The elevator descent to Level 10 took distinctively longer than the ride to the Spire.
As the numbers on the display ticked down, the air inside the cabin changed. The sterile, recycled chill of the Command Deck vanished, replaced by a creeping, suffocating humidity. Condensation began to bead on the chrome walls like sweat.
"It smells like a swamp," Ciro muttered, wiping his brow.
He was wearing his old, torn motley pants, but his chest was bare, revealing the lean, corded muscle that Elara had healed. In his hand, he spun a stolen medical tool—a Laser Scalpel. It was small, intended for surgery, but the beam was sharp enough to cut through steel bone.
"It smells like life," Elara corrected, though she wrinkled her nose. It smelled less like a garden and more like rotting compost and electrified ozone.
"WARNING," AURA's voice chimed from the overhead speakers. "SECTOR 10 (HYDROPONICS) HAS BEEN UNATTENDED FOR 312 YEARS. ECOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT FAILURE DETECTED. MUTATION LEVEL: HIGH."
"Can you purge the mutation remotely?" Elara asked, hoping to avoid a fight.
"NEGATIVE. LOCAL UPLINK CABLES HAVE BEEN SEVERED BY ROOT GROWTH. MANUAL OVERRIDE AT THE SECTOR CONTROL ROOM IS REQUIRED TO RE-ENGAGE THE DEFENSE GRID."
"Of course," Ciro sighed, his stomach giving a loud, painful growl. The regeneration process had left him with a metabolism that burned energy like a furnace. "We have to walk into the monster's mouth to get dinner. Classic."
DING.
The doors hissed open.
They didn't step into a farm. They stepped into a jungle.
The corridor ahead was choked with vegetation. Massive, thick vines pulsing with neon-purple veins covered the white walls like arteries. Ferns the size of cars blocked the path. Bioluminescent moss carpeted the floor, glowing with a sickly radioactive green.
The heat hit them like a physical blow. It was tropical, wet, and heavy.
"Stay close," Ciro ordered, stepping out first. The blue beam of his scalpel hummed. "Ghost, point."
The massive white wolf sniffed the air. His ears flattened against his armored skull. He let out a low, vibrating growl that Elara felt in her teeth.
[THREAT DETECTED: BIOLOGICAL AMBUSH PREDATORS.]
Elara's Gauntlet hummed, projecting a small red tactical map overlay.
"The Control Room is three hundred meters straight ahead," Elara whispered, pointing through the dense thicket of purple leaves. "We just need to plug me into the console."
"Three hundred meters," Ciro slashed a hanging vine that was oozing black sap. "In this mess, that might as well be three miles."
They moved forward.
The silence of the Hydro-Sector was unnerving. There were no birds, no insects. Just the wet drip-drip of condensation and the slow, creaking sound of plants growing at an unnatural speed.
Suddenly, Ghost froze. He snapped his head to the left, staring at a patch of large, red flowers that looked like giant tulips.
"What is it?" Elara asked.
SNAP.
The "tulip" exploded open.
It wasn't a flower. It was a mouth.
A long, serrated tongue lashed out faster than a whip, wrapping around Ghost's rear leg.
YELP!
The massive wolf was dragged backward across the mossy floor, claws scrabbling for purchase.
"Ghost!" Elara screamed.
"Movement! Everywhere!" Ciro shouted.
The jungle woke up.
From the ceiling, dozens of vines uncoiled like snakes, dropping down to snare them. The red tulips opened their maws, revealing rows of needle-like thorns, hissing with pressurized gas.
One of the vines lashed at Elara's throat.
ZZZT.
Ciro was there. With a blur of motion, the laser scalpel severed the vine in mid-air. Black sap sprayed onto his chest, sizzling like acid against his skin, but he didn't flinch.
"Don't let them touch you!" Ciro roared, spinning to slice another vine that aimed for his legs. "The sap is corrosive!"
Ghost was fighting his own battle. The wolf roared, his jaws snapping shut on the thick tongue dragging him.
CRUNCH.
