CHAPTER 1
THE MORE PERFECT A PERSON APPEARS ON THE OUTSIDE, THE MORE DEMONS THEY HARBOR WITHIN
(SIGMUND FREUD)
Designed to wipe out all electronic systems in the vastness of space, the EMP torpedo detonated far beyond the planet’s reach—where its pulse should have dissipated into the void. But fate had other plans. As the *Visor-12* entered the gravitational field of a massive planet, the blinding flash grazed its systems. For a fleeting moment, everything shut down: navigation, controls, automation. The ship became a helpless fragment of metal, hurled into an abyss.
It tore into the planet’s hazy stratosphere at breakneck speed, the crushing pull of gravity clawing at its hull, dragging it downward like a stone sinking into the depths. The ultra-durable casing, forged from heat-resistant alloys, began to glow, burning red-hot like the flushed cheek of a girl forced to hear a proposal she couldn’t escape. And this shame was merely a prelude to the true hell that awaited below.
The fifth planet in the Kemal system, cataloged in space directories under the cold, lifeless designation DP113PR12, was known by a simpler name among the few who dared visit—smugglers and daredevils alike: Depre. Officially, it was deemed uninhabited, or more precisely, devoid of any intelligent life. There were two glaring reasons for this: an atmosphere so thin and oxygen-poor (less than seven percent) and a gravitational force 4.81 times stronger than Earth’s.
It was this merciless gravity that turned the emergency descent of the *Visor-12* into a doomed plunge. Already ensnared in the planet’s deadly embrace, the ship lost altitude with every passing second, as if the cosmos itself had resolved to smash it against Depre’s gray-black surface.
The pilot was exceptionally skilled. The moment the automated systems failed, he seized the controls with fierce determination, fighting to stabilize the craft. In a desperate bid to slow the fall, he activated the inertial launcher in braking mode—a device typically used for planetary takeoffs. A fiery stream erupted from the ship’s underbelly, the hull shuddering in death throes, while a bone-rattling roar filled the decks.
On a normal planet, this might have been enough: the launcher’s thrust could have steadied the descent and offered a chance at survival. But Depre showed no mercy. Its unrelenting gravity overpowered human skill and technological ingenuity. The *Visor-12* continued its fall, a doomed fragment destined to meet the ground.
At an altitude of forty-three kilometers above the surface, a miracle occurred—the navigation system flickered back to life. Electronics hummed, and four short wings deployed from the ship’s sides. Inertial engines ignited at their tips, spewing blue flames. The *Visor-12* jolted several times, its vertical plummet shifting to a steep, yet still perilous, angle.
The ruthless gravity didn’t just pull the ship downward; it compressed the atmosphere into dense layers. These layers partially mitigated the catastrophic descent, turning it into a brutal balance between falling and gliding. But the strain was inhuman. Inevitably, the worst happened—three of the four engines were torn off. Like molten meteors, they scattered in different directions, vanishing into the impenetrable abyss of clouds, only to explode in fiery bursts upon striking the planet’s surface.
Yet, they had served their critical purpose. The *Visor-12* had been given a sliver of hope for survival.
With residual thrust, extended wings, and the lone remaining engine, the spacecraft managed to cover nearly a hundred kilometers before it began losing altitude again. Like a diver leaping over a chasm, it plunged into a chaotic storm—below stretched an ocean of dark-gray clouds, relentlessly torn apart by blinding lightning strikes.
It felt like the crew had won a twisted lottery for thrill-seeking suicides: within moments, the *Visor-12* found itself at the heart of a raging tempest.
Controlling the craft in such conditions with just one engine was impossible, and the pilot could only surrender to the elements. Turbulent winds battered the hull with savage force, shaking the ship violently. Depre’s storms, much like the planet itself, were boundless in their ferocity. The hull groaned as if under a steamroller, while the craft performed wild acrobatics that would make a circus performer jealous.
And in the next instant, the fiery spear of the ship was wrenched from the belly of the clouds—spiraling downward in a frenzied dance, hurtling toward the surface.
The pilot had one last, nearly impossible chance. Yet he took it. In the split second when the ship’s underbelly aligned just right, he fired the inertial launcher at full thrust. The *Visor-12* shuddered and jerked, leveling out into a near-horizontal trajectory.
