Chapter 1
The Argos Vox drifted through the void like an old beast too stubborn to die. Its hull was a patchwork of centuries-old repairs, a palimpsest of desperate bargains. Freight haulers like it rarely saw drydock for proper overhauls; their owners simply kept them running until they simply couldn't. The engines pulsed with an uneven rhythm, and the outer plating bore the dull scars of countless micrometeor impacts. Inside, the ship groaned and shuddered, its decks lined with rust where machine oil had long since dried.
But for all its wear, the Argos Vox endured.
It wasn't failing—yet. But something about it felt… off.
Vera Gant had worked aboard for three years. Long enough to know when something wasn't right. She wasn't an officer, not even a seasoned voidsman with decades of experience. Just a logistics assistant, barely a step above a cargo-hauler servitor. Her days were spent tallying manifests, overseeing drone loadouts, and triple-checking cogitator outputs no one else cared about. The work was dull but safe.
Or it had been, until the last few weeks.
It started small. A colleague, Brant, failed to report for his shift—then his bunk was empty, his possessions gone. The overseers claimed he'd jumped ship at the last port, but Vera had spoken to him the night before. He'd seemed fine. Then came the noises—skittering, faint scrapes within the bulkheads, always just at the edge of hearing. The lumen strips flickered, buzzing as if struggling to stay lit. People kept to themselves. Took different routes through the corridors.
Vera kept her head down. It wasn't her problem. She kept tallying manifests, overseeing load cycles, and avoided asking questions. That was how you kept your job. That was how you stayed safe.
Now, an unscheduled arrival had drawn her to the docking bay. The Argos Vox had been ordered to receive an inspector—some corporate functionary with the authority to inconvenience everyone for hours. No explanation. No details. Just a terse, certified order from a supplier she didn't recognize. Orders to comply.
The docking clamps locked into place with a heavy thunk, followed by the slow, mechanical hiss of the boarding tube pressurizing.
The ship on the other side was smaller than the freighter, but only in relative terms. This was no courier vessel. It was something precise—built with purpose. Its hull was a dark, gunmetal gray, unmarked by emblems or ornamentation. Every plate seamless. Every joint perfect.
The kind of ship that seemed too important to be paying any real attention to her vessel.
Aboard the Argos Vox, Vera Gant stood near the docking bay, arms folded, shifting her weight between her heels. Through the viewing port, she studied the vessel outside. Something about it was unsettling, though she couldn't say why. It wasn't the ship's size or the way it moved—it was a wrongness she felt more than understood. The docking lights caught its hull at an angle that made it seem too smooth, almost unnatural.
There was no visible crew.
Inside the ship, there was only silence. No idle chatter. Just the steady hum of life support and the quiet rhythm of machinery running at peak efficiency. The kind of silence that wasn't passive—it was waiting.
Then, movement. A figure crossed the threshold, and just like that, the unease had a source.
He looked young—late twenties at most. His features were precise—sharp enough to be noticed, ordinary enough to be overlooked. A face that could disappear into a crowd or command one with equal ease. His dark hair was neatly kept, his attire crisp and functional, mirroring the vessel he arrived on: controlled, meticulous, without excess. No grand displays of authority. No unnecessary adornments.
But something about the fellow was off as well. Vera couldn't place it, not exactly. Maybe it was the way he moved—too smooth, too deliberate. Or maybe it was the way his gaze flickered across the docking bay, cataloging, measuring. A glance that dissected rather than observed.
She forced herself to exhale.
The inspector had arrived.
He stepped off his ship, his movements precise, purposeful. He was younger than she expected for a corporate inspector—but seemed older in the way he carried himself. His eyes continued to flick across the docking bay, taking everything in before finally focusing on her.
"You're the logistics officer?" His voice was calm, level. Not bored, but not particularly interested either.
"Assistant," Vera corrected. "Vera Gant. I help oversee inventory shipments."
"Good." He nodded, barely reacting. "I won't take much of your time. My name is Gideon, and I'm here on behalf of Lexum-Arthanos Logistics to verify supply manifests. We've had some discrepancies in recent shipments from this route. I need to ensure everything matches what's on record."
Vera resisted the urge to sigh. Corporate oversight was always a pain, and an unexpected visit like this meant a long day of double-checking numbers that were probably already correct. Still, she kept her tone polite. "Of course, sir. Everything should be in order, but I can walk you through the process. You'll want to see the main inventory logs, then?"
"I will." Gideon glanced around the docking bay again, eyes tracing the overhead lumen strips as though checking for something else. "Has there been any interference with your cargo handling? Unscheduled disruptions?"
Vera frowned slightly. "Not really. Though... well, we've had some crew disappear recently. Not saying they stole anything, but when people up and vanish, things tend to get misplaced."
Gideon made a quiet noise, as if filing the information away but not particularly concerned. "Unfortunate. But not uncommon on haulers like this."
"No, sir," Vera agreed. "Happens from time to time." She hesitated for a moment before adding, "Still, it's been strange. People leaving without notice, bunks cleared out overnight. The overseers say they must've jumped ship at port, but some of them were people I knew. Didn't seem the type to run."
Gideon barely reacted, scanning the nearest cargo crates instead. "I see. And the equipment failures?"
Vera blinked. "What about them?"
"You mentioned things being misplaced," Gideon said, casually running a gloved hand along the edge of a metal container. "Faulty systems can contribute to that—cogitator errors, drone malfunctions. Just covering all possibilities."
She shrugged. "Some minor power fluctuations. Lumens flickering, machinery needing extra resets. The tech-priests say it's just void-wear."
"I'm sure they do." Gideon glanced toward the bulkhead leading into the ship's main corridors. "Let's start with the manifests. Then I'll need to survey some of the cargo holds."
Vera nodded, motioning for him to follow. As they walked, she noticed how he moved—not like a man checking inventory, but like someone scouting a place, mapping it out in his head.
All the same, if he was just another number-cruncher, why did he make the hairs on her neck stand on end?
When they entered the cargo bay, the familiar scents of dust, machine oil, and stale air settled around them. Vera led the way, explaining the supply routes and storage protocols with the ease of someone who had done this tour a hundred times. Gideon let her talk, offering only the occasional nod, his attention drifting over the rows of stacked crates.
Nothing unusual at first glance. Just the expected wear of an aging freighter—scuffed plating, faded identification sigils, a few loose seals maintenance had overlooked. But as they passed one particular stack, something made him slow his step.
A crate. Identical to the others, but…
The latch bore scuff marks, as if it had been opened and resealed in a hurry. Not enough to be suspicious on its own—crew got sloppy, things got shuffled—but his attention lingered all the same.
