[NO] King Xeros - The Pursuit

King Xeros - The Pursuit

The Xeros did not accelerate.

It changed its relationship with distance.

One moment it was above the curve of the moon, its crystalline hull catching the reflected light from Peak of Evening. The next, it was impossibly farther away, as though the space between the vessel and the station had been stretched while nobody was looking.

Yosef watched the telemetry collapse into nonsense.

“Min-woo.”

“I see it.”

“Conventional propulsion?”

“No.”

“GravTech?”

“No.”

“Then what is moving it?”

Min-woo paused.

“The vessel.”

Yosef looked at him.

“That is not an explanation.”

“It is the most accurate available description.”

Ahead of them, Xeros crossed the stars.

Its silhouette was unmistakably that of a vessel, but not one designed according to Neon Odyssey principles.

The long crystalline body resembled a ship's hull. Structures rose from it like decks and superstructure rather than a spacecraft's modular frame. Three great sail-like vanes extended from the aft portion, catching no visible solar wind and yet somehow belonging to the ship's movement. Their surfaces were translucent, patterned with internal light that flowed through them like something between circuitry and stained glass.

The ship looked as though someone had taken the architecture of an ancient ocean-going vessel and built it from crystal, then somehow taught it to sail between worlds.

The resemblance was not decorative.

It was structural.

Cat stared through the forward display.

“It really is a ship.”

Francis looked up from the countermeasure interface.

“Yes.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am surprised by the implications.”

Kris remained focused on the pursuit vector.

“Can you classify it?”

“No.”

Rome leaned toward the display.

“I can classify it.”

Everyone looked at him.

Rome pointed toward the three aft vanes.

“It has sails.”

Kris's expression did not change.

“We established that.”

“No. You established that they look like sails.”

Rome's eyes remained fixed on the vessel.

“They behave like sails.”

That silenced the cockpit.

The Xeros turned.

Not with thrusters.

Not with a banking maneuver.

The entire vessel seemed to lean into empty space.

Its crystalline sails shifted.

The ship followed.

Francis slowly lowered his scanner.

“That is not propulsion.”

“No,” Cat said.

She watched the vessel arc across the stars.

“It is navigation.”

The distinction was becoming important.

The Xeros was not a spacecraft behaving strangely.

It was a ship operating according to rules they had not yet learned.

Behind it, GrimCo vessels closed the distance.

The first interceptor opened fire.

Kris was already moving.

“Defensive pattern. Min-woo, keep us inside the retrofit signature envelope.”

“Understood.”

“Yosef, weapons.”

“Ready.”

“Francis, identify anything on Xeros that doesn't belong.”

Francis brought the countermeasure display online.

The interface immediately separated the vessel into two overlapping systems.

The first was vast.

Ancient.

Distributed through the hull.

The second was comparatively crude.

GrimCo.

Metal conduits ran across the crystalline surface. GravTech assemblies had been bolted into structures that had never been designed to receive them. Power-transfer equipment had been clamped around luminous conduits. Stabilization hardware had been embedded into the hull. Control interfaces had been forced into places where there had apparently never been anything resembling a conventional control interface.

The foreign technology looked less like an upgrade than an industrial graft.

Francis pointed.

“There.”

Cat leaned closer.

“What?”

“That.”

A GrimCo stabilization assembly pulsed against the Xeros's hull.

“That's still active.”

“Can you disable it?”

“Not remotely.”

Kris looked over.

“Then what can you do?”

Francis studied the countermeasure readings.

“I can tell us where not to shoot.”

“Useful.”

“It may also tell us where to shoot.”

Kris nodded once.

“Do that.”

The GrimCo interceptor fired again.

Kris brought the ship across its line of fire.

The beam passed close enough to illuminate the cockpit.

Yosef returned fire.

The first burst struck the interceptor's forward armor.

The second tore through it.

The vessel broke apart in a cloud of burning fragments.

Nobody celebrated.

Another ship was already coming in.

Rome watched its trajectory.

“Too close.”

Cat turned.

