Orlen Vance

Log Entry: 3162.10.27 Situation Summary: Deck 2—Armory and Security Hub. Structural integrity at 68%. Remaining life signs detected: 1 (Orlen Vance). Weapon systems offline. Motion sensors indicate movement near restricted cargo bay—no registered crew signatures. --- Chapter VII — Master-at-Arms Orlen Vance The hum of backup generators filled the silence, steady and unnatural. Orlen Vance sat at the central console of the armory, helmet discarded beside a rack of rifles. His reflection stared back from the cracked visor—haunted eyes framed by exhaustion and the faint tremor of sleepless hands. He’d already run three full diagnostics. The ship’s automated defenses weren’t just down—they’d been shut off manually. And not by him. “Impossible,” he muttered, jaw tightening. “Only command has that access.” He glanced toward the security feed. Every camera past Cargo Bay Theta was static, flickering with intermittent light—shapes moving where there shouldn’t be any. The Hive had no presence here. Not yet. They were hundreds of light years from the front. Weren’t they? The sound came again—soft, deliberate. A scrape along metal. Then another. Orlen drew his sidearm. His training kicked in like muscle memory, his breathing slowing. He advanced toward the main hatch, flashlight cutting through shadows. A steady drip echoed from the ceiling—coolant, he told himself. Just coolant. Then he saw it. Something pressed against the other side of the blast door—something vaguely humanoid, but too broad, its silhouette uneven, trembling as though it couldn’t decide on a shape. His finger hovered on the trigger. The thing stopped moving. Then, in a voice distorted by static and wet with something human, it whispered— “...Commander?” Orlen froze. Only one person ever called him that. And she’d died last year—during the Hive incursion on Theraxis IV.