What followed was a mad dance. The craft wobbled erratically, tracing spiraling patterns through the air, until it crashed into the tops of hundred-meter-tall “cedars.” Like a samurai blade, it carved a kilometers-long path through untouched wilderness. The trees acted as a cushion, slowing the descent and allowing the ship to bounce several times across their canopies. Finally, the hull tilted to the right and slammed into the ground, striking with its last surviving impulse drive.
The engine was ripped off with a deafening roar. Along with fragments of the wings, it was flung deep into the forest, exploding in a shower of sparks that obliterated everything nearby, turning the woods into a field of devastation. The mangled remains of the *Visor-12*, driven by inertia, skidded another few hundred meters before coming to a stop in the middle of a small lake, unleashing a localized tsunami in its wake...
The loss of three out of four engines on the *Visor-12* was detected by a reconnaissance probe from the fast frigate *Cobra*, belonging to the Quadrostad Empire, also known as the Tetrarchy. The duty officer on the bridge, Lieutenant Karkuzak—a heavyset man with an unnaturally ruddy face that bore the marks of every human vice and twisted passion—didn’t rush to grant the ship’s AI direct access to the probe’s data. Instead, he input the information for operational forecasting, reviewed the machine’s report, and delivered a curt summary to the commander:
“Preliminary analysis: 99.973% probability they’re dead. Crash site undetermined—stratospheric fog obstructs visibility. Estimated search area: approximately 150,000 square kilometers.”
With a ceremonial dagger at his belt and clad in the stern gray uniform of a senior officer of the House Hijar space fleet under the Quadrostad Empire, the frigate’s commander, Captain Eshenhaya, reviewed the analytical data on his command monitor and merely nodded. His long, gaunt face—gray and emotionless as a tombstone—could rival any AI in cold pragmatism. He said nothing, only mentally concluding:
“Less than three-hundredths of a percent chance of survival. Better odds at winning in a casino.”
The frigate lacked the resources for a ground search operation. To comb an area of 150,000 square kilometers and pinpoint the crash site would require not just one ship, but hundreds of specialized search stations. Deploying such a fleet to a zone officially classified as uninhabited but under the control of the Stellar Confederation carried significant risks: mass hyperspace jumps would generate powerful energy signatures, easily detected by scanners in neighboring systems. Conducting such an operation discreetly was nearly impossible.
Landing on Depre, with its fivefold gravity, was never a simple proposition; lifting off from it demanded even greater resources. Eshenhaya had conducted similar operations on “unpleasant” planets before, but this one, with its untamed storms and other surprises, promised to outstrip all prior challenges.
A chill ran through him as he imagined piloting a ship through that savage chaos.
“It’d be a miracle if that shuttle survived.”
Descending for a surface check was as pointless as trying to bail out a sinking liner with a teaspoon after it struck an iceberg.
Of course, the dirty work on the planet would eventually fall to the Feichshvangs, but first, they’d have to patrol this desolate sector for at least ten days, then spend months in orbit, regularly delivering supplies while the ground team searched for wreckage.
Yet he knew the protocol for such situations well: “undertake all possible measures to locate and neutralize the target.” That meant one thing—a search operation was inevitable.
A wild sense of emptiness gripped the frigate’s captain, a feeling familiar to those trapped in a purposeless existence. The Empire hadn’t seen a real war in over fifty years. Once, the proud Hijar Space Fleet had reduced entire planetary armadas to cosmic dust for daring to challenge the Quadrostad. Now, those “heroic” days lived only in the raspy tales of old men, who, with crude noises and boasts, regaled their grandchildren with stories of “back in our day…” and in holographic documentaries.
One particular humiliation burned in his memory. It was the time he, with all the clumsiness of an officer detached from emotion, attempted to court a lady from House Herbert. She shattered his efforts with a few cutting words, calling him a “house cat” who’d never taste real space combat, adding that only her House performed truly valuable work.
Deep down, he knew there was truth in her words. It was entirely possible he’d never experience the sweet thrill of victory over a worthy foe. But pride wouldn’t let him admit it openly. So, he did what envious and narrow-minded people often do: he grew to despise all Herberts, and her most of all.
He fantasized about plunging his ceremonial dagger into her abdomen, watching as hallucinogenic poison slowly spread through her body. He imagined her eyes, wide with shock and pain, begging for mercy while he, cold and indifferent, savored the sight. Only fear held him back from this temptation. For one, he wasn’t certain the dagger wouldn’t end up in his own gut moments later—unlike the patriarchal Hijars, both men and women of House Herbert were trained from childhood in the art of covert assassination. Secondly, even if he succeeded, the punishment would be inescapable: such a murder would lead to his execution without hesitation.
