Ilien entered Sector 19-A under low cloud cover. The access road had collapsed in places. The southern end of the wall had a field sign still bolted to it:
PROPERTY OF HERO CORPS. CLEARANCE ZONE 7.
The letters were faded but intact.
She used a bypass tool to open the lock. The interior smelled like old dust and iron. The air vents were dead, and the floor was layered in soot. A few crushed rations and boot tracks marked the entry hall. She drew her weapon and advanced slowly.
The inner corridor was scorched but not bombed. Burn lines curved in deliberate arcs across the metal walls, like someone had used focused flame rather than explosives. The ceiling still held parts of a disabled alarm system. She checked the fuses — they had been removed, not fried. Someone had disabled the alarm manually.
Ilien reached the first main chamber. It had once been a squad staging room. The gear lockers were empty. A few helmets lay scattered in the corner. The floor was blackened but not shattered. This was not a panic withdrawal.
She crouched and examined a dark line that stretched across the floor from one vent shaft to the opposite wall. The soot was thickest at the point where the vent cover had fallen. She peeled back the metal and pointed her flashlight inside.
Inside was a small hand torch with a custom-fitted nozzle. Hero Corps only issued those to demolition leads. The torch was covered in a thick grey tarp, like someone had tried to hide it after use.
She scanned the floor with a low-frequency sweep. Under the soot, the floor panels showed heat stress in straight lines. That meant someone had burned the space methodically, not recklessly. The torch had been used to sterilize traces — likely DNA, blood, or prints.
She found one wall panel that didn't match. It was newer, unburnt. She tapped it lightly, then pried it loose.
Behind it, someone had etched a message in the metal with a knife:
> "Veyne told us to go. I stayed. He stayed. Coil was still breathing."
Ilien ran her fingers over the carving. The writing was shaky. Someone had written it in a hurry, but clearly. It wasn't meant to be art. It was meant to be remembered.
The Hero Corps wanted this place erased. But whoever stayed behind had left their mark anyway.
She recorded it and resealed the panel.
---
Ilien returned to her station with the torch, the panel image, and the burned fabric from Trinhold. She wasn't ready to send anything to HQ. If they were involved in the original purge, she couldn't trust any channel.
Instead, she connected to a low-access server that still held Rift War after-action logs. Most of it was locked behind Class-V clearance. She had Class-IV. But the server was old and not patched. She exploited a known weakness in the checksum filter.
She searched for any mention of Rim Task Division and found a single line in a supplemental log:
"South Wing squad support rerouted after the Ashen Hold failure. Stationed temporarily at Vault 6 for civilian fallback."
Vault 6 had never appeared in the official maps. She cross-referenced the fallback plans from the Veilmark perimeter. A single dead zone had been blacked out on the map after the Rift pulse. No name, no numbering.
She searched for "Vault 6" in connection to other known personnel. One match came up: Gura Coil.
Her name had been tagged in a supply transfer manifest to Vault 6 three days before the Rift spike. That meant she had survived the first withdrawal order and been reassigned, just like Veyne.
Ilien located the last intact message sent from a fallback Vault:
"If the primary seal fails, the fallback team holds. The chain of command dissolved. Protect civs. Veyne authorized autonomy."
That message had never been delivered to HQ. It had been buried in a transfer queue that was never emptied.
Ilien leaned back in her chair. Veyne hadn't disobeyed because he was reckless. He had been assigned to a fallback operation — one HQ chose to pretend didn't exist.
She searched for Gura Coil's name again. Still no death report. Just missing. Like everyone from Vault 6.
She added a new entry to her notes:
Vault 6 — unofficial fallback site
Torch tool — Hero Corps demo-grade
Etched panel — indicates voluntary stay
Gura Coil — reassigned to Vault 6
Ashen Hold failure — linked to reroute
There was a pattern here. The southern sector wasn't just ignored. It had been scrubbed. Squads were moved. Civilian fallback was initiated. When the Rift pulse hit, Hero Corps severed ties. Those left behind were buried, not mourned.
