Star Covenant

Chapter 8: Bioluminescence Resonates with Lies

Erin's quantum wedding ring chimed shrilly through the rubble, and Kane's mechanical prosthetic eye snapped to a lock in the direction of the sound source.Outside the interstellar cargo bay where the two were hiding, Thrawn liquid metal tentacles were penetrating the titanium hatch, the hiss of venomous corrosion like a countdown to death.

"Your ring is a locator."Kane's spinal tentacles wrapped around Erin's wrist and flung her toward the genetic cryo-pod deep in the cargo bay, "Shut down the bio-signal transmitter, now!"

Erin slammed into the glass cover of the cryo-pod, her amber pupils contracting into vertical lines from the pain - the first time she had ever noticed her irises mutating.The microchip embedded in her wedding ring was burning her skin, and she shuddered as she plucked at the flesh with her scalpel, only to see that the chip had become symbiotic with her neurovascularity.

"It's too late."Kane ripped open the collar of his uniform to reveal an energy port just below his collarbone, "Connect to my neural net and override the signaling frequency with your bioelectricity."

As the tip of the tentacle pierced the back of Erin's neck, she heard the hum of her own blood flow.A flood of data from Kane's neural chip flooded into her consciousness, and she saw countless clones of herself sinking in and out of the incubation chamber, lab log number EB-227 labeled "Earth Genetic Sample - Thrawn Primary Host Adaptor."

"Focus!"Kane's bellowing startled her awake; the roof of the cargo bay had been torn open and cracked, and the hive pupils of the Thrawn warriors glittered in the moonlight.Erin gritted her teeth and gripped Kane's hand, the wedding ring bioelectricity resonating with the tentacle's energy pulses, the burst of luminescence searing the nearest intruder.

Serena's liquid metal body reorganized in charred smoke, her hexagonal pupils reflecting Erin's bleeding palm, "So you're the one who slipped through the cracks."Her vocal cords mimicked the voice of Erin's adoptive father, "You should have been blown to smithereens along with your parents ten years ago."

Kane's tentacles suddenly tightened around Serena's neck, only to be wrenched free as the other woman dissolved into liquid.Erin took the opportunity to activate the cryo-pod's self-destruct sequence, and the cryogenic mist wrapped around the canisters of genetic samples burst into flames, disintegrating the Serra warrior into crystalline dust in a sharp freeze of -190 degrees Celsius.

"You knew I was an experiment."Erin grabbed Kane by the collar amidst the blast of air, the red flickering frequency of his mechanical prosthetic eyes revealing mood swings, "Those cloned embryos .. what does EB-227 mean?"

Kane fell silent as he curled his tentacles around the remnants of the genetic canister in the pod, the labeling of the canister displaying Erin's DNA profile with the Alliance's top-secret seal emblazoned boldly below.He suddenly pushed Erin towards the escape pod, his tentacles leaving a blood seeping strangle mark around her waist, "Get your ass back to Earth and I'll personally remove your bone marrow the next time we meet."

The moment the escape pod ejected into the atmosphere, Erin saw through the porthole that Kane was alone against the main Serena ship.His tentacles burst into the vacuum with gamma rays, an ability that should have been reserved for purebred Vestals.The wedding ring suddenly projected a holographic image of Kane's human mother kneeling on the execution table, the same meteorite necklace as Erin around her neck.

Serena's shrill laugh came over the comm, "Why do you think he chose you? Ms. EB-227, you have the same foul blood as his mother..."