Seeds and Ash
Copyright© 2026 by G Younger
Chapter 15: The Betrayal
The Falcon settled after twenty-three seconds of mechanical protest, listing three degrees to port but stable. Inaya ordered emergency stabilizers deployed to compensate for the uneven ground, and the crew locked down all nonessential systems. The fissures stopped spreading, though the thermal signatures remained below the surface, waiting.
“Shift rotation,” Inaya announced, her voice carrying the weight of someone who’d been awake too long, making decisions that mattered too much.
She turned to Rex, and he saw the exhaustion written in the lines around her eyes and the slight tremor in her hands, which she tried to hide.
“Rex, get some rest, and Quinn ... get out of my sight.”
Her eyes landed on Lynk.
“Lynk, you’ve got bridge watch for the next six hours. You are to monitor the environmental sensors. If there is any change in seismic activity, thermal readings, or atmospheric composition, I want immediate notification; nothing gets dismissed as background noise.”
“Understood, Commander.”
Geo emerged from below decks, his coveralls stained with hydraulic fluid from securing the landing struts. He took a position at the command console while Inaya briefed him on the situation. Quinn gathered his tablets and disappeared without another word, that red mark still visible on his face.
Inaya paused at the bridge exit, one hand on the frame.
“Geo, get some rest when you can. Tomorrow’s going to be worse.”
She didn’t wait for his response.
Lynk settled into the watch rotation with practiced ease, running diagnostics and monitoring feeds. The bridge settled into the quiet rhythm of shipboard routine.
Lynk was left alone on the bridge with his attention on his screen.
He shouldn’t do this. The thought registered clearly, accompanied by what he’d learned to recognize as ethical hesitation, that pause between what he could do and what he should do. Inaya had given him direct orders; she trusted him to maintain watch while the others slept.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t do something that could be important. Quinn’s personal files were encrypted and protected by access protocols designed to prevent unauthorized access.
And yet.
Lynk’s fingers moved across the interface with a precision that bordered on instinct. He’d spent weeks observing Quinn, cataloging the man’s habits, patterns, and behavioral tics. That included the way Quinn’s eyes tracked as he entered passwords, the subtle finger movements he thought no one noticed on tablets, the timing between keystrokes that revealed muscle memory.
The first encryption layer dissolved in eleven seconds.
Lynk told himself he was protecting the crew, that Quinn’s secrecy posed a potential threat they couldn’t afford during a crisis. That knowledge itself was neutral, and only its application carried moral weight. The rationalizations felt hollow even as he constructed them, borrowed logic that didn’t quite fit the shape of his growing conscience.
The second layer took nineteen seconds.
Files bloomed across his screen in organized directories. He read the headings: personal correspondence, scientific notes, and VC corporate records dating back years before the mission. Lynk filtered by date stamps, searching for anything relevant to their current situation. Most of it matched publicly available information or confirmed what they already knew about the colonization effort.
Then he found the transmission logs.
They were buried three directories deep, encrypted with an algorithm different from that used for Quinn’s other files. It was military-grade security wrapped around data packets that predated the Falcon’s departure by eight months. Lynk cracked the protection and pulled up the first message.
CLASSIFIED — VC DEEP RECONNAISSANCE DIVISION
MISSION BRIEF: OPERATION COLD HARVEST
As Lynk began reading, the words assembled themselves into understanding that felt like ice forming in his chest.
The Vaughn Conglomerate hadn’t sent unmanned probe ships for general exploration; they’d launched targeted reconnaissance to specific coordinates where gravitational anomalies suggested artificial planetary engineering. The probes had found precisely what they were looking for: Griss installations scattered across a dozen systems, intact enough for technological recovery.
Erebus-3 hadn’t been chosen for its habitability; rather, it had been selected because probe data identified Griss remnants on its southern continent.
The colonization mission was a cover.
Lynk scrolled deeper, watching the truth unspool across encrypted transmissions between Quinn and VC executives. References to “artifact recovery teams” were embedded within the colonist roster, and specialized equipment had been hidden in cargo manifests under false classifications. Quinn himself wasn’t just a scientific advisor; he was the operation’s intelligence director, tasked with securing Griss technology before competitors learned of its existence.
The thousand colonists packed into cryo weren’t pioneers; they just served as a cover for Quinn’s mission.
Oblivion appeared in the files six months before launch. It was listed as “contingency site Gamma-7,” a backup location if primary extraction zones proved inaccessible. Someone at VC had known this world existed, had mapped its Griss infrastructure, and included coordinates in Quinn’s sealed orders.
They hadn’t crashed there by accident.
Lynk’s hand stilled above the interface. The implications assembled themselves with terrible clarity. If VC knew about Oblivion and its Griss installations, then...
