Soul Descent - !free!

In the morning, she would go to war again. She would die again. And again. And again.

“Vitals stabilizing,” a voice droned. “Soul Descent: Phase Three complete.”

She gasped on a steel table, her new lungs raw as sandpaper. Above her, a halo of diagnostic drones whirred, their blue light painting sterile white walls. She tried to sit up, but her body— this body—refused to obey. Too heavy. Too slow. As if her consciousness had been poured into a suit of wet clay. soul descent

That night, alone in her quarters, she pressed her flawless thumb against the cold glass of the viewport and watched the stars streak by. Somewhere in the ship’s memory banks, her original body was ash. Somewhere in the dark between systems, Ikeda’s ghost was still falling, still looking for a vessel that would never come.

“I want my original body,” she said. In the morning, she would go to war again

Holt handed her a uniform. “Now you suit up. The war isn’t over, Seven. And neither are you.”

The last thing Dr. Elara Venn remembered was the cold shock of the transfer fluid. Then came the fire. And again

Holt’s expression didn’t flicker. “Incinerated. Standard procedure. Can’t have two of you walking around.”