Outside the viewport, the black void of space began to ripple. Something was pulling itself through the hole Elias had just unzipped in reality. The "s" in the filename didn't stand for 'small' or 'supplemental.' It stood for Seed.

He had found the drive nestled in the ribcage of a long-dead scout ship drifting on the edge of the Perseus Arm. The ship had no name, no transponder, and no bodies—just silver-grey dust and this single, encrypted archive.

The child in the video didn't move her lips, but the voice echoed inside Elias’s skull. You took a long time to find me, Elias.

"It’s not logs," Elias whispered, though he didn't know why he was so sure. "The encryption is pre-Collapse. Military grade. This is something else."

The deck began to heat up. The metal casing glowed a dull orange. "Elias! Report!" Kael shouted, his voice distant.

As the Syndicate ships dropped out of warp, they didn't fire. They stopped, their lights flickering out one by one as the pulsing rhythm from the deck reached out to claim them.