“Solution?”

Rome's hands moved across his interface.

“Give me three seconds.”

“You have two.”

Rome did not argue.

He reached into the Hypergrid.

Space around the pursuing vessel distorted.

For an instant, the interceptor appeared to fold inward.

Then gravity took hold.

The ship twisted violently.

Its hull collapsed along a diagonal axis, weapons and armor shearing apart before the remains scattered into the darkness.

Rome released the effect.

His breathing was heavier.

Stephen glanced at him.

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

Stephen looked back toward the pursuit.

“Good.”

The Xeros was still ahead.

And now they could see something else.

The ship was damaged.

Not by their weapons.

By itself.

The crystalline sails flickered.

Light moved through the hull in irregular waves. Some portions of the vessel remained dark while others pulsed with impossible intensity.

Then the GrimCo stabilization assembly flashed.

The entire ship lurched.

Not physically.

Reality around it lurched.

The stars seemed to shift.

Cat gripped the console.

“Francis.”

“I know.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I can stop what GrimCo added.”

“Do it.”

Francis activated the countermeasure.

The system identified the foreign assembly.

For one moment, nothing happened.

Then the GrimCo device went dark.

The Xeros stabilized.

Its sails caught the invisible medium around it again.

The ship resumed its course.

Francis stared at the display.

“That worked.”

Cat looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because it wasn't part of the ship.”

There was something unsettling about how simple the answer was.

The native systems had not been repaired.

They had not been hacked.

They had not been understood.

They had merely been separated from the machinery GrimCo had forced onto them.

And the Xeros had immediately become more stable.

The remaining GrimCo vessels changed formation.

Kris saw it first.

“They're trying to cut us off.”

“Can they?”

“No.”

A burst of fire crossed their path.

Kris rolled the ship through it.

Another followed.

Yosef fired.

Min-woo shifted power.

Stephen braced himself against the console.

Cat remained standing.

The ship dropped beneath the incoming fire and came up almost directly beneath Xeros.

For the first time, they could see the vessel without the distortion of distance.

It was enormous.

Not enormous like a modern station.

Enormous like an old warship.

The hull possessed distinct upper and lower structures. Raised sections suggested decks rather than engineering modules. Crystal rails followed the edges of passages and platforms. The great aft sails towered above the vessel like the rigging of a legendary ocean vessel translated into another physical medium.

There were no conventional engine nacelles.

No obvious bridge.

No recognizable cockpit.

No standardized docking collar.

Instead, the ship had what looked unmistakably like a deck.

A deck built for people.

A ship built to be walked through.

A ship built around something other than engines.

Rome stared.

“I don't think this is a spacecraft.”

Francis did not answer.

He was looking at the same thing.

“No,” he said finally.

Kris's voice remained controlled.

“Then what is it?”

Francis looked at the crystalline hull.

“I don't know.”

The ship suddenly rolled.

A GrimCo weapon struck one of the foreign assemblies.

The resulting explosion ran across Xeros's surface.

Stephen was thrown sideways.

He hit the bulkhead hard enough to crack the plating beneath his shoulder.

For a moment he did not move.

Cat turned.

“Stephen.”

He pushed himself upright.

“I've got it.”

Blood ran from beneath his armor.

Cat saw it.

“So do I.”

Stephen checked his arm.

“It still works.”

“That wasn't my question.”

He met her eyes.

“I know.”

He steadied himself.

“Keep moving.”

Another weapon struck.

The party ship shook.

Min-woo's hand locked onto the console.

“Structural integrity is declining.”

Yosef looked at him.

“How badly?”

“Manageable.”

“How long?”

Min-woo calculated.

“Until it is not.”

Yosef nodded.

“That's sufficient.”

Francis suddenly leaned forward.

“I found it.”

Cat turned.

“What?”

“The primary GrimCo interface.”

He highlighted a cluster buried beneath Xeros's outer crystal.

It was not attached to the ship.

It was inside it.

GrimCo had drilled into the hull and forced an interface deep into the vessel's structure.

