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I breach the final containment chamber, tearing the heavy door off its hinges with a brutal, two-handed shove.

The scene inside stops my hearts.

Maggie lies strapped to a flat metal gurney under harsh white lights. A transparent tube runs from the crook of her arm to a humming centrifuge, dark red liquid pulsing through the plastic.

But she is not asleep.

As the heavy door crashes to the floor, Maggie drives a sharp metal stylus directly into the side of the white-coated figure standing over her.

Vessa Korvann shrieks, stumbling backward.

My nanites instantly scan the room, feeding me data.

VESSA KORVANN. INJURY DETECTED. RIGHT KIDNEY PUNCTURED.

HOST NANITES INITIATING REPAIR SEQUENCE.

Two Avaren operatives flank the door. They snap out of their shock, their weapons rising to track me and the soldiers pouring into the room behind me.

They are far too slow.

I close the distance in a blur of motion. My plasma blade sweeps in a blinding arc of superheated energy, and I sever the first guard’s head from his shoulders before his finger even brushes the trigger. I spin, carrying the momentum into a brutal backhand strike, and decapitate the second. Two heavy thuds echo through the chamber as their bodies hit the concrete.

The stench of cauterized flesh fills the room, masking the smell of the antiseptic.

Vessa clutches her side. Her eyes dart from the dead operatives to my glowing blade. Blood seeps through her pristine white coat, staining the fabric a bright, vivid crimson, but her posture straightens.

“Step away from her,” I growl.

Vessa doesn’t retreat. Instead, she bares her teeth, a cornered fanatic unwilling to surrender her prize.

“You ruin everything, Chief Orien.” She spits the words, her chest heaving. “This is the salvation of our species. Her biology holds the key to reversing the fertility curse, and you want to hide her away in a different galaxy.”

I take a slow step forward, lifting the plasma blade, preparing to carve her into pieces so small her nanites won’t know how to reassemble them.

“Orien.”

Maggie’s voice halts my advance. She stares at me from the gurney, her left arm and ankles locked in restraints. Her blue eyes blaze with a protective, homicidal fury I have never witnessed.

“She wanted to dissect our baby.”

The words hit me with the kinetic force of a crashing star.

My boots lock to the floor. The oxygen vanishes from my lungs.

Baby.

Maggie’s gaze holds mine, confirming the truth.

I am going to be a father.

The miracle I yearned for is real. It is taking root inside the woman I love, weaving our futures together in the dark. A child carrying Avaren strength and human resilience.

And this monster strapped her to a metal table to cut it out of her.

For one heartbeat, joy overwhelms me. Then I look at Vessa, and it curdles into rage.

Vessa sees the distraction. She realizes the negotiation is over, the justification meaningless. She lunges toward the metal tray beside the gurney, her fingers snatching a thick, fluid-filled syringe.