Location: Orbital Station Helix-09 — Edge of the Upper Stratosphere
Time: 17 hours after "The Pulse Beneath"
The sky wasn't black anymore.
It was red.
From the cockpit of the shuttle Aegis, Adrian watched the atmosphere ripple with faint crimson arcs, like blood veins pulsing across space. The Remnant's signal had already infected the ionosphere.
Lira sat beside him, her fingers flying across the control console. "Telemetry stable. Docking coordinates for Helix-09 locked."
"Signal source?" Adrian asked.
"Still active," she said, voice tight. "Coming from the station's central hub main AI core."
He exhaled slowly. "Then that's where it rebuilt itself."
Helix-09 floated in orbit like a dead moon silent, broken, half-buried in shadow. It used to be a research facility before the Collapse, but now it was a hollow graveyard drifting through static.
As they approached, the docking bay doors opened on their own.
