Chapter 15 - Imminent chaos

  The Cycles of War: Causes of the Disaster – Chapter 4 – Saphira Don

  Wars do not begin with gunfire. They do not begin with invasions or official declarations. They begin long before that, in the margins of history, in decisions that seem insignificant until they can no longer be reversed.

  The war between the Universal Government and the separatists is no exception.

  

  For decades, the outer systems accumulated resentment. Trade routes were centralized, economic policies favored the power centers in Klynos, and peripheral planets were relegated to the role of disposable cogs. It wasn’t a conflict of ideals, nor even of independence. It was a war of resources.

  But wars never present themselves as what they truly are.

  When the first uprisings erupted on the frontier worlds, the Universal Government’s response wasn’t negotiation, but pacification. In the official records there was no mention of repression, only “stabilization operations.” The separatists weren’t presented as forces seeking autonomy, but as dangerous extremists threatening the galaxy’s peace.

  The early clashes were small, skirmishes between poorly armed militias and local forces loyal to the central administration.

  But war feeds on its own echo. The harsher the repression, the more desperate the resistance becomes. And with each cycle, the narrative changes, until the real cause of the conflict disappears entirely.

  Today, separatists believe they are fighting for freedom. The Universal Government insists it is defending order. But neither remembers how this war truly began.

  Because the truth is that it wasn’t a battle, nor a broken treaty.

  It wasn’t a surprise attack, nor a declaration of secession.

  It all began with…

  Time did not pass, although at least a day and a night had already died. Or perhaps time passed too much, eroding from within, wearing away the edges of the mind just as the wind wore down the crater’s rocks.

  Harlan let the stones slip from his open, numbed hands. Sweat and dirt formed an opaque layer over his skin. His back burned under the dry midday sun. He was naked, like all the others. Upon their arrival, they had been forced to undress under threats, under shouts in a language they did not understand but that needed no translation. One of their own had resisted, and now lay half-buried beneath a pile of debris.

  The prisoners worked in silence. They dug trenches, carried black stones still hot from the fire of the offerings. The Balmorean guards watched with spears in hand and eyes like volcanic stones. They did not watch for safety. They watched to break them.

  Harlan bent down to lift another stone when he clearly heard a gunshot in the distance, dry, isolated, echoing. He raised his head.

  Nobody reacted.

  Not the prisoners.

  Not the guards.

  Not even the metallic birds that sometimes crossed the sky.

  Perhaps he had imagined it. Or perhaps the sound had sunk into the air as if the world had swallowed it.

  He kept working.

  Or tried to. His hands trembled. And then came the second sound: another shot, this time closer, sharper, as if someone had pulled the trigger right behind the curvature of the crater.

  Harlan flinched. He looked around.

  Nothing.

  The same heavy stillness. The same bone-breaking routine. No one had heard anything.

  When he bent down again, he heard a voice.

  “Harlan.”

  He turned at once, his heart pounding against his ribs.

  No one was there.

  Or rather: dozens of prisoners and guards were there, but none were looking at him. None had spoken his name.

  His body hurt, but it was a dull pain, muffled by something deeper: an emptiness settling inside him like a permanent guest. Thinking was hard. Even breathing felt like a conscious effort, as if he had to convince the air to enter. He looked at his hands—swollen, dirty, trembling—and did not recognize them. The same with his voice. With his reflection, if he had one.

  He did not cry. That stage had passed. Now he was only this: someone who occupied space. A weight for the others. Another witness to collapse.

  “You shouldn’t stay still for so long,” said a voice beside him. Soft. With a tone that knew how to slip between cracks.

  Vela.

  Harlan blinked, wanting to make sure it was her, that it wasn’t another invented voice.

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he replied without looking at her.

  “Sometimes moving is the only thing that keeps something awake.”

  Harlan shrugged. It hurt to do so.

  “I don’t think anything is awake in me anymore,” he murmured.

  Vela didn’t respond immediately. She sat beside him, back against the scorched stone. Not close enough to be affectionate. Just enough. The necessary distance.

