Nomad's mess hall was silent.
"I still can't believe it," Jax finally mumbled, pushing his fork around. "Those Swarms… they were gone. And she was… just there."
Kai, ever the pragmatist, tapped his datapad. "Energy signatures confirm it. A pulse unlike anything recorded. xenomorphosis. Amplified. Uncontrolled."
Mira said, her gaze distant. "She asked us what she became. And we told her the truth, as much as we understood it."
Anya shivered. "So much power, so much… violence. It wasn't the Eve I know."
"The ultimate defense. Instinctive. Primal."
Vayne, usually so boisterous, was pale. "I was scared we might never get her back."
Axel's eyes projected a holographic reconstruction of the energy spike. "The data suggests a complete override of conscious control above a certain threshold. The neural pathways dedicated to memory and communication were actively suppressed."
Just then, Salam Shah entered. His usual excited demeanor subdued. "Precisely, Axel. A fascinating, if terrifying, display of adaptive evolution. May I join your… debrief?"
Mira nodded. "Salam. Perhaps you can shed more light. Eve… she doesn't remember. We barely know what to tell her."
Salam pulled up a chair. "The Xenomorphic mode is a marvel. But what we witnessed… that was a deeper, more profound trigger. I believe we have much to learn about her core architecture."
.
.
.
Days later, Nomad's primary research lab became Eve's temporary residency. Under Salam Shah's intense scrutiny, she underwent a battery of tests.
"Focus, Eve," Salam instructed, his voice calm, observing her on holographic displays. "Feel the nanites. Don't push. Just let them shift."
Eve's muscles rippled, her skin subtly hardening. She could feel the power, a primal hum beneath her consciousness. "I can feel the limits," she reported, her voice steady, despite the strain. "The control… it's like a wall."
"Indeed," Salam nodded. "And that wall, Eve, is the genius of Dr. Kyle Seraphis… and Synthia herself. The foundational programming of your Xenomorphic shift, is unbreakable."
He showed her holographic projections of her neural activity. "Above forty percent, all non-essential functions—including conscious memory formation and verbal communication—are actively suppressed. All energy, all processing power, is redirected to combat and survival."
Eve watched the terrifying spike in her own readings. "So, I become… an instinct."
"A perfect, unthinking weapon of pure survival," Salam confirmed. "Mind of its own. Dedicated solely to eliminating the threat. And God only knows what happens when it hits one hundred percent. My experiments here, have managed to fine-tune your control limit to sixty percent. You can now engage the Xenomorphic mode up to that power output with full awareness, memory, and communication intact."
He paused, a rare note of caution in his voice. "But beyond that, Eve… the risks are immense. Commander. Do not overdo it. That mechanism is a gift, but also a profound mystery."
That night, in her Nomad sleeping pod, Eve drifted into dreams. Not the usual echoes of battlefields or starships, but visions far older, stranger.
Ancient powers called to her Xenomorphic form.
One image recurred: a colossal, living engine, humming with an unfathomable intelligence, its core a swirling vortex of pure energy. It felt like a mirror, a reflection of the power within her Xenomorphic state. Through the dream, a chilling realization blossomed: the core of her Xenomorphic mode, the unbreakable defensive mechanism, was built from the very genes of these ancient machine species. More specifically, from that one specific being, that living engine of immense power.
How had Synthia, a mere AI, or Dr. Kael, a brilliant alien scientist, managed to weave such primordial, alien machine genes into her very being? But one thing was terrifyingly clear: the architecture was unbreakable, a testament to a design that transcended understanding, leaving Eve both grateful for her power and awestruck by its unknown origins.