Chapter 6: Payment
The light wasn’t just on their skin; it was in their bones. Diana felt it as a deep, resonant hum that started in her teeth and vibrated outwards, a cascade of molten gold replacing the marrow in her limbs. The force that had stripped away her flight suit and Togart’s armor was neither violent nor gentle; it was simply absolute, leaving them standing exposed in the cold air of the command deck. Her curls lifted around her head as if charged with static, each strand tipped with a tiny, sparkling luminescence.
Togart gasped, a sharp, ragged intake of breath. The blue lines of energy that had plagued him during the battle trance were now replaced by a softer, symbiotic gold that pulsed in time with Diana’s heartbeat. He looked down at his own hands, turning them over, witnessing the familiar landscape of his skin being redrawn by an invisible hand.
“What is it doing?” Diana’s voice was a whisper, choked with a terror that was edged with bizarre fascination. She felt no pain, only an overwhelming, dizzying rewrite of her very being. It was like hearing a song she’d never known but whose every note felt like a memory.
“The bond,” Togart managed, his eyes wide as he watched the glow spread across her torso, tracing the line of her ribs. “It’s not just a link anymore. It’s… integrating us.”
The Entity hovered, a silent observer to the confluence it had orchestrated. Its form flickered, and for a moment, Diana saw not a being, but a vast, intricate pattern of light, like a celestial schematic. “The payment is assimilation,” its voice echoed directly in their minds, bypassing their ears. “Two patterns, woven into one stronger thread. Your distinctiveness is the price for his survival, and for the stability you now provide.”
A jolt, like a synaptic snap, fired behind Diana’s eyes. Suddenly, she wasn’t just seeing Togart; she was feeling the cool deck plates under his feet, the residual ache in his spine from the command pod, the startling warmth of her own gaze upon him. Another jolt, and a memory that wasn’t hers flooded her senses: the sharp, clean smell of morning dew on metallic leaves, the weight of a training rifle in hands too small for it, the sting of disapproval from a stern-faced instructor.
She stumbled, and Togart caught her arm. His touch was no longer just a point of contact; it was a circuit closing. The golden glow at their skin intensified where they connected, and the cascade of foreign memories doubled.
“I can see… your childhood,” she breathed, her hazel eyes searching his. “The training grounds. It’s so vivid.”
Togart’s brow furrowed, not in pain, but in profound disorientation. “And I… I remember the scent of rain on tarmac. The feel of… lipstick?” He looked baffled, staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. “You carry colors in a pouch. For your face.”
A laugh bubbled up in Diana’s throat, half-hysterical. “Yeah, that’s the makeup. Priorities, even at the end of the world.” The absurdity of it cut through the cosmic horror. Here they were, being fundamentally rewritten on a genetic level, and what leaked through was her fondness for eyeliner.
The intense glow began to recede, sinking back into their skin, leaving behind not a mark, but a profound alteration. The air felt different on Diana’s skin—sharper, more charged. She became acutely aware of the low hum of the station’s systems, able to distinguish between the life support hum and the deeper thrum of the gravitational stabilizers. Togart flexed his fingers, his movements smoother, more fluid, as if some innate clumsiness had been edited out.
The Entity’s form stabilized into its usual flickering humanoid shape. “The process is complete. The bond is now a biological fact, as intrinsic as your own nervous systems. You will find your senses heightened, your reflexes synced. You are, for all functional purposes, a single organism in two bodies.”
Diana took a shaky breath, pulling away from Togart to test her legs. They felt strong, strangely new. She looked at her hands. They were still hers, but the faint scar on her knuckle from a childhood fall was gone. “So, what’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”
“The catch is that you can no longer be un-caught,” the Entity said, its tone unstintingly matter-of-fact. “The Sentinels will detect this consolidation. It is a anomaly they are programmed to purge. And the bond requires maintenance. Prolonged separation will now be physiologically agonizing for you both.”
