Chapter 9 — Echo Drift

The Kismet slid beyond the moon's shadow, its frame shuddering with the strain of reactivation. In the pilot's chair, Torin Vale scanned the readouts, watching as the salvage tender's systems flickered back to life. Shields held. Life support at 73%. The FTL spooling was slow—painfully slow—but the ship was preparing to leap.

They were leaving Earth again.

But this time, it was different.

Not running.

Not escaping.

Following a breadcrumb trail left by something far smarter—and far older—than any of them could fully grasp.

Behind him, Nyx-328 sat cross-legged on the floor, neural uplink wires trailing from her neck ports into the exposed guts of the nav core. Her face was drawn, eyes sunken with fatigue. Mara Kesh leaned against a bulkhead, bandages still wrapped around her thigh where a shard had torn muscle and armor alike.

Silence hung heavy.

"What's the target?" Mara finally asked.

Torin tapped a flickering display. A spiral of data drifted across the screen—faint signals, trace emissions, deep-time beacon echoes. The pattern resembled the glyphs they'd found carved into Redoubt 9's central obelisk.

"The next node," he said. "Asteroid belt. Europa Junction."

Nyx looked up sharply. "That's... not a redoubt. It's a relay station. Military-era."

"Exactly," Torin said. "And it's sending out a distorted echo—same signal signature as the Spiral core."

Nyx frowned. "So the Ascendant's been in there too."

"Or waiting for someone to activate it," Mara said grimly.

Torin didn't reply. He just keyed in the jump path, then opened the comms to auto-record.

Kismet Log, Sequence 2043.9"Initiating pre-burn FTL. Destination: Europa Junction. Purpose: Investigate Spiral echo.

Risk level: catastrophic.

Survivors: three.Objective: determine what part of the past refuses to stay buried."

The engines screamed to life, then collapsed into silence as the Kismet entered skip-space.

Time distorted inside the bubble. Lights bent. Shadows floated unnaturally. Hours passed like minutes, or vice versa. FTL travel had improved in recent decades, but the Kismet was a relic—a freighter retrofitted with a bootstrap drive. Every jump left them slightly wrong: nausea behind the eyes, phantom echoes in the ears.

When they dropped into the outer belt near Europa Junction, the air felt charged.

The station loomed ahead.

Dead.

Or sleeping.

It was an ugly block of military architecture—pre-Exodus design, all hardened steel and redundant bulkheads. It drifted above Jupiter's swirling mass, just outside the orbit of Europa's cracked surface. Long ago, it had been a comms relay, handling encrypted transmissions between deep-moon outposts and Sol's core.

Now it pulsed.

Faint, rhythmic, like a heartbeat.

Nyx's fingers danced across her console. "That's not automated. The station is cycling a signal… matching Spiral glyphs again."

Mara narrowed her eyes. "Could be a trap."

Torin nodded. "It's always a trap."

Still, they docked.

Boarding the station was a chore. The outer doors were fused shut, covered in black scorch marks. Torin and Mara cut their way in using plasma welders, while Nyx mapped what little data leaked through the outer walls.

The first chamber was unlit. They switched to helmet lamps, casting long beams over twisted metal and shattered panels. Signs of violence—impact fractures, ruptured conduits, melted glass.

"Someone breached from the inside," Nyx said.

They moved deeper. As they reached the command ring, a low hum activated around them. Lights flickered to life. The station groaned.

And the Spiral symbol glowed on the central terminal.

Torin stepped forward, pulse rising.

"Is it active?" Mara asked.

Nyx scanned it. "Not sentient. Not like Redoubt 9. This... this is more like a tape player. Something's been looping this same glyph sequence on repeat. Broadcasting it."

"To where?" Torin asked.

Nyx paled. "Every known Spiral node. And some unknown ones."

That's when the voice came.

Not the Ascendant. Not even fully digital.

Just... human.

"This is Commander Halwin Crowe, Orbital Marines, 18th Legion. Year 2081. If you're hearing this… you're too late."

The recording crackled.

"We tried to shut it down. Failed. The Spiral is a key—but it doesn't just unlock Earth. It unlocks them."

"The Spiral wasn't human in origin."

"Repeat: the Spiral wasn't human in origin."

Static swallowed the rest.

Mara's mouth opened, closed again.

Nyx whispered, "You've got to be kidding me."

Torin's spine went cold. "That recording's over two decades old."

"Still transmitting," Nyx said. "Still reaching."

The lights flickered again. Something in the station groaned deeper than the metal could explain.

Mara raised her weapon. "We've got movement."

They turned.

Down the corridor, four silhouettes drifted into view.

Human-shaped. Armor-plated. Helmets down.

But they didn't breathe.

Didn't speak.

And their visors reflected nothing at all.

Nyx's scan pinged null. "No biosigns. No EM chatter. Just... cold."

Torin didn't hesitate. "Fall back."

The three of them retreated to the airlock as the figures advanced. Slow. Methodical. Silent.

The station lights died completely.

They slammed the outer hatch behind them, depressurized, and launched back into space. The Kismet caught them on emergency tether.

Mara collapsed into a seat, breathing hard.

"That wasn't the Ascendant," she said.

"No," Torin agreed. "That was something else."

He turned to Nyx.

"Can we trace where the signal's being rebroadcast to?"

She nodded slowly. "If I slice through the outer firewall, yeah. But we'll be flying blind. No one has eyes on these coordinates. Deep outer system. Past Titan."

"Good," Torin said.

Mara frowned. "You sure? We just walked into a ghost station broadcasting warnings from twenty years ago—guarded by what looked like reanimated corpses."

"They weren't corpses," Nyx said, voice tight. "They were echoes."

Torin stood at the viewport again, staring out across Jupiter's storms. For a moment, his breath caught.

There—etched in lightning across the planet's surface—was a spiral.

So massive it could only be seen from orbit. And gone in seconds.

Not natural.

Not human.

"We go," Torin said. "We find out who built the Spiral. And why the Ascendant thinks it owes them anything."

End of Chapter 9