The debris field was a slow, silent ballet of broken dreams. Shattered solar panels turned like falling leaves. A frozen corpse of a ship, its name long since blasted away, tumbled end over end. Min’s suit jets hissed as she navigated the wreckage, her eyes fixed on her wrist-mounted tracker. The ghost signal of ATID-60202 pulsed, weak and ancient.
She found it wedged inside the crumpled cockpit of a lifeboat. Not a drone. ATID-60202-47-44 Min
"Sloane," she said, her voice steady for the first time in years. "I’m not coming back to the Rake . I’m taking the long way home." The debris field was a slow, silent ballet of broken dreams
It was Jae’s emergency beacon. The casing was cracked, space-welded to a strut of twisted metal. Min pried it loose with a trembling hand. The data core was still intact, a tiny obsidian chip humming with residual power. Min’s suit jets hissed as she navigated the
It was a name. And her name was Jae.