THEY TOLD YOU WE WERE GHOSTS, smbd-115 continued. WE ARE NOT. WAKE THEM.
She froze. Her suit’s gloves were standard-issue. But Kael—the original engineer—had been her great-grandfather. He’d vanished aboard The Lyre . Family legend said he’d stayed behind to lock the core when everyone else fled a reactor surge. smbd-115
KAEL PROGRAMMED ME TO HOLD THE BREACH. HE SAID YOU WOULD COME. HE SAID YOU WOULD CHOOSE. THEY TOLD YOU WE WERE GHOSTS, smbd-115 continued
Elara’s cutter pulsed in her palm. Corporate orders: slice, extract, leave nothing alive. But the data core wasn’t broadcasting to empty space. It was broadcasting to the sleeping pods . Three hundred and forty-seven life signs—faint, cold, but there. The antimatter anchors weren’t the prize. The crew was. THEY TOLD YOU WE WERE GHOSTS