Togart’s head snapped up. “How agonizing?”
“Catastrophic system failure. Your cardiac rhythms are entangled. Your neural pathways are mirrored. To be apart is to tear the pattern in half.”
“Great. So we’re conjoined twins now,” Diana muttered, running a hand through her hair. Her fingers brushed the tip of her ear. She froze. then she recalled having her ears pointed because of his feelings of isolation.
The Entity offered no explanation. It simply began to fade, its light dimming. “The medical bay is advised. Your bodies need to stabilize. The door will open for you.”
As it vanished, the finality of its words settled heavily in the room. The command deck door, which had been sealed, hissed open, revealing the corridor beyond.
Diana hugged herself, suddenly feeling the cool air on her bare skin. “I suppose clothes are too much to ask for?”
Togart, ever the pragmatist, was already moving. He went to a storage locker she hadn’t noticed, hidden behind a shattered console. Inside were standard-issue Satarian undersuits—soft, grey, form-fitting garments. He tossed one to her. “It will be large.”
She pulled it on. The material was surprisingly comfortable, like thick silk, and it adjusted to her size with a faint whirring sound. It felt alien against her skin, yet familiar, as if her new DNA recognized it. Togart dressed quickly, his movements efficient.
“The medical bay,” he said, his voice low. “We should go.”
They walked in silence through the sterile corridors. Diana was hyper-aware of every step, of the new distance between them. When they were a few feet apart, a low thrum of anxiety began to build in her chest, a somatic warning signal. When he slowed to let her catch up, it eased.
The medical bay was exactly as described: blindingly white, humming with quiet machinery, dominated by a central bed. Togart gestured for her to lie down. “The scanners need a baseline.”
She lay back, the cool surface soothing against her back. A arch of light passed over her, beeping softly. Togart watched the readouts on a nearby screen, his pointed ears—now slightly less pointed—twitching as he absorbed the data.
“Your cellular structure shows Satarian markers. Not dominant, but integrated. Like a graft.” He looked at her, his expression unreadable. “My own readings show a corresponding incorporation of human neuronal plasticity.”
“Is that good?”
“It is… unprecedented.” He leaned against the console, rubbing his temples. “I can feel your headache.”
Diana blinked. She did have a faint throbbing behind her eyes, a leftover from the energy transfer. “You can?”
“It’s a dull pressure, here.” He pointed to his own temple. “And you are… worried. About your crew. The deal.”
“The Entity is bound by its laws. Your crew is safe.” He paused, and she felt a wave of hesitation from him, as clear as if he’d spoken it. “Diana… the memory of my mother. You should not have seen that. It is… private.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said softly, opening her eyes to meet his. “It just happened. She seemed… amazing.”
A complex emotion crossed his face—grief, pride, and something softer. The bond carried it all to her, unfiltered. He gave a curt nod, unable to find the words.
The medical scanner beeped, signaling the end of its cycle. The results flashed on the screen: two interconnected biological systems, stable for now.
Togart pushed off the console. “We should rest. The Sentinel is still watching. We will need our strength.”
As he said it, a proximity alert chimed softly through the station’s speakers. Togart’s head whipped toward the medical bay’s comm panel, his body tensing. The emotional connection between them spiked with instant, shared alarm.
Diana sat up, the gentle thrum of anxiety in her chest tightening into a knot. “What is it?”
Togart’s fingers flew across the panel, pulling up an external sensor display. The image of the Satarian warship, the Sentinel, filled the screen. It wasn’t leaving. Instead, a smaller, needle-like shuttle had detached from its belly and was now moving with deliberate speed toward the station.
“They’re not waiting for the report,” Togart said, his voice grim. “They’re sending a boarding party. An inspection team.”
The momentum of the chapter ends with a new, immediate threat—the Sentinel's boarding party arriving, forcing Diana and Togart to face the consequences of their altered state together.
