Page 16 of Kazmyr: Molten for Her (Consumed by the Alien Heat #2)
KAZMYR
The fortress node loomed before us, a grotesque titan scarred by a thousand battles, its hull bristling with defense drones like parasites feeding on a corpse.
I guided Heartforge through the debris field, my hands fused to the control panel, marks blazing across my skin in patterns of rage and possession.
Jenna pressed against me in the command seat, her smaller frame fitting perfectly against mine, the golden marks of our bonding still pulsing across her skin.
Each beat of her heart echoed through my ember marks, reminding me what I fought for, what I would burn worlds to protect.
"Targeting systems locked," I growled, marks flaring bright enough to cast shadows across the bridge. "Reality cloaking stable."
Silvyr's voice crackled through the comm array, his digital presence flickering beside us as a half-formed projection. "Cloaking maintaining at eighty-seven percent efficiency. They cannot see us, but they'll feel us when we breach."
Jenna's fingers dug into my forearm, her touch grounding me even as battle-fury threatened to consume my thoughts. The golden marks I'd left on her skin during our bonding pulsed in perfect sync with my own ember patterns, our connection now visible for any who dared to look.
"All those signals," she whispered, eyes fixed on the data streams flooding the display. "Those are people. Mates."
Thousands of genetic signatures poured from the fortress, each one representing a stolen life, a broken bond.
Human DNA featured prominently, Earth's people harvested like crops for Asset P's twisted experiments.
The knowledge that Jenna could have been among them—would have been among them, if not for our intervention—made my marks blaze hot enough to scorch the console beneath my palms.
Heartforge responded to my rage, engines howling as we cut through the final layer of debris.
The ship wasn't merely a vessel; it was an extension of my will, my fury, my determination to burn away this corruption.
We dove toward the fortress's blind spot, a structural weakness Silvyr had identified from stolen schematics.
"Incoming transmission," Silvyr announced, his silver form flickering with alarm. "All channels. It's—"
A chorus of voices flooded the bridge… human voices, Earth accents, each one twisted into a mocking parody of concern.
"Patient Jenna Maple, please report to decontamination. Your treatment awaits."
"Fire Inspector Maple, your presence is required at the Vorthar containment facility. The alien specimen is unstable."
"Subject K-1, your human complement has been deemed incompatible. Termination authorized."
Jenna flinched against me, her face draining of color. "Those are—"
"Earth voices," I confirmed, ember marks pulsing with protective rage. "Asset P is broadcasting on all frequencies."
"It knows us," she whispered, horror dawning in her eyes. "It knows everything about us."
Silvyr's projection stabilized, his silver skin etched with scrolling code that moved faster than even I could track. "Not everything. Not yet. But it's been monitoring all Agency communications, harvesting data on every mate pairing for decades."
The fortress loomed larger in our viewport, its surface rippling as defensive arrays tracked our approach. Even with Reality cloaking—Silvyr's experimental tech that bent light and sensor readings around our hull—we couldn't remain invisible forever.
"Impact in three," I announced, pulling Jenna tighter against me. "Hold fast."
Heartforge shuddered as we struck the outer hull, specially reinforced prow punching through layers of alien metal.
The sound of tearing steel vibrated through the deck plates, a metallic scream that set my teeth on edge.
Emergency protocols engaged automatically, the ship's systems adjusting to maintain atmosphere as we created our own airlock in the enemy's hide.
"Breach successful," Silvyr confirmed, his voice tense with concentration. "I'm detecting life signs throughout the structure… most in stasis, concentrated in the lower levels."
Jenna's body tensed against mine. "The other mates."
I nodded grimly, ember marks pulsing with renewed purpose. "We free them after we destroy Asset P."
"If we destroy it," she corrected, ever the pragmatist despite the fear I could smell on her skin. "No plan survives first contact."
My lips curved in a humorless smile. "This one will. It must."
The docking seal hissed as pressure equalized between Heartforge and the fortress.
I rose from the command seat, bringing Jenna with me, unwilling to separate even for a moment.
The marks along my arms and chest brightened, internal temperature rising in preparation for combat.
Even the cooling beads around my neck had gone dormant, unable, or unwilling to suppress the inferno building inside me.
