A gate seeder drifts out of nothing—a long-boned vessel with twenty folded rings nested along its spine.

  One ring unfurls, petal by petal, until a full gate yawns open and breathes lightning.

  The seeder glides through and vanishes.

  The gate remains, humming.

  The Leviathan knifes through one gate, then another—steady pulses across the dark.

  Arthur stands at a command island with clone Sarah and clone Arthur. Shreen’s presence threads through the ship; systems answer him like an old friend.

  “Where did he clone you?” Arthur asks, urgency breaking through.

  The clones exchange a look—shame, anger, missing pieces.

  “We don’t know,” she says.

  Shreen speaks through the comms.

  “He did it here. On the ship.”

  A pause.

  “There is a lab where the second bay should be.”

  Arthur’s jaw tightens.

  “That wasn’t on the schematics.”

  They leave the bridge together.

  ---

  Cold light fills the lab. Condensation beads along pipe joints.

  At the center, a pedestal glows. Resting atop it: a syringe cradle and the shattered remnant of the original coin drive—scorched, cracked, stubbornly beautiful.

  Arthur stops short.

  Sarah’s voice whispers from the Void.

  “Do you think… we could clone me a body?”

  Arthur swallows.

  “With this equipment, we could clone anyone.”

  He moves to the console. Fingers fly.

  ON SCREEN:

  DAEVOS DNA SCULPT — PROCESSING

  JOB BEGINS IN 12 HOURS

  Arthur kills the process with a single, decisive keystroke. The queue dies. The room feels lighter.

  The clones stare at the pedestal.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “So this is all we are?” she asks quietly. “A little bone… and some ones and zeros?”

  Clone Arthur pulls her close—protective already, already diverging.

  Arthur rests both palms on the table.

  “We’re clones. And we’re individuals.”

  He exhales.

  “From this moment on, we choose who we are.”

  “The originals made their choices,” he adds.

  “Now we make ours.”

  Silence listens.

  “I want a body,” Sarah says. “To run. To walk. To hold a violin. To taste food again.”

  Arthur looks from the broken drive to the pristine instruments.

  “My Sarah says we figure this out.”

  “We will.”

  “First, we pull the transponder,” Arthur continues. “This ship is home for now. Without it, we disappear.”

  Clone Sarah steps back, uneasy.

  “We should leave this place. As soon as possible.”

  Arthur meets her fear without dismissing it.

  “You would leave her trapped here?”

  A beat.

  “If you want off, I’ll take you. As soon as my Sarah walks again. Not before.”

  ---

  Three days later.

  The lab hums. Fluid tanks line the walls—shadowed forms drifting inside like sleepers.

  On the central pedestal rests a new body. Adult. Healthy. Breathing slow within a membrane-lined pod.

  Arthur stands before it, hands trembling.

  “Sarah… it’s ready.”

  In the Void, Sarah lowers her violin. One note lingers, then fades.

  “I’m a little nervous.”

  Arthur appears beside her and draws her into an embrace.

  “You’ve waited so long for this. A body. A real one.”

  She clings to him.

  “I want freedom from this,” she whispers. “But more than that… I want to feel the earth again. Taste food. Breathe air. Hold you.”

  She pulls back, smiling through fear.

  “It’s strange to be nervous about something I’ve waited so long for.”

  Arthur extends his hand across a distance no map can chart.

  “Then come back to me.”

  Shreen steps forward, lightning curling.

  “It is time. I will hold the path steady.”

  A vortex of light blooms.

  Sarah nods once and steps into it.

  The coin drive ignites. Code avalanches. Neural lattices knit. Systems bridge.

  Inside the pod—

  fingers twitch.

  A breath catches.

  Then steadies.

  Arthur presses his palm to the glass.

  The pod sighs open.

  Sarah steps out—alive, whole, human.

  Her knees buckle. Arthur is already there.

  They fold into each other, sobbing and laughing in the same breath.

  “I’m here,” she says.

  “You’re here,” Arthur answers.

  The years apart shrink—not erased, but carried.

  ---

  The Leviathan docks beside a modest trader. Arms lock. Indicators glow green.

  At the hatch, clone Sarah and clone Arthur—now Anna and Thomas—stand with packs.

  Arthur steps forward first, hugging Anna. Then Thomas—handshake, then embrace.

  “I like the new names.”

  “They feel right,” Anna says. “They honor our past without stealing our future.”

  Thomas nods.

  “We’re not the originals. We’re not you.”

  “But we deserve our own road.”

  Arthur hits the hatch control.

  “If you ever need us—call.”

  Sarah hugs Anna. Awkward, then honest.

  “Be free.”

  Shreen hums softly over the comms.

  “You are not failed echoes. You are branches of a greater tree.”

  The trader undocks and slips into a gate like a promise.

  ---

  Across the galaxy, Merail sits alone before a wall of data.

  The comm blinks.

  Arthur appears—Sarah beside him, alive and radiant.

  Merail stills. A breath escapes before professionalism reasserts itself.

  “You did it.”

  Arthur smiles.

  “Did you doubt me?”

  He leans closer.

  “You were right. Daevos was nearly twenty-five thousand years old.”

  Merail exhales.

  “And you?”

  Arthur laughs.

  “I’m one.”

  “Immortality,” she says.

  Sarah shakes her head.

  “No. A second chance.”

  Merail studies them.

  “This won’t stay hidden. The Alliance will come.”

  “Then we stay ahead,” Arthur replies.

  Merail smiles thinly.

  “You’re not ahead. You’re in the middle of the board.” She reaches for the device. “Time’s up. I’ll see you soon.”

  The call cuts.

  Stars spill beyond the glass. Arthur and Sarah sit shoulder to shoulder, fingers entwined.

  A violin begins.

  Another joins.

  Then another.

  A growing weave of sound.

  ---

  Epilogue

  Merail closes her eyes.

  When she opens them, she stands in the White Void—reshaped into a grand museum.

  Light bends like water. Streams thread through polished floors. Memory hums.

  She walks. Heels echo.

  “How are you?” she asks softly.

  Sarah stands by a translucent wall.

  “I’m alright.”

  A pause.

  “Any word from your men? Did they rescue Arthur?”

  Merail’s expression falters. She steps close and embraces her.

  “They didn’t make it.”

  Sarah’s voice breaks.

  “Then… you have to send another team.”

  Merail strokes her hair.

  “There is no other team.”

  A gentle lie.

  “Arthur would want you safe.”

  She steps back.

  “I have to go.”

  She dissolves.

  Sarah sits alone as water murmurs. A chair forms. She collapses into it, shoulders shaking.

  Glass rises around her—seamless, gentle.

  From the outside, she looks serene.

  The plaque illuminates:

  SARAH HAMMOND — MEMORY PRESERVED

  ---

  Later.

  Merail enters the hall carrying a violet flower.

  She kneels by the glass.

  “I know it hurts,” she murmurs.

  “In time, this will feel like peace.”

  She sits there, telling stories to the silence.

  Outside, the museum glows.

  Inside, Sarah never answers.

  The End.

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