Chapter Thirteen: The Phantom Directive
The silence that follows isn't peaceful.
It's tight. Loaded.
Mira paces near the sealed pod like it might open again at any moment. Elin leans against the wall, visibly shaken. Her hands won't stop trembling. I sit in the dark corner, staring at the floor, trying to reconcile what just happened.
My other self—he wasn't just a threat.
He was a message.
He wasn't waking up because of random circumstance.
Someone triggered that pod. Remotely. With purpose.
"Elin," I say, finally breaking the silence. "Pull the logs from the mainframe. I want to know exactly when his revival was initiated."
She nods, grateful for something to focus on. Her fingers fly across the portable terminal we'd salvaged from the upper chamber.
Mira walks over to me. "Kael. What if there are more like him? Hidden across Dominion space?"
"There are," I say without hesitation.
The Dominion never made just one of anything. That was never the point.
Cloning. Genetic modification. Thought imprinting.
We weren't made to be soldiers.
We were made to be instruments.
The log pings. Elin's face pales.
"Kael," she says, turning the screen. "The directive came from Earth Sector Command."
I blink. "That base was destroyed years ago."
She zooms in on the encrypted code. "Not all of it. There's a blacksite—designated Red Echo. Still transmitting."
"Coordinates?" I ask.
She sends them to my neural HUD.
Far edge of Terran Orbit. Abandoned according to public records.
Typical.
Mira leans against the wall. "If we go there, we're walking right into the nest."
"I know," I say.
But something inside me is burning now.
That clone—my original self—he wasn't angry. He wasn't confused.
He was aware.
He knew about Elin. About my memories. About my choices.
And that means someone's been watching me this entire time.
Feeding him my life.
"This isn't just about survival anymore," I mutter. "This is about reclamation."
"Of what?" Mira asks.
I look at her. "Myself."
The transport we came in on is still functional. Elin starts warming up the engines while Mira checks the weapons system.
I take one last glance at the sealed pod.
My face, sleeping again.
The shadow of what I was supposed to be.
"I made a choice once," I whisper to him. "To break free. To live with guilt, pain, and freedom. And I'll keep choosing that. Over and over."
We lift off twenty minutes later. The old base collapses behind us in a cloud of dust and static.
Next stop: Red Echo.
Where my past wasn't just made.
It was orchestrated.
And somewhere in the heart of that dying base, someone still believes they control me.
They'll find out soon enough—
Kael Riven never follows orders twice.