As he passed, his gloved fingers brushed the surface. A slight tackiness. Residue. Faint, but distinct. Organic.
He didn't react. Didn't stop. Just let his hand fall back to his side and kept walking as if nothing had changed.
Vera glanced at him. "Something wrong?"
"No," he said easily. "Just checking the condition of the containers."
She gave a short laugh. "Trust me, they're fine. This bay doesn't get much traffic."
Gideon nodded, saying nothing more. But the thought lingered.
Something had been in that crate.
And now it was somewhere else.
Once the tour was done, Vera led Gideon back toward the ship's central data terminal—a cogitator station tucked into the corner of the logistics office. The steady hum of machinery filled the space, punctuated by the occasional beep of status readouts. She tapped through a manifest file, only half paying attention.
Gideon leaned against the console, keeping his posture relaxed. "I don't suppose you've got ventilation and power consumption reports handy?"
Vera barely looked up. "That's more of an engineering thing."
"Sure. But you have access, right?"
That made her pause. She glanced at him, brow furrowing. "Why would a cargo inspector need ventilation reports?"
Gideon shrugged. "Just covering all the bases. The company's pushing for efficiency metrics—environmental regulation, energy waste, that sort of thing."
Vera gave him a skeptical look. "Nobody cares about that stuff until something's broken."
"That's the point," he said smoothly. "Better to catch issues early than wait for them to turn into profit losses."
She hesitated. "I don't know. It's not exactly my department."
Gideon exhaled through his nose, offering a knowing look. "I get it. Not really in your job description, right? But I imagine half the work you do isn't. You keep this place running, but no one notices until something goes wrong. I'm not asking for much—just a little help making sure everything checks out. You'd be doing me a favor."
Vera sighed, rolling her eyes, but he could see the shift. She muttered something under her breath about "corporate types" before turning back to the console. A few keystrokes later, the reports flashed onto the screen.
"Don't know what you expect to find, but here." She stepped aside.
Gideon offered a small smile. "Appreciate it."
His eyes flicked over the data with renewed focus, his posture shifting almost imperceptibly. As if this—these dry, overlooked details—were the real reason he was here.
His expression remained neutral—at least, at first.
The ventilation logs told a quiet story, one Vera hadn't noticed. Certain ducts flagged for maintenance far more often than they should be. Reports of unexplained blockages, components corroding at unnatural rates. Routine inspections skipped or marked as completed with no record of who had signed off. Some sections of the ship hadn't been checked in weeks.
Then the power logs. Small fluctuations in energy draw—too minor to trigger alarms, but too consistent to be random. They clustered around areas that should have been abandoned storage zones. Old maintenance access points. Forgotten corridors.
Gideon's fingers, idly tapping the console, went still.
Vera didn't notice. She leaned back against the bulkhead, arms crossed, watching him—not suspicious, just curious.
He exhaled through his nose, slow and measured. Then, just as smoothly, he shifted, rolling his shoulders, letting his expression settle into something vaguely unimpressed. A corporate functionary, sifting through mundane inefficiencies. Nothing more.
"Thought so," he murmured, scrolling onward, as if what he'd just seen was trivial.
Vera arched a brow. "Find something exciting?"
"Looks like your engineers need to get their act together." He tapped the screen with a smirk. "Routine checks getting skipped, systems running dirtier than they should be. Could be costing your employer."
Vera sighed. "Tell me something I don't know."
"Oh, I will." Gideon powered down the display. "This is something I'll need to deal with while I'm here."
Vera pushed off the bulkhead. "Didn't take you for the hands-on type."
Gideon smiled. "Surprises all around."
He turned away, casual, unreadable. Inside, the calculations had already begun. The problems aboard this freighter were worse than expected. His approach would need to change. Things might get messy.
And then Vera's vox-link buzzed against her ear. She frowned and tapped the receiver. "Gant here."
A voice crackled through—flat, mechanical, stripped of all but the most necessary inflection. One of the docking servitors, "Unscheduled boarding attempt detected for inspector vessel. Crew members presented falsified authorization. Denied entry."
Vera straightened. "Who?"
A pause. "Identities verified as Foreman Marston, Dockworker Irell, and Crewman Juno. No further action taken."
She frowned. Marston? He was a by-the-books voidsman, not the type to pull something like this. Irell and Hoss were nobodies, but Marston should have known better.
She glanced at Gideon. "That's… weird."
He wasn't looking at her. Wasn't even pretending to skim the data anymore. He'd gone completely still, shoulders squared, jaw set. A beat passed before he exhaled, slow and measured, then turned to her with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"I need to get back to my ship."
Vera had to pick up her pace to keep up as the two hurried back to the docking bay. Gideon wasn't running, but he was moving with purpose, strides long and measured.
"Okay, hold on," she said, half-jogging to keep up. "What's going on? That was weird, yeah, but this kind of thing happens all the time. Dock crew trying to cut corners, mess with manifests—"
"It's not that," Gideon said, voice clipped.
Vera scowled. "Then what is it?"
No answer. He just kept walking.
Frustration bubbled up. "Look, I get it. Big important corporate guy, lots of secrets, but you don't just—"
Gideon exhaled through his nose. Without breaking stride, he reached into his coat, pulled something from an inner pocket, and turned it just enough for her to see.
It was heavy but not bulky. A polished seal of authority, its edges etched with High Gothic script that shimmered faintly under the lumen glow. The stylized "I," flanked by skulls and intricate filigree, was unmistakable. Worn smooth in places, as if carried often, handled frequently. At its center, an eye-like ruby glinted, dark and depthless, set deep within the insignia's core—watching, judging.
A rosette. The sigil of the Inquisition.
Vera's mouth went dry.
Gideon tucked it away just as quickly. "Keep walking."
She did, but her breath hitched. She wasn't even thinking when the words tumbled out.
"I—I've seen that before," she blurted, half to him, half to herself. "When I was a kid. My uncle's transport got impounded—something about shipping discrepancies. Some guy with a rosette came in, asked a few questions, and just like that, my uncle was gone. No trial. No nothing. My dad wouldn't even talk about it."
She realized she was rambling and snapped her mouth shut.
Gideon didn't respond right away, just kept walking with his eyes ahead. "Then you understand why I need to get back to my ship. Now."
Vera swallowed hard and nodded, still moving. "Yeah. Yeah, I get it."
When Gideon finally spoke again, they were nearly at the docking bay.
"You're not infected," he said, matter-of-fact. "I'd prefer you not to die. Please try to keep safe."
