The corridor was not built for human senses. It was a tunnel of seamless, opalescent material that curved away into the heart of the station, lit by the same soft, internal glow that pulsed in time with Kaelen's own heartbeat—or was it the station's? The air hummed with a subsonic frequency that vibrated in his teeth. It was the sound of immense age, of systems running on power sources he couldn't comprehend for purposes long forgotten by the galaxy.
He was an intruder in a sacred tomb. Every footfall echoed, a profane sound in the perfect silence.
The corridor ended in a vast, circular chamber. In its center stood a single, crystalline plinth. The rest of the room was empty, its walls shifting through faint, holographic patterns that depicted star charts and intricate equations that made his head swim. This was the heart of the archive.
As he approached the plinth, the air above it shimmered. Light coalesced into the form of a being. It was vaguely humanoid, but its features were smooth and ethereal, its body composed of the same glowing data-streams that danced on the walls. It was the station's custodian. The Echo.
"Welcome, Pilot of Axiom-01." The voice was not sound. It was a direct impression in his mind, calm, genderless, and infinitely weary. "This facility has awaited a key for 7,432 standard galactic cycles."
Kaelen stopped, his throat dry. "You're the Archivist?"
"I am the recorded consciousness of the one who tended this place. A memory. An Echo, as you have named us. You may designate me as Curator."
The being gestured with a light-made hand toward the plinth.
"You seek knowledge. It is the purpose of this place to provide it."
Hope, sharp and painful, flared in him again. "The Axioms. What are they? Why do they... cost what they do?"
The Curator's form flickered. The star charts on the walls dissolved, replaced by a horrific, familiar image: a silver world, shattered. The same vision from the Oblivion's Span.
"The Axiom-series were not weapons. They were tools of last resort. Sculptors of reality."
The Curator's tone was devoid of judgment, a simple recitation of fact.
"Our civilization sought to understand the fundamental axioms of the universe. We succeeded. We learned that with sufficient psionic focus and energy, a localized axiom—a law of physics—could be temporarily overwritten."
The image shifted to show a Precursor scientist, her form elegant and serene, using a device to gently bend light around a rock, making it invisible. It was beautiful. A miracle.
"It was the pinnacle of our achievement. But all pinnacles invite a fall."
The image darkened. The Chimeran Hive appeared, but not as the biological-mechanical horrors Kaelen knew. They were once a pure, silicon-based species, first encountered as curious, sentient crystals on a dead moon.
"We sought to communicate. To share understanding. We used the Axiom technology as a bridge, attempting to align our psionic frequencies with theirs."
The image warped. The gentle crystals mutated, their structures twisting, adapting at a terrifying rate to the reality-altering energy. They didn't just communicate; they consumed the knowledge, perverting it.
"We did not create the Hive. We awakened it. We gave it the key to its own cage. Our attempt at communion was seen as an attack, and their adaptation became a weapon. They learned to rewrite reality not with finesse, but with brute, evolutionary force. Our war was not fought over territory or resources. It was a war to define reality itself. And we were losing."
The image showed the first Axiom mechs, desperate conversions of the peaceful tools.
"The Axiom units were repurposed. But to impose a new law upon a battlefield required a focus beyond any computer. It required a consciousness. A willing mind to hold the new axiom in place against the screaming contradiction of the old."
The Curator looked directly at Kaelen, and for the first time, he sensed a deep, unfathomable sorrow in its presence.
"The pilots volunteered. But the strain was… absolute. To enforce a new law of physics, even for a moment, the pilot's psyche had to become the anchor. It burned away their individuality, their memories, everything that was not essential to the command. It left only the pure, distilled Echo of their action. A fossilized memory of a sacrifice."
Kaelen stumbled back, his hand going to his temple. The hollow ache there was no longer just a feeling. It was a diagnosis.
"And the mech… it does the same to me. It's burning my memories to power the Echoes."
"The Axiom unit requires a catalyst. A psionic spark to ignite the Echo. Your unique mind provides that spark. But the energy to sustain the effect… it must come from somewhere. The unit draws it from the most compatible source: your own lived experience. Your memories are the fuel for the reality you seek to command."
It was a confirmation of his worst fear. He wasn't just using the Echoes. He was burning the library of his own life to keep the lights on.
"Is there a way to stop it?"
he demanded, his voice raw.
"A different power source?"
The Curator was silent for a long moment. The images on the walls showed the final, desperate moments of the Precursors, sealing away their greatest weapons, hoping for a future that could use them more wisely.
