A guttural cry tore from Bayan’s throat, ragged and raw, unlike any sound Oyuun had ever heard him make. He stumbled forward, ignoring the throbbing pain of his shoulder wound, his meticulously constructed control dissolving into a shaking ruin. His eyes, usually sharp and calculating, were wide with horror, fixed on the man encased within the machinery. The veteran. Or what remained of him. The officer's skin was stretched taut, a sickly pallor beneath the pulsing veins of alien light that burrowed into his flesh, connecting him to the colossal, rhythmic engine. His limbs were distended, twisted by unseen forces, his head lolling against a tangle of ancient conduits. Yet, in the vacant depths of his eyes, Oyuun glimpsed a flicker of desperate, trapped awareness. He was suffering. Horrifically. “No,” Bayan choked, his voice barely a whisper. He reached out a trembling hand, as if to touch the man he once revered, his fingers hovering inches from the glowing, organic interface. “It can’t be… He won. He was supposed to be cured.” Oyuun strode past him, her boot crunching on a fragment of fallen conduit. She pulled a compact diagnostic scanner from her belt, her movements precise and unhurried even amidst the grim tableau. The device hummed, projecting a cascade of arcane biological data across the commander's contorted form. Her expression remained bright, a stark contrast to the despair radiating from Bayan. “Oh, he won alright,” Oyuun chirped, a morbid delight in her tone as she absorbed the readings. “Won himself a permanent residency as a power cell. Fascinating cellular degradation, really. Look at the neural pathways – entirely subsumed by the parasitic mycelium. The brain is nothing more than a relay station now. He’s powering this entire section of the Spire, by the looks of it.” Bayan staggered back, colliding with a stack of rusted containers. “You can’t just… you can’t be so…!” He gestured wildly, unable to articulate his outrage. “He was my mentor! My friend!” “And he’s in unimaginable agony, Bayan,” Oyuun said, her voice softening just a fraction, though her grin never faltered. “Don’t you think a quick, glorious release would be more merciful than this slow, agonizing fusion? I could rig a bio-feedback surge. Blow him up with a spectacular shower of organic fireworks. It would be a grand exit, wouldn’t it?” The pinned warrior's eyes, fixed on Oyuun, suddenly sharpened. A shudder ran through his body, causing the conduits to pulse brighter. His lips, cracked and dry, parted. A ragged gasp escaped him, followed by a series of weak, clicking sounds. Oyuun leaned in closer, her scanner working overtime. “What is it, General?” she murmured, her face inches from his. “Trying to say something?” “Seventeen… three… alpha… nine… delta… eight…” he rasped, the words barely audible, punctuated by gurgling coughs. His vacant gaze found Oyuun’s, burning with a desperate, fleeting lucidity. “Core… frequency… overwrite…” Oyuun grinned, a flicker of genuine excitement replacing her detached amusement. “A biological override frequency for the Sovereign Core itself? Brilliant!” She began rapidly inputting the sequence into her comm-pad, her fingers flying across the holographic interface. “He’s giving us a backdoor, Bayan! He wants out, and he wants to take the Core with him!” Before Bayan could respond, a frantic scrambling echoed from the shaft they’d fallen from. A figure dropped clumsily onto the grimy floor, landing with a clang of ill-maintained armor. “Oyuun! Bayan! Please, I beg you!” Temur stumbled forward, his visor cracked, one of his grafted arm-plates hanging precariously. His face was streaked with grime and tears. “I know I messed up! I just want to help! Let me prove myself!” Oyuun paused mid-input, sighing dramatically. “Temur, you have the situational awareness of a dead Gekko-Slug. What are you doing here?” As if on cue, a cluster of fungal growths on the floor beneath Temur began to glow with an ominous, violet light. Tendrils of luminescent mycelium erupted from the ground, lashing out at him. “Agh! What in the…! Get off me!” Temur shrieked, batting at the glowing filaments. His grafted arm, already compromised, began to rapidly blacken and swell as the particulates burrowed into his skin. “Hive-blight!” Oyuun exclaimed, her voice sharp. She snatched a rusty bone-saw from a nearby workbench, its teeth dull and pitted. “They’re trying to assimilate you! We don’t have time for a full de-graft! Bayan, hold him down!” Bayan, still reeling from Kormak’s revelation, snapped to attention. He lunged, tackling Temur to the ground. Temur thrashed, screaming protests, as Oyuun pressed the cold, rough steel of the saw against his shoulder. “This is going to hurt, Temur,” Oyuun announced, her voice devoid of apology, only focused intent. “A lot. But it’s better than becoming a sentient mushroom.” With a grunt, she began to saw. The rusty teeth scraped against metal, then tore through corrupted flesh and bone with a sickening series of wet snaps and groans. Temur’s screams intensified, echoing off the low ceiling, mingling with the hum of the machinery and Kormak’s desperate, fading pulses. Oyuun worked with brutal efficiency, ignoring the spray of black-tinged blood and spore-filled tissue. As the last tendon gave way, Temur’s arm detached with a final, gruesome rip. It fell to the floor, twitching amidst a cloud of violet spores before solidifying into a grotesque, fungal mass. Oyuun tossed the saw aside, breathing heavily, her face splattered with gore. But the violent amputation had done more than just save Temur. The final, severing impact had sent a catastrophic tremor through the ancient floor. A deep, grinding sound emanated from directly beneath them. A hairline crack spiderwebbed across the concrete, widening with terrifying speed. “Oyuun, the floor!” Bayan yelled, scrambling away. The crack became a chasm. The entire section groaned, sagged, and then gave way with a deafening roar of collapsing stone and tearing metal. The three of them plunged through the gaping maw in the floor, plummeting once more, this time into a blinding, white-lit chamber. They landed in a heap, disoriented, amidst scattering debris. Oyuun pushed herself up, blinking against the harsh light, her gaze sweeping across the vast, circular room. Monitors glowed with vital signs, intricate holographic displays pulsed with data, and at the center, a colossal, clear containment field pulsed with a malevolent, ancient energy. Within it, suspended in an unholy liquid, was the Sovereign Core, a monstrous, obsidian heart radiating raw power. And standing directly before it, his back to them, surrounded by a phalanx of silent, grafted soldiers, was Khan Varga. He turned slowly, his eyes glowing with that familiar, predatory, iridescent light. They had fallen directly into the Grand Operating Theater. Right at Varga’s feet.

Rusty Saws and Overrides