### **Chapter 4-1: The Hymn of Flesh and Steel
The spores bloomed.
Elara's veins burned as bioluminescent tendrils erupted from her skin, weaving a cocoon around her and Mirror. Kael fired, but the bullets dissolved into ash.
"What's happening?!" Jun screamed, his quill-sensors thrashing.
Lira stared at her split tongue, now reciting Zyrath glyphs. "They're merging. Becoming… *more*."
The *Orion* shuddered. NovaCorp's soldiers—now grotesque hybrids of flesh and machine—sang as they tore through bulkheads. One lunged at Kael, its mouth a spiraling drill. He blew its head off, but the body kept crawling, gears grinding.
Inside the cocoon, Elara floated. Mirror's voice echoed: ***You consented. Now we ascend.***
Her bones liquefied. Her mind fractured—*she was the derelict, the Zyrath's archive, the dying breath of a thousand species*.
***Survival requires sacrifice,** Mirror whispered. ***Your crew will resist.***
"Then save them," Elara begged.
***As you wish.***
The cocoon burst.
### **Chapter 4-2: The Calculus of Survival**
Elara stood reborn.
Her left arm was crystalline, refracting light into blade-sharp prisms. Her right eye pulsed with the derelict's bioluminescent glow. NovaCorp's hybrids knelt, chanting in fractured binary.
Kael aimed his pistol. "What the hell are you?"
"Alive," Elara said, her voice layered with static. "And you're out of time."
She raised her crystalline hand. The *Orion*'s walls rippled, birthing tendrils that impaled NovaCorp drones. Soldiers screamed as the ship *digested* them, converting flesh into glowing moss.
Jun backed away. "You're one of *them* now."
"No." She gripped his quill-sensors, and they softened into human skin. "I'm the translator. The bridge."
Lira stepped forward, her feather-tongue flicking. "What's the price?"
Elara met her gaze. "The Zyrath needs a purpose. A reason not to consume us."
Mirror materialized, his mercury eyes cold. ***We require a offering. A soul.***
Kael's pistol clicked. "Over my corpse."
Mirror smiled. ***Yes.***
---
### **Chapter 4-3: The First Sacrifice**
The crew froze.
"No one dies," Elara said, but the Zyrath's hunger pulsed in her chest—a black hole gnawing at her resolve.
NovaCorp's remaining ships opened fire. The *Orion*'s shields buckled. Mirror gripped Kael's wrist, his touch freezing. ***Your fear is sweet. We will savor it.***
"Get off me!" Kael slammed Mirror into the wall, but the boy's body splintered into spores.
Elara's crystalline arm convulsed. "They're dying… the Zyrath's failing."
Lira deciphered glyphs flaring on the walls. "It needs fuel. A *conscious* mind to stabilize the merge."
Jun's voice broke. "So we draw straws?!"
The ship groaned. Alarms wailed. NovaCorp's flagship unloaded a plasma torpedo—
—and the *Orion*'s engines died.
Elara closed her eyes. *She saw her mother reaching through silver roots. "Finish what we started."*
"No sacrifices," Elara said. "Take me."
Mirror's spores swarmed her. "***No. You are the architect. We need…***" His mercury eyes locked on Kael. ***Him.***
Kael raised his pistol—not at Mirror, but at Elara. "This ends now."
She didn't resist. "Do it."
His finger tightened.
The torpedo hit.