Star Covenant

Chapter 5: Tentacle Shackles and Genetic Resonance

Erin's quantum wedding ring projected a holographic star map on the lab bench, where Kane's spinal tentacles were wrapped around her wrists in a death grip.Silver-gray mechanical prosthetic eyes scanned the data stream of the genetic sequencer, those fluorescently labeled strands of DNA harboring ancient coding that even the Star League hadn't cracked.

"Your blood sample is a reverse-helix fit with the Thrawn originator virus."Kane's tentacles secreted a pale golden slime that seeped down Erin's arteries and into her skin, "This proves that Earth was- three hundred years ago-"

A sudden alarm ripped through the silence of the lab.On the four-dimensional projection screen, the Thrawn-parasitized Diplomat was standing in the marriage registry, his liquid metal fingers penetrating Erin's adoptive father's chest.Quantum surveillance records showed that the m******e had occurred at the same time their wedding was taking place.

"You knew!"Erin grabbed her gene-editing gun and pressed it against Kane's throat, her wedding ring erupting in blue-violet arcs from her emotional turmoil, "The so-called political union was nothing more than a plot to trap me in an observation pod!"

Mechanical tentacles suddenly wrapped around her waistline as Kane flung her toward the collapsing wormhole escape pod.The moment the hatch closed, Erin saw half of his face corroded by Thrawn acid, his bare mechanical skeleton glinting with a cold light, "Live to unlock the secret of your blood."

The escape pod crashed into the planted area of the abandoned station, weightless, Erin's curls tangled in a nebula of broken fluorescent plants.Kane's tentacles proliferated out of control from his severe injuries, pinning her to the bulkhead like silver vines, their sharp ends piercing the carotid artery.

"Genetic resonance..."Erin read the medical AI's warning in excruciating pain that Kane's hybrid cells were reverse-eroding her hematopoietic system through the tentacles.She ripped off her wedding ring pendant and injected a sample of the hidden Patriarchal Virus into her heart.

In an instant, all the tentacles bloomed with an iridescent glow.Kane's shattered face reorganized in the nano-repair fluid, and the Thrawn script emerged from Erin's amber pupils.They were suspended in the weightless chamber, cocooned by the resonance waves lifting the medium liquid like two stars about to collide.

"So you're the experiment."For the first time, Kane's mechanical prosthetic eyes surfaced with emotional fluctuations as he touched the galactic branding that surfaced at Erin's collarbone, "The 'founding genes' that the Alliance told me to look for had been hidden in the Earth's outcasts'--"

The dome of the space station was suddenly ripped open by giant tentacles, and Serena's hexagonal pupils flickered in the shadows.Behind her stood Erin's adoptive father, who should have died of acid, and in the old man's hand he held the Quantum Communicator in its turned-on state, the band numbering identical to Erin's wedding ring.