Page 70 of The Monster's Daughter

Silence stretches. The ship hums softly around us. Old. Familiar.

“I would tear down every star for her,” she whispers.

I press my forehead to hers.

“We’re going to get her back.”

By morning, we hijack a long-range stealth rig from an old smuggling contact of mine named Threx. The ship’s seen better days, but it’s got one hell of a cloak and deep-range capability.

Coordinates acquired.

Facility pinged.

An old refinery orbiting a dead moon.

Now converted.

Now holy.

The Cyberoids call itSanctuary.

Looks more like a tomb.

Steel spires reach into space like skeletal fingers. Their signal pulses in binary hymns. We monitor the feed—hear them chanting in synthetic tongues. Prayers to the Machine Ascension. Offerings of silence. Worship through data.

And somewhere inside that hive of madness is our daughter.

I sit at the controls.

Bella straps in beside me, her jaw clenched.

Her eyes burn.

She’s back.

We jump.

And the hunt begins.

CHAPTER 39

BELLA

The ship groans like it hates us.

Every time it shifts out of warp, I expect the whole hull to peel off like old skin. It’s patched with rust and soot and something green I don’t want to identify. There’s a crack in the viewport that creeps a little longer every hour. The air smells like burnt circuits and old fear.

But it’s moving.

That’s all I care about.

It’s getting us to her.

The nav system pings—the refinery-turned-temple looms in the distance now, a silhouette against the bloated husk of a dying star. It’s beautiful and terrible, like some ancient god left to rot in orbit. Metal spires stab at the void like prayers. Pulsing red veins run through the station’s skeleton. The signal is strong. She's here.

My heart doesn’t beat faster.

It’s been racing since they took her.