And yet, that wasn’t the worst of it. Far more terrifying was the prospect of Herbert retribution. He’d seen firsthand what their secret service masters could do to a person: broken beings with eyes bulging from agony, begging for death.
Become one of them? Never. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
A feral anger flared in the captain’s eyes as he realized he’d have to report to command that he failed to destroy an unarmed shuttle. And now the Feichshvangs, whom he also despised, would be forced to launch a months-long search operation...
There was no doubt how Commodore Firjes would react.
“You’ve disgraced us, Captain Eshenhaya!”—a short, emotionless phrase laced with unspoken undertones of rage and disappointment.
But all of that paled in comparison to the humiliation of personally reporting this failure to a damned intelligence officer from House Herbert. He could almost see the contemptuous stare and hear the imagined, mocking jab at his incompetence.
“That won’t happen. To hell with that colonel!” he screamed internally.
Out loud, he issued an order—an order that would set off a cascade of events.
“Log it. Mission accomplished—targets eliminated.”
Then he turned his tombstone face to Karkuzak.
“Lieutenant! Dispatch a search team to the impact zone of the yacht. Pick up some debris. That damned Herbert will demand proof. Understood?”
After a brief pause, he added, enunciating each word:
“TARGETS ELIMINATED.”
Lieutenant Karkuzak didn’t respond verbally; he simply saluted and hurried to carry out the order. He understood perfectly but didn’t object, knowing how to manipulate the frigate’s AI to produce a 100% success result. All it took was inputting a few extra data points—like the loss of another engine—by tweaking the reconnaissance probe’s information.
And why would he contradict his captain? It was far more beneficial to curry favor. Like all members of House Hijar, he loathed the Herberts and despised ground operations even more... except, perhaps, the kind of “operations” that started with five or six mugs of shockbeer and ended in a familiar brothel with tireless, skilled android prostitutes.
Besides, there was a decent payoff to be had from this situation. Eshenhaya likely wouldn’t object to generous bonuses, extra leave days, and the chance to scavenge from the yacht’s wreckage. And if the opportunity arose, it’d be worth nudging the captain toward a potential promotion for him.
“Doesn’t Senior Lieutenant Karkuzak have a nice ring to it?”
In the hierarchy of House Hijar, his status was near the bottom, despite his officer rank. He wasn’t part of the noble elite, who stood apart from common folk (like himself) with their grave-like faces, shaped by ritual masses in the temples of Mirsa and irreversible chemical changes from the secret poison Shiha. To serve a mass in one of those temples, to earn his own ceremonial dagger and that same soulless visage—that was Karkuzak’s ultimate life goal.
But not everything at once. He’d taken only the first step toward his ambition, and while he wasn’t sure where the limits of Captain Eshenhaya’s gratitude lay, he had no doubt it would come.
Pilot Vihan stared into the green eyes of his partner, Kvilema, and wondered silently:
“Why isn’t she saying anything?”
Consciousness returned alongside pain. He sat strapped into the command chair by shock-absorbing belts—a backup safety system after the energy fields failed.
Everything hurt: his body, his head, his arms and legs, especially the left one. The elbow bone had pierced through the skin, jutting out as a grim reminder of the disaster. Through the fog in his mind, a memory surfaced—the impact against the control panel during the crash landing as the shuttle slammed into the surface.
He tried to breathe and felt a gurgling liquid and sharp pain in his chest. His lungs were punctured by broken ribs, and now his death seemed only a matter of time. The shuttle had no surgical equipment, just standard med kits, so his chances of survival were zero.
Still, one of those med kits was built into the chair. It gave him a shot at trying something. Vihan’s right hand, still intact, fumbled for a button under the seat. A metallic manipulator with a multi-tool probe extended from beneath the chair. It approached his mangled arm and gripped it in cold, mechanical clamps.
The analyzer hummed, and three needles jabbed into his arm, injecting a cocktail of stimulants, painkillers, and energy boosters into his bloodstream. His head cleared, and Vihan looked at Kvilema again.
Finally, he understood—she was dead.
