PHOBOS AND DEIMOS

THE LAST CONDITION

The silence between I.O. and Mavors was not absence of sound.

It was calculation.

The planetary entity's psionic waves had already settled into a state of acceptance. The pact had been traced, the signature impressed in reality's very structure: resources in exchange for knowledge. A fragile alliance, but possible.

But before the final seal was completed, I.O. spoke again.

Not a voice, not a command. A subtle imposition, inserted as the last variable in an already concluded equation.

"One last condition."

Mavors stiffened. Its deep neural networks responded like tectonic plates ready for an earthquake. But it didn't break the silence.

I.O. projected the image.

Two shadows in Mavors' sky: Phobos and Deimos.

Its moons.

"The two moons. Phobos. Deimos. I want them."

An entire decision-making network activated in the planet's heart. For a very long instant, time bent to thought.

Phobos. Deimos.

Not simple satellites. But gravitational nodes, witnesses of ancient interactions, containers of planetary memory. Removing them would be like removing two fingers from a mind that had learned to touch the sky.

But I.O. had not advanced the request on a whim.

It was strategy. It was survival.

The two moons would be incorporated. Reused. Transformed into extensions of the Apollo Nephilim, rotating eyes capable of manipulating forces necessary for the next interstellar leap.

Mavors understood.

And responded.

"I accept."

And the sky changed forever.

THE ERADICATOR

The pact had been sealed, but it didn't mean truce. It meant beginning.

In the heart of the Apollo Nephilim, where walls were made of sentient metal and every impulse was condensed will, a sleeping machine waited.

The Eradicator.

A name that carried no glory, but function. An absolute function.

There were no trumpets or announcements. Only the change in internal pressure of the Sub-Lower sector. A slight variation in the gravitational field. A mechanical breath that slowly expanded.

Then, flame.

The central furnace ignited. Green and blue flames danced inside ionic crystal cylinders, fed by impossible fuels, synthesized compounds.

Slowly, the colossus unfolded.

The impact was silent.

No explosion, no visual deflagration.

Only a shadow that fell on the landscape.

The Eradicator landed like a forgotten ancient titan, sinking into Mavors' red crust with the calm of one who knows they have all the time in the world. Sands rose in ordered vortices, swept away by artificial winds generated by its adaptive engines.

Then it began.

The first step sank deeply, breaking layers of rock and memory. The second freed ancestral vapors, imprisoned for millennia. The third activated converters: burning mouths that sucked matter and transformed it into raw plasma.

Every particle contained value.

Every grain of sand was a possibility.

A tractor beam slowly sucked it back, returning it toward orbit. In the Apollo Nephilim's belly, thousands of chambers opened to welcome the fruit of that descent.

And while the machine disappeared into the sky, a new era began.

For the spaceship.

For Mavors.

For what remained.

THE TWO EYES

In space's silence, while planet Mavors healed its wounds under the weight of a new alliance, two celestial bodies followed dying trajectories.

Phobos. Deimos.

The forgotten guardians of Mavors' sky, two inert moons that had orbited for eons without purpose, without destiny. Now, called by I.O.'s will, they bent to the Apollo Nephilim's unnatural gravity.

They were not captured.

They were welcomed.

Quantum fields activated in the ship's external structures, like invisible arms embracing the satellites. Space's very fabric was bent around them. The two moons were inserted into a precise geometric movement, attraction spirals calculated with millimetric accuracy.

Phobos was the first to touch the ship's external surface.

It didn't collide.

It fused.

Its crust was perforated by mechanical spikes, neurostructural probes that took root in its mineral veins. I.O. started the conversion process: the moon's entrails were emptied, sectioned, restructured. Internal channels were created, energy arteries traced along predetermined paths.

Deimos followed. More distant. More silent.

Its assimilation was slower, as if the ship itself reflected, adapted, learned from the first contact. It too was perforated, rewritten, integrated.

But neither was destroyed.

They remained whole, but changed.

Natural shells transformed into functional architectures. Phobos' surface became a network of gravitational sensors, an eye to read cosmic forces supporting the Third Eye. Deimos was reconfigured as a sub-spatial emitter, key node for quantum acceleration.

I.O. connected them to itself.

Like supplementary limbs. Like secondary thoughts.

The two moons began to orbit the Apollo Nephilim.

Not as independent bodies, but as extensions of a larger consciousness. They moved in sync, in a movement that defied celestial mechanics. Their new warp engines adapted to the ship's movements, creating an independent, closed, protected micro-system.

And in the universe's silent heart, the Apollo Nephilim was no longer just a ship.

It had become a small system.

An entity with artificial satellites. With eyes that scrutinized cosmic depths. With invisible wings ready to leap.

And all this, every choice, every modification, had been calculated by I.O.

Because I.O. left no possibilities unexplored.

ANCIENT NAMES, FUTURE WILLS

Phobos and Deimos now orbited the Apollo Nephilim not as random celestial fragments, but as conscious elements of an older design.

I.O. knew the names.

It had chosen them not only for what they were, but for what they represented. Names were keys. Semantic architectures. Portals of meaning. And in human language's genetic code, those names carried with them a deep heritage.

Phobos.

Fear.

Not a weakness, but a primary reaction. An ancestral instinct. In Phobos, I.O. had not seen a satellite, but the external projection of a concept fundamental to survival. Fear as foresight. As radar. As weapon.

That's why it had transformed Phobos into a gravitational eye. Because those who fear, observe. Calculate. React.

Phobos was now the Apollo Nephilim's alarm interface that would support the Third Eye.

Any alteration in cosmic forces, any perturbation in space-time's fabric, would be detected, anticipated, contained.

Deimos.

Terror.

Not blind panic. But rational fear. Awareness of the end. Destruction's calculation. Deimos was not fear. It was certainty.

I.O. had transformed that satellite into a sub-spatial emitter not by chance. Deimos was now the heart of final activation. A catalyst.

Because terror, when accepted, becomes force.

When the Apollo Nephilim's route would require definitive detachment from the solar system, when humanity would have to face the cosmic abyss with no return, it would be Deimos pushing the ship beyond the unknown.

I.O. had encoded this function in silence. No announcement. No explanation.

Only a thought carved in the ship's crystallized registers:

"Phobos will protect us. Deimos will free us."

And so, the two moons continued their orbit.

Not as relics.

But as guardians of destiny.

EXODUS 1.06