Ghost bit clean through the plant's muscle. The flower shrieked—a high-pitched sound like a tea kettle screaming—and withered instantly.
But there were too many of them. The entire corridor was writhing.
"The Control Room!" Ciro yelled, grabbing Elara's arm and shoving her forward. "Run! I'll cut a path!"
They sprinted.
It was a chaotic dash through hell. Ciro became a whirlwind of precision violence, hacking through walls of leaves and dodging acidic spit. Elara didn't have a weapon, but she had the Authority.
A massive wall of knotted roots blocked their path, sealing the corridor.
"AURA! Open Sector Door 10-B!" Elara shouted at the ceiling.
"UNABLE TO COMPLY. DOOR MECHANISM OBSTRUCTED BY ROOT SYSTEM."
"Useless bucket of bolts!" Ciro grunted, kicking a vine away. "Elara, the Gauntlet! Blast it!"
Elara raised her hand. The battery was low after the shield defense earlier, but she had enough for one shot.
[COMBAT MODE: KINETIC PULSE.]
She aimed at the tangle of roots blocking the door.
BOOM.
The gravity blast shattered the wood and metal alike, blowing a ragged hole straight through the blockage.
"Go!"
They dove through the hole, rolling onto the floor of the Control Room. Ghost scrambled in after them, his white armor stained with green and black plant gore.
Ciro slammed his hand onto the manual override panel by the door.
CLANG.
The heavy blast shield slammed down, severing a vine that tried to follow them in. The severed tip thrashed on the floor like a dying snake before Ciro stomped on it with his boot.
Silence returned.
Elara leaned against the console, gasping for air. Her heart was racing.
"That..." she panted, wiping sweat from her forehead. "That was not a garden. That was a monster."
Ciro checked his laser scalpel. The battery was dying.
"Mutated Flora," Ciro said, inspecting a burn mark on his shoulder where the sap had hit him. "They evolved to eat the maintenance drones. And probably the scientists before them."
He looked at Elara, his eyes dark with hunger.
"We can't farm in there, Your Majesty. If we send workers in, they'll be fertilizer in ten minutes."
Elara stood up. She walked to the main glass window overlooking the jungle they had just escaped. It was a sea of writhing purple and green violence.
"We don't need to go back in," Elara said, her eyes glowing blue as she accessed the main terminal.
She plunged her Gauntleted hand into the interface port.
[SYSTEM ACCESS: HYDROPONICS CONTROL.][CONNECTION: RESTORED.][AVAILABLE RESOURCES: HERBICIDE DRONES, FLAMETHROWER UNITS, UV-RADIATION GRID.]
Elara smiled coldly.
"AURA," she commanded. "Activate the UV-Radiation Grid. Maximum intensity. Burn everything that isn't a certified food crop."
"WARNING: THIS WILL STERILIZE 90% OF THE BIOMASS IN THE SECTOR. CONFIRM?"
"Confirm," Elara said. "I want salad, not monsters."
[EXECUTING: PURGE PROTOCOL.]
Through the glass window, the jungle suddenly lit up with blinding ultraviolet light.
The plants screamed.
It was a horrific, wailing sound as the cellular structure of the mutant vegetation boiled. Leaves withered, blackened, and turned to ash under the artificial sun. The aggressive vines curled up and died. The carnivorous flowers crumbled into dust.
In seconds, the Green Hell was reduced to a quiet, smoking layer of compost.
"PURGE COMPLETE," AURA announced. "REMAINING VIABLE CROPS DETECTED: GENETICALLY MODIFIED WHEAT, SYNTH-POTATOES, AND AQUA-BERRIES. AUTOMATED HARVESTERS DEPLOYED."
A door on the far side of the greenhouse opened, and small, spider-like droids marched out, beginning to collect the surviving fruits that were hidden under the canopy.
Elara turned to Ciro. The assassin was staring at the window, impressed.
"You have a very violent way of solving problems," Ciro noted.
"I'm hungry," Elara shrugged, her stomach growling loudly to emphasize the point. She watched a droid bring a basket of blue berries to the window. "And the Ash Queen doesn't share her food with weeds."