Her head, unnaturally twisted toward him, told the story: a broken neck. A wave of bitter irritation washed over him. Suddenly, the voice of his long-dead mentor, a Dagbian named Shildo, echoed in his mind:
“We all fear death. But in our line of work, what we fear most is a meaningless death—one that doesn’t help complete the mission.”
Vihan was a top-tier spy for the Earth—or rather, Stellar—Coalition, just like his now-deceased partner Kvilema. And what enraged him most wasn’t his own predicament, but the fact that their mission remained... almost complete.
“Almost!!!” The word itself triggered spasms of helplessness. It declared one thing: you poured in titanic effort, but fell short—a single step from success.
“You were right, teacher. Is this it? A meaningless death?”
His mind buzzed with questions: What had gone wrong? Signs of betrayal were obvious now—there was no doubt about it. But all he could do was berate himself for not foreseeing this outcome and failing to deliver the objective directly to the secret service base.
According to the plan, the agents were to hand over evidence to a contact in the Kemal system. But instead of a Stellar Confederation ship, they encountered a Quadrostad frigate emerging from the shadow of Depre’s moon, opening fire without warning.
The enemy vessel unleashed a salvo of plasma cannons, launched several torpedoes, and reduced their mothership to charred debris. Then it gave chase to their shuttle, which carried the “objective” for delivery.
To evade direct fire, Vihan had to execute a daring maneuver and attempt an emergency landing at speeds far beyond safe limits. That’s what led them to their current state.
His teeth ground in anger as he recalled every detail:
“If it weren’t for that damned EMP torpedo paralyzing the systems, I would’ve handled the controls!”
But eventually, he stopped tormenting himself and sank into memories.
Up to this point, everything had been executed flawlessly. Two years ago, a “wealthy couple”—he and Kvilema—arrived on Settsu aboard a luxurious space yacht. Their mission was to identify and secure living proof of Quadrostad’s genetic military experiments on children—those plucked from slums, bought from pirates, or stolen by kidnappers.
Such a crime blatantly violated intergalactic laws and would inevitably cause an uproar: from economic sanctions to far graver consequences. Quadrostad wasn’t formally part of the Stellar Confederation but enjoyed the rights of a potential member and access to its markets. Even a severed trade agreement would deal a crippling blow to the economy of the Fifty-Two Planets of the Four Majesties.
Vihan clenched his teeth in fury—emotion threatened to overtake him again. Two years of grueling work, bribes, assassinations, and seductions of officials and intelligence officers—all for this goal.
He glanced once more into the lifeless eyes of his partner.
“I’m sorry, Kvilema…” he whispered, letting out a heavy sigh.
But the breath only brought a fresh wave of searing pain in his chest. That pain forced Vihan to think:
“What now?”
His right hand pressed a button on the command chair, and it glided closer to the control panel. The fingers of his uninjured hand slid across the sensors. Static crackled, and two of the three monitors flickered briefly before going dark. But the third—miraculously—came to life, displaying a series of dynamic alerts.
From the speakers, a cold yet clear synthetic female contralto rang out—the voice of the shuttle’s onboard AI:
“What are your orders?”
Licking his dry lips and tasting the metallic tang of dried blood, Vihan focused and barely managed to rasp out:
“Damage assessment, external temperature, and operational protocols.”
The artificial intelligence was merely a program, capable of migrating between the mothership and the shuttle as needed. After the destruction of the mothership, the program had activated here and was once again ready to serve.
“Engine system damage: 100%. Partial depressurization in the airlock compartment. Stabilizer damage: 80%. Hull damage: unknown.”
The shuttle’s onboard computer lacked the politeness or adaptability of systems found on luxury cruise liners. In a survival situation, that was the least of concerns. Its flat, emotionless voice resembled an endless drone that could drive anyone with weaker nerves to a seizure. But not a galactic-scale special agent.
“Hyperlink communication: unavailable. External temperature: 28 degrees Celsius. Atmosphere: unsuitable for human respiration. Operational protocols: Power supply at 65%, temperature control at 85%, air regeneration system at 72%, internal communication system at 32% (capable of connecting within a 20-million-mile radius from the planet), artificial gravity at 63%, repair operations at 33% (2 robots operational), cryochamber at 100%.”
“The cryochamber is intact!!!” Vihan felt a surge of joy so intense he could’ve kissed the control panel.
“What’s the status of the objective?” he croaked.
