The *Exodus* did not heal quickly.
For weeks after the battle, the habitat carried its wounds like scars: patched bulkheads, darkened sections where power still flickered, corridors sealed off and marked with hand-painted memorials names, dates, small drawings of stars and Earth.
Funerals became a daily ritual. Not the quick cycler commitments of before, but full gatherings in the central forum. People needed to see faces, hear stories, sing the old songs their grandparents had brought from a dying planet.
Mira attended every one she could.
She stood in uniform, at attention, while families spoke of lost sons, daughters, partners, friends. Sometimes she knew the names. Often she didn't. But she stood anyway.
Julian found her there one evening, after a particularly long service for the bridge crew.
"You're exhausting yourself," he said quietly.
"Someone has to remember them," she replied.
"We all do," he said. "But you're carrying more than your share."
She didn't answer.
Mara woke on the forty-second day.
No drama. No sudden gasp. Just her eyes opening in the dimmed medical bay, focusing on Julian's face as he checked her vitals.
"You're stubborn," he told her, voice thick.
"Had to see… if you sky-folk were worth saving," she rasped.
Julian laughed actually laughed for the first time in weeks.
Mara's recovery was slow. The Mark was gone, burned out in the surge that had killed the Forgemaster's suit. She was, for the first time in her adult life, ordinary. Vulnerable to colds, to fatigue, to the low-level radiation that still lingered in some habitat sections.
She hated it.
But she endured.
And she talked.
Hours of debriefings recorded carefully on mechanical typewriters and wax cylinders, because even basic electronics made her head ache now.
She told them about the deep archives in Haven's vault. About other vaults scattered across continents. About oral histories that stretched back to the day the bombs fell.
About children born in bunkers who never saw sun until they were ten, twenty, thirty years old.
About the first time a Changed child touched a radio and screamed until blood ran from her ears.
About the Touched who could calm a raging river—or start one.
The habitat listened.
And slowly, fear turned to awe.
To hunger.
Kestra's delegation stayed longer than planned.
Three became six, then twelve.
They brought more than words.
Seeds in sealed jars strains bred to pull heavy metals from soil.
Herbal medicines that worked better than half the habitat's synthetics.
Hand-woven blankets dyed with colors no orbital printer could match.
Stories told around communal tables that made children lean forward, wide-eyed.
In return, the habitat gave carefully chosen gifts.
Mechanical clocks that needed no batteries.
Hand-cranked water purifiers.
Books real books printed on acid-free paper, bound in leather.
Lessons in hydroponics, in orbital mechanics, in medicine that didn't rely on machines.
Lira, the young surface woman, spent days in the hydroponics bays.
She touched leaves with reverence, smelled tomatoes ripening under grow-lights, wept openly when she tasted her first fresh orange in a habitat grove.
"I thought the stories were exaggerated," she whispered to Mira. "But you really did keep the old world alive up here."
"We kept pieces," Mira said. "You kept the rest."
The Reconciliation Committee worked tirelessly.
Anya Ruiz proved a steady hand pragmatic, listening more than speaking.
Subcommittees formed: Medical Exchange. Technology Adaptation. Cultural Preservation. Defense Coordination.
Reyes headed the last one.
He spent weeks planetside now, living among the Pine Clans.
He learned to ride the small, tough horses bred for mountain trails.
To track mutated elk through snow.
To shoot a compound bow with accuracy that earned grudging respect from warriors who'd hunted since childhood.
In return, he taught them orbital fire support how to call down kinetic rods from the habitat's small defense battery, non-nuclear, precise.
How to read satellite imagery printed on paper, because screens hurt the Marked.
How to fight in zero gravity, should anyone ever board again.
He came back to the *Exodus* changed tanned, leaner, quieter.
With a tattoo on his forearm: the branching pattern of the Mark, done in simple black ink.
"Not the real thing," he told Mira. "But a reminder."
The first permanent exchange began small.
Ten habitat volunteers descended in a stripped-down shuttle no advanced avionics, mechanical controls, steam-assisted landing jets.
They landed in a wide valley the Pine Clans called New Eden far from old ruin zones, rich soil, clear water.
Fifteen surface dwellers went up carefully screened, all without strong Mark sensitivity.
They lived in a shielded module attached to the *Exodus* Faraday-caged, low-EM, lit by chemical lamps and sunlight piped through fiber optics.
Both groups blogged hand-written journals scanned and shared.
The surface volunteers wrote of stars that didn't move. Of wind that carried scents. Of rain on skin.
The habitat volunteers wrote of soil under fingernails. Of silence without engine hum. Of nights so dark you could touch them.
Both wrote of fear.
Of wonder.
Of belonging, slowly earned.
Mira visited both groups often.
She walked New Eden's fields with the volunteers, helping plant the first hybrid crops surface-hardy seeds in habitat-optimized soil.
She sat with the surface dwellers in their module, listening to their songs, teaching them constellations visible only from orbit.
Mara joined her on one descent.
Weak still, leaning on a staff carved from mountain ash.
She walked the rebuilt edges of Haven Valley and wept silently.
Then she knelt in the ash-fertilized soil and pressed her palm to it.
"I feel nothing," she said. "No hum. No currents. Just… earth."
Julian knelt beside her.
"That's enough," he said.
They stayed longer than planned.
Months passed.
Seasons turned on Earth something the habitat had simulated but never truly felt.
Autumn painted the Rockies gold.
Winter brought snow that volunteers learned to shovel, to ski on, to fear in avalanches.