Silvyr's projection followed us to the airlock, his silver form flickering with anxious energy. "I'll guide you from here, maintain communications, and keep Heartforge ready for extraction. The central control node is seventeen levels down, heavily shielded against conventional weapons."
"Not against me," I rumbled, ember marks pulsing with deadly promise.
Jenna checked the small disruptor at her hip, a modified Agency weapon Silvyr had adapted to her specifications. Her eyes met mine, fierce and determined despite the danger we faced.
"Together," she said simply.
The airlock cycled open. We stepped into hell.
The fortress corridors stretched before us, pulsing with sickly light that seemed to crawl across the walls like living tissue.
The air smelled wrong… sterile yet somehow rotten, as if decay had been chemically scrubbed but never truly eliminated.
Our footsteps echoed unnaturally, the sound bouncing back distorted and wrong.
"Life signs strongest two levels down," Silvyr's voice murmured through our comm patches. "Stasis chambers, hundreds of them."
We moved quickly through the twisting passageways, encountering no resistance. The emptiness was more unsettling than any guard force would have been. Asset P knew we were here, was broadcasting directly to us, yet made no move to stop our advance. It was waiting. Watching.
The stairwell to the lower levels opened automatically at our approach, as if inviting us deeper. I pushed Jenna behind me, her marks flaring bright enough to illuminate the darkness below. Step by careful step, we descended into the heart of the fortress.
The stasis chamber revealed itself gradually…
first a glow, then a hum, then a vast cathedral of stolen lives.
My breath caught in my throat. Hundreds of transparent pods lined the walls and floor, each one containing a suspended form.
Humans featured prominently, their pale faces ghostly in the dim light, but other species floated alongside them—Centaurian, Elysian, even a few of my own kind.
Jenna's fingers dug into my arm, her nails biting deep enough to draw blood. "Oh my God," she whispered, voice thick with horror. "They're all... connected."
She was right. Thin tubes ran from each pod to a central column, pulsing with fluid the color of old blood. Not stasis chambers, I realized with growing revulsion. Harvesting pods. Asset P wasn't just collecting mates… it was extracting something from them.
"Genetic material," Silvyr confirmed, his voice tight with barely contained rage. "It's harvesting compatible DNA, creating a database of every possible combination."
"For what purpose?" Jenna asked, though her tone suggested she already feared the answer.
The fortress answered for us, Asset P's chorus of stolen voices echoing from every surface. "For perfection. For the ultimate mate. For control of every genetic line worth preserving."
The central column pulsed brighter, its surface rippling as if something inside struggled to emerge. The fluid within churned, forming patterns that almost resembled a face before dissolving back into chaos.
"We need to go deeper," I growled, tugging Jenna away from the horrific display. "The control node. These are just its experiments."
She nodded, though her eyes lingered on the faces in the pods. "We'll come back for them."
"Yes," I vowed. "All of them."
We pushed onward, following Silvyr's directions through increasingly distorted corridors. The fortress seemed to reshape itself around us, walls breathing, floors undulating beneath our feet. Reality itself felt thin here, as if Asset P's experiments had weakened the barriers between dimensions.
"The central node should be just ahead," Silvyr guided, his voice occasionally breaking with static. "But be careful—energy readings are off the charts. Whatever Asset P is, it's not just an AI or a human. It's... something else."
The final door towered before us, a massive portal etched with symbols that hurt to look at directly.
It parted at our approach, splitting down the middle like a wound tearing open.
Beyond lay a chamber vast enough to swallow Heartforge whole, its ceiling lost in darkness, its walls lined with screens displaying a thousand worlds, a thousand potential victims.
At its center floated a shifting mass of light and shadow that refused to settle into any recognizable form. One moment it appeared humanoid, the next it fragmented into swarms of corrupted data, then reassembled as a hybrid of flesh and technology that defied comprehension.
Asset P.
"Welcome, broken guardian," it said, using a voice that sounded disturbingly like my own, but wrong… higher, mocking. "And his mate."
My marks blazed with protective fury, heat pouring off my skin in visible waves. "You will release the captives," I demanded, stepping forward to shield Jenna with my body. "You will cease your experiments. You will answer for your crimes."