The Station That Never Woke
It hung like a question in the dark.
Driftroot-0.
No designation. No registry. No launch confirmation. Just an orbital shell, too perfect to be ruin and too silent to be alive.
The Rook-Spar circled slowly, its engines throttled down to nothing. Only minor thrusters guided its descent, matching the station's ghost-drift as it hovered above the black seam of the Forgotten Expanse.
Inside, Kye felt the Vaultseed flare.
Not bright.
Still.
Stillness that came before recognition.
The station was made of unmarked alloys—no insignias, no ports, no hailing channels. Yet every nanoweld shimmered faintly with residual memorylight. This place had expected to be remembered.
But no one had ever arrived.
Kye suited up slowly. His breath fogged the inside of his helmet before the system adapted. The Rook-Spar's boarding rig extended.
A single message blinked on the internal HUD:
> "You are not waking them. You are answering the part of them that waited."
He entered.
The airlock hissed like a question exhaled.
Inside, the corridor was untouched.
Preserved.
Rows of sealed compartments lined the walls. Names etched on frosted glass. Cryopods. Hundreds. No decay. No power failure. Just silence—as if the station had obeyed its final command perfectly:
Wait.
Kye walked past name after name.
Until he found one.
No name.
Just a small mark—an open circle with a line drawn through it.
He touched it.
The Vaultseed responded.
A vision flooded his senses:
> A young engineer, hands shaking, sealing the pod. Her voice trembled as she whispered, "If someone remembers us, that will be enough."
> A broadcast that was never sent.
> A launch timer never triggered.
> And a final note: "If we can't make it, let us be soil for someone who can."
Kye staggered back.
The pods didn't fail.
They were sacrifices.
Chosen to remain—to give others room to go.
The Driftroot wasn't a failure.
It was a foundation.
He turned to the Vaultseed interface now blooming in the center of the corridor, its threads twining into the walls.
> "Archive initiated."
"Unspoken sacrifice confirmed."
"Memorylight pulse stable."
Kye placed his hand on the center thread.
> ARTICLE THIRTY-FIVE: Those who wait without reward anchor the world more than those who are seen.
He stayed.
All night.
Until the pods pulsed faintly.
Not in resurrection.
In peace.