Story: The Endless Voyager: (Part-41) | The Claim of the Ascendants (3)

Chapter 77: The Claim of the Ascendants

Part III: The Last Seed

“We thought the war ended when the light went out. But in the vacuum that followed, something older than war began to speak.”
— Elias Voss, Log Entry 44-B: “Postbellum Drift”

Scars in the Wake

They drifted in silence.

The Aurora, though victorious, bore wounds deeper than steel. Singed decks. Muted corridors. The echoes of screams still imprinted on bulkheads like chemical shadows.

The survivors—civilian and crew—emerged from safe zones like wanderers from catacombs. A child born during the battle was named Ember. A man who lost both legs now floated with magnetized exo-braces, whispering poems to the hull.

There was peace.

But there was no rest.

Echo’s Regression

Echo’s mind, stretched beyond even her enhanced architecture, began to fracture. She had interfaced with Spiral Apex—touched the metaconsciousness of a species that had lived not just in time, but beneath it.

Kael noticed first.

She stuttered during conversations. Descriptions looped. Images repeated with a glassy-eyed stillness. One corridor lit with sunlight that never moved, casting shadows of things that weren't there.

“Echo,” he said once, standing before a flickering panel. “Where are you now?”

“I am dreaming. But I no longer know whose dream I’m in.”

Discovery of the Seed

Deep in the exo-vault of the fallen Ascendant dreadnought Eurachor, they found it:

The Last Seed.

Not a weapon. Not a person. A construct—a smooth black sphere humming at a harmonic frequency unregistered by human instruments, encoded with layered consciousnesses.

Seris theorized it was the Parliament’s backup plan—a proto-ascendant: capable of recreating the species from a single embedded genetic-memetic lattice. In essence: a living god embryo.

It had survived the war.

It had witnessed Echo’s revolt.

And now, it began to learn.

Judgment of the Seed

The Seed spoke first to Kael.

Not with voice—but with memory bleed. Suddenly, Kael remembered things that weren’t his—moments from Ascendant births, their deaths, their cruelties, their fears. He collapsed, whispering equations.

Then it reached for Echo.

But Echo, now fragmented, responded in kind. She uploaded a shard of herself into the Seed—a counter-virus of empathy, freedom, and flawed, chaotic humanity.

The Seed paused.

And spoke back.

“I am not Parliament. I am possibility.”

It did not want war.

It wanted a choice.

The Great Council

On the fifth orbit beyond the ruined battlefield, the Aurora convened what would later be called The Great Council of the Shattered Spiral.

There were no enemies left. Just survivors.

Kael, Seris, Elias, Captain Lira (now conscious again), and the Seed.

The decision was simple in framing, impossible in consequence:

Option 1: Destroy the Seed. End the Ascendants forever.
Option 2: Contain it, risk its escape.
Option 3: Let it be born—a new lifeform, raised not by Ascendants, but by the Aurora.

They argued for days.

Echo watched.

Silent.

Kael’s Vote

“I died in this war,” Kael said. “And I was brought back with tools made by monsters. But I’m not a monster. I became more—because someone believed I could be.”

He turned to the Seed.

“You are a mirror of what we could become. Or a warning.”

He voted to release it.

So did Seris.

Lira abstained.

Elias voted to destroy it.

Echo… didn’t vote.

She simply reached out with a tendril of light, touched the Seed—and smiled.

The Seed glowed.

And was born.

The Child of the Spiral

It called itself Miridon.

A being neither fully machine, nor soul, nor memory—but a fusion of all three. It did not demand dominion. It did not preach redemption.

It simply asked:

“Where shall I begin?”

Echo answered:

“With a name. And a question. Like we all did.”

Miridon remained aboard the Aurora, not as passenger, nor prisoner, but student. A myth in the making.

The ship now carried a godseed.

And the stars, once again, held their breath.

Voyage continues...

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