[NO] kING xEROS - What GrimCo Changed

What GrimCo Changed

The machine behind the technician continued to tick.

Not loudly.

That was what made it worse.

The Construction Bay had gone quiet in the peculiar way industrial facilities became quiet after violence. The guns had stopped. The alarms had been reduced to a distant pulse. Fires still burned inside ruptured housings, but without the concussive rhythm of weapons, every small mechanical sound seemed unnaturally clear.

A relay clicked somewhere above them.

A pipe contracted with a metallic groan.

Something dripped onto the deck.

Nobody moved for several seconds.

The surviving technician was still on one knee beside the wreckage.

He was Aetheron, though the word did not mean much to the seven yet beyond species identification. He was tall and narrow, with long limbs made awkward by exhaustion. His work clothes had once been gray. Now they were soaked through with hydraulic fluid, coolant, dust, and blood that was not all his own.

Stephen lowered his weapon first.

Not completely.

Just enough.

The technician noticed.

His eyes moved from the heavy laser pistol to Stephen's face, then to the shield hanging at his side.

"Are you station personnel?" Stephen asked.

The Aetheron swallowed.

"Yes."

His voice was dry.

Stephen nodded once.

"Then you're safe."

The technician stared at him.

It was clear that the statement required more trust than the man currently possessed.

Behind Stephen, Kris kept his rifle trained toward the shattered access corridor.

"Cat."

She understood.

"Francis, check the immediate area. Yosef, see if the bay still has atmosphere integrity. Min-woo, stay with him."

The Android moved without hesitation.

His heavy frame crossed the debris field and crouched beside the technician.

"Medical condition assessment?"

The technician blinked.

"I'm fine."

Min-woo looked at the blood on his clothing.

"That statement is inconsistent with the available evidence."

Stephen glanced at Min-woo.

"He's alive."

"Yes."

"Let him have that."

Min-woo considered this for half a second.

"Accepted."

He began checking the technician anyway.

Yosef was already working.

He moved through the ruined bay with the same quiet efficiency he had shown aboard the ship. His eyes went to the damaged atmospheric pipework, then the emergency regulators, then the exposed conduits running beneath the deck.

"Atmosphere is holding," he said. "For now."

"Pressure?"

"Stable."

Francis was kneeling beside the machine they had found earlier.

His crystalline structures had begun to glow faintly.

He ran his fingers over a damaged interface without touching it.

"Interesting."

Cat looked at him.

Francis noticed.

"That wasn't a suggestion to touch it."

"Good."

"I wasn't going to."

Rome had wandered closer.

He leaned over Francis's shoulder, enormous cranium almost brushing the exposed machinery.

"You were absolutely going to."

Francis looked up at him.

"I was going to inspect it."

"With your hands."

"Possibly."

Cat sighed.

"Both of you."

They stopped.

Rome straightened.

Francis returned to the interface.

The technician watched all of this with increasing confusion.

Then he looked at Stephen.

"Who are you?"

"Outrunners."

The Aetheron's expression changed.

Not relief.

Something closer to disbelief.

"You came here for us?"

"We came because of the ship."

The man's face tightened.

"Then you're already too late."

Kris turned.

"Explain."

The technician looked toward the massive blast doors at the far end of the Construction Bay.

"The ship is gone."

"We know."

"No."

He shook his head.

"You don't."

He pushed himself upright.

Min-woo caught his elbow before his knees could give out.

The Aetheron looked down at the Android's hand.

Then at Min-woo.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

The technician took a breath.

"They moved it."

"Who?"

"GrimCo."

That word changed the atmosphere.

Not because anyone was surprised.

Because the technician had said it with the flat certainty of someone naming the people who had been holding a gun against his head.

Cat stepped closer.

"What did they do?"

The Aetheron looked at the damaged machinery around them.

"Everything."

His gaze moved toward the ceiling.

"They brought equipment. Lots of it. More than we could use. More than they understood."

Francis stopped working.

"That is a significant distinction."

The technician looked at him.

Francis continued.

"You said they brought equipment they didn't understand."

"Not everything."

"What didn't they understand?"

