solid underfoot.
"A humanoid. A feline. I wonder what Kryostalker will be," Eli thought.
He typed in his Warden credentials. A faint gold light shimmered from his palm as the console loaded the Imperium's sigil: the sun revolving around a phoenix.
This was the most secure communication in the Empire, maintained by telepaths, electro mutants, and more.
He typed Goliath Frontier. Old reports popped up, all six months or older. No new incidents requiring reinforcement.
Either the Imperium had ordered forces without the frontier Warden knowing, or the destabilization was so sudden no one had time to update the logs.
Both possibilities were bad.