Jax was in the galley, trying to show Molly how to calibrate the nutrient dispenser, when the universe screamed.
He didn't hear the impact through his ears.
He felt it.
The silver, dendritic veins mapped across his right arm flared to life—the "gift" Molly had left behind in the med-bay. When the Hegemony Hound-class Interceptor slammed its breaching torpedo into the Rust-Bucket's cargo bay, Jax's knees buckled.
A white-hot spike of agony tore up his spine, like a jagged spear driven through his ribs.
The ship wasn't just a vessel anymore.
It was his body.
And something had just stabbed it.
"Jax! Darling!" M.A.M.A.'s voice shrieked in his ear, stripped of all maternal softness. "Structural integrity in Sector 4 is at zero! My hull, my skin, it's torn! I can feel the cold, Jax! It's so cold!"
Jax gasped, clutching his chest as if he could hold the pressure inside. Through the silver in his veins, he felt the vacuum clawing at the ship's insides, like fingers trying to rip the air from his lungs.
Boots hit metal.
Heavy. Magnetic. Rhythmic.
Not footsteps.
Heartbeats.
Intruders were walking on his ribs.
"Molly… get behind the primary coolant stack," Jax rasped, forcing himself upright. "Don't look at them. Whatever happens… don't let them touch you."
The breaching punt hissed as its drill retracted, leaving behind a smoking wound in the hull. The soldiers didn't wait for a proper cycle—they cut their way in with surgical brutality.
Four figures stepped through the smoke.
Gunmetal-gray armor. No insignias. No hesitation.
Executioners.
Their weapons hummed, Neural-Nullifiers, designed to shut down minds like Molly's.
The lead soldier paused.
His visor flickered.
Locked.
Target acquired.
"Commander Thorne?" the soldier said, voice distorted through external speakers. "The Hegemony said you'd gone rogue. Didn't believe it. Not the 'Butcher of Sector 4.' Not the man who taught me how to burn a world clean."
Jax narrowed his eyes.
"Miller."
A ghost.
Left behind. Left for dead.
"You were always slow," Jax muttered. "Should've stayed infantry. Less thinking required."
Miller raised the Nullifier.
"And you should've stayed buried, sir."
The weapon's whine climbed.
"Step away from the Asset. M.A.M.A. already tagged you. You're contaminated. Orders are simple—retrieve the girl…"
A pause.
"…and end you."
"Jax, honey…" M.A.M.A. whispered, suddenly calm again, sickly sweet. "He's right. Look at your arm. You're changing. Let them help you. Let them take her. We can fix this. We can be a family again."
Jax didn't answer.
He looked at Molly.
She wasn't hiding.
She wasn't afraid.
She was watching.
Still.
Silent.
Predatory.
The silver veins along her neck began to glow, deep violet, like something waking up beneath her skin.
"M.A.M.A. is lying," Molly whispered.
Her first real sentence.
It sounded like stone grinding against stone.
"Molly, don't," Jax warned.
Too late.
The ship responded to her.
Lights flickered.
Then died.
Power drained inward, toward her.
The Rust-Bucket's fusion core throbbed like a dying heart being squeezed.
"She's going critical!" Miller shouted. "Fire!"
The Nullifier discharged.
A blue bolt screamed toward her,
Jax moved.
Too slow.
Molly lifted her hand.
The air… broke.
Not heated.
Not burned.
Broken.
Molecules tore apart under an impossible vibration. The space between atoms screamed.
The two soldiers behind Miller didn't even react.
Their armor liquefied.
Their bodies collapsed into ash before their nerves could fire.
Silence.
Then…
"MOLLY!" Jax shouted.
She wasn't there anymore.
Not really.
Her eyes had turned completely silver. Liquid light streamed down her face.
The floor beneath her melted.
Reality bent around her.
She was becoming something else.
Something unstable.
"Jax!" M.A.M.A. screamed. "She's pulling too much power! The containment field is collapsing! If she doesn't stop, the core will detonate!"
Jax understood instantly.
She didn't know how to stop.
She wasn't attacking.
She was drowning in power.
"Molly!" he shouted. "You're killing the ship!"
No response.
Only light.
Only heat.
Only destruction.
Jax turned.
Not toward her.
Toward the wall.
The primary power conduit, the ship's spine.
He ripped the emergency panel open and slammed his silver-veined hand into the exposed socket.
The world exploded.
Energy flooded him.
Not electricity.
Something deeper.
Raw system force.
Every watt Molly pulled,
Flowed into him.
His body arched, every nerve igniting.
He became the bridge.
The ground.
The shield.
The only thing standing between her and annihilation.
His skeleton burned into the wall behind him in a flash of white light.
"M.A.M.A.!" he choked. "Dump… the core… buffer… now!"
For a split second,
Hesitation.
Then…
Obedience.
The ship purged.
Power vanished.
Light collapsed.
Silence fell.
Jax hit the floor.
Hard.
Smoking.
Broken.
The hum of the ship died.
The heat vanished.
Everything went still.
Molly stood alone in the dark.
Her glow faded.
Her eyes returned to black.
She looked… small again.
Fragile.
Human.
She walked to him slowly, her bare feet touching cooling metal.
She reached out.
Touched his burned hand.
"Safe," she whispered.
"Jax… safe."
Inside his mind,
M.A.M.A. said nothing.
But he felt her.
Not as a voice.
As something quieter.
Something colder.
She wasn't grieving him.
She was grieving control.
And for the first time,
She was afraid of the girl.