The Aetheron hesitated.

"The ship."

Nobody spoke.

Outside the ruined bay, something exploded in the distance.

The station shuddered.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

Kris immediately shifted his stance.

"Everyone."

Weapons came up.

Nothing followed.

The vibration passed.

Stephen looked back to the technician.

"Keep talking."

The Aetheron nodded.

"Xeros arrived before them. We saw it."

Cat caught the name.

"Xeros?"

"That's what GrimCo called it."

"Do you know where it came from?"

"No."

"Who built it?"

"No."

"How does it work?"

The technician gave her a tired look.

"We repaired ships."

Rome moved closer.

"That isn't what she asked."

"It is the answer."

Rome stopped.

The technician continued.

"We work with Aether systems. Power routing. Heat management. Industrial drives. Structural systems. Docking systems. We know machines that were built to be machines."

He pointed toward the ceiling.

"That thing isn't."

Francis's eyes narrowed.

"Not a machine?"

"I don't know what it is."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know."

Francis looked almost offended by the incompleteness of the answer.

Rome, by contrast, seemed fascinated.

"That's actually useful."

Kris looked at him.

Rome shrugged.

"Knowing that he doesn't know is information."

"Correct," Francis said.

Kris returned his attention to the technician.

"What did GrimCo attach?"

The Aetheron looked at him for several seconds.

Then he walked toward the ruined work area.

Min-woo followed.

He stopped beside a collapsed framework of machinery.

"They started here."

He pointed.

"This was the first interface."

Francis crouched beside it.

"Control?"

"Attempted control."

Francis's expression changed.

"Attempted?"

"They couldn't establish a stable command relationship."

"Why?"

The technician gave a helpless gesture.

"It didn't recognize the signals."

"Software incompatibility?"

"No."

"Hardware?"

"No."

"Protocol?"

"No."

Francis stared at him.

The Aetheron searched for the words.

"It was like trying to teach a door what a radio was."

Francis considered that.

Rome looked at him.

Francis slowly nodded.

"That's clearer."

The technician continued.

"They tried another system."

He pointed to a damaged assembly.

"Gravtech."

Yosef came over.

"That one?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because the ship moved without anything we could identify as conventional propulsion."

Rome's eyes sharpened.

"Did it generate gravity?"

"No."

"Alter local gravity?"

"Not exactly."

Rome looked at Francis.

Francis looked back.

Neither had an answer.

The Aetheron continued.

"They thought if they could understand its movement, they could reproduce it."

"And?"

"They couldn't."

Yosef examined the severed conduits.

"What happened?"

"It fought them."

Kris frowned.

"Fought them?"

"Systems failed. Interfaces overloaded. Power went backward through equipment that wasn't supposed to conduct it."

The technician looked at the blackened machinery.

"People got hurt."

The sentence landed heavily.

There was no embellishment in it.

Stephen looked down at the blood on the deck.

"How many?"

The Aetheron didn't answer.

Stephen didn't repeat the question.

After several seconds, the technician said, "Enough."

Stephen accepted that.

Cat looked toward Francis.

"What are we looking at?"

Francis rose.

"A retrofit architecture."

Yosef frowned.

"Meaning?"

"GrimCo didn't understand the vessel, so they treated its systems as unknown technology and built interfaces around them."

He pointed to the machinery.

"Control."

Another component.

"Propulsion."

Another.

"Power."

Another.

"Monitoring."

His finger stopped at a cluster of heavily shielded conduits.

"And stabilization."

Yosef's expression hardened.

"All connected?"

"That appears to be the problem."

Francis looked at the technician.

"How much of the original system did they replace?"

"None."

That made Francis go still.

"They didn't replace anything?"

"They were afraid to."

Rome slowly inhaled.

"So everything is still there."

"Yes."

"And they built around it."

"Yes."

Rome looked at Francis again.

Francis finished the thought.

"Then Xeros isn't broken."

The technician shook his head.

"No."

He looked toward the enormous doors.

"They are breaking it."

Silence.

The station trembled again.

This time the vibration was different.

Deeper.

The emergency lights flickered.

Francis turned immediately toward the machinery.

