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===== Kieran Mobius =====
//Player: Aelsius//

Kieran had always been the odd one out. A genius in AI development, he saw patterns where others saw chaos, could predict behavior with frightening accuracy, and had an uncanny ability to break, rewrite, and rebuild code into something far beyond what it was ever meant to be. That talent had made him indispensable in the early days of PNX, where he and Aelsius had built a company from nothing.

Aelsius had been brilliant in his own right—an architect of industry, a man who saw the universe as a puzzle waiting to be solved. But where Aelsius focused on the grand designs of ships, infrastructure, and expansion, Kieran focused on the minds that ran them. He created the AI systems that controlled shipyards, managed logistics, optimized starship navigation, and, eventually, ran the advanced settlement systems for the BA.

Their partnership had been effortless. Aelsius provided vision; Kieran provided execution. Together, they had risen from an obscure startup to one of the most promising industrial powerhouses in human space. They had even secured contracts with the BA, integrating Kieran’s AI frameworks into their newest warships. But neither of them had expected to be aboard one of those warships when everything fell apart.

The BA’s expedition to Epsilon Serpentis had been driven by opportunity. A seemingly untouched system, rich in resources, far beyond the reach of competing factions. The records were sparse, but what information they had suggested it was simply a forgotten sector of space, abandoned during humanity’s rapid expansion.

They had no idea why.

Kieran had been brought along to oversee the deployment of his latest AI models—software designed to help ease settlements, utilizing drones for mining, construction, and even surveying. Aelsius had joined as an observer, keen to see how their work performed in the world world. The first few hours were quiet. Too quiet.

Then the Hellspawn came.

It wasn't a battle. It was a massacre.

The BA’s warships, armed with the best technology humanity had to offer, fell one by one. The AI-assisted targeting systems worked perfectly—at first. But it didn’t matter. The enemy never stopped. They moved with unnatural coordination, adapting faster than any algorithm should allow. It was as if they were learning, evolving.

Panic set in. Communications collapsed. Fleet command was torn apart in the first wave. Kieran and Aelsius were trapped aboard one of the larger warships when the order to retreat finally came—far too late. Explosions ripped through the hull. Fires consumed entire decks. The escape pods were already launching when Aelsius shoved Kieran into one.

Kieran’s last memory of him was a smirk and a ridiculous joke before the hatch sealed.

His escape pod drifted for days before crashing onto a dead world—a failed colony, long abandoned. It didn’t take him long to realize he was alone. There were no distress signals, no friendly comms. The BA had been annihilated.

He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t a survivalist. He was a programmer. But survival wasn’t about strength—it was about adaptation.

He scavenged what he could, patching together a makeshift AI from old colony tech. It was crude, nowhere near his usual standard, but it worked. It mapped out safe zones, scanned for supplies, and detected movement—both from automated drones left behind and from the real threat.

The Hellspawn.

He never saw them up close. He didn’t want to. But he saw what they left behind—ships torn open from the inside, bodies twisted into inhuman shapes, entire settlements turned into grotesque graveyards. He learned to move only at night, to mask his energy signature, to hide his heat output.

Years passed. The fear never faded.

Then he found the ship.

It was a wreck, floating in the debris field of a battle long forgotten. Its systems were shattered, its AI core wiped long ago, but the hull was intact. It had potential.

Kieran worked on it for months. He rebuilt its systems, rewrote its code, spliced together a new AI core from fragments of old military software. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. He named it *Wraith*.

But fixing the ship was only half the problem. He needed a way out.

Kieran drifted in silence.

For hours, he sat in the pilot’s chair, staring at the vast emptiness beyond his viewport. He had escaped. The ship held together—barely—but the damage was extensive. Systems were failing, fuel reserves were low, and Wraith’s AI core had suffered critical degradation. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t safe yet either.

Then, a sound he hadn’t heard in years.

A //ping//.

It was faint at first, buried in the static of his failing comms array. He scrambled to restore functionality, rerouting power, bypassing damaged relays, forcing the system to reboot. Another ping, then another.

A transmission.

It took hours to stabilize the signal, but when he did, the realization hit him like a physical blow. The jump gate was operational. There were survivors. And more than that—the Hellspawn were gone.

The fleet had won.

The messages told the story in fragmented bursts of data. A desperate coalition of battered warships had fought to the last, pushing deeper into the system, striking at the heart of the Hellspawn infestation. The battle had been long, brutal, costly beyond measure—but it had ended. The monstrosities that had terrorized Epsilon Serpentis for centuries had been annihilated.

The system was silent. For the first time in decades, it was truly dead.

Kieran wasn’t the last survivor after all.

The jump gate had been reactivated, stabilized, made safe for travel once more. Some had already left, retreating back to civilization, to whatever scraps of home still existed beyond this cursed place.

He had a choice now.

For years, survival had been his only goal. He had lived every moment on the edge of death, always looking over his shoulder, always running, always hiding. Now, there was nothing left to run from. No more monsters in the dark. No more waiting for the end.

Slowly, he set a course for the gate.

As his ship drifted toward salvation, he exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

It was finally over. He was going home.