"The design is perfect in its purpose. There is no 'off' switch on a scalpel. There is only the hand that wields it."
The Curator paused.
"However… the more you understand an Echo, the less fuel is required to invoke it. Comprehension reduces the cost. You did not understand the Guardian's sorrow or the Severance's anger. You used them as blunt instruments. To wield an Axiom with efficiency is to understand the sacrifice that created it."
Understanding. It was a thread, so thin as to be almost invisible. But it was there.
"Show me"
Kaelen said, stepping forward, his eyes fixed on the glowing form.
"Show me everything. The history, the science, the pilots. Help me understand."
"The knowledge is vast. It cannot be simply given. It must be integrated. Experienced."
The Curator extended its hand toward the crystalline plinth.
"Interface with the archive. But know this, Kaelen Vance: to integrate this knowledge is to make it a part of you. It will change you. The price of understanding is the self you are now."
Another price. Always another price.
He could leave now. Take his mech and run. Try to hide, to use the Axiom only in the most dire emergencies, and slowly, inevitably, fade into a hollow shell.
Or he could step forward. He could let the history of a dead race flood his mind. He could risk being overwritten by their tragedy, their knowledge, their war. He could become less of himself to hopefully, one day, learn how to be more.
He thought of the blank space where his mother's face should be. He would not let that be the only legacy of his journey.
With a resolve that felt terrifyingly fragile, Kaelen Vance placed his hand upon the plinth.
"Integrating Archive"
The Curator's voice echoed in his mind, now the voice of the entire station.
"Prepare for the weight of ages."
Light, sound, and memory exploded into his skull. It was not a data transfer. It was an avalanche. He saw the birth of stars through Precursor eyes, felt the joy of their discoveries, the searing grief of their extinction-level mistake, and the cold, determined resolve of the pilots who gave everything to hold the line.
It was too much. He felt his own mind, his own memories—his first love, his Academy graduation, the taste of his favorite food—being pushed aside, buried under the colossal weight of a dead civilization.
He was drowning in history.
And in the deepest part of the deluge, he found something else. A secret the Curator had not mentioned. A final, desperate contingency plan of the Precursors. Not a weapon. A cure.
But the knowledge was a single, shining needle in a haystack of fire. He grasped for it, his consciousness fraying at the edges
Then, a new alarm, sharp and invasive, cut through the psychic torrent.
WARNING. EXTERNAL BREACH. FEDERATION SIGNATURE DETECTED. ASSAULT TEAM FORCING ENTRY.
The light vanished. The connection severed.
Kaelen collapsed to his knees, gasping, his mind reeling with half-understood truths and fractured alien memories. They had found him. The Federation hadn't given up. They'd followed the residual energy of his jump.
The Curator's form flickered urgently.
"The archive must not be taken. The knowledge of the Axioms cannot fall into hands that seek only to weaponize them."
The door to the chamber hissed open. Armored figures, clad in the sleek, grey power armor of Federation Marines, poured in, weapons raised.
"Target on his knees! Secure the civilian!"
one of them barked.
They didn't even see the Curator. They saw only a man and a strange machine.
The marine's helmeted head turned, scanning the shifting star charts on the walls.
"By the Commandant... this tech is off the scale. Intel was right. This is the motherlode."
Kaelen looked from the soldiers to the fading form of the Curator. They weren't here to rescue him. They were here to loot the tomb.
The Axiom mech was in the hangar. He was surrounded. His head was full of screaming ghosts and a secret that could change everything.
The lead marine approached him, a neural restraints in his hand.
"On your feet, son. You're coming with us."
The hunger in his mind whispered, eager, patient.
Kaelen Vance looked up, his eyes no longer just those of a scared archaeologist. They held the cold fire of a dead race's resolve. He had taken the first step into the abyss. He would not be pulled back now.
He gave the command. Not with his voice. But with every ounce of will he had left.
The hangar bay, thirty meters away through solid wall, ceased to obey the axiom of impenetrability.
With a scream of tearing reality, the wall between the chamber and the hangar ceased to exist. And standing there, in the new, jagged opening, its energy veins burning with the fury of a thousand dead suns, was Axiom-01.
The marines froze, their weapons seeming suddenly pathetic and small.
The mech's head turned, its sensor focus locking on to Kaelen.
He met its gaze, a new Echo—the cold, strategic fury of a Precursor Fleetmaster—rising within him, its cost already calculated and accepted.
His next words were not his own, but they were his choice.
"Sever them."