“Vital signs stable, pulse normal, no detected injuries.”
“How long will the power supply last for air regeneration, maintaining 50% gravity in the airlock, control room, and onboard computer operation for one person?”
It took the computer only a few seconds to respond:
“Excluding repair operations, power supply estimated at 82 days. With potential repairs to power supply and air regeneration systems, an additional 10 days.”
“Status of food capsules, water filtration systems, weapons, clothing, medical supplies, and survival gear?”
“Food capsules for one adult weighing up to 80 kilograms: sufficient for 849 days. Water filtration kits: sufficient for 8,356 days. Ranged weaponry: three beam rifles, one sniper sabotage rifle, two beam pistols, three RPGs. Beam weapons equipped with energy charges for approximately 5,000 standard shots. RPG arsenal includes fifteen surface-to-air missiles, seven surface-to-surface missiles, and five EMP destructors. Potential weaponry: six plasma repair cutters. Clothing: three space suits with full thermal control and a 3-day air supply, two ground-based tactical spy combat suits, six sets of summer and winter clothing and footwear for conditions down to minus 50 degrees Celsius. Additional gear: one camouflage tent for three people with a heater, three winter sleeping bags, three sabotage kits, one vibro-machete for jungle terrain, tactical goggles, electronic binoculars, an inflatable boat with a unified impulse engine, four life vests, a rocket pack, climbing equipment…”
The AI could have likely continued listing items for ages, but the agent interrupted with a hoarse voice:
“Enough.”
A swarm of thoughts buzzed in Vihan’s head. His life hung on the edge of a precipice, forcing him to make decisions quickly:
“Deploy repair robots to restore pressurization. Wake the objective! Activate encrypted communication protocol. Repair air regeneration and power systems. Enable survival protocol for the objective. Initiate full training protocol for a recruit agent, progressing to special agent status. Activate self-improvement protocol for the onboard computer. In case of Omega situation, activate Protocol Q7. The objective’s name is Erik. Address him by name. And one more thing…” Vihan paused for a moment before adding, “From now on, his last name is Folbound. I know you’re recording video. Show him this footage from start to finish. I think he’ll understand it better than any words. Activate identification protocol for junior agents. I, Special Agent Vihan Folbound, have recruited trainee agent Erik Folbound on this day, January 24, 3208, Earth calendar, on the planet Depre in the Kemal system. After completing the full training course, I transfer all data packages related to Special Operation ODRA to him. Now, I’m speaking to you, Erik. Above all—survive.”
Vihan Folbound had no children, but he thought: under different circumstances, he could have been a father to this boy.
Under normal conditions, the odds of surviving on this planet were slim even for an adult—let alone a twelve-year-old boy. But Erik had grown up in the slums, and hardship had been his companion since birth. Moreover, he hailed from a planet with gravity 2.5 times stronger than Earth’s, so Depre’s crushing forces didn’t seem extraordinary to him. On top of that, he had undergone genetic modifications: enhanced reflexes, accelerated muscle growth, and a heightened pain threshold.
All these advantages could have been decisive in any other situation. But here, they were negated by one merciless factor: the surrounding atmosphere contained only 7% oxygen—three times less than the minimum required for human survival. Vihan harbored no illusions: Erik wouldn’t grow lungs like the local fauna. The only chance lay in the encrypted communication protocol and an allied ship within twenty million miles of the planet, expected to arrive no later than three months from now. A faint hope—but it was all he could offer.
Above the command deck of the *Visor-12*, a technical hatch opened, and two rocket drones shot out. One ascended to Depre’s orbit on a hyperbolic trajectory at breakneck speed; the other flew to the opposite side of the planet. Within hours, the first reached its target and activated radars, monitoring a radius of twenty million miles. The second landed in the highlands and activated a beacon with an encrypted signal, detectable only by the military space fleet systems of the Stellar Confederation. This beacon marked the start of a new countdown—for the life or death of Erik Folbound, trainee agent of the Stellar Confederation, native of the planet Shinga in the Siguyra system, under the Quadrostad Empire.
As life began to slip away from the special agent, his final words were:
“Good luck, son. You’re on your own now.”
He didn’t know what would happen next. The odds of survival seemed negligible, but he couldn’t deny Erik even this tiny chance. And yet, luck—or perhaps just a fortunate coincidence—was closer than he could have imagined…
--
Though intergalactic records classified the planet as uninhabited by intelligent beings, that wasn’t entirely true. The only intelligent, albeit nearly imperceptible, organism on Depre was the syshang.
