The console chimed.
SEQUENCE COMPLETE. VAULT UNSEALING.
Behind me, something groaned. Metal on metal, deep and resonant, vibrating through the station floor. The sound of mechanisms that had waited three years to move.
“Anhara.” My voice was a croak. “We did it.”
“I can hear it through the comm.” Her voice tight with wonder. “The vault. It’s opening?”
“Yes.”
I turned from the console. My legs didn’t want to cooperate, but I made them. Through the doorway, down the passage half-blocked with debris, toward the heavy door I’d seen five days ago.
It was open now.
The vault beyond was small. Just large enough for one person to stand in. And rising from a pedestal in the center, delivered by hydraulics that had ground to life after years of silence, was a case.
Metal, old. Worn at the edges. An inscription on the lid — the Sovereign’s seal.
I reached for it. My hands left bloody prints on the surface, but I didn’t care. The weight of it was solid in my grip. Real.
“I have it,” I said into the comm. “The fifth key.”
“Kallum.” Relief and exhaustion tangled in her voice. “Get back here. There are still hostiles out there.”
“I know.” I tucked the case against my side — the unwounded side — and pushed away from the vault. My legs buckled. I caught myself on the doorframe and made myself stand. “I’m coming to you.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Your wound?—”
“Can wait.”
“Kallum.”
“I’ll find my way back to you.” I took a step toward the exit. Then another. “That’s not a hope, Anhara. It’s a fact.”
“Don’t die,” she said after a beat.
“You first.”
I left the station and descended into the dawn, the Sovereign’s legacy pressed against my ribs.
Behind me, the console went dark. Its work was done.
Ahead, somewhere in the burning light of morning, Anhara was waiting.
ANHARA
The console went silent.
Not the screaming silence of system failure. A finishing sound. The hum of machinery settling into rest after six hours of labor.
I stared at the readings. All green. All stable. All done.
Torek’s legacy. Safe. After everything.
