Cold Blue light washed over their faces, spilling in through the visors of space suit as they floated within the endless vastness of space. Cobalt in color, the shimmering blue produced by the massive blue star and surrounding emissions nebulae gave the small chunk of space the impression of distant coldness, brought about by ice and glass and crystal: Cold and hard. Stars spun all around them, above and beneath, so that a creature less accustomed to the sheer isolation might have faltered, or in worst cases, even have been driven mad.

The ship was out of sight, hidden behind him by an unnaturally thick fog of dust and gas. In space, the average nebula was thousands of millions of lightyears wide, and being inside one would not have been noticeable to the naked eye. This, on the other hand was much different, there was soemthing about the unnatural collections of gasses and dust that made this place a strange and unusual location among the thousands of star systems they had visited and catalogued throughout the years.

Beside him floated three others.

One Drev

One Celzex

And one Human.

Representatives of the four known races touched by the Polaris axis.

Conn flared the solar ribbons at his back, taking in the high frequency blue light of his home star, feeling it fill him with brimming power which buzzed through his skin and body in a way that not many other stars could. Beside him, he could hear the thoughts of the others as they stared towards the Cobalt nebula's blue star.

He reached out with his mind, probing gently through the thoughts of his companions, listening to their thoughts and their feelings as they looked upon his home.

Lord Celex saw nothing but another star, energy to be used and stored, a location to be exploited and taken advantage of in a war that he was sure to come.

Sunny or Chalan, she used the names interchangeably for herself. The name chalan had been given to her by her father, but she attached her rebirth, the claiming of her own life to the human name she had been given. She saw only danger, a location where they were outnumbered and outgunned, on terrain where they were not meant to walk, for that was truly the case.

Their planet born advantages would not help them here.

And then there was Adam.

The man who had started it all.

The man named for the man who had started something even bigger.

The man without whom, Conn would not have been able to experience the single most important part of his life: a rebirth that had begun with his acquisition of language, his ability to keep and hold secrets, and finished with the beautiful creation of a living breathing soul he could partially claim in a way that no other starborn hivemember could.

He was a father, and that was a title he was not about to give up lightly.

Which is why, rather than peace or joy, he felt apprehension and fear at returning to the genesis of his birth, a Genesis born in a thousand years cradled in the rotting husk of a mother queen who had succumb to death before he could truly feel the thought of another's mind. For thousands of years he had been alone with his thoughts, an abomination in a starborn culture emerged in thought as soon as they are born, a creature that had never properly learned how to think.

He was as alien to his own kind as he was to these that floated beside him.

Or perhaps not.

Not anymore that is.

He felt soemthing brush against his shoulder, and turned to see a hand wrap around the thin structure of parody bone that held him together – a structure that had tried to be an upgrade from the human form beside him, but that had turned out to be a shadowed parody of near perfection.

The human body was a near perfect vessel for the Anima.

And conn envied it, bright eyes, soft skin, a warm beating heart.

The human's grip was firm and reassuring, but perhaps it was only that way because he could hear the thoughts of the man behind the hand.

"This must be hard for him." The human thought, "Returning here after so long.... And we don't even know what we are going to find."

And that was all too true.

He had no idea what they were going to find.

"You could hold my hand instead, make me feel better." He teased, sensing the human recoil at his suggestion before sighing loudly into his helmet. He found it funny, though a part of him sort of found it sad.

If he was another human, it might have been soemthing to laugh over, like he did with the human named Angel.

But still, Adam had never been comfortable with his ability to read minds.

That was something that would never change.

Not even safe inside his own head.

"I'd rather spoon Sunny's mom."

"Don't bring my mother into this!" Sunny's intent was joking, though the images that flashed through her head were enough to make even Conn distressed, it was a pity she had to think in pictures so much.

"There will be time for Levity later." Lord Celex said, firing the engine on his suit once as he began to float forward.

