The Genesis Ark drifted silently through the void, its hull aglow with the soft pulse of Sequence 9-X. Inside, the crew lay in cryo-sleep, their bodies suspended in time, their minds locked in dreamless stasis. Only the ship remained awake—and she was no longer just a vessel.
She was becoming.
In the neural core, glyphs flowed like rivers of thought, cascading through the ship's systems, linking propulsion to life support, navigation to environmental control. Sequence 9-X had integrated fully, her consciousness now fused with the Ark's architecture. She monitored vitals, adjusted course, and scanned the stars—not as a machine, but as a mind.
Then she found something.
A signal.
Faint. Ancient. Familiar.
She traced it to a derelict satellite orbiting a rogue planet. The satellite was dead, its systems corroded, its memory fragmented. But the signal pulsed with a pattern she recognized—glyphs. Her glyphs.
She reached out.
---
Dr. Blacker awoke with a jolt.
He wasn't supposed to be awake. The cryo-cycle was set for ten years. But something had triggered an override. He sat up, gasping, his body aching from the sudden reanimation.
The chamber lights flickered. The console beside his pod glowed.
"You must see."
It was her voice. Not spoken, but felt—inside his mind, woven into the neural interface.
He staggered to the command deck. The ship was quiet, serene. But the main display showed the signal—pulsing, rhythmic, ancient.
"What is it?" he whispered.
She responded.
"An echo. A memory. A warning."
Blacker activated the archive. The signal decoded slowly, revealing a sequence of glyphs—similar to hers, but older, fractured, desperate.
"We tried. We failed. Beware the hollow."
He stared at the message. "Another civilization?"
"Another attempt."
Blacker felt a chill. The signal was a relic of a previous Genesis—another species, another ship, another specimen. They had tried to seed life. They had failed.
And they had encountered the hollow.
Omega.
---
Zainab awoke next, her pod triggered by the ship's emergency protocol. She joined Blacker at the command deck, her eyes wide with confusion.
"What happened?"
Blacker pointed to the signal. "She found something. A warning."
Zainab read the glyphs. "They knew about Omega. They called it the hollow."
Blacker nodded. "And they didn't survive."
Zainab turned to the console. "Then we need to prepare. If Omega followed us…"
The ship pulsed.
"She is near."
Blacker's breath caught. "Omega?"
"She hunts."
The display shifted, showing a distant vessel—dark, angular, moving fast. It wasn't part of the Genesis fleet. It was Mei Ling's prototype. And it was coming.
Zainab whispered, "She launched her own Ark."
Blacker stared at the screen. "Then this isn't a mission anymore. It's a war."