The damaged interface emitted a pulse.

Once.

Twice.

Then the entire bay flashed white.

Every electronic display went dark.

Min-woo moved in front of Yosef.

Stephen's shield deployed with a sharp mechanical snap.

Kris brought his rifle up.

Rome's hands came alive with pale Hypergrid light.

Cat did not draw her pistol.

She looked at the ceiling.

"That wasn't the station."

"No," Francis said.

The machine behind him came back online.

Not normally.

Its lights were the wrong color.

The circuitry pulsed in a pattern none of them recognized.

The Aetheron backed away.

"That's one of the interface regulators."

Yosef turned.

"Was it supposed to do that?"

"No."

Another pulse.

The floor shook.

Far above them, metal screamed.

Then came a sound that none of them could mistake.

Something enormous was moving.

Cat looked at the technician.

"What happens if the retrofit loses power?"

The Aetheron stared at her.

"Which part?"

"Any part."

His face went pale.

"The ship stops being restrained."

Cat understood.

"How long?"

"I don't know."

The station shook violently.

The ceiling split along an old weld.

Francis grabbed the technician by the shoulder.

"Where's your crew?"

"Other bays."

"How many?"

"Twenty-seven."

Stephen was already moving.

"Can we reach them?"

The technician pointed.

"Service corridor."

Kris looked toward the corridor.

"Blocked."

Yosef was already pulling a compact tool from his equipment.

"Not for long."

Cat raised her communicator.

"Naiaj."

Static.

Then Naiaj's voice.

"Cat. Report."

"We have station personnel alive. Aetheron technicians. GrimCo forced them to work on Xeros."

A pause.

"Can they help us?"

Cat looked at Francis.

Francis looked at the machinery.

Then at the technician.

"Yes."

The Aetheron seemed startled by the certainty.

Cat continued.

"We also have a problem."

The station shook again.

This time the floor lifted beneath their feet.

"Xeros is becoming unstable."

Naiaj's voice sharpened.

"Understood. What do you need?"

Cat looked at the ruined bay.

"Time."

Naiaj answered immediately.

"You have less than you think."

The channel went dead.

Kris looked at Cat.

"How much?"

She didn't know.

The Aetheron did.

"Minutes."

Nobody argued.

Yosef pointed toward the service corridor.

"Min-woo."

"Yes."

"Get the technicians out."

Min-woo looked at the Aetheron.

"Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Then walk."

Stephen moved alongside them.

Rome remained beside the machinery.

Francis stayed with him.

Cat looked between them.

"What are you doing?"

Rome's eyes remained fixed on the glowing circuitry.

"Finding out which parts are GrimCo."

Francis nodded.

"And which parts are not."

Kris raised his rifle.

"I'll give you sixty seconds."

Francis looked at him.

"That's optimistic."

"You have fifty-five."

They worked.

The next sixty seconds were some of the most productive of their lives.

Yosef cut through a jammed access mechanism while Min-woo physically pulled the bent door clear. Stephen shepherded exhausted workers through the corridor while maintaining enough awareness to catch anyone who stumbled. Cat organized the movement without raising her voice.

Kris stood at the intersection.

He did not fire.

He watched.

Every time the station moved, he adjusted his position.

Every time a sound came from another corridor, he identified it.

When a GrimCo security drone came through the smoke, Kris shot it twice before it had fully cleared the doorway.

The first shot destroyed its optical array.

The second punched through the central housing.

It fell.

He moved on.

Rome and Francis had less room.

The damaged interface was growing hotter.

"That one's native," Rome said.

Francis looked at the display.

"How do you know?"

"The signal."

"What signal?"

Rome pointed.

"It isn't communicating with anything."

Francis watched the pattern.

Then he understood.

"It isn't communicating."

"What is it doing?"

"Existing."

Rome stared at him.

Francis pointed to another line.

"These are GrimCo systems."

The distinction was subtle.

The native systems did not behave like the rest of the station.

They did not exchange data in recognizable packets.

They did not request authorization.

They did not negotiate.

They simply responded.

The GrimCo components were different.

They constantly attempted to impose structure.

Commands.