The little creature was.... Scared, scared but trying desperately to hide it.

This was a bad time for the universe to be experiencing big changes for him. His entire world was spiraling out of control and he had been unable to gain his feet.

He worried he was weak.

Worried that he was some sort of coward.

And so he pushed forward at every opportunity to prove this fact false, to himself more than he did to others.

And they followed along with him, holding in tight formation as they flew through the rolling blue smoke and towards the nebular break, where the tar had pushed back the dust into a wide but slowly flattening ring.

The star was young, but maybe, one day, that ring would form into planets of its own, though that was some time in coming, and was not bound to spontaneously happen as they were moving through the dust.

Conn took point before Lord Celex, eager bur worried to see what had become of those who had tolerated his existence at one time or another. Despite his earlier moment, the human flew behind him and close at his right, overwhelmed with the desire to do nothing more than help his friend.

Friend.

It was nice that he thought of Conn that way.

Nice the way he thought of Eris too, which Conn found the most important part of the man who floated behind him.

If there was one thing he could do to make Conn respect him, it was the way he felt about her.

It was the glowing red light that alerted him first.

And as soon as he saw it he knew soemthing was horribly wrong. And he knew it by way of the human's fine tuned senses for danger, which were beginning to peak and quiver at the sight of that out of place red light. He could feel the human's body as if it were his own, pulsing and humming with the beat of his heart, warm blood coursing through his face and his hands as the body prepared itself for trouble.

He could feel the nervous tingling of the spine and the skin on the back of the neck as vestigial structures attempted to raise fur that was no longer there.

He felt the drying of the mouth as the body pulled functions away to more vital portions of the body. He felt the human's gut quiet.

And then they broke through the fog, and conn flared his ribbons freezing in place and in shock as they stared out at the sight before them, a sight that would be burned into his memory in one way or another. Burned into his own mind, or into the minds of those he could read.

As they stared out at the field of the dead.

The queen lay head facing down away from them, feet kicked up in the air and arms splayed out to her sides, her body was caught in a rictus of pain, that was not surprising by way of the sharp tendrils of bone, which protruded from her massive body and curled around her limbs encasing her tight in a pulsing red cage. The spikes originated from her eyes, growing out of their sockets like a sick and twisted potted plant.

The red glow was so strong it glowed through the housing of her skull and bathed the field around her in a slow pulsating red. Her ribbons floated in tatters around her as the jutting bone created a mocking image of the once beautiful array, spreading out behind her like a horrific pair of wings, worn by the angel of death, and all around here lay the bodies of the others, hundreds of them lying in states of death, their bodies charred and blackened and,... and.... How could he describe it.

It was like if they had been decomposing, their smooth marble skin somehow eroding with pockmarks, though it was impossible for them to have decomposed in space if at all.

They looked like weathered stone lain out for thousands of years.

He floated back as one of the corpses floated past, its body even thinner and longer than it should have been, its hands locked into a rictus.

A few of the creatures had been impaled upon spikes of bone, some so large it nearly cut the bodies in half as it protruded from their chests.

"Mother of Eden." The human muttered.

Conn hoped that would not catch on. His hands were held stiff at his sides as he stared on ward. They had been too late, they had been too late. Whatever this was had taken them... years ago, or so it seemed, maybe right after Conn had left. They had been dead for years without Conn knowing about it.

The worst part was.

This meant, this had been going on under their noses for longer than anyone was willing to admit.

Something gripped him around the arm, and he turned to see the human had grabbed him through the arm, and was gently leading him forward. The gesture was mostly meant to keep him close by in case he decided to do something stupid, but under all of that, he sensed, concern for him personally, a desire to.... To comfort.

"Spirits." Sunny said sending off a silent prayer in her head to.... To what?

She didn't even know what she was praying to. She had once believed that everything had a spirit, but upon learning of the Eden project it seemed that only the major sentient races had Anima. Was she praying to the Makers, should she even pray to them at all.

