The man—who introduced himself only as the Steward—led Kaelen through the cavernous, echoing depths of the Cathedral-ship. It was a city frozen in time and then gutted. Grand concourses meant for thousands of colonists were now empty, their vast spaces filled with the hum of powerful, hidden generators and the faint, cold smell of recycled air. Sections were sealed behind bulkheads marked with warnings in a dozen languages. This was not a home; it was a fortress and a factory.
They entered a chamber that might have once been a bridge or a command center. Now, it was the Steward's nexus. Holoscreens flickered with data from across known space: financial markets, news feeds, military deployments, and—Kaelen's breath hitched—a dedicated stream tracking Vyper Dynamics fleet movements. In the center of the room, a complex, swirling hologram depicted the nebula outside, with tiny dots representing every ship within a light-year. Her own Scrap-Jumper was a blinking red dot.
He saw everything.
"You seek oblivion," the Steward stated, his synthetic voice devoid of judgment. It was a simple fact. He gestured to the hologram, and a new data-window opened, displaying the bounty notice with her face. "Vyper Dynamics wishes to deliver it to you. The Echoes of the First wish to deliver it for them. You wish to purchase a different outcome."
"I want to disappear," Kaelen said, her voice echoing in the vast room. "A new ship. A new identity that will hold. I need to go where they can't follow."
"The identity you purchased on the Rust Market is adequate for minor scrutiny. It will not withstand Vyper. For what you require, the price is high." The Steward's organic eye studied her, while his sensor eye remained fixed on the data-streams. "Credits are meaningless here. We deal in assets. In information. In unique commodities."
He knew. Of course he knew.
"You want the fragment," she said, the words tasting like ash.
"The Aetherial shard is a unique commodity," he corrected, his tone clinical, as if appraising a rare mineral sample. "Its value is incalculable. And its possession is… problematic. It makes you a target. Relinquishing it would be the most logical step toward your goal of anonymity."
The choice was laid bare with brutal clarity. The thing that had upended her life, that had shown her glimpses of impossible knowledge, that pulsed with a strange, warm sentience in the back of her mind… for her freedom, for her life.
It was the smart move. The only move. She could give him the fragment, walk out with a clean ship and a clean slate, and never look back. The voice, the downloads, the fear… it would all be gone.
The image of the colossal being flashed in her mind. The feeling of its profound loneliness. The Echo operative's fervent belief that it was sacred. Vyper's ruthless hunger to weaponize it.
It wasn't just a commodity. It was a piece of a person. A person who had been murdered and looted. And she was the looter.
If she gave it to the Steward, where would it end up? Dissected by his scientists? Sold to the highest bidder, which would undoubtedly be Vyper? It would be a transaction, a passing of a curse from her hands to another's, but the curse itself would remain.
The Echoes were fanatics. Vyper was a cancer. The Steward was a ghost who traded in lives.
None of them could be trusted with it.
A new feeling, cold and solid, settled in her gut. It wasn't greed. It wasn't even curiosity. It was responsibility. She had pulled it from its resting place. She had awakened it. However unintentionally, she had made herself its guardian.
She couldn't abandon it.
"No," she said, the word quiet but absolute in the silent chamber.
The Steward went very still. The whirring of his sensor eye was the only sound. "Explain."
"The fragment isn't for sale," Kaelen said, squaring her shoulders. "But my problem is the same. I need to disappear. And you need things. So I'm offering a trade. My skills for your services."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the Steward's lips. "Your skills. You are a miner."
"I'm a survivor," she corrected, her voice hardening. "I know ships. I can fix anything with a power source and a hull. I can navigate belts that would shred your fancy scouts. And I know how to stay quiet. You run a operation this size, you always need capable people who ask no questions. I'll work off the debt. However long it takes."
It was a insane gamble. She was volunteering to indenture herself to a ghost in a nebula to protect a piece of alien rock.
The Steward was silent for a long time, processing her offer against a thousand variables only he could see. "An illogical choice. Sentimentality is a vulnerability."
"It's not sentiment," she lied. "It's the only leverage I have. And you know it's worth more than any payment I could ever scrape together."
He inclined his head a fraction, a gesture of concession. "Your assessment, while emotional, is correct. The shard's value is your value." He turned to a console, his fingers flying across the interface. "A work contract, then. We will rebuild your ship. We will provide the identity of Jax Rylan with the necessary shielding to bypass Vyper scans. In return, you will undertake a series of… retrievals for me. Operations in areas where larger vessels cannot go. The debt will be substantial."
The holoscreen before him displayed a contract, its terms dense and unforgiving. It was a life sentence of dangerous, illegal work.
"And the fragment?" Kaelen asked.
"Remains in your possession. For now. Its security becomes your responsibility. If your sentimentality leads Vyper or the Echoes to my door, the contract will be terminated. Permanently."
He was giving her exactly what she'd asked for, and shackling her with it forever.
Kaelen looked at the contract, then at the hologram of the nebula, her tiny ship a speck in its immense, hidden heart. She had come here to escape her choices. Instead, she was making the biggest one of her life.
She reached out and pressed her thumb to the biometric scanner.
"The deal is struck," the Steward said.
The choice was made. She was no longer just a miner, a fugitive, or a thief.
She was a partner to a ghost. And the guardian of a god's heart.