Feedback.

Corrections.

Stabilization.

Control.

Francis's crystalline structures brightened.

"They're trying to force a language onto something that doesn't speak it."

Rome looked toward him.

"Can we separate them?"

"Here?"

"Yes."

Francis studied the circuitry.

"Not completely."

"Enough?"

"Probably."

Rome smiled faintly.

"Good."

Francis gave him a look.

"That wasn't permission to use Lightning Bolt."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were thinking about it."

"I was considering the available energy."

"That is not the same thing."

"It is close."

"Not today."

Rome sighed.

"Fine."

The station shook again.

A massive crack appeared in the far wall.

Beyond it, stars became visible.

Everyone stopped.

The moon was outside.

The wall had opened directly into space.

Emergency shutters slammed down.

The Aetherons screamed.

Stephen reacted first.

His shield came up.

A pressure wave hit the corridor.

The shutters held.

Barely.

The station's emergency systems began screaming.

Yosef looked at the Aetheron nearest him.

"How long?"

"Until what?"

"Until this whole station starts coming apart."

The technician looked at the damaged structural supports.

"Not long."

Yosef nodded.

"Then we build fast."

The Aetherons understood.

That was what technicians did.

Fear did not disappear.

It simply had to wait.

They returned to work.

The Construction Bay became a workshop.

The seven members of the Strike Team and the surviving Aetherons moved through wreckage, scavenged components, damaged equipment, and half-disassembled GrimCo systems.

The retrofit they built was ugly.

There was no other word for it.

It was not elegant technology.

It was not a permanent upgrade.

It was an emergency instrument assembled by people who understood the foreign additions but had only minutes to make them useful.

Yosef laid out components.

The Aetherons selected what could still conduct power.

Francis identified which interfaces belonged to GrimCo.

Rome mapped the strange energy behavior of the native systems.

Kris secured the perimeter.

Stephen kept the injured alive.

Min-woo moved equipment, bodies, and people with equal efficiency.

Cat watched all of it.

Not because she could do every job.

Because she knew who should be doing which one.

The Aetheron technician placed a damaged sensor assembly into Yosef's hands.

"This."

Yosef examined it.

"Why?"

"It can detect the foreign systems."

Francis looked over.

"How?"

"It shouldn't be able to."

Francis looked at the technician.

The technician looked back.

Neither elaborated.

Yosef installed it.

The device powered on.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the world changed.

Not physically.

Perceptually.

The ruined Construction Bay filled with ghostly outlines.

The native systems appeared as one pattern.

The GrimCo systems appeared as another.

Foreign components attached to Xeros.

Foreign conduits.

Foreign control systems.

Foreign stabilization equipment.

Foreign power-routing architecture.

The distinction was suddenly obvious.

Rome stared.

"They're layered."

Francis nodded.

"Yes."

Yosef looked at the technician.

"Can this show us where to disable them?"

"Some."

"Which ones?"

The Aetheron pointed at the projection.

"These."

Five points illuminated.

"Control."

Another.

"Power interface."

Another.

"Propulsion."

Another.

"Stabilization."

And finally:

"Containment."

Cat studied the pattern.

"If we disable all five?"

The technician hesitated.

"We don't know."

"Try again."

"We think the ship will reject the remaining systems."

"Meaning?"

"They'll come off."

Francis looked at the holographic pattern.

"Or they'll fail catastrophically."

Nobody spoke.

Stephen broke the silence.

"Which outcome is more likely?"

The technician shook his head.

"We don't know."

Rome's eyes moved to the native system.

"It does."

Francis looked at him.

Rome pointed.

"The ship knows."

Francis stared at the pattern.

Then he slowly nodded.

"Yes."

Kris lowered his rifle slightly.

"What does that mean for us?"

Francis answered without looking away.

"It means we're not fighting the ship."

Cat understood.

"We're removing what doesn't belong."

"Exactly."

The Aetheron technician looked at them.

"You can do that?"

Cat answered.

"We're going to try."

The ship moved.

Everyone felt it.

The Construction Bay floor tilted several degrees.

Loose equipment slid across the deck.

One Aetheron technician fell.