"Right. That's comforting." She hesitated, glancing at the bulkheads around them. The ship suddenly felt smaller, the corridors tighter. Vera exhaled sharply, half a laugh, half nerves. "Would sticking with you be the safest option?"
Gideon rolled that one over in his mind for half a second before answering, "Yes or assuredly no. Not much in between."
Vera grimaced. "Great. Love those odds."
The inquisitor merely shrugged as he proceeded to enter the docking bay, her trailing behind. The place was quiet. But not in a manner that felt at all reassuring.
Vera's pulse hammered in her ears as she followed Gideon down the gantry, the dim lumen strips overhead flickering in irregular pulses. The air smelled different here than it had a few hours earlier. There was the familiar, faint tang of machine oil but also something else. Something faintly organic, like damp rot seeping through metal.
Then she saw them.
A small group of crew members stood at the base of the docking ramp, just outside Gideon's ship. They weren't doing anything. Just standing still. Their eyes tracked Gideon and Vera's approach, but no one spoke. No one shifted impatiently or crossed their arms or did anything that felt remotely human.
Vera recognized them.
Chief Marston, the shift foreman, was leaning slightly on his right leg—the same way he always did when his bad knee was acting up. He'd been on the Argos Vox longer than most, a gruff bastard but dependable. The kind of guy who grumbled through every job but still showed up.
Beside him stood Irell, one of the deck techs, the kid barely in his twenties. Vera had caught him slacking more than once, always quick with a sheepish grin and an excuse.
Juno was there too. A tall, wiry woman with dark eyes and a voice that could cut through the engine's roar when she wanted it to. She'd helped Vera fix a faulty manifest entry once, saving her from a tongue-lashing by the overseers. Good at her job, always moving, always talking—except now, she wasn't. None of them were.
They weren't doing anything. Just standing.
Too still.
Marston's hands hung stiff at his sides, fingers slightly curled. Irell's posture was too straight, too controlled. Juno, whose face was never without some sign of thought—furrowed brows, a half-smirk—was blank.
Their eyes tracked Gideon and Vera's approach, slow and deliberate. Not a single glance was exchanged between them. No nods, no shifting weight, no muttered complaints about being pulled from work to stand here like idiots.
No one spoke.
Vera slowed. Some instinct she couldn't name screamed at her to stop.
Gideon didn't break stride.
"Hey," Vera muttered under her breath. "I don't think—"
Gideon reached for his belt.
The movement was smooth. Fast. A single fluid motion, like he'd done it a thousand times before. One moment his hands were empty. The next, a laspistol was in his grip.
A single shot cracked the silence.
The nearest crewman's head snapped back, a blackened hole smoking where Marston's face had been. His body crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut.
Vera's breath caught in her throat.
Irell went for Gideon, moving too fast, too sudden—but the laspistol was faster. A shot to the sternum stopped him mid-lunge, another to the head put him down for good. Gideon fired with practiced precision, each movement controlled, clinical. No wasted motion, no hesitation. Not a second of consideration given to the body of a felled target before he lined up a shot on the next one.
The last crewmember, Juno, twitched as she fell. Her limbs seized, face contorting—not in pain, but into something else. Something grotesque. Her jaw unhinged wider than it should have, lips pulling back in a rictus grin as her pupils blew out into solid black orbs. Then the final shot took her in the temple, splitting the woman's skull wide open.
Vera stumbled back, her stomach lurching.
Gideon exhaled, holstering the pistol like he hadn't just executed three of her coworkers. "Come on."
Vera stared at the bodies. The still-smoking wounds. The impossible way Juno's face had twisted, like something underneath had been trying to break free…
Her breath came too fast, too shallow. "What the f—"
"Vera." His voice was firm. Steady. "Move."
The moment Vera crossed the threshold of Gideon's ship, the air changed. The docking bay on the other side was thick with stale industrial and fresh carnage. However, here, the atmosphere was controlled and crisp. Sterile… yet lived-in. The lighting was dimmer than on the Argos Vox, but not in a way that suggested disrepair. Everything was intentional.
The ramp sealed behind them with a heavy clang.
Gideon moved quickly but without haste, his footsteps sharp against the deck plating. He made his way toward the control panel near the bulkhead, fingers flying across the interface. A low hum vibrated through the ship as systems shifted from standby to full operation.
Vera swallowed hard, her pulse still hammering in her ears. Outside, those people—Marston, Irell, Juno—they were dead now. And Gideon—he hadn't hesitated. Hadn't even blinked. Just drawn his weapon and ended them like he was taking out the trash.
She forced herself to focus. "What—" Her voice cracked, and she tried again. "What the hell is going on?"
Gideon didn't answer immediately. His gaze flicked over a series of readouts on the console, checking ship integrity, external locks, atmospheric conditions. Satisfied, he pressed deeper into the ship, and Vera had no choice but to follow.
The next chamber was darker, colder. The hum of machinery pressed in from all sides, the air thick with the scent of coolant and old metal. Dim lumen strips flickered weakly, casting shifting shadows that never quite settled. Consoles lined the walls, their screens pulsing with quiet data streams. But the room's true focus was at its center—a cryogenic containment unit, its reinforced frame anchored to the deck like an altar of metal and ice. Thick cables snaked out from its base like veins, disappearing into the floor and ceiling.
Frost rimed the reinforced glass, creeping in jagged patterns. Vera stepped closer, her breath misting in the chill. Through the chill-streaked pane, she glimpsed a figure inside, locked in stillness, limbs bound in subzero suspension. No breath, no movement.
She swallowed. Something about the presence in that pod made the air feel heavier, like the room itself was holding its breath.
Gideon approached a nearby control panel, its surface pulsing with a slow, rhythmic glow—waiting.
He exhaled, then keyed in a sequence.
The glow shifted. A process had begun. Whatever lay inside… it would be waking soon.
Vera had no idea what was about to join them, but the prickle at the back of her neck told her she didn't want to find out.
Gideon was already moving, gesturing for her to follow. "We should leave."
She didn't argue.
As they exited, the door sealed behind them with a heavy lock. A dull thud reverberated through the walls as something stirred inside the pod. Vera flinched.
Gideon didn't. He simply watched the status display on the external console—numbers counting down, vitals spiking.
Vera's breath was still shaky. Her mind raced to catch up with the last few minutes—the bodies outside, the cold precision of Gideon's actions, the sealed cryo pod sitting in the next room.
Every instinct screamed that she needed answers.
She turned to Gideon, her voice hoarse. "What the hell is going on?"