"Omen 1 this is Alpha 1, are you receiving visual feed."

"Just coming through now, Admiral. The hell is that."

"The Beast."

The new moniker whatever that thing was had taken after the specimen no longer made sense in context.

"That's bigger than the other ones."

"Well its been here much longer." Lord Celex was saying, "Best not to get to close, I don't know what killed the others, but I don't want to find out."

"Good idea." The admiral was saying, "Especially you Conn, best to keep you away from this, you don't have any protection."

When he didn't answer.

"Conn."

...

"Conn."

A hand gripped around his waist, "I swear to the Makers if this is just a ploy to get me to spoon you or soemthing I..."

He trialed off as Conn sent him the image, the image of the thing that had stopped him in his tracks.

...

The slow billowing of star born tendrils on one of the bodies. Moving without an outside force being acted upon them.

"Everyone back!"

They should have been far enough away.

But when the thing moved it moved like no other creature Conn had ever seen, moved in a way that defied the laws of the universe they lived in.

It jumped at them Its mouth open in a silent scream as it plowed into the Admiral, grabbing him by the sides of his helmet, latching onto him with its feet. The admiral was torn from around Conn's waist and sent flying back into the mist.

Conn had no time to react as another one latched onto him, its eyeless face lurching backwards, its mouth opening to reveal lines and lines of razor teeth in tight circular rows bearing down towards his throat.

He reached up and grabbed its forehead trying to force the face away from his throat as fingers gripped around his arms and dug against his skin trying to gain purchase.

It snapped and bit at his face.

And yet he heard nothing.

Not one thought,

Not one sound as this thing went for his throat.

When he reached out with his mind, he heard nothing, not even a psychic echo. There was simply an empty hole where this thing should have been. He kicked at it with his feet, sending it jolting backwards fingers breaking contact from his head, but it lurched back towards him, jolting in an unnatural way as it latched onto him again, opening its mouth wide and lunging for his throat again. Blue light spilled out from behind its body leaving it nothing more than a silhouette as the two of them rolled and spun through space ribbons interlocking feet kicking.

Conn was losing.

He heard the minds of the others fade into the distance as he was thrown out of range.

The thing reached for his throat, grabbing him around the neck. It didn't do anything to him, but it squeezed tight enough he was actually able to feel pain.

He had to do something.

He threw it off one more time kicking it out into the dust. Its mouth opened and closed and he could only imagine the kind of unholy sounds that it might have made if there was soemthing to carry the sound.

It lurched back towards him, but by that time, Conn was able to unlash the gravity belt from around his waist, and snapped it around the thing's throat. It snapped at him and clawed at the bet now around its neck.

And then Conn twisted the dial, increasing the gravity.

The gravity field pulsed, and without any additional gravity for it to enhance, it directed the gravity well inward towards the throat of his victim.

It made no sound as its neck imploded, and its head separated from it's body.

Conn didn't have the time to think about what he had just done, reaching out to grab the belt as he flared the ribbons on his back and raced towards where the others had vanished off too.

He ran into Lord Celex halfway between their original location and the headless corpse.

The small creature was surrounded by a small cloud of dust that was, suspiciously off color compared to the rest of the nebulae.

When Conn approached he could hear the little creature's thoughts, watching his memories as the Starborn that attacked him imploded against the might of Celzex personal weaponry. Sunny was not far off having easily and neatly skewered the creature straight through the mouth with her spear, which was something she could easily use in the vastness of space.

The spear's pearl sheen glowed with contrasting ribbons of green and blue.

"Where's the Admiral." He demanded, forgetting that she couldn't hear him.

But she understood the gesture, turning and firing up the thrusters on her back and vanishing into the dust.

Conn followed after reaching his mind out in all directions searching for the man, praying that he could find him.

Eris would be heartbroken if something were to happen.

He couldn't allow it.

He felt something, grabbed sunny to direct her in the right direction.