Francis tried the countermeasure.

The display rejected the command.

“Can't disable it remotely.”

Kris looked at the distance.

“Can we destroy it?”

“Not without damaging whatever is around it.”

Rome looked toward the crystalline hull.

“Then we go inside.”

Cat's eyes moved across the team.

Seven people.

One ship.

One target.

One unknown vessel that none of them understood.

And one foreign machine buried inside it.

She made the decision.

“We board.”

Nobody objected.

Kris was already checking approach angles.

“There's an opening.”

Francis examined it.

“Damage from the last GrimCo strike.”

Yosef looked at the countermeasure display.

“Native system?”

Francis checked.

“Yes.”

“Foreign?”

“No.”

“Then we use it.”

The Xeros passed across their forward view.

For a brief moment, the great crystalline ship seemed almost motionless.

Its sails were spread behind it.

Its hull glowed from within.

The structure no longer looked like an alien machine.

It looked like a vessel.

A ship sailing through a sea nobody in the cockpit could see.

Cat gave the order.

“Bring us alongside.”

Min-woo adjusted the damaged ship.

The two vessels approached.

There was no docking procedure.

No compatible interface.

No mechanical connection.

Only the damaged section of Xeros's hull.

Stephen moved toward the breach.

“That's our entrance.”

Kris checked the opening.

“Everyone stays together.”

Rome looked at the distance.

“How together?”

“Close enough that I don't have to come looking for you.”

Rome accepted that.

Cat went first.

She crossed the gap.

Her boots struck crystal.

For an instant, nothing happened.

Then the deck moved beneath her feet.

Not mechanically.

It flexed.

The crystal seemed to recognize weight.

Cat froze.

The surface beneath her boots brightened.

She looked down.

“This ship is responsive.”

Francis crossed behind her.

“Or aware.”

Nobody answered.

Kris followed.

Then Rome.

Then Stephen.

Yosef crossed with Min-woo immediately behind him.

The party ship pulled away.

The seven stood on Xeros.

The air was breathable.

Gravity was present.

There was no obvious environmental machinery producing either.

The interior was not a spacecraft corridor.

It was a ship.

The deck beneath them was crystalline but unmistakably constructed as a deck. Curved walls rose around it. Railings followed the edges of passages. Higher structures disappeared into darkness above them.

There were doors.

Compartments.

Passageways.

Storage spaces.

Places clearly intended for people to live and work.

And yet none of it belonged to any architectural tradition they recognized.

Light flowed through the walls like veins.

Somewhere below their feet, something enormous moved.

A low vibration passed through the deck.

Then they saw the first GrimCo installation.

A steel framework had been bolted directly into the crystalline wall.

Power conduits disappeared through the crystal.

A control unit blinked beside it.

Francis approached.

He did not touch it.

“Foreign.”

Cat looked down the passage.

“How much of the ship?”

Francis scanned.

“Not much.”

He paused.

“Enough.”

Kris raised his weapon.

The team tightened formation.

A sound moved through the vessel.

Not an alarm.

Not machinery.

A voice.

It came from everywhere at once.

The words were unfamiliar.

The language was unlike anything in the team's known systems.

Rome's eyes widened.

“That's not a transmission.”

Francis listened.

“No.”

Stephen looked around.

“Where is it coming from?”

Francis slowly raised his scanner.

“The ship.”

Silence followed.

Then the voice spoke again.

The crystal beneath their feet answered with a pulse of light.

Somewhere deep inside Xeros, something began moving toward them.

Francis checked the countermeasure.

Two foreign signatures.

Both active.

Both moving.

Cat raised her weapon.

“Kris.”

“Perimeter.”

“Yosef.”

“Ready.”

“Francis.”

“Tracking.”

“Rome.”

“Ready.”

“Stephen.”

“I'm here.”

Cat looked toward Min-woo.

He was already beside Yosef.

Then she looked down the impossible crystalline passage.

Whatever Xeros was, they were inside it now.

And somewhere ahead, something was coming.

“Move.”

The seven advanced into the ship.