Syshangs were neuro-symbiotes, a parasitic species of slug-like creatures that typically settled near the head of a host body. They could move independently, but only for very short periods. Perhaps that’s why intergalactic researchers remained unaware of their existence. For a full life, they desperately needed a host—warm-blooded and with highly developed brain activity.
Until recently, one syshang had such a host. It was a powerful male ustaku—a name given by smugglers who occasionally landed on the planet and shot these creatures when they ventured too close to landing sites and stumbled into electric traps.
The ustaku was a local equivalent of a tiger or lion, but the size of a rhinoceros: it stood on six sturdy legs, boasted fifteen-centimeter claws, a hundred sharp teeth, and two nearly half-meter-long fangs. Even without assistance, it struck terror into most of the local fauna. With a syshang inside, it became an extraordinarily effective hunter with a near-perfect success rate in tracking prey and an equally formidable leader in competing for mates among its kind.
Syshangs didn’t control their warm-blooded hosts directly, but over long epochs of evolution, they had learned to influence them by triggering primal urges: hunger, thirst, sexual desire, fear, hunting instinct, and sometimes even pain.
The symbiote had a vested interest in the long and active life of its host, so it aided survival with its entire being. The syshang’s body was saturated with hormones, acids, and substances unknown to science. Some of these compounds it produced itself; others were generated directly within the host’s body.
Together, this cocktail acted as a universal protective and stimulating mechanism: it shielded the host from diseases and infections, accelerated recovery from injuries, heightened all senses, could speed up or slow down metabolism as needed, and functioned as a powerful stimulant—without harming the host.
Thus, hosts of syshangs always stood out among their peers: they were stronger, faster, more agile, more efficient in action, and lived significantly longer.
However, when a fiery shuttle appeared in the sky, streaking over the ustaku in a fraction of a second before crashing into the lake’s shore with a thunderous roar, neither reaction speed, strength, nor the syshang’s assistance could save it. A severed head left no chance for survival.
The shockwave from the inertial engine’s explosion lifted the predator’s body dozens of meters into the air before slamming it against a rock with incredible force. The sharp edge of the stone acted like a guillotine.
For the symbiote, the trauma itself wasn’t fatal—its body remained nearly unscathed. But the pain from the sudden severance of neural connections with the host’s brain was so excruciating, it felt as if the ustaku’s death had happened to the syshang itself.
The syshang already knew what a spacecraft was. Over its three hundred local years of life (roughly five hundred Earth years), it had seen them a few times—mostly smugglers who arrived and departed within hours, at most lingering for a day.
Past encounters had taught it danger: a bright flash of light from strange sticks in the hands of the newcomers had once killed the mate of its previous host. Since then, the symbiote always tried to keep its hosts as far as possible from these beings.
Among its kind, syshangs referred to them as “korbo.” Though the term was arbitrary—since they lacked mouths and communicated via bio-impulses akin to radio signals. These could only be emitted outside a host’s body or during close contact between hosts.
But this time, the essence remained unchanged—the “korbo” spacecraft had taken its host. And not just by landing on some distant plain, but by literally crashing down on top of it.
A wild despair gripped the symbiote. For a while, it remained utterly disoriented and devastated. Only when its head-body gradually regained awareness did it realize: it needed a new host. Immediately.
Over its long life, it had changed dozens of hosts—most died of natural causes. Only once before had it experienced the sudden death of a host. But this current experience was incomparably more painful and shocking.
The syshang crawled out of the remains of the body through the severed neck and opened its sensors.
Externally, symbiotes resembled a clump of pinkish-red, semi-transparent gelatinous mass, a few millimeters thick and about seven centimeters in diameter. Above this round, slimy creature rose thin, thread-like tendrils up to ten centimeters long. They quivered as if stirred by an invisible breeze, reacting to the slightest disturbances around them. These sensitive sensors detected the brainwave biofields of living beings.
And it was these sensors that “informed” it that the nearest suitable warm-blooded creatures were several kilometers away. Evidently, the crash of the korbo ship would scare off the already scarce warm-blooded fauna on Depre for a long time. Such a distance was utterly unreachable for the tiny slug.
