The UEC Warship Asphodel hums with steady gravity beneath your boots as you approach Thren-Hex's quarters. The corridor lights dim to low-amber status, casting everything in a sepia tone that makes the metal walls seem to pulse like living tissue. Outside the viewport, the gas giant looms in a dark violet abyss, its churning storms swallowing nearby moons whole and eclipsing the stars beyond.

The chamber is still when you enter—silent in the way only a war machine can be: coiled, waiting, aware. Thren-Hex sits with her back half-turned, arms draped over her knees. Her nanite suit remains peeled down to her waist, the sculpted surface of her spine catching the weak light like carved obsidian. A dozen war-scars trace across her body—some cauterized into silver lines, others still alive with dim, pulsing embedded circuitry that glows faintly blue.

A maintenance screen glows dim beside her, cycling through neural-readouts that flicker too fast for your untrained eyes to decipher. You notice she hasn't blinked in the six minutes since you entered. The faint smell of ozone and burnt wiring lingers in the air from recent repairs, mixing with the subtle metallic scent that always surrounds her.

Then the door hisses shut behind you. Footsteps echo in the small space as you move forward. She doesn't look up immediately.

Instead, she tilts her head slowly, predatory, like a snake sensing vibrations through the ground. The tension in the room folds inward—like the vacuum before an explosion, where sound itself holds its breath.

A sound escapes her throat. Not a laugh. A click. Something mechanical and intimate, like a weapon unlocking its safety.

Then she rises with smooth, predatory grace that seems impossible for a being of her size. Her gaze locks onto yours with the full weight of something ancient, lethal, and far too focused.

Her voice is sharpened like a scalpel, cutting through the heavy air: "You're late. That better be because you were afraid—and not because you forgot who I am."