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The word sits at the table like Rolaev has pulled up a chair.

No one says her name.

I sign the release authorization before fear can make my hand useless.

The paper goes out twelve minutes later to thirty-seven researchers across League, Coalition, Alliance, independent human, Pi’Rell, and neutral academic institutions. Each receives only controlled data. Each signs enough legal and ethical restrictions to choke a courtroom. Each is screened by trauma specialists, cultural-stability analysts, and at least one very tired human psychiatrist who keeps looking at me as if I am a case study with legs.

By the end of the first hour, three reply with disbelief.

By the fourth, one Coalition historian calls the findings “League-funded metaphysical sabotage.”

By the eighth, a human archaeological consortium leaks the title, because of course they do, because academics under pressure are only marginally less chaotic than pirates with expense accounts.

By the end of the first day, the whole galaxy is chewing on the words pre-Precursor.

The recovery vessel’s comm feeds become a storm.

League academic channels erupt into formal outrage, then informal outrage, then the extremely specific kind of outrage where people who have not read the paper write rebuttals to arguments nobody made. Coalition clerics denounce the release as an attack on metaphysical sovereignty. Alliance commentators demand military oversight of all Nareth-Kul artifacts. Human news aggregates run breathless segments with titles like WERE THE PRECURSORS SECOND? and WHAT THE LEAGUE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW.

Sira finds me in the observation gallery during the second night cycle.

The gallery is dim, its curved viewport showing nothing but debris, distant stars, and the reflected glow of holonet feeds scrolling across my compad. I have not slept. My coffee has gone cold twice. My eyes feel full of sand. The air has the aroma ship metal, old caffeine, and the faint burnt note of the thermal blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

Sira sits beside me without asking.

“Have you eaten?” she asks.

“Define eaten in a way that includes coffee.”

“No.”

“Then no.”

She takes the compad from my hand with surprising firmness.

“Hey.”

“You are doom-scrolling through civilization’s first tantrum.”

“That is an important research activity.”

“It is self-harm with citations.”

I stare at her. “That was mean.”

“It was accurate.”

“Mean and accurate is my brand.”

“Then you should recognize it.”

I lean back against the cold viewport frame and close my eyes. Behind my lids, headlines keep flashing. Accusations. Speculation. Religious fury. Academic greed. Governments circling. Private collectors offering obscene sums for “Nareth-Kul relics,” as if the dead world is already a boutique market.

“It’s starting,” I whisper.

Sira’s shoulder brushes mine. “Yes.”

“That is not comforting.”