Reborn as a Spaceship

PoV: Jack (same time as raid from Chapter 110)

I leaned back against the cold bulkhead, letting the vibration of the ship's engines reverberate through my spine. The headaches were a constant now, a gnawing pressure behind my eyes that even the best painkillers couldn't dull. Ellie's presence beside me helped to relieve some of the pain. She'd taken to following me everywhere lately, her concern palpable.

"You should rest," she said, her voice tinged with worry I'd come to appreciate. "The headaches are getting worse. You can't keep using the artifact like this. You need to give your brain time to recover."

I managed a tight-lipped smile, gripping the small pendant around my neck. Its presence was a comforting reminder of the futures I still needed to weave into place. "Can't afford to rest, Ellie. Not now. Not with so much on the line."

She came over and sat down next to me, staring deep into my eyes. "I know why you do this," she whispered, "but I still wish you wouldn't."

I chuckled, a dry, bitter sound. "I've got to stay ahead. The other side has a seer too, remember? We're both playing the same game, trying to rewrite the timelines. I just have to be better at it."

The headaches weren't just from the artifact. It was the constant strain of checking and rechecking timelines, adjusting for the smallest changes, like a chess player contemplating a hundred boards at once. I had to see their moves before they made them. I had to anticipate the ripples of every decision. And if I didn't... well, I'd seen what happened if I failed.

I'd seen T'lish die. Seen her sons cut down beside her. Seen the betrayal of Lynn, her cold, calculating smile as she took everything from Lazarus. I'd seen the darkness that path led Lazarus down with the rage, the vengeance. A path I couldn't let come to pass. The Kall-e's planned raid had only been thwarted earlier through the nearly complete exhaustion of my network of contacts and considerable persuasive efforts.

It was worth it, though, because I'd also seen the other future. The one where we were free. Where we became something more. Where we grew into the Old Ones ourselves, not their slaves. It had been my first true glimpse of hope, the first time I had touched the key artifact, and it had burned itself into my mind like the first rays of sunlight breaking through a storm. I'd been chasing that future ever since.

They trained us young, the government. Those of us who survived the first awakening of the artifacts were taken from our families, molded into tools—seers, spies, corporate infiltrators. They made us see the threads of possibility, the subtle branches of fate, and then they bound us to their will, turning our visions into weapons. They taught us to sift through the chaos of potential, to find the paths that led to profit, control, and dominance. We became the quiet hands behind corporate thrones, the unseen whispers in the ears of power.

I played the part for years, whispering into the ear of Mousecorp's CEO, nudging stock prices and breaking the backs of smaller corporations before they could rise to challenge the established order. I was the ghost in their systems, the shadow pulling strings from the dark. But all the while, I was weaving my own web, bending the threads toward this moment, this convergence. Everything I had done, every betrayal and carefully whispered suggestion, had been to lead me here. Today, I had finally become my own man.

And now, I had Lazarus on my side. It hadn't even been hard to convince him. He was already half a rebel, half a ghost, driven by a desire for something greater. He believed in the plan, believed in the fight. He had the right blend of anger, cunning, and raw determination to be the weapon I needed. I just had to guide him and make sure he stayed on the right path.

Now, I just needed to ensure the timelines held. The currents of fate were tricky, slippery things, more art than science. We dimensionally shifted in and started the raid. The sky beyond the Arbiter wasn't as empty as I'd hoped and it also didn't have any Todd-class ships in the blockade. The other seer was good. He'd taken the first step at blocking us.

I'd seen futures where those monstrous warships turned, where Lazarus found a way to crack their loyalty, where they switched sides in a heartbeat and tore the enemy to pieces. I'd hoped for that. In every future where those ships joined us, our path grew broader, our chances brighter.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But not today. Today, the path was narrow, and every step mattered. Yet it was still a path to victory

Ellie glanced at me again, leaning closer. "Jack, we're approaching the target. Laia's making final adjustments to the shield. We'll breach in two minutes." It hadn't taken her long to get used to controlling our ship, Project Nightfall.

I straightened, shaking off the haze that clung to my mind. "Good. Let's get moving."