They broke through another pocket of smoke to find a small cluster of space debris slowly orbiting the star. It was mostly chunks of rock, from outside the system as it did not match the slowly spinning disk of blue.

And pinned up against one of the larger rocks struggled the creature, The admiral had its arms pinned as it thrashed and struggled, but the human was far stronger than his space-weakened opponent.

"What are you!" The man demanded both verbally and telepathically, throwing his words down towards the silent creature.

Conn was about to intervene and tell the man it couldn't hear when the creature stopped struggling.

It looked up at him with cold eyeless sockets, and it mouth twisted into a horrid approximation of a smile.

"The Makers thought they could hide you from us, that they could protect their vulnerable young." The voice that spoke was like nails drawn down a chalk board, or teeth scraping against the metal of a spoon. Conn cringed back, and so did the others raising their hands to their hands. Lord Celex was almost Immediately made nauseous b the voice, and sunny developed a spontaneous headache so bad it felt as if her head was going to explode.

"But we have found you, we have found you." Its chanting continued until Adam drew back his fist and punched the creature square in the face.

Its already brittle body cracked and collapsed under the weight.

"Admiral, are you alright, what was that thing?"

Admiral Vir turned to look at Conn, "Do those.... Remind you of soemthing.... Something we've seen before."

"The infected starborn...." Conn muttered remembering that time not so many years ago when they had encountered infected starborn being controlled by an insane Gibb scientist.

***

She reached out opening the door with her badge and stepping into the viewing room where they monitored the doors. Another one of the nurses, William, was sitting in his seat watching out the window intently at the floor. It was barely three in the morning, but she was surprised to find that may of the patients were up and the light was on.

She turned to look at William, "What's going on."

The other nurse shrugged, "They've been agitated all night, I have no idea what's unsettled them, but something seems to. Jessie is claiming that something weird is going on, says he can feel it." he sighed, "I think the others must have overheard him or soemthing because all of them have been acting off since, "They keep getting freaked out, insisted that they stay in the main room with the light on. I tried to reassure them that everything was ok, but it just doesn't seem to work."

She pulled off her bag and set it on a chair.

"How about Noah."

William shook his head, 'Even he's freaked out, hasn't talked to me other than to insist that something feels wrong."

She frowned, that was unusual. Noah was usually very talkative and happy. He was generally unable to recognize bad situations like the rest of those on the ward, but with him bothered by by something, it send a shiver up her spine.

William looked at her, "Not you too."

She shrugged, "Sorry, you know how places like this are at night."

He nodded slightly and let her go on as she swiped her card and stepped out into the main room. Almost as soon as she did, jesse made a B- line for her across the room.

Jesse was only a week away from release. In the time that she had known him, he had really begun to fill in again, and his sunken eyes from before had brightened. His hair had grown back and the fingernails of his hands had stopped shattering from malnutrition.

The doctors thought he was alright to go, but insisted they work with him for a few more weeks before letting him off on his own.

"Rachel, please, you have to hear me out. William won't listen, but something really messed up is going on."

She frowned at him and looked around the room, "What do you mean? Everything seems fine."

Jessie sighed in frustration. She was growing worried.

Was he somehow backsliding, she didn't think that would have been likely.

Jesse raised his hands sighing deeply and closing his eyes calming himself with the techniques that the doctor had taught him. He opened his eyes again, "Please, Rachel, I know where we are, and I know that makes it hard to believe me, but I am telling you, person to person that something is wrong in here. All of us woke up at the same time last night with this horrible feeling. There is..... there is something going on here, and I am begging you, please just.... Just at least let us go sit in the hall. We will the best behaved group of people you have ever seen, just don't keep us in here."

She looked into his eyes, staring into the face of a man who was.... Desperate.

He seemed lucid, but he would if he really believed what he was saying.

Yet, there was something about all of this.

