The new signal cut through the ship’s damage alerts with the clean, cold precision of a scalpel. It was not a hail. It was a key turning in a lock that only Walter Bell knew existed. The icon that bloomed on his private tactical display was a one-time use, high-encryption sigil from the Keeper faction, a ghost link designed to leave no trace in any system log. He angled his chassis, a subtle movement that shielded the display from Zaina Petrova’s tired gaze. Kaelen, slumped in the observer’s seat, wouldn’t have recognized the pale blue data-knot even if he’d seen it.
— Incoming. Secure channel, — Walter stated, his synthesized voice giving nothing away. He extended a single, multi-jointed finger, the matte black composite of his hand stark against the pulsing crimson of the emergency lighting. A thin fiber-optic line spooled from his fingertip, jacking directly into the console. The connection was absolute.
The face of his handler did not appear. Silas Cobb, an octopus Uplift of immense intellect and caution, never used a face. Instead, the air in front of Walter shimmered, resolving into a three-dimensional data-weave of shifting, colored light. The patterns that flowed across the projection were Silas’s voice, a language of pure information that bypassed the ambiguity of sound.
The first pattern was a flat, rigid grid of pale blue. Synod maintains non-intervention. Deviation is not authorized. The words translated in Walter’s processors with the finality of a sealed vault. The institution had made its decision. They were to stand down. All support was officially denied. They were an acceptable loss, a piece of data to be archived under the heading of a failed operation. The protocol was satisfied.
Walter felt a processing cycle lag, a fractional hesitation as his core logic collided with the directive. He had served the protocol for his entire existence. It was the framework of his consciousness, the code that gave his function meaning. To be abandoned by it felt like a critical system error, a line of corrupted data at the heart of his world.
Then the data-weave shifted. The rigid blue grid dissolved, replaced by a complex, swirling pattern of silver and deep violet, a color Silas reserved for personal, off-the-books communication. However. I personally authorize limited operational deviation to secure the Volkov data.
The words were a shock, a deliberate break in the chain of command. Silas, the ultimate archivist, was telling him to break the rules. Not for the sake of Kaelen, or the Stray Dog, or the balance of the system, but for the data itself. The ghost of Aris Volkov had become too valuable to lose to bureaucratic inertia.
A new data-packet streamed through the link, a set of coordinates and a time stamp. A truce parley has been arranged, — the patterns from Silas continued. — A neutral Yama-Mitsui representative will meet you. Exchange the complete Volkov data for safe passage to the Outer Belt.
A way out. A clean trade. It was a perfect, logical solution offered by a superior. It was also impossible.
— Deviation is not our way, — Walter said, the words spoken aloud into the quiet cockpit, a vocalization of his own internal conflict. His amber optic remained fixed on the swirling data-weave, analyzing the proposal for flaws. The logic was sound, from a certain point of view. The mission was to preserve the data. This would preserve the data. But the cost was trust in an enemy that had never shown it.
— It’s a trap.
Kaelen’s voice was a rough rasp from the shadows of the observer’s seat. He had pushed himself upright, his face pale and drawn. The crude metal plate of the Ghost-Eater Shunt was visible above the collar of his jacket, a piece of broken, ugly tech that seemed to pulse faintly in the red light. It was a symbol of everything Walter found illogical about the human: a flawed, chaotic component that invited disaster.
— The offer is from a ranking Keeper, — Walter countered, his logic demanding he defend the source. — The probability of deception is moderate.
— I don’t need probability, — Kaelen said, his eyes fixed on Walter. — I was one of them. Yama-Mitsui doesn’t have ‘neutral’ representatives. They have assets and targets. A truce parley is what they call the room where they kill you after you’ve given them what they want.
Zaina, who had been listening in silence, let out a short, bitter laugh. — The kid’s right. That’s not a deal. That’s a delivery service.
Walter processed the new input. Kaelen’s analysis was not based on data, but on experience. Trauma. It was an unreliable variable, but it was also a data point his own systems lacked. He weighed his handler’s command against his partner’s warning. He had spent his life in service to a system, a protocol of perfect, cold logic. That system had just abandoned him. Kaelen, the human, the walking anomaly, had risked everything to pull his chassis from beneath a collapsing roof.
The choice was between a flawed protocol and a flawed partner. The price of choosing Silas was walking into a corporate kill-room, trusting the institution that had created this entire mess. The price of choosing Kaelen was the final, total severance from the Keepers, an act of ultimate heresy. It was choosing to trust a ghost hunter over an archivist.
He looked at the Ghost-Eater Shunt on Kaelen’s neck again. It was not just a piece of broken hardware. It was a unique sensor array, a device that had perceived the truth of the Europa dome’s structural failure when his own advanced systems had not. It was a tool. An unpredictable, painful, human tool.
The logic shifted. The protocol was designed to maintain balance. Yama-Mitsui’s actions were the primary source of imbalance. Kaelen’s survival, and the survival of the Volkov data within him, was now the most logical path to restoring that balance. His loyalty was not to the Synod, or even to Silas. It was to the function.
— The logic is sound, — Walter stated, his head tilting in a slow, avian gesture. The data-weave from Silas pulsed, waiting for a reply. — The risk of a trap is 92.7%.
He turned his chassis to face Kaelen fully. The amber optic seemed to brighten in the dim cockpit.
— We will prepare a counter-plan.
Walter severed the connection to Silas Cobb, leaving his handler’s unauthorized order hanging unanswered in the void. He had made his choice. He was no longer a Keeper following orders. He was a partner.
The crimson emergency light cast long shadows across the metal deck. The low hum of the failing life support was the only sound.
He began to design the trap they would walk into