The syshang directed its sensors toward the water—and in that instant, its slimy, snot-like body shuddered as if seared on a hot skillet. Right nearby pulsed the strongest brain biofield it had ever sensed. It emanated from the massive object that had fallen from the sky and taken its host.
Never before had symbiotes perceived human biofields through their sensors: humans were too rare on this planet, and during such visits, syshangs were always inside hosts—blocking that aspect of their perception.
Two overpowering fears clashed within it: fear of the unknown and fear of inevitable death. In the end, the latter prevailed. The slug decided to find out who bore such a powerful field.
But even reaching this object posed a challenge: it lay in the water, 250 meters from the shore. Symbiotes could swim, but extremely slowly. So this time, it acted decisively. Barely entering the water, the syshang detected the biofield of a small fish with its sensor and targeted it.
The fish drifted lethargically in the shallows, likely stunned by the sonic boom of the shuttle’s crash. It suspected nothing as a reddish speck stealthily approached. Part of the syshang’s body extended into thin tendrils, slipping through the gills, entering the bloodstream, and reaching the brain.
Instantly, revulsion overwhelmed the symbiote: the fish’s brain activity was so negligible compared to its previous host that an almost irresistible urge to abandon this body surged within. But there was no time. So it acted crudely: with a sharp jolt of pain, it forced the fish to swim toward the shuttle.
The shuttle’s metal hull rested on its “belly,” submerged nearly halfway in the lake water, tilted slightly nose-down. The upper airlock—on the top right side—remained above water and was the only dry entry to the vessel. It was there that the syshang’s sensors detected faint impulses of warm-blooded life.
Releasing the exhausted fish, the symbiote latched onto the cold, hard alloy hull and began stubbornly crawling up the slanted surface. The crash had knocked the shuttle in such a way that access to the airlock was exposed—one of the outer panels was jammed half-open, failing to seal completely. The repair robots hadn’t yet fixed it.
The syshang slipped through the narrow gap between the panels—from there, a faint hissing breath of air escaped, confirming incomplete pressurization post-crash. The inner airlock doors were also damaged and didn’t close fully, stuck in an emergency position, allowing the tiny body to slither further inside.
Once inside, it froze on the smooth metal floor of the airlock corridor. Compared to the wilds of Depre, this illuminated steel cavity felt like a safe cave. Within minutes, the symbiote adapted to the alien atmosphere, sealing most of its pores, and only then redeployed its sensors, beginning to scan the ship’s interior for a new host.
To the left, in an adjacent chamber, it sensed fresh death.
Vihan’s brain activity had already ceased, but even its faint remnants were picked up by the symbiote’s sensitive tendrils.
But the target lay ahead—beyond a closed partition straight down the corridor. And so, the syshang set a personal, unprecedented speed record among its kind: one meter in thirty seconds. This “incredible” speed was aided by the reduced artificial gravity, the perfectly smooth floor, and the slight tilt caused by the shuttle’s nose dipping into the water after the crash.
The symbiote cared little for such details. It only knew: it had to hurry. Otherwise, its body would dry out, or worse, its brain neurons would begin to degrade. So it crawled relentlessly, without stopping.
A few meters from its goal, a panel in the wall slid open, and two robots emerged. They moved on four spider-like legs, clattering metal against the floor as they headed toward the airlock chamber.
The syshang froze in astonishment. They moved, yet had no brain activity whatsoever. Instead, its sensors detected strange electromagnetic impulses within these beings, but they clearly didn’t belong to a living organism.
Even this marvel couldn’t distract it from its primary objective.
Reaching the entrance to the cryochamber, the syshang encountered a serious problem:
“How do I get inside?”
The hermetically sealed passage had no cracks or gaps. The symbiote crawled along the perimeter, probing every centimeter, but to no avail. Nearly half an hour passed. A wild despair gripped it—time was slipping away, its body weakening, and it began to regret abandoning the fish: at least with it, it could have lasted a day before brain degradation set in. Perhaps in that time, a better host might have appeared.
But suddenly, the cryochamber’s entrance panels slid open smoothly.
“Perfect!”—if the syshang had a mouth, it would have shouted with joy.
It had no idea that the robots had patched the gap in the airlock chamber, triggering the “AWAKEN OBJECTIVE” protocol. But it didn’t care. Only one thing mattered—the target was right there. It crawled toward it at a speed unprecedented for itself.
