The low, resonant hum from the negotiation hall vibrated up through the soles of his boots, a physical promise of the violence that had just been unleashed. A flash of brilliant orange lit the grimy oculus high above, followed a half-second later by the tearing roar of a coilgun discharge. The war for the truth had found them. Sineus was already moving, his objective a single point of light on his terminal: a rusting, pre-war relay ship caught in the crossfire two kilometers offshore.
The sea was on fire. Private navies, hired by Shenzhen Ascendant and the Archive State, were tearing each other apart in the churning water around Float-Hab 7. The sleek, insectile drone-carriers of Shenzhen Ascendant spat swarms of smaller craft, while the heavier, brutalist cruisers of the Archive State answered with kinetic slugs that hit the water like meteors. The air smelled of ozone, vaporized salt, and the acrid tang of burning smart-foam, a naval weapon that expanded on contact with water into a thick, ship-disabling mass. Neon from the platform’s advertisements reflected on the oily, rainbow sheen of the water, a garish backdrop for the carnage.
A third force was fighting back. A small fleet of retrofitted trawlers and rugged transport skiffs, the independent coalition that had just granted him passage, held a defensive line around a key data pier. Their weapons were a chaotic mix of jury-rigged railguns and scavenged military hardware. They were not fighting for a corporate state; they were fighting for the patch of rusted metal they called home.
— All hands, hold the line! — a voice crackled over the open channel, a woman with a clipped, professional accent. The skipper of a vessel named The Consequence. — Focus fire on the lead drone-carrier. Do not let them touch the pier.
Sineus pushed the throttle of his skiff forward. The small craft, a blade of matte-black composite, accelerated into the chaos, its electric motor a near-silent hum against the roar of battle. His evasion chance registered at a grim 40%. He weaved through blooms of expanding smart-foam and the floating wreckage of a destroyed Shenzhen patrol boat, its hull still glowing a dull cherry red.
His target was ahead: the relay ship. It was an ancient vessel, a ghost of a time before the corporate states, its hull a patchwork of rust and faded insignia. It listed heavily to one side, caught in the crossfire, a piece of the past being torn apart by the factions fighting to control the future. A coilgun slug, fired from an Archive State cruiser, screamed past his port side and slammed into the relay ship’s superstructure, showering the deck with a fountain of sparks and twisted metal. The skiff rocked violently in the wake.
He brought the skiff alongside the relay ship’s hull, the magnetic grapples firing with a sharp thump-hiss. He was shielded from direct fire here, but the percussive impacts of stray rounds still shuddered through the metal. His Ghost-Sight flared, unbidden. On the rusting bridge of the ship, a Palimpsest Phantom flickered into view—a grey, silent silhouette of a long-dead captain, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared out at a calm, peaceful sea that no longer existed. The phantom was a quiet anchor of a forgotten truth in the screaming chaos of the present.
Sineus ignored the ghost. He unspooled a covert data cable, its tip a heavy magnetic clamp. He had one chance. He waited for a lull between impacts, then vaulted over the skiff’s side, his boots finding purchase on the relay ship’s slick, angled hull. He ran, low and fast, the wind and spray whipping at him. He reached the ship’s primary communication hub, a mess of corroded conduits and junction boxes. He slammed the clamp onto a salt-encrusted data port. A green light blinked on his wrist terminal. Connection established.
The download began. A thin blue line crawled across his display. 1%. 2%. It was slow. The antenna protocol he needed was buried under layers of corrupted, salt-damaged code. He was a static target, a man clinging to the side of a dying ship in the middle of a war zone. The price of this truth was exposure, absolute and total.
— They’re deploying drones! Swarm pattern! — a voice screamed over the coalition channel. — Pier 4 is taking heavy fire!
Sineus glanced back toward Float-Hab 7. A cloud of Shenzhen Ascendant combat drones, each a point of hostile red light, descended on the coalition’s defensive line. The independents answered with a desperate barrage of flak and concentrated fire. The sky above the pier became a lattice of tracer rounds and explosions. They were buying him time with their lives.
Another coilgun slug hit the relay ship, this one closer. The deck plates beneath his feet buckled, and he was thrown against the bulkhead. His vision swam with static, the cognitive load of the battle and his proximity to so much violent erasure spiking. As a Shenzhen patrol boat exploded nearby, he saw a cluster of new Palimpsest Phantoms flicker into existence around its sinking form—the grey, silent ghosts of its crew, their digital after-images glitching and dissolving as the ship’s data core was consumed by fire and seawater. They were not memories of men; they were the error messages of their deletion.
His terminal chimed. Download complete. He had the protocol.
He ripped the data cable free and sprinted back to the skiff. He threw himself over the side, landing hard on the deck as another explosion rocked the relay ship. He hit the throttle, the skiff disengaging its grapples and pulling away from the wounded vessel, its motor whining as it fought the churning sea.
Behind him, the battle was turning. The Shenzhen and Archive State fleets, having taken significant losses and failed to break the coalition’s line, began a tactical withdrawal. The swarm of drones faltered, their command ship pulling back into the rain-swept darkness. The coalition had held the pier. They had proven that a network of determined individuals could stand against the machine of a corporate state. It was a small victory, but it was a victory for the truth of their own existence.
Sineus looked back at the relay ship one last time. The Palimpsest Phantom of the captain was gone. The bridge was empty. The ship was no longer a vessel haunted by a memory of peace. It was just a wreck, a piece of scrap metal waiting for the sea to claim it. The violence of the present had finally and completely overwritten the ghost of the past.
The roar of the battle faded behind him, replaced by the steady rhythm of the waves slapping against the skiff’s hull. The air grew cleaner, the smell of salt and cold, open ocean washing away the stench of burning fuel and ozone.
He keyed the decryption sequence, feeding the newly acquired protocol into the data fragment from the bunker. New coordinates resolved on his terminal. The path was clear.