  Harlan wiped his forehead… and then heard a deep rumble, the engine of a ship, or the echo of one. Long. Low. As if descending somewhere in the desert.

  He raised his head abruptly.

  “Why do we travel so much?” he asked.

  Vela frowned.

  “What?”

  “The ship. Why do they keep moving us around? What’s the point of moving us so much?”

  She looked at him with a mixture of exhaustion and confusion.

  “Harlan… I didn’t hear anything.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but said nothing. Doubt stabbed his stomach. Vela leaned back against the rock again, as if the conversation had never shifted.

  “Where were you from? Before all this.”

  She smiled with something close to warmth.

  “Cirtis. A moon that no longer exists. Now it’s called Revinor.”

  “Was it taken by the separatists?”

  She nodded.

  “They colonized us. Attacked little by little until they took the moon. I escaped to Tau Ceti IV. Left my family behind thinking I’d be safe here… until the separatists attacked this planet too.”

  The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy. A silence sharing the same root as the hollow in Harlan’s chest.

  “I admire you,” he said.

  She scoffed gently.

  “Why?”

  “Because you dared to escape.”

  “You tried too. We just had our strategy ruined.”

  Harlan lowered his gaze.

  “I’m a burden. I drag everyone down.”

  She looked at him attentively, waiting for him to raise his head so she could answer.

  “We’re not soldiers, Harlan. Not you, not me. Not Mikael, not Karr. We do what we can. You do what you can. But sometimes you just can’t save yourself.”

  A whip cracked in the air a few meters away. A prisoner had stumbled. The Balmorean guard didn’t need to strike hard: just enough to mark, not to kill. The wound was part of the ritual.

  “And what if someone doesn’t want to be saved anymore?” Harlan said, his voice almost gone.

  There was no answer. Only uneven footsteps on the rock, and then Nolan’s shadow approaching among exhausted bodies.

  He had a different air. Not harder than before, but more… resolved.

  “There’s something they’re not watching,” he said as soon as he arrived.

  Some lifted their heads. Vela too. Harlan didn’t; his eyes remained fixed on a point no one else saw.

  “During work,” Nolan continued. “There are moments when they disperse. On the eastern ridge there are no fixed guards. If someone slips away at the right time…”

  Mikael frowned.

  “Slip away how?”

  “Faking a fall. A fainting. Whatever. If you reach the ridge, you can hide. And watch. There may be a path out, or open ground to run toward.”

  Vela clicked her tongue, incredulous.

  “And who’s supposed to do that?”

  Nolan didn’t hesitate.

  “Me.”

  Harlan lifted his gaze. Something inside him tightened, like an invisible cord pulled without warning.

  He didn’t speak right away. He only stared at Nolan, as if he couldn’t quite understand what he was hearing… or as if he understood too much.

  “I’ve decided,” Nolan said, in a tone that allowed no argument. “There won’t be another chance.”

  A dry noise—like a gunshot—echoed far away. Harlan heard it clearly.

  No one else even blinked.

  “No,” he murmured, barely audible.

  Nolan kept talking, not noticing:

  “If I reach the ridge, I’ll look for an access point. And if there isn’t—”

  “I said no,” Harlan interrupted, louder. His hands trembled.

  Nolan stopped.

  “Harlan…”

  “Don’t go,” Harlan blurted, barely breathing.

  It came so quickly, so naked, that for an instant no one knew how to react. Not even him. He covered his face with a hand, as if he could erase what he had just said.

  “Harlan…” Nolan tried, softening his voice.

  “Here…” Harlan swallowed— “here I can’t… this isn’t a joke, Nolan. If you go… you could die.”

  Nolan’s eyes widened just a bit, surprised by the intensity.

  It wasn’t reproach.

  It was fear.

  A fear Harlan hadn’t shown even when tortured.

  “It’s just an attempt, Harlan. I’m not going to die,” Nolan said slowly, as if speaking to someone on the edge of a cliff.

  “You don’t know that,” Harlan replied. He didn’t shout. He didn’t tremble. He just said it, like someone sharing a truth that hurts more when spoken softly.