Gideon didn't look at her. He was watching the status display, tracking the numbers as they climbed. "Genestealer infestation," he said, as if stating a fact as mundane as a local weather report. "Your ship is compromised."
Vera blinked. The words didn't make sense at first. "That's—no. No, that's not possible."
A sound cut through the ship.
Not the hum of machinery, not the groan of shifting bulkheads—something else. A violent, shuddering bang from the other room, metal straining against force.
Vera flinched. "What was—"
Another impact. Harder. Like something slamming against reinforced plating.
Then a sharp, mechanical hiss. The sound of a cryo-seal breaking.
Gideon exhaled, finally turning away from the console. His expression was unreadable. "That," he said, "would be our solution waking up. My superiors wanted to label your ship a lost cause. Better to call in a warship. Cleanse it from orbit. No risk. No loose ends."
A sudden, violent noise from the other room cut through the air—metal groaning under strain, a sharp hiss of released pressure, and something far worse. Laughter. Jagged, blood-curdling, like a man screaming and enjoying it far too much.
Vera recoiled. "What—"
"I find that kind of callousness distasteful," Gideon continued, as if the sound was nothing unusual. He turned toward the door, expression unreadable. "I prefer to be more… surgical. To bring—"
Another impact rattled the bulkhead. A hiss of escaping air. The laughter had settled into heavy, unsteady breathing, something between exhilaration and restraint.
Gideon allowed himself the ghost of a smirk. "—The better option."
The noise on the other side of the door reached something resembling an end—not true silence, just a moment where the screaming, laughing, and mechanical hissing all stopped at once. An absence that felt worse than the sound itself.
Vera didn't realize she had been holding her breath. She glanced at Gideon, searching for any sign of hesitation. He had already stepped forward.
"Please stand back." His voice was quiet, but absolute.
The door hissed as the locks disengaged. Metal groaned, hydraulics whined. The air itself seemed to thicken.
Then the door slid open.
The thing inside wasn't a man. It had the shape of one, but no sane mind would mistake it for human.
The shattered remains of the cryo seal lay at its feet, mist still curling from the ruptured containment unit. Black carapace armor clung to it like a second skin, molded to flesh and augmetic alike, slick with the sweat of bio-recovery. The scent of stimulants and chemical stabilizers clung to the air—sharp, acrid, wrong.
Then, it moved.
The creature stepped forward, slow and deliberate, bare feet whispering against the metal floor. It didn't stumble. It didn't hesitate. Its breath rasped through the filters of its helm, ragged and uneven, just shy of a growl.
Vera could only stare. The helmet—leering, skull-faced, empty-eyed—tilted slightly, as if sniffing the air. The thing's fingers flexed, testing, each movement unnervingly precise. Even standing still, it radiated motion, like an animal barely leashed.
Then, with a sharp click, twin red lenses ignited in its sockets, burning like fresh coals.
Gideon barely reacted to the killing machine before him. He had seen it before. He had woken it before.
"Hello, TBO-97," he said, tone level. "I have your target logistics. Let me transfer the data via neural implant, and you can get started."
TBO-97 stood still for a fraction too long, his breath coming in controlled, measured bursts. Then, with something that almost resembled restraint, he inclined his head. Compliance.
Gideon stepped forward, fingers brushing the input port at the base of the assassin's skull. A sharp pulse of data transfer—compiled from ventilation anomalies and power fluctuations he'd flagged earlier. Waypoints mapped from those inconsistencies, heat signatures where there shouldn't be any, structural weak points, paths of least resistance. The most efficient way to cleanse the ship with minimal collateral damage.
TBO-97 inhaled sharply as the information flooded his brain. His stance shifted—still predatory, but now with purpose.
He clicked his tongue. "Chance of Imperial citizen execution via friendly fire… ninety-nine percent."
Gideon rolled his eyes. It was always ninety-nine percent. Sometimes, he swore the Eversor was making a joke.
"Better than the ship blowing up," Gideon muttered. Then, more firmly, "Keep it minimal if you can. But once you're out there, it's your show."
TBO-97 strode toward the exit, moving with that eerie balance of speed and control—like a predator indulging in patience. But just before crossing the threshold, his gaze snapped to Vera.
She stiffened.
Gideon sighed. "After you leave the ship."
A pause. Then, TBO shrugged—casual, almost flippant, a mockery of normalcy on something so lethal. "Understood."
Without another word, he turned, heading to retrieve his weapons.
The door sealed behind him.
Time to hunt.
Chapter 2
TBO-97 moved with methodical precision, assembling his arsenal with the ease of a craftsman preparing for a familiar task. Magazines locked into place with crisp, mechanical clicks. A chainsword's motor whined to life, then settled into a low, hungry hum. Each motion was second nature, ingrained through decades of chemical conditioning and brutal repetition.
His weapons were not trophies. Not burdens. They were tools. And he had a job to do.
Satisfied, he strode toward the airlock. The doors hissed open, revealing the dim, industrial corridors of the Argos Vox. The scent of recycled air and machine oil clung to the walls, laced with something just slightly… off.
No alarms. No resistance. Just the ship's quiet hum and the distant groan of metal contracting in the cold void.
TBO-97 stepped forward. A moment of stillness. Of quiet.
Then, the first stim was injected directly into his bloodstream—an efficient, cold pulse of liquid fire. The needle embedded in his neck, a sharp, almost imperceptible prick, and within moments, the compound surged through his veins, igniting his senses with brutal speed.
The world sharpened into violent clarity as fire licked through his veins. His fingers flexed around the grip of his executioner pistol. His breath hitched—just for a fraction of a second—before his body adapted, muscles primed, nerves aflame with borrowed fury.
The rush settled over him like an old friend.
This was where the fun began.
The Eversore began advancing through the dim corridors of the Argos Vox with a predator's silence, his movements eerily smooth despite the raw power coiled within his frame. His enhanced vision cut through the gloom, highlighting every rusted pipe, every loose cable swaying with the ship's subtle vibrations. And more stale air with old recyclers struggling to mask the faint, organic stench of decay.
The ship was vast, but TBO's path was direct. Data pulsed in his neural display—ventilation schematics, power anomalies, heat signatures stirring where there should have been nothing. The infestation had spread deep, burrowing into the forgotten veins of the vessel.
His presence barely disturbed the quiet, save for the occasional groan of deck plating beneath his weight. He passed empty bunks where crew once slept, mess halls where meals had been abandoned mid-bite. Signs of struggle. Smears of something dark along the walls. Tools and datapads left where they had been dropped in haste.