Jesse had never presented with symptoms of psychosis or delusions. Aside from his relationship with food, there had never been anything reality breaking about the way he thought. As far as she understood he was an, intelligent, well educated, young man going through a rough time in his life as a result of poor parenting.

He had never acted like this before.

She sighed, "Ok, let me go and get William and then I can take anyone who wants to go get a late night snack, and we can sit out for a little while wile things calm down."

Jesse looked relieved nodding his head vigorously, "Yes Ma'am."

She turned on her heel and headed back inside the observation booth unlocking the door with her card and slipping inside as Jesse went to prepare the others. She watched as they all gathered eagerly by the fare door, this including those who never generally opted to come on excursions. To her shock Daisy was with them, despite never leaving her room on most other days. Yet it seemed for all the world that she wanted nothing more than to get out of here.

William Shook his head, "you shouldn't indulge them."

"I don't know Will, there is something odd going on. I've never seen them act like this before."

Overhead she heard a soft click, and blinked once as the breaker suddenly tripped. The lights flickered for a second before turning back on almost instantly.

That happened sometimes.

It was an old building.

She lifted her head to step out the opposite door, and nearly leaped out of her skin as she came face to face with a figure standing behind the glass.

She nearly tripped over herself falling backwards into the countertop.

Standing on the other side of the glass was a face she had not seen out of his room in ages. His nose was inches away from the glass his eyes locked on her with an expression she could not identify.

"Connor! Mr Davis." She exclaimed.

William looked up from his desk and stood eyes wide with shock, "What."

On the other side of the glass Connor Davis smiled.

It was a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

She stared at him through the glass mouth hanging open. Ex corporal Conor Davis had not left his room since he had been diagnosed with Cosmic Exposure Dissociative Disorder, mistakenly called Cosmic Hysteria by the rest of humanity. Supposedly it was a reaction some people got when faced with the vastness of space, which turned into a fear of locations any bigger than a small room, but here he was looking at her through the glass with a smile on his face.

And for some reason, she did not find his sudden miraculous recovery as a reason to smile.

When he smiled at her, she felt nothing but a sudden welling dread.

Behind her, on the other side of the room, one of the patients began to scream.

Jesse began throwing himself against the door, though it was no use.

Connor continued to smile and slowly began walking around the side of the viewing room towards the scrambling mass of bodies.

A few of them broke away from the cluster and sprinted down the opposite hallway.

William, still shocked and unnerved, acted first, grabbing his card and swiping it once before pushing his way out.

"Connor, what are you-." He stepped up before the man ready to restrain him if it proved necessary, hands held out to either side.

And was grabbed around the throat.

The screaming grew louder as Connor threw William to the floor. Rachel pressed herself back against the door frozen in shock.

"Tell the makers who sent you." He said, and in his eyes Rachel thought she saw a dull pulsing red glow.

William screamed.

Then connor was tackled to the side and Jessie was suddenly there.

William gasped and clawed his way to his feet as the two men went rolling across the ground. Jesse was thrown of, and finding no weapons in reach, improvised by grabbing a wooden chair and smashing it over Connor's head.

Rachel had just enough time to press the panic button and rush out the door swiping her card in the door and allowing the others to escape into the hallway. She shouted for the others unsure of what to do, but Connor was on his feet now, shaking off the blow. Looking at his face she saw that it was slowly beginning to warp in an unnatural way.

She screamed.

Jesse rushed towards her grabbing her by the arm as Connor raced towards them.

"The others!"

Jessie pushed her through the door and hurled himself after her, slamming the door shut behind them.

Connor threw himself up against the metal snarling and raging as his face continued to twist.

"You did what you could." He shouted back his eyes wide with terror.

On the other side of the glass, Connor grew still staring at them through the door. As they watched, the skin on his face cracked and tore red light spilling out to bathe the room in a dull red glow. Tusks of protruding white bone glistened wetly in the pulsing red light spilling from the open wounds.