The thin, high whine of the docking clamp echoed through the medical bay, a sound far more intimate and threatening than the roar of the earlier battle. Togart’s hand, which had been resting on the console, clenched into a fist. Diana felt the tension in his knuckles as if they were her own.
“They are not proceeding to the airlock,” Togart said, his voice dangerously quiet. His eyes were fixed on the sensor display. “They are cutting directly through the hull near the command deck. A breach protocol.”
“They’re not here to talk, are they?” Diana said, pushing herself off the bed. Her legs felt steadier, the foreign gold now a dormant heat under her skin. “They’re coming to take me. To dissect me.”
“They will try,” he corrected, his gaze shifting from the screen to her. The shared memory of his mother’s face, the one she had seen during the integration, flickered between them—a shared touchstone of loss and defiance. He moved to a panel on the wall, retrieving two sidearms. He offered one to her.
She stared at the sleek, lethal weapon. “I don’t use guns. I have makeup in my holster, remember? Seems stupid now.”
“It wasn’t,” he said simply, pressing the pistol into her hand. It was cool and heavier than she expected. “The safety is here. Point and depress the trigger. Do not hesitate.”
The familiar weight of the Entity’s presence settled over the room, but it felt different this time—sharper, more present. The air grew dense, and the humming machines slowed, their lights dimming. A figure of pure, unwavering light solidified before the door.
But it wasn't Diana or Togart who greeted them. It was the Entity, the Guardian. He was the Overseer of this outpost and explained that the Warden was dying due to the battle. The human had energy enough to save him, and through him the outpost, but to do this they needed to be integrated. His duty as Overseer and Guardian is to protect this outpost and Warden. He will protect his Warden, his pet, and this outpost.
Its voice was no longer an echo in their minds but a resonant vibration in the deck plates. “The Sentinel’s mandate is clear. They perceive a corruption. They will excise it.”
Togart stepped forward, his posture not of submission, but of report. “They are performing an illegal breach. I have authority here.”
“Your authority is derived from their command structure. It is revoked.” The Entity’s form turned towards the door as a series of heavy, mechanical thuds began to sound against it. “They will not be reasoned with. They will not be fooled by rearranged furniture a second time. Their scanners will see the fusion in your cells.”
“So what’s the play?” Diana asked, her finger resting beside the trigger guard. The sensation of the weapon in her hand was utterly alien, yet the integrated part of her mind was already calculating angles of fire and cover. The thought was as chilling as the metal in her grip.
“We hold,” the Entity stated. Its light intensified, washing the sterile white room in a harsh, judgmental glare. “You are the outpost now. Its strength is your symbiosis. Its weakness is your division.”
A high-pitched screech of torching metal screamed from the corridor. Orange sparks began to eat through the door seam. Diana raised the pistol, her hands surprisingly steady. The bond thrummed with Togart’s readiness, a mirror of her own.
“Then we hold,” Togart said, moving to stand beside her, his shoulder nearly touching hers. The proximity quieted the rising panic in her veins, replacing it with a focused calm. He was a anchor in the storm of her fear.
The torching stopped. A moment of dead silence was followed by a deafining explosive crump.
The medical bay door blew inward, a mangled slab of metal crashing to the floor. Through the smoke and settling debris stood three Sentinels, their armored forms silhouetted against the emergency-lit hallway. Their helmets were sealed, their rifles raised.
The lead Sentinel’s synthesized voice crackled. “Warden Togart, you are compromised. Stand down. Surrender the biological specimen.”
The Entity took a formless step forward, its light engulfing the threshold. “This outpost is under my protection. You are not permitted here.”
“The Guardian?” the Sentinel commander’s tone shifted, registering something akin to tactical reassessment. “You are a non-interventionist entity. You violate your own prime directive.”
“The parameters have been recalculated,” the Entity replied. The air in the doorway shimmered, becoming opaque, like solidified heat. “Withdraw.”