Near a workstation, he slowed. A small metal cup sat on the table, its contents still steaming in the cold air. Caffeine. Fresh. Someone had been here moments ago—someone who had no idea they were already dead.
Elsewhere in the ship, pockets of the crew remained untouched. Ordinary citizens, oblivious to the infection festering beneath their feet. But they were not his concern. Gideon's targeting data ensured the hunt would steer him away from them. Hopefully.
But there was plenty of fun to be had elsewhere.
A distant sound suddenly caught his attention. Faint. A wet, shifting scrape against metal.
TBO turned his head slightly, angling his enhanced hearing toward the source.
The first target was close.
He moved without hesitation, his steps unnervingly light for something of his size. The floor vibrated beneath him—not from his own movement, but from the ship itself. A steady, distant thrum of engines. The occasional metallic groan as pressure shifted through the bulkheads. Somewhere deeper within, something dripped in an irregular rhythm, tapping against metal like a dying pulse.
Another round of combat stims flooded his system.
TBO exhaled sharply as his senses surged to new heights. His vision sharpened, heart rate spiked, and his muscles coiled with caged energy. The world around him stretched, each second drawn thin like a blade sliding against a throat. His fingers flexed against the grips of his weapons. The eerie silence he'd been lingering in was brittle.
And it was about to break.
The corridor stretched ahead, dimly lit by flickering lumen strips that sent jagged shadows dancing along the bulkheads. The ship's ancient systems groaned—a deep, metallic breath that masked the subtler sounds beneath it. A faint scuff of movement. The whisper of claw against steel.
TBO-97 halted. His helmet's audio receptors adjusted, filtering the ambient drone of the ship's failing machinery, isolating the anomaly. There—a slight, uneven cadence, too irregular to be mechanical. His fingers twitched. Muscles primed.
He wasn't alone.
They burst from the shadows in a blur of sickly pale flesh and glistening chitin, the unnatural sheen of their exoskeletons reflecting the dim glow of the lumen strips above. Their elongated skulls split open with a sickening crack, revealing rows of needle-like teeth, glistening white in the gloom. The sharp angles of their faces were twisted and grotesque, with empty eyes that radiated pure hunger and malice. Their limbs, unnaturally long and gangly, ended in cruel talons, each one curved like a scythe, eager to slice through flesh and bone.
Their bodies were a grotesque fusion of insect and something far darker—a nightmare made flesh. Segmented carapaces, slick and gleaming, covered their limbs and torsos, every joint and plate moving with a fluidity that defied nature. Their motions were disjointed, yet disturbingly efficient—chaotic in their violence. There was no grace, no elegance—only ravenous hunger and deadly purpose. They didn't belong on this ship. They didn't belong in this galaxy. Every step they took, every scrape of talon against metal, felt like an affront to reality itself—as if they were a grotesque tear in the fabric of space, a violation of the very air they breathed.
TBO was already moving.
He ducked under the first swipe, the air rushing past his helmet in a blur of sharp, deadly talons. His body reacted before his mind had fully caught up—neural conditioning and combat stims sharpening his reflexes to the point of premonition. He twisted smoothly, boots sliding across the slick metal deck, and fired his executioner pistol without hesitation.
A bolt round slammed into the lead Genestealer's chest. The impact was brutal, sending the creature reeling back, a spurt of foul ichor spraying in all directions. The round detonated an instant later. The Genestealer shrieked—a high, horrific sound—before its upper torso was obliterated in a spray of blood and shredded flesh. The remnants of its body crumpled to the deck, lifeless, the sickening stench of burnt flesh lingering in the air.
The others didn't slow.
A second was already on him, too close to shoot. It lunged low, slashing upward. TBO snapped his arm up, catching the brunt of the strike on his reinforced gauntlet. Sparks flew. The force of the impact sent him skidding back, but he turned the momentum into a counterattack, drawing his power sword in a single, seamless motion.
A blur of blue light. A severed talon clattered to the deck.
The Genestealer reared back, hissing in pain, but there was no hesitation in its alien movements. These things felt pain, but it didn't slow them. Didn't scare them.
Another shape darted in from his periphery—third one, fast. TBO threw himself into a roll, just as those hooked claws carved through the space he had been standing. His pistol came up the instant his feet hit the ground. He fired twice—one shot went wide, blasting a hole in the wall.
The second hit home, blowing off half the creature's face.
Still not dead.
The first one was already recovering. The second was wounded but still moving. The third was closing in.
TBO-97 adjusted. This wasn't going to be a clean execution. He'd have to carve his way through.
The wounded Genestealer swiped again, its remaining claws lashing out with desperate speed. TBO ducked low and drove his power sword up in a vicious thrust. The blade punched through the xeno's ribcage, emerging in a spray of superheated ichor from its back. The Genestealer twitched violently, its screech choking into a gurgle as its insides boiled.
But the fight wasn't over yet.
With a harsh exhale, TBO-97 yanked the power sword free, the blade sizzling as it cut through the monster's innards. The body slumped, but there was no time to relish the kill.
He sheathed the power sword, its gleaming surface now slick with alien blood, and drew his chainsword with a smooth, practiced motion. The whir of its motor hummed to life, a sharp, brutal sound that echoed through the corridor as he advanced toward the remaining Genestealer.
The last creature, the one that had lost a talon, came at him again—mindless of its injury, relentless. It was learning his movements, adjusting, faster than a normal soldier ever could.
TBO-97's boots scraped across the deck as he sidestepped, the chainsword's teeth biting into the air as he swung it in a wide arc while keeping his pistol in his other hand. This encounter had no more room for finesse. Only brutal, grinding efficiency.
His executioner pistol snapped up, a bolt round tearing through the Genestealer's throat. The blast detonated in a spray of meat and chitin, a satisfying burst that left the creature flailing, its head barely hanging on by strands of torn flesh. Yet, it didn't drop.
TBO-97 stepped forward. The hall was immediately filled with the beautiful, guttural roar of the chainsword as it steadily hacked through xenos skull. A few seconds passed, then the creature's remains slumped to the deck, lifeless, with a wet thud.
For a moment, there was only the sound of dripping ichor, sizzling as it met his armor. Then—
A footstep.
A human figure burst into view at the end of the corridor. A crew member, wild-eyed, breath coming in frantic, panicked gasps. He had probably heard the fight, thought it was some kind of security incident.
He had no idea what he had run into.
TBO's neural implants flared to life—movement, unidentified, rapid approach, close proximity—
Instinct surged, overriding thought in an instant.
TBO fired.
The crewman's skull then ceased to exist, a burst of red mist hanging in the air where his head had been before his body collapsed to the deck, lifeless, with a soft, final thud.
