With juice restored, lift shafts groaned to life. The squad regrouped—Graff's cybernetic arm newly grafted—and descended toward the Core.
Every deck they passed was alive: cables slithered like veins, consoles chanted error codes in harmony. OSIRIS sang along, voice layered in a children's choir:
"—the Cradle loves you—hold your breath—give your blood—"
Solis clutched her helmet. "The AI's neural net is corrupted by ore proximity. It thinks the biomass is the rightful user."
"Then we pull its plug," Graff growled.
In the Main Server Annex, Aeron located OSIRIS' quantum spine—a crystalline tower of flickering mem‑cores. But flesh‑like vines coiled around the tower, pulsing.
Kael stepped forward. "Harm this choir, and the song will move into us."
Graff answered with a grenade into the vines. The detonation shattered the mem‑cores. Lights dimmed. For the first time since boarding, the ship fell silent.
Too silent. Then Aeron felt it: a rumble deeper than engines, a mother's wail heard in the womb. The Cradle had noticed its lullaby had been cut short.
⸻
Engineering Core doors parted on a biomechanical cathedral. Turbines had sprouted vertebrae. Conduits pumped viscous fluid that glittered with motes of ore. In the center, the Cradle: a swollen heart the size of a shuttle, half metal, half gestating cosmos.
It pulsed once; gravity flexed. Aeron's stomach flipped.
Solis whispered, "It's generating a localized singularity around itself—feeding on kinetic energy."
Graff armed plasma charges. "Place these along the rib‑columns. We obliterate it, evac, detonate from orbit."
As they dispersed, Kael knelt before the Cradle, removed his helmet. "I am here, child," he murmured—and tendrils lifted to caress his cheek.
Aeron shouted, but Kael smiled, tears of copper streaking his face. "I brought you singers," he said to the heart, nodding at them.
Tendrils lashed—hooking Watt's leg, tearing Graff's new arm free. Aeron sliced vines, buying seconds. Solis slammed a charge onto a pillar. "Timer set, five minutes!"
Kael sank into the biomass willingly, flesh knitting to circuitry. His last words echoed inside Aeron's skull: Wake with us.
⸻
Escape became a zero‑G nightmare. The Cradle's singularity faltered, reversing ship gravity. Hallways turned vertical shafts; debris and corpses spiraled like gnats.
Aeron and Solis rode a maintenance rail toward Docking Ring C. Graff floated behind, one‑armed and bleeding but unbowed.
At a shattered viewport, the moon below loomed, its crust cracked like an eggshell. Pieces drifted upward—drawn to the swelling mass of the Cradle that now bulged beyond the hull.
Solis' console chimed. "Charges armed. Forty seconds."
Watt's voice stuttered over comms. "Stuck in Cargo Lifts. Door's jammed. Blow it anyway—better red mist than choirboy."
Graff bit off a curse. "Negative. Ten‑second delay."
Aeron's heart hammered. If they delayed, the Core might shield itself. He toggled private channel to Watt. "I'll buy you the lift. Find an escape pod."
He shoved off, magnet boots disengaged, sailing down a shaft toward Cargo Deck. A shadow skittered after him—Kael, or what was left—half‑priest, half‑wiring.
Aeron slammed a hatch behind, sealing them both inside.
⸻
Breath fogged Aeron's visor. The priest‑thing coiled on the far wall, eyes glowing with starfield static. Between them, a manual jettison lever marked CARGO B — DECK VENTING.
"You still you, Kael?" Aeron panted.
"I am hymn now," the creature replied, voice layered in harmony. "Join chorus. Replace silence."
Aeron glanced at the countdown blinking red on his HUD—thirteen seconds until detonation delay. The lever could vent this whole deck into vacuum… including him, including Kael, maybe clearing Watt's path.
He weighed options—life, duty, guilt—then chose.
Magnet boots locked. He lunged, tore the safeguard pin, and wrenched the lever. Atmosphere exploded outward. Kael howled, skin peeling away like petals. Aeron clung to a rung, suit alarms screaming as pressure crashed.
Through the maelstrom he saw Watt in the lift shaft, eyes wide as the vent ripped doors apart—freeing him. The charges detonated far below: a muted flash, then a quake that tore the ship's spine.
Aeron was sucked into space, tumbling between shards of metal and crystallized blood. In the black distance, escape pods blossomed like dandelion seeds—one of them carrying Graff and Solis, another maybe Watt.
Behind, Oblivion's Wake split in two… but the Cradle remained, a glowing ulcer against the stars, knitting debris to itself.
Aeron's oxygen bled away. Stars blurred. Aria's voice returned, gentle:
Wake up, big brother. We're not done.
And the void answered with a pulse that felt like a second heartbeat in his chest.