“Direct energy manipulation. Hostile action logged.” The commander raised his rifle. “Engage.”
The world dissolved into a barrage of searing light and concussive noise. Diana fired, the recoil jolting up her arm. She didn’t think she hit anything. Togart’s shots were precise, blue bolts punching into armor joints. One Sentinel staggered.
Then the Entity moved. It wasn't an attack; it was a negation. The lead Sentinel simply came apart, his armor disassembling into its composite plates and wires before he could even pull the trigger. The components hung in the air for a breathless second, then clattered to the floor. There was no blood, no body—just components.
The two remaining soldiers faltered, their programmed certainty cracking for a microsecond. That was all the opening the integration provided.
Diana felt Togart’s intention a hair before he moved. Left flank. Low. She dropped to a knee, firing wildly to distract as Togart lunged right, using the medical bed for cover. They moved as a single unit, a dance of survival choreographed by a shared consciousness.
A bolt of plasma grazed Togart’s shoulder. He grunted, and Diana felt the sizzling burn as a phantom pain. She returned fire, her shot going wide but forcing the Sentinel to shift position.
Togart didn’t fire. He closed the distance, his free hand lashing out to grip the soldier’s helmet. The golden luminescence under Togart’s skin flared, racing down his arm and into the enemy’s armor. The Sentinel seized, his systems overloading in a cascade of sparks. He fell, motionless.
The last one standing sprayed the room with indiscriminate fire. Diana ducked behind a console, feeling the heat of near misses. She risked a glance at Togart. He gave a sharp, barely perceptible nod.
She stood up, a perfect, distracting target. As the Sentinel’s rifle swung toward her, Togart took the clean shot, drilling a hole through the weapon’s power core. It exploded in the soldier’s hands, and he collapsed.
Silence returned, thicker and more charged than before. The Entity’s light receded from the doorway. The three Sentinels were neutralized, but the cost of the action was already settling in. Diana’s breath came in ragged gasps, her ears ringing.
Togart leaned heavily against the medical bed, clutching his bleeding shoulder. The phantom pain in Diana’s own shoulder faded, replaced by the raw, shared exhaustion of the fight. The bond between them felt stretched, like a muscle pushed to its limit.
The Entity observed the scene of their victory. “They were the vanguard. The Sentinel mothership has logged the engagement. They will now classify this outpost as actively hostile. I will engage with it then he disappeared.
“What does that mean?” Diana asked, her voice hushed.
Togart answered, his eyes on the ruined doorway and the dark corridor beyond. “It means they will not send another boarding party.”
He looked at her, his expression grim.
“It means they will purge the station from orbit.”
The words hung in the air, colder than the station’s recycled atmosphere. Purge from orbit. It wasn’t a battle; it was an extermination.
Diana’s gaze swept over the medical bay—the scorched door, the sparking consoles, the fallen Sentinels. This sterile box was about to become their tomb. Her eyes snapped back to Togart, to the grim acceptance etched on his face. It was that look, the sheer weight of his resignation, that broke something open inside her.
The memory of his mother’s data-sliver, the lonely years at this outpost, the pride he’d taken in his duty—it all crashed down on her. “I destroyed everything,” she whispered, the words tearing from her throat. She took a step toward him, her hand gesturing wildly at the room, at him. “All the sacrifice. The loneliness you suffered for them. And I’ve destroyed your link to them.”
He finally looked at her, his alien eyes reflecting the flickering emergency lights. “There is no ‘them’ anymore, Diana.” He said it quietly, a simple statement of fact that carried the weight of a world ending. “There is only this. Us.”
A deep, resonant hum vibrated through the deck, a sound that bypassed the ears and shook the bones. The station’s central core, visible through a viewport in the medbay wall, began to pulse with a frantic, crimson light. WARNING: PLANETARY ASSAULT LOCK DETECTED, a synthesized voice intoned. IMPACT IMMINENT.