Laia's voice crackled over the internal comms, a mix of organic and synthetic tones reflecting her new form. "We're coming up on the facility. Defensive grids are online, but I can neutralize the local network for approximately seventy-eight seconds before they reboot. It'll be enough to get us in, but we'll have to be fast."

I glanced at Ellie. "Stay with the ship. Keep it prepped for immediate exfil. I don't want to be caught flat-footed if things go sideways."

She hesitated, then gave a small nod. "Be careful."

I patted the pendant on my chest, the cool metal warm against my skin from my constant touch. "Always."

They hadn't detected us yet. Good. Laia's timing was impeccable.

I followed her down the access corridor, my boots ringing against the deck plating. She moved with a fluid grace that belied her mechanical nature, her new body a marvel of living metal and organic engineering. I still wasn't sure how I felt about it. She felt... different now. More alive. More unpredictable.

"Ready?" she asked as we reached the airlock.

I gave her a tight nod, feeling the familiar pulse of the pendant against my chest, the timelines unfolding before me in a rush of possibilities. The future danced at the edge of my thoughts, a thousand branching paths, each one demanding my attention. But I focused on the one thread that mattered—the path where we won.

The airlock hissed open, and we launched ourselves into the enemy station. Laia's digital tendrils immediately probed the local network, shutting down cameras, blinding sensors, and locking blast doors behind us.

We moved quickly, slipping through maintenance tunnels and abandoned access corridors. The facility was vast, a sprawling complex of steel and concrete, its walls vibrating with the distant hum of reactors and the pulse of artificial gravity. The air was sharp with the tang of ozone and coolant, the smell of a place never meant for the uninvited.

We passed labs filled with floating stasis tanks, misshapen forms of experimental creatures drifting within like grotesque embryos. Some I recognized as failed attempts at gene-spliced warriors that were twisted nightmares of biology and machinery. Others were stranger, their forms flickering with odd, ethereal auras that made my head throb just to look at them.

As we passed, Laia methodically marked each tank and specimen for dimensional shifting. These experiments would be ours—ours to study, ours to dismantle. Each marker glowed briefly, confirming that Lazarus would lock onto their positions when the shift occurred.

Laia paused at a security junction, her hand resting against the wall as she flooded the system with her consciousness, bending the network to her will. "They're running genetic experiments on dozens of species," she whispered, her eyes glowing with the digital feed. "Some of this tech... it's ancient. They've been digging through old archives. Some of it even predates the fall."

"Focus," I whispered, my fingers tightening on the pendant as the timelines shifted, branching wildly. "We need the core labs. That's where the real prizes are."

She nodded, and we moved on, slipping past guards, ducking through maintenance hatches, bypassing security fields. It felt too easy. Too quiet. But I could feel the artifact vibrating against my chest, guiding me through the maze, keeping us one step ahead of the defenders.

Finally, we reached the primary research labs. They were a vast, circular chamber filled with banks of computers, holographic displays, and towering containment tanks. In the center, connected to a tangle of cables and neural interfaces, was a massive brain, its wrinkled, grey mass pulsing with faint blue light.

Laia paused, her eyes wide. "Is that...?"

"Todd," I said, my voice tight. "Or at least what's left of him. His primary brain. They've been keeping it alive, using it to coordinate their Immortal project. To recreate more Todds."

The timelines shifted, a dozen futures blooming into my mind's eye, each a potential catastrophe. I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to focus. "Start the transfer and mark it for shifting. I'll cover you."

Laia moved quickly to the terminal, her fingers dancing over keys as the lights dimmed. The pendant grew hotter against my skin, the timelines flashing faster now, the future growing less certain with every passing second. But this was it. This is what we had come for.

"Jack," Laia whispered, her voice tight. "I've got it. Data transfer complete. And... I've got something else. Cloning templates. The growth machines for the Immortals."

My heart pounded in my chest. "Then let's get out of here."

The alarms screamed to life as I activated the dimensional shifter, the walls around us bending, twisting, folding in on themselves as the Arbiter reached across the void to pluck us back from the brink.

I saw the flash of armored figures rounding the corner, their weapons raised, but it was too late. We were gone and so were all their experiments.