"Do we shoot it?" Jax asked, his voice deadly quiet. His hand hovered over the firing console for the Ark’s anti-air turrets.
Inside the security hub, nobody was breathing. Elias, Quinn, and Catrin were staring at the massive, battleship-sized blip hovering directly over their heads on the radar screen.
Catrin stared at the monitor showing the glassed road outside. The twenty-foot mutated bear and the hundreds of hounds were just... gone. Erased from existence in a fraction of a second.
"No," Catrin ordered, her voice completely steady despite the ice in her veins. "Take your hand off the console, Jax."
"Boss, it’s right on top of us," Quinn warned, her knuckles white as she gripped her rifle.
"And it just vaporized an army," Catrin pointed out flatly. "If it wanted to destroy the Ark, we would already be ash. It’s waiting."
"Waiting for what?" Elias whispered.
Waiting to see what I do, Catrin thought.
"Elias, keep the jammers on," Catrin commanded. "Jax, tell the men on the wall to lower their weapons. We don’t provoke it. We don’t engage. We lock the doors and survive."
Two hundred feet above the Ark, hidden inside the thick, swirling purple clouds, the bridge of the alien stealth ship was freezing and silent.
Commander Zeviel stood perfectly still. His hands were clasped behind his armored back. He was staring down through the transparent floor at the black titanium roof of the fortress. He had been standing there for an hour, unmoving, like a statue carved from dark stone.
"Commander."
Zeviel didn’t turn around. He recognized the heavy, measured footsteps of his right-hand aide, Lieutenant Vael.
"Report," Zeviel said, his deep voice vibrating in the quiet room.
"The biological threats have been neutralized," Vael stated, coming to stand beside his Prince. "The human fortress is holding its fire. Their weapon systems are powered down. The woman is cautious."
"She is smart," Zeviel murmured, a hint of pride bleeding into his cold tone. "She knows she is outgunned. She is protecting her people."
She is protecting my son, he added silently.
Vael looked at his Commander. He had served the Vanguard Prince for centuries. He had watched Zeviel conquer star systems and bring entire galaxies to their knees without blinking. But right now, Zeviel looked completely paralyzed.
"If you are so worried about the child, my Prince," Vael suggested carefully, "we can beam them aboard. The medical bay is prepared."
"No," Zeviel snapped, his golden eyes flashing. "I will not rip them from their home. She doesn’t even know our species exists, Vael. If I send soldiers down there, she will fight. She will likely die trying to protect him. And if I step off this ship in my true form..."
Zeviel looked down at his armored, clawed hands.
"They will look at me and see a monster," Zeviel finished quietly. "My son will be terrified of me."
Vael was silent for a moment. Then, he took a slow breath.
"There is another way to approach them," Vael said. "If the Prince wishes to walk among humans without causing panic... you could turn human again."
Zeviel finally turned away from the glass floor. His expression hardened into a terrifying scowl.
"Do not mock me, Vael," Zeviel warned, the temperature on the bridge dropping instantly. "You know the rules. The Morphic Crystal was destroyed. The Emperor, my father, shattered it himself the last time I used it."
"He shattered the core, yes," Vael agreed smoothly.
The lieutenant reached into the pocket of his dark uniform. He held out his grey-skinned hand and slowly opened his fingers.
Resting in the center of Vael’s palm was a tiny, glowing sliver of a translucent blue crystal. It hummed with a soft, warm light.
"I managed to sweep up a fragment before the throne room was cleaned," Vael confessed, a faint smirk touching his lips. "I kept it for emergencies. It holds enough charge to alter your biology into a human vessel for several months."
Zeviel stared at the glowing shard.
His anger melted, completely washed away by a sudden, overwhelming wave of memory.
He hadn’t seen the glow of a Morphic Crystal in four years. The last time he held one, it had changed his entire life.
He closed his eyes, the memory rushing back with crystal clarity.
It was supposed to be a routine scouting mission. Earth was marked for future terraforming. Zeviel, still young for an alien prince with a three-thousand-year lifespan, was sent down to observe the dominant species. He was strictly ordered to remain cloaked.
But he had taken human form to walk the streets of the loud, suffocating city. He had ducked into a quiet, dimly lit lounge to escape the rain.
And there she was.
Catrin was sitting alone at the bar. She looked exhausted, staring down at a glass of amber liquid. She wasn’t trying to draw attention, but to Zeviel, she was the most breathtaking creature he had ever seen.
His alien instincts, usually cold and calculated, had violently hijacked his brain. He sat next to her. They talked.
He remembered her fierce, bright green eyes. He remembered the sharp, witty way she spoke, hiding a deep sadness behind a wall of sarcasm. For a few hours, Zeviel wasn’t a warlord. He was just a man, completely captivated by a human woman.
He had fallen for her. Hard and fast, the way his species mated, an instant, soul-deep tether.
But when the morning came, his communication relay had buzzed with a furious recall order from the Emperor. He had panicked. He didn’t know how Catrin felt about him; to her, he was just a handsome stranger. He assumed she just wanted a distraction for the night. So, he left before she woke up, returning to the stars like a coward.
When his father found out he had taken a human form to interact with a local, the crystal was smashed. Zeviel was reprimanded and sent to the outer rim to fight in the Vanguard wars. He had forced himself to stay away, believing he had no right to ruin her normal life.
He never knew she was pregnant. He never knew she was raising his child alone.
"My Prince?" Vael’s voice pulled Zeviel out of the memory.
Zeviel opened his eyes. He looked down at the pale blue shard resting in his lieutenant’s hand.
It was a massive risk. The crystal didn’t just cast an illusion; it forcefully compressed his alien DNA into a human vessel. Because human bodies were incredibly fragile, the vessel could not channel his true cosmic energy without tearing itself apart.
If he used it, he would be reduced to a mere fraction of his power, operating at barely ten percent of his capacity. He would lose his impenetrable armor. He wouldn’t be able to vaporize mountains or crush gravity on a massive scale. He would retain his enhanced reflexes and minor telekinesis, but for the first time in centuries, his skin could be pierced.
If a human shot him, he would bleed. He would be vulnerable.
But if he stayed in his true form, Catrin would never trust him. She would look at him and see the apocalypse.
Zeviel reached out and carefully picked up the glowing crystal shard.
"Prepare a small drop-pod," Zeviel commanded, his voice filled with absolute certainty. "Strip it of all weapons and tracking technology. Make it look like a civilian transport that crashed in the storm."
Vael bowed deeply. "And what is the objective, Commander?"
Zeviel looked down through the floor one last time. He stared at the titanium roof of the Ark, his golden eyes softening.
"I am going to knock on her door," Zeviel said, his fingers closing tightly around the shard. "And I am going to beg her to let me in."