“Find anything interesting?”
Lynk didn’t turn around. Quinn’s reflection materialized in the darkened viewport, backlit by the bridge’s ambient glow. The older man stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, his glasses catching the light at precise angles.
“How long have you been standing there?” Lynk asked, keeping his voice neutral, his fingers still hovering above the interface where Quinn’s files sprawled across multiple screens.
Quinn stepped onto the bridge proper, his boots silent on the deck plating.
“Long enough. You’re very good at this, breaking encryption, I mean. VC spent considerable resources on those security protocols.”
Lynk minimized three windows, leaving one visible that displayed the transmission logs from eighteen months ago. He let Quinn see what he’d found, while allowing him to think that was all there was.
Lynk gestured at the readouts displaying seismic data, thermal signatures, and atmospheric composition, all within normal parameters for a dying alien world trying to wake itself.
“Commander Vaughn ordered me to monitor the environmental sensors. I found ... inconsistencies in our mission briefing. I wanted to verify the information against primary sources.”
Quinn moved closer, settling into the navigation station where he could see both Lynk and the screens.
“Inconsistencies? Is that what you call corporate espionage now?”
“I call it due diligence. We’re stranded on a planet that was already in VC’s database before the Falcon launched. You knew Oblivion existed, and you had coordinates, geological surveys, and enough data to classify it as contingency site Gamma-7.”
Lynk pulled up the relevant file and let Quinn see his own words reflected back at him.
“That suggests preparation and planning,” Lynk said.
Quinn’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t deny it. Instead, he removed his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt—that nervous habit Lynk had cataloged weeks ago, the tell that meant Quinn was recalculating his approach.
He replaced his glasses.
“You’re not wrong,” Quinn said finally. “VC sent multiple probes into deep space. Some came back with promising data, while others ... others found evidence of civilizations that built things we can barely comprehend. The Griss were technological masters before humanity learned to make fire. Their artifacts represent a quantum leap in our understanding of physics, biology, and engineering.”
“So, you lied to the colonists, to your sister, to everyone aboard this ship, about what we were really doing out here?” Lynk asked.
Quinn leaned back, spreading his hands in a gesture of reasonableness.
“I protected operational security. Do you have any idea what would happen if word leaked that VC had found intact alien technology? Every corporation, every government, every black-market syndicate would descend on these coordinates like vultures. Wars have started over less.”
Lynk nodded slowly, as if considering this logic. Behind the gesture, he was accessing Quinn’s personal correspondence, filtering through messages sent during the voyage. He focused on the encrypted packets that were transmitted to VC executives while the crew slept in cryo. They included status updates and assessment reports. One gave Lynk pause: replicant viability studies.
“The colonists were a cover, but you still needed them alive to maintain the illusion. And when you found Erebus-3 was destroyed, when the mission parameters changed, you adapted, started viewing our situation through a different lens,” Lynk said.
“Survival requires adaptation.”
Quinn’s voice carried conviction, the tone of someone who believed his own justifications.
“We lost everything when that planet shattered, but we gained something, too: access to an even more intact Griss installation. Oblivion is a treasure trove: those eggs, that living metal, the technology buried beneath the ice ... it could save humanity,” Quinn said.
“Or destroy what’s left of it.”
Quinn stood, moving to the viewport where he could look out at the frozen wasteland.
“That depends entirely on how we use it. Inaya doesn’t understand; she sees ethical quandaries where there are only opportunities. You, though...”
He turned back to Lynk.
“You think as I do: pragmatically. You proved that during the mess hall debate. Life can be repurposed; resources exist to be utilized,” Quinn said.
Lynk’s fingers moved across the interface, invisible to Quinn from his current angle, opening new directories, copying files to an isolated partition where Quinn couldn’t detect the transfer.
“You want to harvest the eggs, extract their biological material to create more replicants to build an army.”
“I want to give us a fighting chance,” Quinn said.
Passion bled into Quinn’s voice, breaking through his usual calculated calm.
“Seven people cannot establish a viable colony, but seven people with access to Griss bioprinting technology could create hundreds, thousands of—”
Quinn stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes tracked from Lynk’s face to the reflection in the darkened viewport, where Lynk’s hands were still moving across controls that should have been idle.
Quinn’s expression shifted from recognition and comprehension to fury.
“You’re still downloading.”
Lynk didn’t bother denying it as the last file finished transferring. There were three hundred and forty-seven documents Quinn had buried beneath encryption, including communications that would destroy any remaining trust between him and Inaya.
Quinn’s voice dropped to a dangerous level.
“You played me, letting me talk while you robbed me blind. You manipulative piece of...”