Seeds and Ash
Copyright© 2026 by G Younger
Chapter 20: The Beacon
The comms bay door groaned open.
Lynk registered the movement before his conscious mind processed it. He spun, the plasma torch still hot in his hand, positioned between Inaya and whatever emerged from the shadows.
Quinn stumbled into the corridor, one arm pressed against his ribs where blood seeped through his shirt in a widening stain. His glasses hung crooked on his face, one lens cracked. But his eyes burned with something bright and terrible, the fervor of someone who’d crossed a threshold and found meaning on the other side.
“It’s done,” he said, triumph saturating every syllable despite the obvious pain wracking his body.
Inaya went rigid beside Lynk, her hand dropping to the sidearm holstered at her hip, her fingers curling around the grip without drawing.
“What did you do?”
Quinn leaned against the bulkhead, leaving a crimson smear on the metal. A smile crept across his face, slow and poisonous.
“What you didn’t have the vision to accomplish: I sent them everything.”
The words hung in the recycled air. Above them, the tearing sounds intensified as Griss warriors peeled back another layer of hull, getting closer with each calculated strike.
Lynk ran probability matrices, cross-referencing Quinn’s position with the ship’s communications logs, and came to a sudden realization.
“The quantum beacon: you used the emergency transmitter,” Lynk said.
Quinn’s smile widened.
“Very good. Seven minutes of focused transmission before your lockdown protocols caught up. It was more than enough.”
Inaya stepped forward, and her voice dropped to a menacing level, every word carved from ice.
“What. Did. You. Send?”
Quinn pushed off the wall, straightening despite his apparent agony. Blood dripped from his fingertips, spattering on the deck plating in a steady rhythm.
“The coordinates to Oblivion, and I included the complete genome sequence of the Griss from Chyna’s research on protein synthesis.” He paused, savoring the moment. “And the key Lynk took from the vault.”
The revelation struck like decompression. Lynk felt his mind swirl through implications, each one worse than the last. The fragment he’d pocketed, the device that had shown him Griss’ memories and purpose. Quinn had accessed his personal storage and transmitted the data pattern.
“They’ll come for the technology,” Quinn continued.
His voice now carried a dreamer’s quality, delirious with conviction.
“Everyone from Vaughn Conglomerate to the Colonial Defense Force, everyone with the resources to reach us. They’ll excavate this entire planet and harvest every egg, and decode the bioweaponry systems that created something capable of crossing solar systems and conquering civilizations.”
“You’ve killed millions,” Inaya whispered.
Quinn’s eyes locked on hers, utterly sincere.
“I’ve saved billions. This is evolution, sister; I’ve pushed humanity to its next step. We’re currently soft and fragile, our species limited by biology that evolved for a single planet and a narrow environmental band. But the Griss?”
He gestured weakly toward the hull, toward the creatures tearing through it.
“They’re perfection, engineered for survival in any environment. And now we have their blueprint.”
The ship shuddered as something massive struck the starboard hull three times in rapid succession. It sounded as if a battering ram had hit them.
Lynk calculated that they had ten minutes until the Griss breached engineering. He and Inaya would be done setting the rest of the charges in eight minutes; the Griss would be two minutes late.
Inaya drew her pistol and aimed it at Quinn’s chest with the precision of years of training.
“You’re insane.”
“I’m a visionary.” Blood flecked his lips when he spoke. “You wanted to die with honor, destroying everything to prevent contamination. Such a noble cause, but it’s all pointless; I chose legacy instead. When they arrive, they’ll find a graveyard and a treasure beyond measure. Humanity will take what the Griss created and become something greater.”
“Become weapons,” Lynk said quietly.
“Become inevitable.”
The certainty in Quinn’s voice carried the weight of religious conviction; he believed every word with the absolute faith of someone who’d surrendered doubt and embraced a singular purpose. His transmission wasn’t betrayal in his mind; it was salvation.
Inaya’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“How long?” she asked without looking at Lynk.
Lynk understood the question. He calculated signal propagation, quantum relay protocols, and distances between Oblivion and the nearest outpost.
“It would be a minimum of eighteen months before the first ship could arrive. My best guess would be more like thirty-six.”
“Long after we’re dust.”
“Yes, long after we’re dust,” Lynk confirmed.
Quinn laughed, wet and ragged, the sound of a man hemorrhaging hope and calling it wisdom.
“Then detonate your charges and burn the surface, scatter the Griss; it won’t matter.” He swayed and then caught himself. “I sent them the coordinates of the vault, and of the control systems buried three kilometers beneath us. They’ll dig, and they’ll find it. And with that knowledge, humanity will evolve.”
