The flickering emergency lights cast long, skeletal shadows across the grimy mess deck. Three minutes. That was the timeline set by the cold interface. [CELLULAR VITALITY: 1.3%. DEGENERATION RATE: 0.7% PER MINUTE. FLAVOR IMPACT QUOTA: UNMET. CULINARY SYNTHESIS PROTOCOL WILL COMMENCE FULL BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE EXTRACTION IN 00:03:00.] “Three minutes for zero point seven percent? That math doesn’t track,” Yeva Corant muttered, her cadence flat. Fear offered zero utility. She plated a small bowl of dark, glistening meat onto a chipped composite tray, ignoring the faint tremor in her fingers. The aroma, rich with star-anise and fermented noct-berry, thickened the recirculated air. Ouros-9 was a graveyard for ambition, a rust-flecked cage for the empire's most inconvenient castaways. Her downfall had been losing an agricultural monopoly to a boardroom coup. Now she prepared meals for the condemned, for the guards, and occasionally, for the incorporeal terrors drifting from the Pale Rift. [CELLULAR VITALITY: 0.9%. DEGENERATION RATE: 0.7% PER MINUTE. FLAVOR IMPACT QUOTA: UNMET. CULINARY SYNTHESIS PROTOCOL WILL COMMENCE FULL BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE EXTRACTION IN 00:02:12.] The station’s failing generators whined against the distant, rhythmic clang of weaponry. Bulkheads groaned under abnormal pressure. A low, guttural shriek echoed through the ventilation shafts, followed by a wet, tearing sound no alloy could produce. “Punctual,” Yeva observed, straightening a crate of nutrient paste sachets. Her angular face showed no alarm. Strands of dark hair clung to her damp temples. Frost crystallised over the prep counters, bypassing the thin weave of her tunic. The reinforced blast doors buckled inward, compressed like discarded foil. Fragmented metal sprayed across the kitchen, gouging deep trenches into the rear bulkhead. An escort guard dissolved into an aerosol of red droplets before his particle rifle hit the deck plates. A vortex of dense shadow and pale radiance filled the breached doorway. Two pinpricks of icy luminescence burned within the shroud, locking onto Yeva. Pale Rift border reports described such planetary reapers in detail; this manifested nightmare matched every classified entry for High-Wraith Zaelath. [CELLULAR VITALITY: 0.5%. DEGENERATION RATE: 0.7% PER MINUTE. FLAVOR IMPACT QUOTA: UNMET. CULINARY SYNTHESIS PROTOCOL WILL COMMENCE FULL BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE EXTRACTION IN 00:01:06.] Peripheral vision narrowed to a gray tunnel. Yeva forced her knees straight and raised the tray, presenting the braised pork belly directly toward the looming silhouette. “My apologies for the delay,” she stated, her voice steady despite the rapid drain on her life force. “Freshly prepared. Optimal flavor profile for a… discerning palate.” The entity paused. A condensing sphere of raw void-energy dispersed into wisps. Its twin points of light flickered, tracking the steam rising from the bowl. It tilted its head in an unnatural, geometric shift that made the pantry walls warp. A blackened claw hovered above the surface. A filament of darkness drifted downward, seized a cube of glazed meat, and retreated back into the swirling core. The effect was instant. The entity's mantle solidified, then shuddered violently. Its optical points flared into blinding beacons. A low, scraping vibration resonated through the room—not a hunting cry, but a ragged sob. Droplets of condensed luminescence fell from its face, hissing as they struck the deck. A second filament shot forward, then a third, stripping the bowl clean with frantic precision. [FLAVOR IMPACT: SUCCESS. HIGH. CULINARY SYNTHESIS PROTOCOL QUOTA MET.] [CELLULAR VITALITY: 100%.] Leverage secured. Yeva stood stone-still as a lesser parasitic phantom, drawn by the commotion, darted through the fractured portal toward her workstation. Zaelath did not even pivot. With a brief flick of a taloned digit, the intruder vanished, collapsed into nothingness with a faint snap of ozone. Zaelath surveyed the demolished threshold, the discarded rifle, and the flickering strips overhead. Flowing downward, it coiled over a pile of crushed bulkheads, folding its limbs comfortably. Its glowing optics settled back on Yeva. “This sector,” Zaelath rumbled, a sound grinding like tectonic plates, “contains sustenance. Authentic sustenance.” Its gaze swept the scrubbed counters. “The void holds nothing comparable. This outpost is now an eatery, and I am the doorman.” The low vibration of Ascendancy fleet engines filtered through the hull plating, heralding an unscheduled patrol check. An audit team was descending, yet she now held an apex Rift entity as personal station security. Her retribution against the ruling council would take shape right here. First, she required real garlic, which necessitated breaking Drace Vanto and his synthetic ration monopoly. Tomorrow's task. For now, she needed to calculate how many calories kept a Rift sovereign pacified until morning.

The Braised Pork Truce