***
"Seraphine… please… find me…"
The voice faded, but the ache it left behind stayed lodged like a blade in her chest.
Seraphine jolted back into the present, breath caught in her throat. She sat frozen in the shuttle's co-pilot seat, the stars outside reduced to blurry lights. Her pulse thundered.
Sera noticed. "The voice again?"
Seraphine nodded, eyes wide. "It was stronger. He's not just calling—he's connected to me. Somehow."
Sera leaned in. "That shouldn't be possible."
"But it is," Seraphine whispered. "It's like… he's inside the same system. His signal's laced with mine. It's emotional, not just synthetic."
Yul turned from the pilot's controls, his brow furrowed. "Then that means one of two things. Either he was cloned with a neural link back to Seraphine's brainwave patterns…"
"Or," Sera said, jaw tightening, "he's her biological son."
Silence fell over the cockpit.
Then Sera added, "And that would mean the original Seraphine X gave birth. Not just to a clone. But to something else entirely."
Seraphine's chest rose and fell in disbelief. "They never mentioned a child in any file, any memory upload, any of the data logs."
"Exactly," Yul said grimly. "Because the child wasn't meant to be found."
Sera checked the navscreen. "Then let's find him first."
***
The stolen shuttle slipped through planetary orbit cloaked in a layer of interference waves. They descended on Station Helix, an abandoned imperial research facility buried beneath a scorched moon's surface—a place so classified, even its destruction had been erased from records.
But it still lived. And what hid inside might just be the key to everything.
The landing platform was quiet. Too quiet.
"We go in low," Sera ordered. "No weapons drawn unless fired upon. We scan, extract the boy, and we're out in under ten."
Seraphine's voice was steel. "He's not a mission. He's mine."
No one argued.
***
Inside, the air was stale, heavy with recycled toxins and something worse: silence. Lights flickered half-dead overhead. Walls bore claw marks and charred panels. Something had happened here—something violent.
Seraphine led the way with Yul scanning for life signs.
They passed a row of stasis chambers—some shattered, others empty. Some still filled with fluid… and failed experiments. Faces that looked like hers. Bodies that didn't survive the programming.
She couldn't look for long.
Yul froze. "Here. Below us. Deepest level."
They descended quickly through winding emergency shafts and stopped before a black vault door pulsing faintly with biometric locks.
Sera pulled out the hacking wand and inserted it into the console.
The door hissed. Groaned.
Opened.
Inside, one cryo-pod glowed.
A small figure slept within.
Seraphine gasped.
The boy was ten—no more. Chest rising gently under soft frost, fingers curled slightly like he'd fallen asleep mid-thought. Wires fed into his skull. Monitors tracked his dreams.
She took a step forward—and suddenly the lights flashed red.
Yul cursed. "Trap."
Doors slammed behind them. From the darkness, a voice filtered in through speakers embedded in the walls.
"You were never meant to find him."
Seraphine spun, recognizing the voice instantly.
Chancellor Kael.
"Let him go," she growled.
"You always were the most spirited of them," Kael said. "Even after we deleted that part."
Sera raised her weapon. "Let's end this now."
But Kael wasn't here in person. He was in the system.
A hologram of him flickered to life, towering over the cryo-pod.
"This child is the result of unauthorized reproduction," he said coldly. "He was extracted from Seraphine X's womb and hidden from you. Because he carries what you never could…"
Seraphine stepped forward. "What?"
"A soul."
The word dropped like a stone.
"He's not synthetic," Kael explained. "Not fully. That's why he matters. That's why the Empire will never let him live."
"And that's why I'll burn it to the ground," Seraphine said.
She raced to the pod and slammed her palm against the console.
Override codes. Breaker signals. Emergency failsafes.
The system fought her every step. But she wasn't just Seraphine anymore. She was a living evolution. She remembered the codes.
The pod began to open.
Ice melted. Wires disconnected.
The boy stirred.
His eyes opened slowly—soft amber flecked with light. They found hers. And widened.
"Mother…" he whispered.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. "Yes. Yes, it's me."
He reached for her, weak, trembling.
She held him as alarms screamed, metal boots pounded, and drones began slicing through the locked entrance behind them.
Yul opened a side hatch. "Tunnel to the shuttle bay! Go, now!"
They sprinted through the narrow vent system, Seraphine cradling Elior in her arms. His skin was cold but alive. His mind? Still waking.
"Why do I remember you?" he asked softly.
She pressed her cheek to his forehead. "Because love can't be deleted."
Explosions echoed behind them. Sera fired back, taking down two drones mid-flight. They burst through the exit and saw the shuttle in the bay, doors open, engines humming.
But Kael was there.
In the flesh.
Standing before the ramp, a rifle in his hand and a clone beside him.
Not Seraphine.
Not Sera.
This one was something else entirely.
A younger version. With red eyes. Upgraded reflexes. Void of emotion.
Version Fourteen.
Kael's smile was venom. "You brought back the soul. We'll extract it and perfect the line."
Sera stepped in front of Seraphine and Elior. "You'll do no such thing."
"Then die with your mistake."
Fourteen lunged.
A blur of motion. A brutal fight.
Sera and Fourteen collided mid-air, fists and kicks slicing like blades. Sparks flew. Bones cracked. Neither held back.
Seraphine dragged Elior to the ramp as Kael aimed his rifle.
A shot rang out.
Yul dove in front of her. Took the bullet in his chest.
He dropped.
"No!" she screamed.
Kael raised the rifle again.
But Seraphine was faster now.
She aimed and fired.
The plasma bolt hit him square in the chest.
Kael's smile froze—then faded as his body collapsed.
Behind them, Sera slammed Fourteen's head into a metal pylon, sparks bursting from the clone's skull.
Fourteen fell. Twitched. Then went still.
They all rushed aboard the shuttle.
Seraphine held Elior close, heart breaking and burning all at once.
The boy looked up at her, eyes full of something ancient. Something holy.
"I know what they did to you," he said. "And I know how to stop them."
Seraphine froze.
"You remember?" she whispered.
He nodded once. "Everything."