2025-08-30 23:43:45
Neo Moroeng“The Garden of Unmaking” grew out of the idea that destruction is never empty—it leaves behind a pattern, a soil from which something alien can bloom. Here, the crew of the Vigilant steps into that paradox: a sanctuary that is alive, deliberate, and indifferent to their survival. I wanted this chapter to feel like wandering into a cathedral built from broken code and bone, a place where the Rake isn’t a creature but a gardener, pruning and reshaping reality itself. Rachel’s symbiotic arm and Nancy’s fractured psionics are not just weapons, but roots planted into this alien garden. They reflect how trauma and transformation entwine, how power always carries its own thorns. This chapter isn’t about triumph—it’s about realizing the battlefield itself is sentient, and that every step forward risks planting them deeper into the harvest of unmaking. -N.M
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Chapter 89: The Scattered Crown Awakens
The last echo of human pain—the searing cold, the crushing pressure, the final, futile scream of his ego—dissipated like smoke in a hurricane.What remained was not an end, but a glorious, terrifying integration.Da’kar’s consciousness did not return.It reconfigured.It was a symphony of connections firing at once. The crystalline lattice that had been his prison was now his nervous system, each facet a processor, a memory bank, a sensor. The necrotic Rake biomass fused within it was the muscle and sinew, a biological engine of terrifying potential.At the core, the Red Rock shard pulsed—not as a jewel, but as a heart, pumping waves of psionic energy through the entire structure.His perception exploded outward.He could taste the metallic chill of the void, a sharp, ozone tang on the nonexistent palate of his mind. He could hear the light from distant stars, each sun a distinct chord in a silent cosmic hymn. The gravitational pull of a nearby gas giant was a deep, resonant bass note
Chapter 88: The Fracture of Peace
Dinner lingered on the table like the wreckage of a battle, half-finished plates and abandoned glasses marking the field where we had tried—desperately, futilely—to pretend at normalcy. The aromas of roasted grain and Martian root vegetables still hung in the recycled air, a stubborn perfume of comfort. But the comfort was counterfeit, a lie we all conspired to share, even as it cracked beneath the weight of what was unspoken.Outside the viewport, the Martian twilight seeped into the living quarters, staining everything in muted reds and bruised purples. The light was soft, almost tender, as if the planet itself wanted to shield us from the truth. It painted my family in a tableau of false peace: Nancy with her quiet poise, my son with his engineer’s hands clenched tight against his knees, my daughter with her sketchpad abandoned beside her untouched plate.I had gathered them for a conversation I would have traded anything—my command, my medals, even my peace of mind—to avoid. But i
Chapter 87: The Tether Pulls Tight
The proximity alarm was still blaring, a sound I hadn’t heard in twenty years, clawing at the quiet I’d spent decades building. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs, a wild, painful rhythm that synced with the burning twist deep beneath my shoulder blade. The phantom was no longer a ghost. It was a live wire. I stared at the viewscreen, my breath caught in my throat. The image resolved, sharp and impossible. There she was. Ka!ri. Time had not touched her. It was as if I’d blinked on that observation deck and opened my eyes thirty-five years later to find her still waiting. Her skin was still that polished obsidian, her frame the same perfect, lean geometry of a warrior. Her eyes, that molten gold, burned with the same fierce, unyielding resolve. And her jawline—that strong, defiant line—was exactly as it had been seared into my memory. A beautiful, cruel constant in a universe that had aged without her. “General,” her voice came through the comm, smooth and familiar, the cl
Chapter 86: The General’s Logs
ENTRY 001 - The Phantom Pain The ache started two days after we landed. A sharp, burning twist beneath my right shoulder blade. The med-techs ran every diagnostic. They checked my spine, my muscles, my organs. They found nothing. No strain. No fracture. No inflammation. The pain, they told me, was a phantom. They were wrong. It wasn't phantom. It was real. It was a referred pain, a signal from a wound so deep it had to manifest physically. The wound wasn't in my shoulder. It was in my heart. The ache was a permanent, grinding reminder of the moment I walked away from her on that observation deck. It was the memory of the goodbye I never got to say. I keep trying to burn her face into my mind, to hold it so tight that the pain will fade. But the memory is too sharp, too detailed. Her beauty is a kind of cruelty, a constant reminder of what I had and what I let go. I see her standing there, the harsh fluorescent light of the med-bay doing nothing to diminish the deep, resonant darknes
Chapter 85: The Harvest of Peace
The docking bay of the Ares Spire was a cathedral of noise and light, but to me, it felt like a tomb. The cheers that greeted the Vigilant’s scarred hull were a distant roar, a sound meant for other men. I walked down the ramp, the weight of command replaced by a heavier, colder weight—the memory of what we’d left behind in the dark. We were heroes. The crowd saw conquerors returned from the abyss. I felt like a gravedigger who’d barely clawed his way out of the earth.The celebration died in the council chamber. I stood in the same spot where I’d once argued for a desperate gamble, and where Da’kar had later woven his beautiful, poisonous lies. This time, I didn’t need to argue. I let the Vigilant’s logs do the talking. I let them hear Da’kar’s voice, cool and calculating, betraying us. I made them watch the nightmare footage of the hive, the psychic scream that had torn through our ship. And I saved the final image for last: the Acquisitor, half-dissolved into that pulsating, organic
Chapter 84: The Scattered Crown
The Vigilant limped from the corpse of the hive, its hull scarred, its crew silent. The victory felt hollow, a deflated thing. We had not slain a monster; we had kicked a hornet's nest and now the sky was full of queens. The decision was unanimous. We had to fall back. We had to warn them. The Council, Mars, the entire damned fragile peace—they needed to know the war they thought was over had just mutated. We set a course for the nearest comms buoy at the edge of the dead sector, our systems too battered for a long-range burst. The silence on the bridge was a physical weight. Then, an alarm blared. “Unidentified vessel! Bearing 2-1-0!” Spinner yelled, his voice raw. “It’s just… sitting there.” On the screen, hanging in the void like a specter, was the NCV Oracle. Da’kar’s ship. It was pristine, untouched. And it was blocking our path. A comm request flashed. I accepted. Da’kar’s face filled the viewer. He looked… different. His eyes held a feverish light, a religious fervor.
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