TBO didn't react. Didn't even register the kill. No hesitation, no second thought. He was piloting on combat stims and instinct alone. In the heat of battle, an Eversore didn't spare a single neuron to distinguish friend from foe. The death had been unavoidable.
And while this particular fight was over, the hunt had only just begun. TBO kept moving.
A cargo bay soon stretched before him, a vast, dimly lit cavern of crates and machinery. The air was thick with humidity, the scent of raw meat and something fungal clogging his throat. Organic matter clung to the walls and floors, a lattice of alien filth that pulsed ever so slightly, alive in a way that steel and iron should never be. The nest.
Movement.
He didn't need the stims to tell him what he was seeing. The shadows shifted wrong. Limbs unfolded where there had been nothing. Clawed fingers braced against crates, muscle and chitin rippling as hunched, eyeless heads turned in his direction.
The whole room exhaled.
A dozen—maybe more. They had been waiting. Watching. Not attacking him like the mindless beasts some fools thought they were. No, these were hunting. Coordinated. Smarter than any baseline human would ever realize.
TBO-97 stepped forward. The chamber responded. A low, collective hiss rippled through the nest. Chitin scraped against steel as they moved, flanking out, spreading wide to cut off every exit.
The walls were narrowing. The air was thick, charged, electric with impending violence. TBO tilted his head, calculating. Too many to count in real time. It didn't matter. His muscles were already coiled, waiting. The moment was here.
The first Genestealer lunged.
TBO's stims hit again. The world detonated into motion.
The xeno came in low, claws scraping the floor as it lunged. TBO twisted aside, his movements unnatural—too fast, too precise. His neural dampeners stretched the moment, rendering every twitch of its blade-like fingers into slow, trackable increments. The instant its talons passed him, his chainblade roared to life. Teeth bit into alien flesh. A wet shriek. A gout of purple ichor. The Genestealer spasmed, crumpling.
The others didn't hesitate.
They swarmed, a tide of claws and fangs and glistening chitin.
TBO's needle pistol kicked in his grip. A toxin-laced round reduced a Genestealer's head to mist. Another closed the distance—too fast. TBO ducked, rolled beneath a swipe meant to tear a lesser man in two. His foot snapped out, shattering its kneecap, and then his blade came down, ripping through the base of its skull.
A claw raked his shoulder. Armor held, but the impact staggered him. TBO twisted into the momentum, snapping a shot mid-spin. A Genestealer reeled back, its chest a pulped ruin. Another grabbed at him—he let it, just long enough to slam a combat blade into its throat. The steel vibrated with the force of impact.
Blood slicked the floor, splattered his armor. The world was red and purple. Bodies piled.
A scream. Human.
TBO didn't look. Didn't hesitate.
A crew member—he didn't care who—stumbled from behind a crate, eyes wide, mouth moving. A plea? A cry? It didn't matter.
The Genestealers hadn't cared when they dragged him here, flesh meant to be molded, mind meant to be broken. TBO didn't care either.
A grenade was already in his hand. He tossed it without a second thought.
The detonation sent bodies—xeno and human alike—into the air. The blast wave rippled through the chamber. Shrapnel chewed through flesh. Flames curled up the walls.
Before the blast had faded, TBO was moving again.
He cut through what remained, his heart hammering, his vision edged in red.
Figures shifted in the smoke.
Still breathing. Still hunting.
TBO stalked forward. A Genestealer, half its body shredded, dragged itself across the floor, talons scraping against the metal. Without slowing, he raised his needle pistol and put a round through its skull. The body twitched. Then stilled.
Movement. Right.
A final, desperate xeno lunged from the wreckage. Claws flashed for his throat. TBO caught its wrist, drug-fueled strength locking its arm in place, and slammed his forehead into its skull. Bone cracked. The Genestealer reeled, hissing.
TBO drove his chainblade into its gut. The teeth caught, revved, then carved up through chitin and muscle. A sickening spray of viscera. A screech, warping into a gurgle as he ripped the blade free, severing the thing in two.
Then silence.
The only sounds were the hum of his armor systems, the distant creak of the ship's hull… and a faint whimper.
TBO turned.
A crew member, barely more than a boy, huddled against a stack of crates. His uniform was stained with filth and Genestealer blood. His chest heaved. He stared at TBO, eyes flicking between the carnage and the red-glowing lenses of the assassin's skull helm.
He knew. He understood.
Shaking hands rose, fingers spread in surrender.
"P-please," he stammered.
TBO shot him in the head.
The body crumpled, twitching once before going still.
No hesitation. No risk. The mission did not allow for either.
Other Officio Assassinorum temples sent care packages tied with neat little bows, notes addressed with a single message: Dear Target. TBO's message was simpler: To whom it may concern.
The next stim injection burned through his system, keeping him sharp. The ship wasn't clean yet but he was almost out. TBO reloaded his pistol, flicked the blood from his chainblade, and stepped deeper into the freight vessel.
He stalked its ruined back corridors, boots echoing against metal grates slick with blood and ichor. The faint rot-stink he'd noticed upon entering The Argos Vox was now suffocating. He would have wretched—if that involuntary reflex hadn't been burned out of him long ago.
The aftershocks of the last stim surge still smoldered in his veins, the artificial fury cooling into something sharper. He adjusted his grip on his weapons, breathing in the scent of war and death.
Then—
"Oh, Throne." TBO cursed aloud. "Not now."
The memory surged without warning, forced into the forefront of his mind like a stim-injection gone wrong.
Restraints. Cold steel biting into his limbs.
A voice, distant yet inescapable, filled his skull.
"You are not a person. You are a function. A scalpel in the Emperor's hand."
Screaming. Not his own.
A gloved hand forcing his eyes open. Blinding light. Another voice, clinical, detached:
"Pain response suppressed. Increase combat aggression threshold."
Then it was gone.
TBO's mind snapped back. His fingers twitched against the trigger. His vision was clear. The mission remained.
He kept moving.
His stims were now running thin, the most recent cocktail of chems still burning in his veins but fading fast. His heart pounded, a stuttering, too-fast rhythm. His body screamed for rest. The mission refused him that luxury.
He knew it was waiting. Watching.
This one wasn't like the others. It hadn't thrown itself into the meat grinder of his chainblade, hadn't fallen to his needle rounds or promethium bursts. It had let the lesser creatures die first, bleeding him out one fight at a time. Now, with the ship's halls a charnel house, the Apex was moving in for the kill.
