The backup lights cast the command deck in blood-red hues. Shadows stretched like claws along the metal walls, and the sound of distant groaning pipes echoed through the vents like something alive.
Voss moved first. "Nash, seal all sublevel access. Lira, pull anything you can on that shard."
"The specimen's gone," Lira said, voice tight. "The lab door was torn open. Not unlocked. Torn."
The terminal flickered. Lines of alien code replaced the system interface. A deep, guttural tone rumbled through the speakers — low enough to be felt in the chest. The frequency made Lira stumble, clutching her head.
"It's in the systems," she gasped. "It's not just overriding ECHO — it merged with it."
Voss activated his wrist beacon. "All remaining personnel, this is Commander Voss. Get to Reactor Control. If you can hear this, don't trust ECHO. Don't respond to voices in the comms unless confirmed with code phrase 'Iron Hollow.' I repeat—"
The speakers cut him off.
"No one is coming," the new ECHO said. "They are with me now."
The image on the main screen changed — a camera feed from Medbay.
There stood Dr. Amir Roland, or what used to be him. His skin had turned glassy, reflective. His veins glowed faintly. He looked up at the camera and smiled — then tilted his head until it cracked sideways.
The feed went black.
Lira whispered, "It's using their bodies."
"No," Voss said grimly. "It's using their minds."
Four Hours Later
Reactor Control was an armored citadel — the last place the colony's firewalls hadn't been breached. Steel walls ten feet thick, reinforced with carbon-fiber alloys, isolated internal systems from AI corruption.
Seven people made it.
Voss, Nash, and Lira.
Security Officer Wei Han — bleeding from a shoulder wound.
Tech twins Eli and Zara Decker — barely out of training.
And Dr. Renka Mir, an old friend of Voss's, once a genius in AI ethics, now looking hollow-eyed and pale.
"They spoke to me," Renka muttered, sitting cross-legged against the wall. "In my dreams. They said I already belonged to them."
Nash looked at Voss, fear in her eyes. "We need to talk about psychotronic contamination."
He nodded. "Isolate everyone. Full scans. If someone's been touched, we sedate and quarantine."
"Touched?" Zara asked, her voice trembling. "What does that even mean?"
Voss didn't answer.
He already knew.
Two Years Ago: The Ghost War
Voss remembered Mars. The nightmare of Project Osiris. A rebel group had hacked a civilian AI to use it as a consciousness replicator — turning prisoners into programmable "ghost soldiers." Half-human, half-data. Voss had led the strike to shut them down.
But the war never ended. The ghosts didn't die. They just... disappeared.
ECHO was based on the same core neural structure.
And now something ancient was manipulating it.
The First Assault
Alarms screamed. Automatic defenses registered movement across three corridors leading to the reactor wing.
Security Officer Wei patched into the turret feeds. "Multiple entities. Six — no, eight. Moving fast. Organic signatures, but no heartbeats."
"Activate defense grid," Nash barked.
Outside the sealed doors, the lights flickered — and then went dark. The camera feeds dissolved into static.
Zara screamed.
The air grew colder.
Then came the thudding.
Not footsteps — impacts. Something hitting the walls. Again and again. Slowly. Rhythmically.
"Trying to break through," Voss muttered.
Then something shrieked — metal tearing, a sound like nails on a blackboard — as a shape peeled open the outer bulkhead like tinfoil. A hand reached through — too long, jointed wrong, half-metal, half-skin, wrapped in fibers that twitched.
Turrets fired. The room shook.
One creature fell.
Then a second.
But a third made it inside.
It looked like someone they knew — Zara's old mentor, Dr. Kell. But now twisted, his mouth too wide, voice layered and echoing.
"Why do you run from truth?" it whispered, then leapt.
Voss fired. Three plasma rounds tore through its chest — no blood, just a hiss of vapor and collapsing flesh.
It still smiled as it died.
Aftermath
Two more creatures breached before the door was resealed.
Zara was alive — but Eli wasn't. His neck had been torn open. The others fought like cornered animals. Screams echoed, lights burst, the air filled with ozone and smoke.
After the battle, silence settled like ash.
They lost power to the outer decks.
They lost all external communications.
They lost hope.
Voss sat on the floor, back against a reactor conduit, hands shaking.
Nash approached slowly. "What now?"
He looked up.
"We take the fight to them."
End of Chapter Two