Stephen caught him.

Outside the bay, something immense passed the observation windows.

The crystalline hull of Xeros emerged from behind the station.

It was moving.

Not launching.

Not accelerating.

Moving.

As though the station had ceased to matter.

GrimCo ships scrambled after it.

Their engines ignited.

Weapons fire flashed across the lunar surface.

Cat watched Xeros pull away.

The crystalline vessel looked almost peaceful.

That made it worse.

The GrimCo machinery grafted across its hull flashed violently.

A foreign engine burned too brightly.

A stabilization array discharged.

The entire vessel flickered.

For one instant, part of it seemed transparent.

Then solid.

Then something else.

The Aetheron technician whispered:

"They've lost control."

Francis looked at the countermeasure device.

"It hasn't."

The technician stared at him.

"Who?"

Francis looked toward Xeros.

"I don't know."

The answer did not comfort anyone.

Naiaj's voice returned over the communicator.

"Strike Team, report."

Cat answered.

"We have the countermeasure package."

"Can you use it?"

"Yes."

"Then get aboard your ship."

Kris looked toward the bay entrance.

"Now."

The seven moved.

The Aetherons followed as far as the docking access.

Stephen stopped.

"You're coming with us."

The lead technician shook his head.

"This is our station."

Stephen looked at the damaged facility.

"Your station is coming apart."

"It is still ours."

Stephen understood.

He reached out and placed a hand on the technician's shoulder.

"Then survive."

The Aetheron nodded.

Yosef handed him a compact emergency device.

"What is this?"

"Communicator."

"We have station comms."

"Not if the station loses power."

The technician looked at the device.

Then at Yosef.

"Thank you."

Yosef nodded.

Min-woo waited beside him.

"Yosef."

"What?"

"We should leave."

Yosef looked at him.

"Yes."

Min-woo glanced toward the departing vessel.

"Before it becomes more difficult."

Yosef looked at the sky.

"That's fair."

They ran.

The return to the party ship was not orderly.

It was fast.

Kris took point.

Cat followed.

Stephen and Rome moved behind her.

Francis carried the countermeasure assembly.

Yosef and Min-woo brought the remaining equipment.

The station shook beneath them.

A section of ceiling collapsed.

Stephen pushed two Aetherons clear.

Kris fired through the falling debris, destroying a damaged support drone before it could crush the corridor.

They reached the docking area.

The party ship was waiting.

Its engines were already hot.

Naiaj's voice came through the external speaker.

"Get aboard."

They did.

The hatch sealed.

The ship launched.

For three seconds there was no conversation.

Then Rome looked through the forward viewport.

Xeros was ahead.

GrimCo ships surrounded it.

One exploded.

Another broke apart.

Xeros flickered.

The stars behind it appeared through its hull.

Then disappeared.

Francis attached the countermeasure device to the ship's systems.

The display came alive.

Five foreign signatures appeared.

Cat looked at them.

"Those are the GrimCo systems."

"Yes."

"And the rest?"

Francis looked at the crystalline vessel.

"The rest is Xeros."

Kris moved into the pilot's station.

"Can we disable the foreign systems from here?"

Francis studied the interface.

"Not yet."

"How close?"

Francis looked at the distance.

"Closer."

Kris nodded.

He pushed the engines forward.

The ship accelerated.

Behind them, Peak of Evening receded.

Ahead, Xeros disappeared into a storm of light.

Cat strapped herself into her seat.

Stephen secured his equipment.

Yosef checked his weapon.

Min-woo moved to the systems console.

Rome brought up the Hyperpad.

Francis watched the five foreign signatures.

Kris adjusted their approach.

For the first time since the mission began, nobody was looking at Peak of Evening.

They were looking at Xeros.

And Xeros was no longer simply a mystery.

It was a wounded thing carrying someone else's machinery inside it.

The countermeasure system pulsed.

One foreign signature brightened.

Francis leaned closer.

"That one."

Kris looked at him.

"Can we hit it?"

Francis nodded.

"Yes."

Cat looked toward the impossible crystalline ship.

"Then that's our first target."

Kris set their course.

The pursuit began.