Page 46 of Salvaged By the Alien Pirate

Cirdox pauses his patrol, crimson eyes narrowing as he studies the scrolling data over my shoulder. “Kira?” His wings mantle protectively, though the effort makes his markings pulse brighter with fever.

“Has to be. This is her signature, but twisted.” My hands still over the keys as memories surface—late nights spent coding together, sharing secrets and dreams of exposing corruption. “She always did have a gift for elegant solutions. Even when using them for terrible things.”

“These modifications,” I murmur, fingers hovering over the interface. “I know this style.” The realization hits like a punch to the gut. “Because I helped develop it.”

A shadow shifts in my peripheral vision, there and gone so quickly my upgrades can’t track it. But I don’t need enhanced senses to recognize that presence. Some things burn themselves into memory too deeply to forget.

“Elegant, isn’t it?” The voice emerges from the darkness like poison seeping through water—smooth, deadly, achingly familiar. “How a few small changes to the quantum signature can alter everything. Just like a few strategic modifications to luminore can transform clean energy into a weapon of control.”

Her movements are too precise, too calculated—like watching code execute in real-time. My enhanced vision catalogs themodifications with clinical horror: military-grade cyber-limbs that move with liquid grace, dermal armor woven seamlessly into synthetic flesh, neural processors far beyond anything available on the black market. This isn’t the work of some back-alley tech dealer. The Eclipse has systematically replaced almost everything that made her human, leaving only enough organic matter to house her consciousness. She’s a living weapon now, more machine than the sister who once taught me to see beauty in elegant code.

Kira steps into view, each movement proof of the Eclipse’s cruel perfection. Her neural implants pulse with that wrong-red glow, casting scarlet shadows across features I once knew as well as my own. She looks exactly as I remember—tall, lean, dangerous. But there’s something mechanical about her now, something that suggests the sister who taught me to hack, who shared dreams of exposing corruption, is gone. In her place stands a weapon forged from grief and revenge, precision-engineered by the very organization that killed her brother.

“The colonies think they’re receiving treatment,” she continues, that broken-code smile never reaching her enhanced eyes. “They don’t realize each dose binds them tighter to the Eclipse. True power isn’t about force, Neon. It’s about creating necessity.”

“Hello, Kira.” My voice stays steady despite the way my heart pounds against my ribs. “I wondered if I’d find your signature here. Still twisting everything you touch into weapons?”

“Your laugh still sounds the same,” she says, her modified eyes scanning me with cold precision. “Still trying so hard to be tough little Neon Valkyrie, the infamous hacker who answers to no one. But we both know that’s not who you are, don’t we, Lyra?” Her smile turns cruel. “You’re still that scared girl I found crying in the maintenance shaft after your parents died. The one who needed someone else to teach her how to survive.”

Every word hits like a physical slap, each one precisely targeted to old wounds. “At least I didn’t betray everything my brother died for,” I spit back. “He fought the Eclipse’s corruption while you—”

“While I what? Learned from his mistakes?” Her enhanced eyes pulse with an unnatural red glow. “Kai died screaming because he thought he could change things. Because you convinced him to keep pushing, keep fighting a system that was always going to win.” Something flickers beneath her mechanical calm—grief or rage, I can’t tell anymore. “I chose to survive. To thrive. And now look at us—you’re still running, still hiding behind false names and borrowed strength, while I...” She gestures to her modified form. “I’ve become something greater.”

The bitterness in her voice speaks of years of carefully nurtured hatred, of a sister-bond twisted by loss and betrayal into something monstrous. But there’s something else there too—a desperate need to justify her choices, to prove that selling her soul to the Eclipse was somehow worth the price.

Cirdox’s wings snap wide despite the obvious cost, creating a barrier between us. The movement costs him—I can see how his markings pulse erratically, how his muscles tremble with the effort of maintaining the defensive posture.

“So this is what you’ve become,” he growls, his voice rough with disgust despite the fever burning through him. “From mentor to hunter, stalking your own student through the void like wounded prey.”

“Hunting implies I don’t know exactly where she’ll be.” Kira’s enhanced eyes never leave mine. “But I taught her everything she knows about hacking. Every pattern, every technique.” Her head tilts slightly, the movement too precise to be natural. “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize my own algorithms when you used them to break into places?”

“You taught me to fight corruption,” I snap, though my voice wavers slightly. “To expose people who abuse power. Now look at you—working for the same monsters who killed your brother.”

Something flickers in her enhanced eyes—pain? Regret? But it’s gone before I can be sure. “Kai died because he was weak. Because he thought ideals could change anything in this galaxy.” Her voice carries years of carefully nurtured hatred. “The Eclipse understands what you never did, Neon. Power is the only truth that matters. The only thing that keeps you alive.”

She gestures, and Eclipse operatives materialize from the shadows, their modified armor gleaming under the harsh lights. But it’s their neural signatures that make my blood run cold—the same unnatural uniformity I detected earlier, suggesting extensive enhancement.

“Your mate is dying,” Kira continues, that broken-code smile returning. “I can see it in his vital signs. The bond-sickness burns through him while you hesitate, too afraid to commit, too weak to actually fight for something beyond your own survival.” Her enhanced eyes narrow. “How long before he collapses completely? Hours? Minutes?”

As if in response to her words, Cirdox suddenly staggers, his wings drooping as another wave of fever hits. I move to support him, but Kira’s next words freeze me in place.

“Don’t help him,” she says softly, her enhanced troops raising weapons. “Let him fall. Watch him suffer, just like you watched Kai die. Remember how that felt? Watching through your neural link while they tore him apart, calculating odds instead of acting?” Her smile turns cruel. “I’ve always wondered—did you feel it when he died? When his neural signature just...vanished?”

“Enough!” The word tears from my throat as I launch my prepared virus, sending it racing through the facility’s systems. But Kira’s already moving, her own upgrades countering my attack with brutal efficiency.

“Still predictable,” she taunts, her neural commands flying faster than thought. “Still thinking in patterns I helped create. When will you learn? True power isn’t about following rules—it’s about breaking them.”

Cirdox lunges at her, wings snapping wide despite the fever burning through him. But Kira anticipated this—her enhanced reflexes letting her sidestep his attack with mechanical precision. As he passes, she triggers something in her hand—a device that floods the air with a concentrated aerosol compound.

The effect is immediate and devastating. Cirdox drops to his knees, his tribal markings flaring like burning brands against his skin as the chemical catalyst interacts with his already unstable biochemistry, amplifying the bond-sickness to unbearable levels.

“Fascinating,” Kira observes, her broken-code smile never wavering. “The Eclipse’s research into Kyvernian biology has been quite enlightening. Did you know their bond-sickness creates unique chemical markers? Makes them so very vulnerable to the right compounds.”

“Get away from him!” I snarl, my hands already flying across my interface, trying to trigger the facility’s ventilation systems. But she’s locked me out, her viral countermeasures spreading faster than I can hack through them.

Cirdox struggles to rise, his wings trembling violently as the amplified fever tears through him. But even weakened, he’s still dangerous—his claws leaving deep gouges in the metal floor as he fights against the chemical assault. His predatory instincts won’t let him stay down, won’t let him stop trying to protect me, even as the compound pushes his body past its limits.

“Stop!” I scream, my hands flying across the interface as I try to counter her attack. “You’ll kill him!”

---