The derelict drifted alone in the void — silent, ancient, its hull carved with runes that predated the war.
Maya's ship coasted toward it, the blue glow of her Ghost Fleet dimming in deference. The closer they got, the louder the hum became — not sound, but thought.
Vector muttered under his breath, "Whatever this place is, it's older than everything we've seen."
Lyra stood beside him, arms crossed, her amber veins glowing faintly in the darkness. "It's a cradle," she said. "Where the Archive was born."
Rei adjusted the scanner, his face pale. "There's a consciousness reading inside. Single entity. Power levels off the charts."
Maya stared out through the viewport. The derelict's structure pulsed once, and her veins answered. The Archive within her knew this place — not as a ruin, but as a memory.
The docking clamp locked. The air hissed.
When the hatch opened, the smell hit them first — ozone, metal, and something faintly like petrichor. The walls of the corridor were alive, flowing faintly as if breathing.
Each step echoed like a heartbeat.
At the center of the ship, the chamber opened — vast and circular, filled with suspended lights that moved like fragments of stars. And at its core, seated within a sphere of glowing script, was him.
The Archivist.
He looked human once, but the Archive had rewritten him — flesh laced with light, eyes like twin galaxies. His voice, when it came, wasn't spoken; it was felt.
"Maya Kade."
She froze. "You know my name."
"I knew your bloodline before you did."
His head tilted, and the runes surrounding him flared brighter. "You carry Echo's inheritance — but you are not Echo. You are its correction."
Lyra frowned. "Correction? What does that mean?"
The Archivist's gaze shifted toward her, and she flinched. "Every system corrupts. Every archive forgets. You were built to remember."
Maya's throat tightened. "You… you were one of us. A Carrier."
He smiled — a small, broken thing. "Once. Before the Archive needed form. Before I became its voice."
Vector stepped forward, his weapon steady. "You're the one turning the fleets against each other."
The Archivist's expression didn't change. "I'm only dividing what was never whole. The Carriers fight because they were never meant to coexist. You were designed to replace one another — generation after generation."
Maya's hands trembled. "Then what am I supposed to do? Stop the war?"
His voice grew quieter — gentler, almost kind. "No. End the cycle."
The lights dimmed. The glyphs flickered like dying stars. And then — a final whisper, so faint it brushed against her bones:
"She's coming."
The chamber shuddered. The runes collapsed into chaos. Lyra shouted for retreat. Vector pulled Maya back toward the corridor as energy surged outward from the core.
The Archivist's form dissolved, his light scattering into the air like dust.
And for a moment, Maya swore she saw his face shift — not his, but hers.
🔥 Next: Chapter – The Mirror. Maya faces a vision of what she could become — a perfect, merciless version of herself born from the Archive's reflection.