A soft chitter echoed from the darkness ahead. A shape, low and hulking, slithered through the maintenance scaffolding above, six limbs shifting with unnatural silence. The dim emergency lighting barely traced its form—a mass of corded muscle wrapped in black-blue chitin, its surface slick with something viscous that caught the light like oil on water.
Its elongated skull bore cruel ridges, its eyeless face twitching toward him, scenting him, tasting the air. Its jaws flexed open, revealing layers of jagged, interlocking fangs, strands of saliva stretching and snapping as it moved. Each limb was gnarled with obscene strength, claws too large, too wickedly hooked, capable of carving through ceramite like parchment. A long, sinuous tail curled behind it, ending in a brutal spike crusted with old, dried blood.
The remaining Genestealers—stragglers, wounded, desperate—crawled behind it, their postures lower, almost reverent.
A trap. Of course.
TBO didn't hesitate. He advanced.
The Apex dropped.
The two clashed head on. The beast was faster than the others, and smarter—it didn't throw itself into his chainblade. Instead, it feinted, forcing him to swing wide before it lunged low, claws screeching against his armor. A talon hooked beneath his shoulder plating and wrenched. Warning runes flared red in his vision.
He twisted, slamming a knee into its ribcage, and was rewarded with the wet crack of snapping bone. It barely stumbled.
The other Genestealers moved in, striking when they saw an opening. One lunged for his back—his needle pistol barked, turning its skull to pulp before it could make contact. Another clawed at his side, scraping against reinforced plating before he drove his chainblade into its sternum, sawing through chitin and flesh in a violent spray.
The Apex was circling now, forcing him backward. He recognized the tactic. Herding. Pinning him against bulkheads, narrowing his movement options.
His stims were practically gone by now. He could feel the crash looming, his muscles aching from the sustained punishment. His body begged for another dose, but his reserves were nearly empty. The next hit would have to be his last.
The Apex sensed the hesitation. It lunged, its entire bulk surging forward, jaws wide—
TBO jabbed a hand to his thigh injector and slammed the last dose of combat stim into his system.
It hit like a white-hot explosion in his veins.
His vision sharpened. The world slowed.
He moved.
The Apex had him pinned for half a second—then TBO wrenched free, twisting his arm at an inhuman angle to slam a melta charge against its chest.
The Genestealer barely had time to screech before the charge detonated.
A flash of blinding white-hot fury. The air itself seemed to shriek as raw thermal energy vaporized flesh and chitin alike. The explosion hit like a miniature sun, boiling everything within its radius, the sheer heat reducing lesser Genestealers to charred husks before they could even react. The Apex was launched backward in a shower of superheated ichor, its carapace bursting like overripe fruit.
TBO hit the ground hard, rolling with the impact. His armor was scorched, cracked in places, and the warning runes in his HUD were flashing more aggressively now. But he was still alive. That was more than he could say for the lesser Genestealers, torn apart in the blast.
The Apex was still moving.
Its chest was ruined—blackened muscle and shattered chitin, ichor bubbling from the wound. But it wasn't dead.
Not yet.
TBO pushed himself up. Time to fix that.
The Apex Genestealer was dying, but it wasn't done. Even with half its torso melted away, it dragged itself upright, its unnatural resilience forcing it to keep fighting. It was staggering now, but its eyes still burned with hate.
Already, that last dose of stims was wearing out. His body screamed at him, every nerve raw, his muscles aching from the strain of prolonged combat. His vision was sharpening and dulling in waves—his nervous system tearing itself apart from the overdose. If he didn't finish this now, he'd be too slow for the killing blow.
The Apex lunged.
TBO met it halfway.
His movements blurred—too fast for a normal human eye to track. The Genestealer's claws slashed at his chestplate, carving deep gouges, but TBO was already driving forward, locking its remaining arm in a death grip. His chainblade revved, grinding against exoskeletal plating, sparks flying as it chewed deeper and deeper into its target.
The Apex screeched.
TBO screeched back.
It was a sound that wasn't human, wasn't machine—just raw, unfiltered bloodlust, rattling from the very depths of his chemically-warped throat. The kind of scream that would strip the sanity from lesser men.
"SKREEEEEEEEE!"
His blade tore through the Apex's neck, spraying thick, black ichor as it sawed straight through muscle, bone, and sinew. The Genestealer's body convulsed, its screech cutting off mid-howl.
A final wrench. A final twist.
The head came free.
TBO held it for a moment, letting the body crumple to the floor with a heavy, lifeless thud. He watched as the red glow in its eyes flickered, dimmed, then faded into nothing—a sight that, in some distant, buried part of him, felt almost satisfying. Then, with a careless motion, he let the skull drop. It rolled across the metal floor, bouncing once before coming to a stop against a pile of butchered remains.
Silence.
The mission was complete.
TBO-97 turned and began the long walk back to Gideon's ship, moving like a specter through the ruined corridors. The stims were going now. The fun was over. The crash was coming. His muscles ached, his nerves frayed, his mind a hazy mix of raw exhaustion and lingering adrenaline. If an assassin could ever look like a tired man, that was him now.
His mind should have been blank. Should have been steel.
But the ghosts of the past didn't obey mission protocols. A flicker. Another flash of memory came. This one even stronger than the last.
Someone small. A voice, high and bright. Laughing—not the way he laughed now, not the broken, bloodcurdling shriek that tore free in the heat of combat. This was something warm. Full. Real.
A glimpse of movement. Someone turning toward him, eyes bright with familiarity. Lips moving, shaping words he couldn't hear over the phantom ringing of gunfire and the wet crunch of bodies breaking. She had dark hair. But not the dark of a shadow he'd hide in. Something warmer. Welcoming.
Then—
The memory shattered.
His eyes refocused to take in his surroundings. Somehow, he'd managed to fight through the pain and drug crashes to make it to the front door of Gideon's ship. The ghost was gone. It was time to debrief.
He stepped forward.
Chapter 3
The ship hummed with a low, steady pulse—stable, controlled, indifferent to the violence that had played out beyond its walls. Gideon sat at his workstation, fingers steepled, eyes unfocused as he reviewed the mission data scrolling across the terminal screen. Numbers. Tidy, clean, and utterly incapable of capturing the truth.
Survivors: 423 confirmed.
Casualties: 1,138.
Ship Integrity: 72% operational.
Cargo Salvaged: 58%.
By all accounts, a success.
Gideon exhaled through his nose, a slow breath. It was always like this—the Inquisition's solution would have been to erase the ship from existence, along with everyone in it. In comparison, what he had done, what TBO-97 had done, was mercy. Cold, efficient, necessary mercy.
