Luna's docking clamps locked onto the alien vessel with a soft thunk. Rhea killed the engines and sat staring at the readouts.
"Compatible airlock," she said flatly. "Of course it is. This keeps getting better."
Ash was already pulling on his EVA suit, helmet tucked under one arm. "Lucky us."
"Or unlucky," Rhea shot back, grabbing her own suit and toolkit. "I still think this is a terrible idea."
"Let's see."
They cycled through the airlock together. The ship's hatch opened with a whisper, like it had been expecting them.
The inside stopped them both cold.
The walls were dark and seamless, lined with crystals that hummed faintly. The floor shifted underfoot like liquid metal held still. The lights followed them as they moved, steady and quiet, like the ship already knew they were there. Everything about it was built by hands that understood things neither of them did yet.
Rhea pressed a gloved hand against the nearest wall. Blue Metal Weave threads spun out from her fingers and probed carefully.
"Look at the power distribution. The way it's structured, if we could salvage even one panel…"
"Signal first," Ash said.
Rhea pulled her hand back, not happily.
They went further in. At a fork in the hallway the tracker's signal spiked to the left. Its steady pulsing no longer felt like a machine. It felt more like a heartbeat.
At the end of the left passage they found a vault door.
No standard panel and no keyhole. Just a grid lock interface set into the wall, glowing faintly.
Rhea crouched in front of it, toolkit already open. She studied it for a long moment.
"Resonance based encryption, and keyed to a specific Helix signature," she said. She exhaled slowly. "I can try bypassing it with my Weave but if I trip the wrong sequence this whole door might lock down permanently." She looked up at him. "Give me time."
"Take it," Ash said. "I'll look around. Shout if you need me."
Rhea muttered something as her Weave threads extended into the lock and began their careful work.
Ash moved back up the corridor and followed it toward the ship's nose.
The cockpit door was open.
He stepped inside and stopped.
The pilot's chair was occupied. A figure slumped over the controls, dead. Sleek black uniform, white threading along the seams. Something was embedded in the man's chest. A small dark object, finger-sized, partially fused with the ribcage.
Ash's eyes moved to the shoulder.
A stylised Q intertwined with a frozen spiral.
He went very still.
Then he turned and walked out. Faster than he'd walked in.
"Rhea." He came around the corner at speed. "We need to go. Right now—"
He skidded to a stop.
Rhea was standing in front of the vault door, which was open. She looked triumphant and deeply unsettled at the same time, an expression he'd never seen on her before.
Inside the small chamber beyond, suspended in a faint energy field, was the source of the signal.
A palm-sized orb. Pulsing with a slow inner green light, like someone had captured a miniature galaxy mid-spin and frozen it.
Whatever Ash had been about to say left him completely.
Something moved in his chest, pressing outward like it recognised what it was looking at.
His hand moved before his brain caught up.
"Ash, don't—" Rhea started.
His fingers touched the orb.
And it melted.
Green liquid light poured across his skin. Freezing cold. It raced up his arm like it knew exactly where it was going. It hit his chest and kept going, and Ash's back arched hard, a choked sound tearing out of him as the light found his Helix Core and tore through it.
The core cracked open.
Green embers spilled from the fractures. Silver threads flooded in to meet them. The two things found each other and held.
The world went white.
And somewhere in that white, a voice spoke.
"Finally."
The aura exploded outward from Ash, shooting through the ship like a shockwave. Out through the hull. Out past Luna. Out through the belt, past the rocks and between the stars. A ripple spreading in every direction at once.
Ash's brain, operating on fumes, filed this under "I'm definitely imagining that."
He wasn't.
Across the stars, some people felt it at exactly the same moment.
*QIU-LAN Family Citadel, Inner Chambers*
A middle-aged man in robes staggered mid-stride, one hand flying to his chest. The Q and frozen spiral insignia on his collar flared violent white then cracked down the centre with an audible snap.
He stood there breathing hard, staring at the fractured emblem.
Then the fury hit.
"Someone get in here!" His voice cracked down the hall. "Now! The orb… the orb is gone!"
*SOLENNE Family, Sanctum*
An elderly woman in black robes had been still for the better part of an hour, eyes closed, hands folded. When the red spiral emblem on her chest flared and dimmed sharply she didn't flinch nor move for a long moment.
Then her eyes opened.
A slow smile crossed her face.
She reached for her tea.
*NHARETH Family, Hall*
In a chamber lit by floating black crystals, a hooded figure froze mid-stride. The eye sigil on his sleeve pulsed cold then fractured with a silent snap. He stared at it, breathing shallowly.
"Impossible," he said.
Just that. Then stillness.
*THESSALY, Enclave*
The young man was training to control his core when the Two pointed crown emblem on his gauntlet went haywire then cut out completely. The loss of focus sent him drifting sideways into the wall.
He peeled himself off it, stripped the gauntlet and stared at his bare palm. Still trembling faintly.
"What the hell was that," he said.
*Somewhere in transit, a black shuttle*
A silhouetted figure also noticed the aura, clenching a single gloved hand at his side.
"You've just made yourself very easy to find."