The metal cocoon holding Erik slid out from the wall and hissed open, releasing a puff of sleep gas. The boy remained unconscious (full awakening would take at least three to four hours). And that was enough for the symbiote. It slithered onto his face and entered through his nose.
The syshang’s body began to elongate and thin until it became an almost invisible thread, a hundredth of a micron thick. Slipping through nasal capillaries into the bloodstream, it reached the carotid artery and soon attached itself to the cervical vertebrae. This was a favorite spot for syshangs: it allowed the most effective interaction with the host’s brain and body.
Its ultra-fine sensor-tendrils spread across all regions of the boy’s brain. And when they simultaneously connected with both hemispheres, the symbiote was overwhelmed by an explosion—a neural orgasm mixed with euphoria from the new, unfamiliar organic compounds.
“Oh, marvel… this is simply extraordinary. What incredible brain activity,” it thought.
Without even realizing it, the syshang felt something akin to falling in love with its new host and vowed to protect him unconditionally. Compared to this boy, any other warm-blooded creature on Depre would seem like a pitiful fish.
At that moment, one of its sensors stumbled upon a strange object in the occipital region of Erik’s head. It was clearly foreign. The syshang cautiously began to investigate. It turned out to be a metal sphere, about a centimeter in diameter. It emitted the same impulses as the metal beings encountered near the airlock. Moreover, a sensor extended from the sphere directly to the left cerebral cortex.
Though korbo technology was alien to it, intuition screamed danger. The syshang triggered the release of acid from one of its tendrils and severed the connection. Then it turned to the object itself. Using a set of enzymes and a focused ring of its own tissue, it initiated accelerated bone tissue regeneration in the occipital area.
Fifteen minutes passed, and a bony growth formed around the metal sphere. The syshang infused it with fragments of its own tissue to block the signals that had suddenly begun emanating from the foreign object—likely triggered by the severed connection to the brain cortex. Only when these impulses ceased did it finally relax.
For now, the symbiote was satisfied with its work: the unknown threat had been neutralized. It could now continue exploring the body of its new host.
Physically, of course, this boy was far from comparable to an ustaku. At first glance, the situation seemed hopeless. Simulating various scenarios in its body-brain, the syshang couldn’t fathom how this creature—without fangs, without claws, and fifty times lighter than the predator—could stand against it in an open confrontation. The muscle tone worried it: by Depre’s standards, it was clearly insufficient. The bones, joints, and tendons appeared even more fragile—a fall from even a modest height could result in fractures or sprains.
So, as a first step, the symbiote initiated a long-term enzymatic cycle: strengthening the skeleton while partially reducing its weight. Next, it analyzed the muscle structure and realized it was dealing with an undeveloped organism—a young individual with room to grow. Thus, enhancing muscle tone would be easier than it would be for an adult.
However, during its simulation of developmental prospects, the syshang sensed something peculiar: the muscle and bone structures seemed to have been altered before. It was as if another, less experienced syshang had already worked on the boy.
Could the korbo have their own syshangs? The troubling thought flickered through its mind.
And if so… why did they abandon him?
There was no answer, so it dismissed the futile speculation and focused on analysis. Indeed, an enzyme was active in the boy’s body, accelerating reaction times and promoting muscle tissue growth. It was produced by a small growth near the thyroid gland. Again, there was a sense of foreign intervention, the “hand” of a syshang. But this didn’t fit within any familiar framework. Syshangs never left such traces when abandoning a host. And “abandonment” itself was rare for them—typically, they remained in a warm-blooded host until its death.
Without altering the growth itself, the symbiote merely enhanced its function: increasing the enzyme dosage and adding a few new elements. After a thorough examination, it began to appreciate this organism. Of course, in terms of raw strength, even with all the enhancements, it couldn’t come close to an ustaku. But in agility and reaction speed—considering the more developed brain and the potential for specialized training—it had every chance to surpass one. Thus, the prospect of survival no longer seemed as hopeless as it had initially.
Moreover, the syshang had an idea it hoped to realize over time. But first, it needed to adapt to this organism and test it in action. And for that, the “korbo” had to wake up, it thought, relaxing as it savored the neural signals of its new host’s brain.
Syshangs never revealed themselves to their hosts, nor had they ever settled in intelligent beings before. So now, it wasn’t yet sure how to proceed. At this stage, there was only one thing to do—study the “korbo” much more thoroughly…