The hum of the engines faded into a low, steady rhythm as the shuttle soared through black space.
Seraphine sat motionless in the medbay, one arm cradling Elior, the other locked around the rail for stability. The child clung to her, warm now, breathing softly against her shoulder. Her heart thudded. Not from exhaustion. But from the way he'd looked at her.
Like he knew her.
Like he remembered her in a way no clone should ever be remembered.
Across from them, Sera leaned against the opposite wall, eyes fixed on the star-laced window but mind clearly miles away.
"What else do you remember?" Seraphine asked Elior softly.
The boy raised his head. His voice was quieter this time, tinged with something both ancient and innocent. "I remember your voice. Before the ice. You used to read to me."
Seraphine's throat tightened.
"I remember you crying," he added. "They took me from you while you were sedated."
Sera stepped forward. "You remember before cryo?"
He nodded. "Some of it. Dreams mixed with real things. A woman—my mother—trying to hide me. She said I was special. That if they took me, the Empire would never let me live free."
Seraphine met Sera's gaze. "She was right."
"She encrypted something inside me," Elior whispered. "A key. A firewall. Something they couldn't decode. But I think... it's waking up."
The shuttle's console suddenly flashed red.
Sera rushed to the cockpit. "We've got a trace lock on our signal."
"What?" Seraphine stood. "We scrambled the shuttle before departure."
"Didn't matter," Sera said grimly. "Someone's ghost-coded a trace into our jump signature. They knew we'd take this route."
"Where are they coming from?"
Yul's voice came through the comms: "Behind us. Fast. Big. Imperial interceptor class."
A projection appeared on the main screen: sleek, black, with violet-tipped wings, pulsing with dark energy. A stealth warship, unlike anything in the Empire's known arsenal.
"Not just any interceptor," Sera muttered. "That's her."
Seraphine narrowed her eyes. "Version Fourteen?"
"No." Sera swallowed. "Fifteen."
***
The chase began.
The shuttle dove through an asteroid belt as pulses of blue plasma carved paths of light across its wake. The child braced in Seraphine's arms as Sera and Yul performed evasive maneuvers that would snap bones in lesser pilots.
"She's not trying to kill us," Yul growled through clenched teeth. "She's herding us."
"Into what?" Seraphine snapped.
Suddenly, they saw it.
A tear in space.
A controlled singularity—an artificial gravity well the Empire had only used in prototype warfare.
"She's dragging us into a null field!" Sera shouted.
Seraphine set Elior down gently. "Can you interface with the nav drive?"
The boy nodded quickly and ran to the main console. His small hands moved over the glowing panel like he'd been born to do it.
"I can spoof the singularity signature," he said. "Redirect the gravity lock."
Sera raised an eyebrow. "You sure you're ten?"
"I'm sure I'm not normal," he muttered.
A sudden jolt rocked the ship. Warning sirens blared.
"Last chance to reroute or we're atomized," Yul called out.
Elior pressed the final command.
Everything went still.
Then—BOOM.
The shuttle was catapulted sideways, flung through a side corridor of warped space. The gravity lock closed behind them—on Version Fifteen's warship.
The enemy ship blinked out of range, caught in its own trap.
"Brilliant," Sera breathed, watching the scanners go clear. "Kid's got teeth."
Seraphine knelt beside him, brushing a strand of hair from his face. "Where did you learn that?"
He looked up at her, eyes glowing faintly.
"I didn't. It just… unlocked."
***
Back at the rebel moon base, the mood was tense.
The medics scanned Elior's vitals. They found a pulsing node beneath his skin—imperial tech fused with something even they couldn't identify.
"It's alive," one whispered. "Not synthetic. Not organic. Something in-between."
Sera watched from the shadows.
Seraphine stood beside the boy as he rested.
"You're more than a clone," she whispered.
He nodded. "And so are you."
Yul entered with data tablets. "There's more," he said. "That warship wasn't just hunting you. It was scanning Elior's signal. They were tracking him, not you."
Sera's jaw clenched. "They've activated the child code."
Seraphine stepped back. "The what?"
Yul hesitated. "Every Seraphine unit was cloned with fail-safes. But if a rogue Seraphine ever had offspring—or any genetically viable evolution—there's a protocol."
"A hunt," Sera said, voice flat.
"Kill the heir," Yul confirmed. "And reset the line."
Seraphine looked at her son. "They won't get him."
"No," Sera agreed. "But they'll try."
Seraphine turned to Yul. "Is there any way to sever the signal?"
He hesitated. "There's one place. A dead satellite base in the Osiris Void. Used to be an AI prison. No comms, no trace."
"You're suggesting we go off the grid entirely," Sera said.
Yul nodded. "If you want Elior to live… yes."
Seraphine looked down at her son.
He opened his eyes slowly. "I can shut the whole thing down," he said. "Their code. Their link to us. But I'll need to go inside."
"Inside where?" she asked, alarmed.
"The Core," he whispered.
Sera stepped forward. "You know where it is?"
Elior nodded. "And I know how to destroy it."