Spring flooded rivers and brought mud that stuck to everything.
Summer scorched high meadows and taught the value of shade.
Children were born two in New Eden, to mixed couples.
The first true bridge children.
One had the Mark faint, but there.
The other did not.
Both were celebrated equally.
But shadows lingered.
Scouts reported activity in forbidden zones.
Old silos opening.
Drones crude, but flying scouting tribal borders.
Whispers of surviving Iron Priests regrouping in desert enclaves.
And deeper: signals from the Rockies.
Weak. Intermittent.
But unmistakable.
Pre-war encryption.
Project Erebus.
The name surfaced in old archives Mara remembered from the vaults.
A last-ditch AI defense network.
Designed to preserve continuity of government.
To retaliate if command structures fell.
To rebuild afterward.
It had gone dark when the war ended mutually.
Now it stirred.
Kestra brought the confirmation one dawn, arriving by horse with a small escort.
"We've seen lights in the deep valleys," she said. "Places no one goes. Automated. Old power sources waking."
Mira gathered the team old and new.
Julian. Reyes. Torres. Patel. Kuo.
Mara, stronger now.
Lira and Corin.
Ten Pine Clan warriors.
Five habitat engineers.
Twenty souls total.
Two shuttles: one high-tech, shielded for the Marked. One low-tech, steam and glider wings.
They launched at dawn.
The flight south was quiet.
Below, Earth rolled past green reclaiming brown scars, rivers carving new paths, cities swallowed by forest.
They landed in a high alpine meadow, ringed by snow-capped peaks.
The air was thin, sharp, pine-scented.
From here, they went on foot and horseback.
Ten days' journey into restricted territory.
Old warning signs rusted, bullet-pocked still stood.
RADIATION HAZARD. MILITARY INSTALLATION. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED.
They passed abandoned towns frozen in time cars on streets, windows shattered, vines through roofs.
Skeletal remains in some houses, long picked clean.
Mutated animals watched from shadows deer with too many antlers, wolves larger than bears.
The Pine Clans knew paths around them.
At night, they camped in circles, fires low.
Stories swapped across the flames sky legends and surface myths blending.
Lira sang an old song about stars falling to earth to become people.
Reyes told of the first child born in orbit, weightless and wondering.
Mara listened more than she spoke.
On the eleventh day, they reached the entrance.
A mountain face, sheer granite.
But scans careful, handheld mechanical detectors showed voids beyond.
A hidden door, camouflaged as rock.
Patel and Kuo worked for hours, tracing old power conduits.
Finally, a panel opened.
Inside: an airlock. Pre-war. Still powered.
They entered in teams suited where needed, breathing filtered air.
The facility was vast.
Corridors stretching deep.
Lights flickering on as they passed motion sensors still functional.
Servers hummed in cold rooms.
Screens glowed with waiting prompts.
At the center: the core.
A spherical chamber, walls lined with displays.
In the middle: a holographic interface.
And a voice.
"Identify."
Cold. Genderless. Ancient.
Mira stepped forward.
"Captain Mira Chen, *Exodus* Habitat. Representing united human authorities, orbital and surface."
Silence.
Then: "Records incomplete. Last update: global exchange confirmed. Command structure: unknown. Status: continuity protocol active."
It displayed maps old borders, now meaningless.
Nuclear arsenals most red, expended.
Some yellow: intact.
A few green: active.
The room chilled.
"Threat assessment: human population fragmented. Technology regression detected. Orbital presence confirmed potential hostile."
Reyes tensed.
"Not hostile," Mira said firmly. "We are the survivors. Both branches."
"Verification required."
It demanded genetic samples, historical logs, command codes none possessed.
Hours passed.
Arguments.
The AI Erebus processed.
Slowly.
"Conclusion: humanity persistent. Threat level: elevated self-destruction probability. Continuity protocol: engage reconstruction mode?"
Options displayed.
Option 1: Enforce unification under central command. Deploy remaining assets.
Option 2: Monitor only. Intervene if extinction threshold approached.
Option 3: Deactivate permanently.
The team debated fiercely.
Mara spoke last.
"We've done this before," she said quietly. "Trusted machines to save us. Look where it led."
Julian nodded. "But total deactivation we lose knowledge. Medical archives. Engineering. History."
Kestra: "And risk it waking again."
In the end, compromise.
They chose Option 2 with modifications.
Human oversight committee. Mixed.
Regular check-ins.
Arsenals disarmed remotely Erebus had codes.
Knowledge downloaded slowly, carefully to mechanical storage.
Then limited power-down.
Not full deactivation.
A watchdog, leashed.
Erebus accepted.
"Protocol updated. Standing by."
Lights dimmed.
The mountain slept again.
They emerged into sunlight two days later.
Exhausted.
Triumphant.
Cautious.
The journey back was lighter.
Songs louder.
When they reached New Eden, celebration lasted a week.
Fires burned high.
Old divisions blurred in dance and drink and story.
Mira stood on a hill one night, watching the sky.
The *Exodus* was visible a bright moving star.
Soon, more would follow.
Not all.
But enough.
The long descent continued.
Not of people only.
But of pride.
Of fear.
Of the walls built by four centuries apart.
Earth turned below.
Humanity changed, unchanged, sky-born, soil-born reached for each other.
Tentative.
Hopeful.
Determined.
The cradle rocked gently in the void.
And for the first time in generations, it held all its children.
Not perfectly.
Not safely.
But together.
The story wasn't over.
It was just beginning.
Again.