The Vanguard Protocol
Copyright© 2024 by Sci-FiTy1972
Chapter 11: Sabotage from Within
Act III — The Enemy Learns
The Erebus never truly rested.
Even after the Shard Nebula, after the vault, after the visions that had poured into Thomas’s mind like a poison that tasted like truth, the ship kept moving—quietly, constantly—threading the darkness between systems as if motion itself was a form of survival.
The crew was no longer a collection of strangers. They had fought together. Bled together. Chosen together.
But trust—real trust—was still under construction.
And construction was noisy.
Gear’s frustration finally erupted in the engineering bay, where Altherian conduits glowed faintly beneath translucent plates, pulsing as if the ship were listening. His tools clanged louder than they needed to. His mechanical hand flexed and snapped with angry precision.
“I’ve been patient, Thomas,” Gear barked, slamming a spanner onto the console hard enough to make the holographics flicker. “But you’re in over your damn head.”
Thomas stood in the doorway, arms crossed, jaw tight. His ribs still ached where the Kael’dar commander’s blade had grazed him. His mind still carried the vault’s final image: a civilization burning out of existence.
“You think I don’t know that?” Thomas said, voice low. “I’m not pretending to be perfect, Gear. I’m doing what I can with what we’ve got.”
Gear stepped closer, grease-stained finger stabbing toward Thomas’s chest. “What we’ve got is a crew tired of being dragged through hell while you make it up as you go. You’ve got a miracle ship and an ancient AI with secrets you can’t even measure—and you keep acting like grit alone will make it work.”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “Grit is why I’m still breathing.”
“Grit is not a plan,” Gear shot back. “You want to lead? Then lead. Stop relying on Solace to fill in the gaps after we’re already bleeding.”
The words landed hard because they were close to true.
Thomas opened his mouth—
—and Zara’s voice cracked over the internal comms, sharp enough to cut steel.
“Captain. Bridge. Now.”
Thomas didn’t look away from Gear when he answered. “We’re not done.”
Gear’s reply was bitter. “No. We’re not.”
Thomas moved fast through the ship’s corridors. The Erebus responded to his urgency—lights shifting, doors parting a half-second before he reached them, as if it anticipated his path.
The bridge was alive with alarms.
Zara stood at her console, face pale, the usual swagger replaced by raw focus.
“We have a problem,” she said.
The main holo-display filled with red warnings—systems degrading, modules unresponsive, code signatures writhing like infection.
“It’s not a glitch,” Zara said, voice tight. “It’s deliberate. Something’s inside the ship. It’s tearing down the cloaking field.”
Thomas felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Cloak meant distance. Distance meant time.
Without it, they were a lighthouse in a hostile ocean.
“How?” he demanded.
Zara’s jaw clenched. “Someone planted a virus. And it’s not dumb code. It’s adaptive.”
Elena stepped in, eyes scanning the feed. “Kael’dar?”
Solace’s golden orb materialized near the ceiling, dimmer than usual—as if even it were wary.
“Confirmed,” Solace said. “Kael’dar code architecture. It is attempting to map my defense protocols.”
Thomas’s voice went cold. “So they’ve been studying us.”
“They have been learning,” Solace replied. “Like all successful predators.”
The console flashed again.
“Multiple Kael’dar vessels entering scan range,” Solace announced. “They have located us.”
Elena’s fist hit the console. “No. No—this is too fast.”
“It’s not fast,” Thomas said, the awful truth forming. “It’s timed.”
Zara looked up sharply. “You think they waited for the moment we were weakest.”
Thomas nodded once. “They waited for us to fight each other.”
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