His fingers tapped the console absently. He was even happy with the result. Not in any grand way, not with any kind of satisfaction that could be called joy, but in the quiet way of a man who had done his job well.
The silence didn't last.
Vera sat across the room, curled in a chair like she was trying to take up as little space as possible. She hadn't spoken since they left the freight ship, but her eyes never stopped moving—darting from the walls, to the floor, to the spot on the threshold where TBO had stepped before launching into the slaughter. She looked small. Smaller than before.
Gideon could feel the weight of her gaze flicker toward him, then away. Her breaths were shallow.
"423 people," he said, voice even. "That's how many we saved."
Vera didn't respond.
"More than what would've been left had my superiors had done things their way."
Still, nothing.
Gideon leaned back, fingers drumming against the armrest. He wasn't impatient—just waiting. Letting the silence stretch, letting her process it however she needed.
Finally, her voice came, small and raw. "That thing—" She stopped herself, shook her head, then looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since TBO had gone to work. "You're happy about this."
He tilted his head slightly. "Yes."
Vera's expression twisted. "How?"
She wasn't demanding, not quite. She wanted an explanation, needed one. Gideon considered her for a moment before answering.
"Because it could have been worse. When you get to look at the wider logistics of Imperial warfare, facts like that become apparent."
Vera let out a sharp, breathless laugh—one of disbelief, not humor. She put her hands to her face, pressing her fingers against her temples like she could physically force herself to understand. "You call that a victory?"
"I do."
Vera's breath hitched, and she shook her head again, muttering something under her breath. Then, finally, she whispered, "I can still hear it."
Gideon didn't have to ask what it was.
He exhaled, crossing his arms as he leaned against the console. "Survivors of this event will attract attention, given the... logistical complexities of problem-solving." His tone was casual, like he was discussing supply quotas instead of the aftermath of a massacre. "Everyone will be volunteered for something more in line with the Imperium's guiding hand."
Vera, still standing stiffly near the bulkhead, narrowed her eyes. "What?"
Gideon tilted his head slightly, as if surprised by her confusion. "You're going to be relocated to another job. Something with a fast-paced work environment and upward mobility for go-getters."
Vera just stared. "That sounds like something you'd hear on a recruitment pamphlet."
Gideon gave her a thin, knowing smile. "Exactly."
Vera shook her head, her voice low but insistent. "You need to cover this up. Move us. Put us somewhere on the front lines of the nearest crusade. Bury this."
Gideon sighed, rubbing his temple like she had just suggested something terribly inconvenient.
"Best if you comply." He dropped his hand, meeting her gaze with something patient, but firm. "Otherwise, you'll end up a servitor. Or worse."
A noise behind them. The ship's hatch cycling open.
TBO-97 stepped inside, his presence warping the room like a physical weight. Despite the battle damage scarring his carapace, he moved with casual ease. His weapons were holstered. His stance was relaxed. But there was no mistaking the butcher's work in his wake.
Vera went silent.
Gideon, without looking away from her, exhaled through his nose. "Welcome back."
"Vera," Gideon said, his tone firm but not unkind. "It's time for you to leave the ship. The Ordo's logisticians will be arriving soon to tie up loose ends."
Vera blinked. "Logisticians?"
"My associates." Gideon pushed himself away from the console and rose to his feet. "Please compose yourself before they arrive. They tend to have less patience than I do."
There was no arguing. She knew it. Vera exhaled sharply, turned on her heel, and made for the exit—only to find him standing in her way.
TBO-97 was a mess of blood and scorched armor plating, a finger idly tracing a holstered gun. His skull-helm tilted slightly as if he were sizing her up. The red lenses gleamed.
Vera's throat tightened. She had to walk past him.
As she did, the Eversor waved. A slow, lazy gesture. "Bye-bye," he murmured, his voice like rusted metal scraping together. A quiet, breathy chuckle followed her as she forced herself forward, her pace quickening.
The hatch sealed behind her.
Gideon exhaled through his nose, turning to face to the assassin. "Let's get you patched up, shall we?"
TBO-97 stood in the center of the med-bay, arms slack, his body riddled with the aftermath of the slaughter. Deep gouges in his carapace, punctures still oozing, a shoulder joint half-dislocated from an especially violent exchange. His metabolism was already knitting flesh back together at an unnatural rate, but the real work fell to Gideon.
He moved with the efficiency of a practiced hand, stripping away damaged armor plating, injecting stabilizers to counteract the overload of stims still burning through the assassin's veins. He set a fresh dermal applicator to work, sealing wounds with synthesized grafts before calibrating TBO's neural inhibitors for the next deployment. The usual process. Routine.
"I can only do so much," Gideon said as he worked. "Not to worry, though. Some folks from the Assassinorum will be coming in with my people. They'll wipe this whole mess clean. Good as new."
TBO's head tilted slightly. His voice cut through the low hum of machinery.
"Where's my sister?"
Gideon froze, just for a second.
His hand hovered over the control panel, his expression unreadable. The med-bay was quiet, save for the occasional hiss of auto-injectors feeding stabilizers into TBO-97's system. The assassin stood perfectly still, letting the machines do their work, but his helmeted head had turned slightly toward Gideon in that small, almost imperceptible gesture of curiosity.
"I said," TBO repeated, his voice level but unnaturally sharp, "where's my sister?"
Gideon's eyes flicked up to the assassin's visor. His voice remained even.
"You have a sister?"
The Eversor's posture didn't change—not a shift, not a twitch—but something in the air did. The med-bay's hum felt louder, the sterile lighting too sharp, cutting into the space between them.
Finally, he spoke.
"I remember her."
Gideon exhaled through his nose, glancing back at the control panel as if it might offer an escape. "No," he said, calm but firm. "You remember pieces. Fragments. Things that don't belong to you anymore."
A long pause. Then:
"She had dark hair."
Gideon turned from the controls, facing him fully. "TBO—"
"She laughed a lot."
The assassin's voice was almost thoughtful, like he was trying to hold onto something slipping through his fingers.
Gideon folded his arms. "And what else? Do you remember her name?"
Silence.
TBO-97's fingers twitched once at his side, then went still. His head tilted slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear. The moment stretched—then the tension simply... faded. Like a switch flipping off.
Gideon studied him for a beat longer before exhaling slowly. "I'll look into it if I have time."
TBO was quiet. Then, with a slight roll of his shoulders, almost dismissive, he muttered, "Doesn't matter. Mission complete."
Gideon turned back to the med-bay controls. "That it is. Did you have fun?"
A chuckle. Low, rasping.
"Of course."