Pain was an old, familiar bastard. It greeted Blake like a creditor he'd dodged for too long, its knuckles rapping sharply against his skull, a dull ache throbbing in his shoulder, and a fire burning in his side where that vine had tried to make him part of the ship's decor. He groaned, the sound a dry rasp in his throat. Still, the pain was good. Better than the alternative.

He pried his eyes open. The core chamber was dim, the bioluminescent patterns on the walls pulsing softly, a marked contrast to the violent energy that had filled it before. The air tasted clean, free of the unsettling tang of the Outsider's presence.

"Kitt?" He inquired mentally. "You there?"

"Blake. You're awake. Finally." Her presence bloomed in his mind, a cool comfort against the fiery ache of his injuries. Relief flowed from her, but beneath it, a tremor of something else. Exhaustion, maybe. She'd been through the wringer, too.

"How long was I out?" Blake tried to sit up but grimaced as a fresh wave of pain shot through his shoulder.

"Almost six hours," Kitt replied, her usual playful tone muted. "The Leviathan intervened after your dramatic last stand. Your enthusiasm, or desperation, was good enough to buy time."

"Desperation, definitely," Blake grunted. "What about the Outsider? Is it gone?"

"Outsider-spawn, technically, but yes," Kitt said, awe seeping into her mental voice. "The Leviathan damn-well finished what you started. It dismantled the thing faster than it could heal and ejected its core."

Six hours. A lifetime when you were bleeding out in a hostile alien ship. He'd cut it close, too damned close. Again. How many more times could he dance on that razor's edge before he slipped?

He pushed himself up, ignoring the protest of abused muscles and torn flesh. The core chamber was a cathedral of living technology, the pulsing lights painting the obsidian-like walkways in shifting hues of deep purple and cosmic blue. It was beautiful, in a terrifying, alien way. And it had saved his ass.

"So the big gal decided to join the party, huh?" Blake thought, a grim smile touching his lips. "Good to know she's got some fight left in her."

"She has more than just a little left," Kitt's mental voice was tinged with a new respect, a sense of awe that mirrored his own. "The Leviathan… It's powerful, Blake. More than I realized. The trouble will be in helping her reconnect to the rest of the corrupted systems so she can fight back."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Blake shifted, testing his body's response. The triage patch had done its job, mostly. The bleeding had stopped, but he wanted proper medical attention eventually. He understood that he healed fast, but there was always the chance that there were injuries that wouldn't heal correctly without actual medical attention.

He glanced around the core chamber, taking in the organic architecture with fresh eyes. The place felt different now, alive in a way that wasn't threatening. The Leviathan's presence hummed through the walls, a subtle vibration he could feel in his bones.

"If she's so strong, how did this all happen?" Blake asked, his mental voice rough with exhaustion. "How did the Outsider even take root?"

Kitt's presence shifted, thoughtful. "It's a good question, but I think the answer is that it didn't come at her directly. It was probably subtle at first." A pause, then Kitt continued with a note of determination. "Still, I'll get answers as I'm working with her."

Blake pushed himself to his feet, one hand braced against the smooth obsidian-like wall. The surface was warm, almost comforting. "So that's the next step? We work to get her control of her own body back?"

"Yeah, but it's going to be a two-pronged approach." Kitt's mental voice carried a mix of excitement and concern. "I'll have to stay here with her while we send you off to perform tasks that will help her get reintegrated."

"Send me off?" Blake frowned, not liking the sound of that. They'd been through too much together to split up now. "You sure that's wise? Last time we were separated, things got dicey."

"I know." Kitt's presence wrapped around him, a mental embrace that conveyed both affection and necessity. "But the Leviathan needs direct interface work that only I can provide. She's... fragmented. Parts of her consciousness are scattered throughout the ship, locked away or corrupted. I need to help her reconnect those pieces."

Blake nodded slowly, understanding the logic even if he didn't like it. "And while you're playing therapist to a living starship, I'm what—running errands?"

"Critical errands," Kitt corrected, a hint of her usual humor returning. "Think of it as aggressive housecleaning. There's still a mountain's worth of corruption, damaged systems that need manual intervention, and probably more than a few nasties lurking in the dark corners to contend with. Until we get this gal control of her body back, she'll need boots on the ground—or deck, in this case."

"Great." Blake checked Verdict's ammunition counter. Still had rounds, but he'd need to be conservative. "So I get to play exterminator while you two have a heart-to-heart."

"Something like that." Kitt's mental touch was warm. "I'll draw up an entire plan and make sure you have access on your HUD even if we're out of touch."

"Thanks, Kitt."

"I'll use small words. And include pictures."

"I take it back," Blake said, laughing. "You can stay here with the ship, I'll just find a way out. Wasn't that sort of the original plan when we first met?"

"You wouldn't dare! You rely on me too much, Connover."

"Yeah, yeah. Let me grab one of those garbage snack bars and we can talk through the plan, okay?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.