  Another noise, distant, metal striking metal, made his jaw tighten.

  Vela watched him with silent concern.

  Nolan took a step toward him.

  “If we don’t do anything, it’s only a matter of time before we’re human sacrifices. I won’t stay here until it’s our turn.”

  Harlan looked away. Something in his breathing broke.

  “I don’t care about ‘forever’,” he whispered. “I care about… now.”

  Barely a thread of voice. Yet enough for Nolan to understand the cost of his decision.

  Vela moved closer and placed a hand on Harlan’s shoulder. He didn’t react, but he didn’t pull away either. It was the closest thing he had to an anchor.

  Nolan watched them with a knot in his throat.

  Fists clenched.

  Harlan saw him nod and walk away without another word.

  “And now he hates you,” said a voice to his right. But no one was there, and Harlan knew it.

  And if Nolan hated him, that was better than Nolan ending up dead.

  The crater wind lifted spirals of shattered dust, each swirl carrying ash fragments that scraped skin as if trying to carve their way to the blood beneath. Nolan walked away from Harlan without looking back. He knew that if he did, if he saw that face carved by fear and something deeper with no name, he would not move another step.

  The ground vibrated with a low subterranean rumble, like distant rock plates grinding, a sound people learned to ignore, but today Nolan sensed it too clearly. Too close.

  A few meters away, Mikael caught up to him. He walked with sunken shoulders and the tense expression of someone who survived by habit.

  “Your friend is acting strange,” he murmured without preamble.

  Nolan didn’t pretend surprise. He simply nodded, as if acknowledging a shared burden.

  “Yeah. He is.”

  A short silence settled, long enough for dust to gather around their feet. Mikael kicked a small stone and followed its path.

  “And your plan…” Mikael added. “It isn’t good. Not even mediocre. It’s one of those plans that only works if the universe is distracted.”

  Nolan managed a tired smile.

  “I know.”

  “We should rethink it,” Mikael said, lowering his voice.

  “I know,” Nolan repeated, and for the first time in hours he felt someone was speaking from a place he understood.

  Mikael drifted away, not far—just enough to signal company without trust. Distinctions mattered here.

  A shadow slid to Nolan’s right. Not the movement of a body. The presence of one.

  He didn’t need to fully look to know who it was.

  Thelonopios.

  Standing. Motionless. As if he had been waiting, though no one could stand on that ground without leaving tracks. He could. He always seemed to arrive without footsteps.

  Nolan narrowed his eyes. There was something about that man that resisted understanding.

  “Do you have anything to do with what’s happening to Harlan?” Nolan asked bluntly.

  Thelonopios shook his head once. A movement so subtle it was almost the shadow of a gesture.

  “No,” he said. “That is a one-way path.”

  Nolan felt the immediate impulse to hit him. Not out of violence, but frustration at the riddles he always spoke.

  “Did you come to mock me?”

  “I came to protect you,” the man answered, as if naming an occupation.

  Nolan stepped back. Protect him. That word didn’t exist in this place. Not spoken that way.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Thelonopios didn’t explain. He simply continued:

  “They will summon you. You and three others. Karr… and two you don’t know. Sharia and Deblos.”

  The names fell like stones in still water. No noise, but sinking fast.

  “And how do you know that?” Nolan asked irritably.

  “They will clear debris,” Thelonopios went on, ignoring the question. “Small structures. Simple work. Monotonous. They will separate you from the main group. But when you reach a mound—a tiny mountain—you will have ten seconds.”

  Nolan’s skin prickled despite the heat.

  “Ten seconds for what?”

  Thelonopios looked at him as if studying the fracture of an object.

  “Deblos will steal a weapon. He will be fast. Desperate. He will grab you from behind. Use you as a hostage.”

  Nolan laughed without humor, a dry sound with no echo.

  “You really think I’ll fall for that?”

  But Thelonopios wasn’t done.

  “There will be a rock at your right. Flat. Porous. The strike must be clean. Just once.”