The realization arrived in stages, each more horrific than the last.
Lynk processed the transmission data Quinn had sent. Seven minutes of focused broadcast through the quantum beacon. It wasn’t a distress signal or coordinates alone; it was the pieces of the puzzle assembled into something far worse.
“Commander,” he said.
Inaya kept her pistol trained on Quinn, finger resting against the trigger guard, waiting.
“The transmission pattern: it wasn’t outbound only.”
Quinn’s smile shifted and grew wider. Blood stained his teeth, turning his expression grotesque.
Lynk forced the words out, each syllable weighted with catastrophic implications.
“You didn’t send for help; you told the Griss where to find human worlds.”
The corridor became silent. Even the tearing sounds from above seemed to pause, as if the ship itself needed to absorb what had been spoken.
Inaya’s hand trembled—just fractionally, but Lynk registered the minute shift in her grip.
“Explain,” she said.
Quinn straightened against the bulkhead. Pain lined his face, but something brighter burned underneath: the ecstasy of purpose fulfilled, of a decision made and executed without hesitation or regret.
“The quantum beacon works both ways,” Lynk continued. “When he transmitted the Griss genetic data and vault coordinates, he included—”
“Home system navigation markers,” Quinn finished.
“Our home world’s exact position relative to Oblivion. And not just our world, but all the others, along with planetary defenses, population density maps, and other planets we’ve found that can support life.” Quinn paused, savoring each revelation like wine. “Everything they’d need to return the favor humanity intended for them.”
Lynk’s mind raced through scenarios, but each one ended in extinction. The Griss were bioengineered apex predators, designed to consume and conquer, and Quinn had just handed them a roadmap to the cradle of humanity.
“They’ve been dormant for millennia, waiting, and we woke them with our heat signatures, our electromagnetic interference, and our presence; we triggered their protocols to awaken,” Quinn said.
“You’ve murdered our species,” Inaya whispered.
Quinn’s eyes focused on something beyond the corridor, beyond the ship, beyond the ice.
“I’ve given them a choice. Humanity can reach Oblivion first, master the Griss technology, and use it to transform themselves before the Griss arrive at our doorstep. Or we can remain soft and face the consequences of complacency.”
The hull groaned, and metal shrieked as claws tore through another layer of shielding, closer now.
Lynk calculated eight minutes to the engineering breach; seven minutes until the fusion charges were set. One minute of borrowed time slipping away.
“If we can’t master their power, maybe they’ll finish the job for us,” Quinn said
The statement landed with terrible clarity. Quinn hadn’t just sent intelligence to potential human rescue missions; he’d weaponized the Griss themselves. He’d pointed them at human outposts all across space like a gun to humanity’s collective head, then challenged his species to evolve fast enough to survive the trigger pull.
It was madness dressed in logic’s clothing, genocide framed as tough love.
Lynk watched Inaya’s face shift; the calculations happening behind her eyes mirrored his own but arrived at a different conclusion. He estimated outcomes and probabilities, while she dealt with rage and grief and absolute betrayal, filtered through years of command decisions and moral weight.
Her brother had doomed their species in the name of saving it.
“We could warn them, reverse the beacon,” Lynk said quietly.
Inaya kept her eyes fixed on Quinn.
“No, the beacon’s transmission range won’t reach home before the message diffuses; quantum decay over that distance renders it into noise. He knew that, but sent it anyway.”
Quinn laughed, the sound bubbling wetly in his chest, pain and triumph blending into something unrecognizable.
“I did what you couldn’t: made the hard choice that will force humanity’s hand. They’ll call me a monster and build monuments to the billions I’ve endangered. But when they arrive and find the vault? When they unlock what the Griss created and transform themselves into something more? They’ll understand.”
“No,” Inaya said, “they won’t.”
She raised her pistol, her arm extended, locked at the elbow. The barrel aligned with Quinn’s chest at perfect center mass, precisely as her training had drilled into muscle memory.
Lynk registered her elevated heart rate and the subtle shift in her breathing pattern. He calculated trajectories, stopping power, and probable outcomes. He knew exactly what would happen in the next three seconds.
And said nothing.
Quinn met her eyes. No fear registered in his expression, just that terrible serenity, the peace of someone who’d committed fully to his chosen path and found meaning in the commitment itself.
“You were always the stronger one,” Quinn said. “Father knew it, too. He sent me to manage logistics while you led the mission. I just wanted—”
The shot cracked through the corridor.
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