Someone had done it on purpose.
And now, someone had started pulling it all back into the light.
Ilien stood outside the coordinates listed in the supply manifest. The location wasn't marked on any current HeroNet maps. Overgrowth had swallowed most of the road signs. It took her nearly half an hour to find the concealed entrance.
The vault was embedded into the side of a rocky hill behind old transport lines. A half-buried emblem on the blast door read "V-6 | SOUTH BACKLINE" in grey paint, nearly invisible through the rust. The door had been welded shut from the outside. No external access terminals remained.
She circled the hill until she found an old vent hatch. It had been partially pried open. She slid inside feet-first and dropped into a short tunnel that opened into the lower corridor of the vault.
Inside, it was cold and quiet. The air was dry, untouched by decay. Emergency lighting still worked, dim but constant. She scanned the walls. This was a proper fallback site. Reinforced food lockers lined the corridor. A supply list printed in old thermal ink still hung crooked on the wall.
She followed a narrow path to what looked like the dining area. Tables had been shoved against the walls. A kettle still sat in the center, blackened by old fire. Whoever had been here tried to hold out.
She checked the lockers. Most were empty, but one still held a sealed ration pack. The expiry date had passed years ago. Taped to it was a slip of paper. Written on it were only four words:
"Don't let it fade."
She moved to the rear of the vault and found what looked like a command alcove. A small bedroll had been spread beside a locked locker. She broke the latch.
Inside were three things: a clean uniform, a worn-out hero badge with no name, and a folded field report. The report was unsigned but referenced the day Ashen Hold fell.
"We were told to reroute. We did. Vault 6 is stable. Civilians are here. Command never responded. Coil said she'd go back for one more group. Veyne agreed. We stayed."
Ilien sat down and read it again. There were no embellishments. No accusations. Just a simple account of what happened.
Coil had returned to the field to escort another group of civilians. Veyne had supported the call. Whoever stayed behind had not seen them return.
She ran her fingers over the badge. No name, but its number was etched faintly beneath the rim — LCV-09.
---
Ilien found the sealed evac unit buried beneath supply crates in the far end of Vault 6. It looked like it had been used for storage. One corner had collapsed slightly, and someone had jammed a chair against the door to keep it closed.
She forced it open.
Inside, a few scraps of paper, empty ration wrappers, and a folded coat lay scattered. The coat was stitched with a red thread on one sleeve — a Southern habit, meant to mark evac leads in the field. She had seen it in old footage.
She searched the inside pocket.
There, still folded tightly, was a letter. The paper was smudged at the edges but readable.
"They told us to wait, but no one came. Gura said she'd make it back. Said she'd bring them through. Veyne was quiet. Didn't ask for permission. He just opened the gate and waited. I wanted to leave. I didn't. Maybe that makes me weak. Maybe it makes me a hero. I don't know. If this gets found, please tell them we weren't lost. We just weren't picked up."
It was signed only with initials — M.T.
Ilien folded the letter and placed it into her coat.
There was no rage in the letter. No blame. Just fatigue. Whoever M.T. was, they knew they'd been abandoned. And yet, they didn't beg to be remembered. They only asked not to be misunderstood.
She looked around the chamber. The walls were bare. The vents were silent. The power had lasted this long, but there were no signs of communication equipment.
They had been cut off completely.
She stepped outside and looked at the ridge above the vault. A few marker stones sat at the crest, laid out in a rough line. Graves, most likely. Unnamed.
Ilien stood silently.
Then she added a name to her log:
M.T. — stayed behind
Coil — last seen going back for civilians
Vault 6 — confirmed holdout site
Hero Corps — no record of retrieval
It was no longer just about Veyne. Others had stayed. Others had chosen to hold the line, even when command had walked away.
And someone had erased all of it.