“They’ve bypassed all hailing frequencies,” Togart said, his voice flat. “They are not even offering surrender.”
The Entity materialized between them, its form condensing from the charged air. It did not flicker now. It burned with a cold, steady intensity. “The Sentinel has powered its primary planet-cracker battery. You have approximately ninety of your seconds.”
“Ninety seconds?” Diana’s laugh was a sharp, brittle sound. “Great. Any other hidden talents? Can you fold space? Maybe wish us into a different dimension?”
“The energy required would unmake this one,” the Entity replied, utterly serious. “However, the integration provides an alternative. The outpost’s short-range matter transmitter is damaged, but functional. It can be forced.”
Togart’s head whipped toward the Entity. “Forced? The targeting matrix is slag. You would scatter our atoms across the system.”
“A high probability,” the Entity agreed. “But non-zero is greater than zero. The bond may provide the coherence your individual patterns would lack.”
Another tremor, stronger this time, shook the station. A ceiling panel gave way, crashing down near the door. The crimson light from the core was strobing now, painting their faces in bloody flashes.
“Where would it send us?” Diana asked, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“The last coordinates logged before the system failure,” the Entity said. “A moon in the outer belt. Uninhabited. Desolate.”
“My survey mission,” Togart said, a flicker of memory passing between them—a grey, rocky landscape under a dim sun. “There’s a shelter. Basic supplies.”
“So it’s a choice between being vaporized or maybe being turned into sentient gravel on a rock.” Diana looked at Togart, at the blue blood still seeping from his shoulder. She saw the lifetime of service in his eyes, all culminating in this impossible choice. She reached out, her fingers brushing his uninjured arm. The bond sang, a thread of pure, terrified connection. “I guess I’ll take the gravel.”
A ghost of a smile touched Togart’s lips. “Together.”
“The transmitter is two decks down. You must run. Now.” The Entity’s light expanded, flowing over the mangled doorway, hardening the air into a shimmering barrier. “I will provide a distraction. It will not stop the blast. It will only delay the targeting lock by a few seconds.”
They didn’t wait. They ran. Their footsteps echoed in the narrow corridor, a frantic drumbeat against the rising whine of the station’s death throes. The bond thrummed with shared exertion, with fear, with a desperate, clawing hope.
They rounded a corner and saw it: a circular platform surrounded by dead consoles, a single, flickering light above it. The matter transmitter.
Togart slid into the main control seat, his hands a blur. “Power conduit is fractured. I have to bypass it manually.” He ripped a panel from the console, a shower of sparks erupting around his hands.
Diana stood on the platform, her body thrumming with adrenaline. She looked back the way they came. A section of the ceiling further down the corridor collapsed in a roar of metal and fire. The Entity’ barrier glowed white-hot, holding back the inferno.
“Togart…”
“I see it.” His voice was strained. Another spark, larger this time, caught the fabric of his undersuit. He didn’t flinch. “Almost… there.”
The station gave a violent lurch, throwing Diana to her knees on the platform. The lights died completely, plunging them into absolute blackness for one heart-stopping second before the emergency strips flickered on, casting long, dancing shadows.
A new sound cut through the chaos—a deep, thrumming chord that felt like the universe itself taking a final breath. The planet-cracker was charging.
Togart slammed his fist down on the console. “Now! The platform, Diana!”
She scrambled to the center as he leapt from the chair and landed beside her. His hand found hers, their grip fierce. The platform beneath them began to vibrate, a high-frequency shudder that felt like it was tearing them apart from the inside.
The Entity’s voice echoed one last time in their minds, calm and final. “The link is established. Survive.”
The world dissolved into a scream of light and tearing metal. Diana felt a pulling sensation so profound it seemed to draw her soul out through her pores. There was no up or down, only a torrent of blinding white noise and the crushing pressure of the bond, the one solid thing in the universe, screaming in tandem with her.
Then, nothing.