  Nolan clenched his jaw. Every word fell with irritating precision.

  “I’m not believing any of this,” he said.

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  Thelonopios tilted his head, almost expectant.

  “When you hear the story of the blue fox,” he murmured, “you’ll know the moment is near.”

  Before Nolan could reply, a shout cut the air.

  “You! Up! Work!”

  A Balmorean pointed at him from the rising path. Beside him were Karr, trembling; Sharia, brows furrowed; and Deblos, with a strange, restless look, as if he’d already stepped into the first move of a plan he didn’t fully grasp.

  Nolan looked back at Thelonopios.

  The man stood exactly where he had been.

  Not moving.

  Not doing anything.

  Saying almost nothing, and yet too much.

  Nolan wiped sweat from his forehead.

  He didn’t believe a word.

  He couldn’t.

  But as he climbed the slope, something twisted in his gut.

  Not fear.

  The possibility that Thelonopios wasn’t speaking of the future… but of something already unfolding.

  They were pushed toward a natural ramp in the crater. Sun filtered through dust, tinting the landscape greenish, as if submerged in thick liquid. With each step the earth vibrated under hammer strikes from other prisoners.

  Nolan noticed first the lack of coherent surveillance. Three guards, tired, irritated, distracted. One ate something. Another scratched his rifle butt against a rock. The third muttered to himself, unable to bear silence.

  Thelonopios hadn’t lied: there was a tear in the routine.

  Once they arrived, they were forced to crouch before a pile of charred debris, remains of a structure burned in some ritual. The ground was covered in jagged fragments, some sharp, some worn smooth.

  “Sort this,” a guard ordered without looking at them. “Big to the right, small to the center. Anything useful… there.”

  He pointed lazily at a makeshift platform.

  Nolan crouched. The first piece he picked up was irregular, one side sharp.

  That was the one he needed.

  Or something very similar.

  Thelonopios had been clear: when you hear the story of the blue fox, the moment is near.

  Nolan pretended to inspect it and set it aside, subtly near where his foot would be. They must not notice he kept it.

  Karr breathed unevenly. Sharia worked fast, as if afraid of thinking too much. Deblos watched the guards with unsettling calm, as if waiting his turn.

  Karr turned to Nolan.

  “Come on, Nolan. Are those soft arms slowing you down?”

  One Balmorean, the one scratching his rifle, spoke without looking at them:

  “Silence, slaves.”

  Another Balmorean, taller, looked at his colleague and clicked his tongue:

  “It’s pathetic what we have to work with. These worms’ ability to do anything right is as real as a blue fox.”

  The other two laughed, rough, dry sounds bouncing off the stone walls.

  Nolan’s heart tightened.

  There it was.

  Not from Thelonopios’ mouth, but from someone who had no idea he had just lit a fuse.

  Nolan, expression unchanged, slid his hand toward the piece he had set aside. Picked it up naturally, as if simply moving it. It was heavy. Ideal.

  Karr glanced at him, barely. Nolan was sure he understood, but remained silent.

  The lead guard signaled for them to advance toward a half-collapsed structure. The roof had caved in, the walls burned and black like bones. Amid the rocks lay a hollow where a body might barely fit.

  A hiding place.

  Or a grave.

  Depending on execution.

  Nolan crouched again, keeping the stone hidden partly beneath another.

  The moment came too fast.

  A scrape of movement, a rush of air.

  Deblos vanished from his field of vision. When Nolan turned, it was too late: Deblos was behind him, a thick arm around Nolan’s neck, and in his other hand, yes. Thelonopios had been right even in the most improbable detail: Deblos held a freshly stolen weapon from the nearest guard, who hadn’t yet understood what happened.

  “Still,” Deblos growled, pressing the barrel to Nolan’s temple.

  Karr froze, dead serious. Sharia raised her hands, unfazed. After so many death threats, sensitivity to dying diminished.

  The guards took two seconds to react. Two seconds too long. One raised his spear. Another stepped back. The third spat, unsure whether to shoot.

  Nolan felt Deblos’ pulse on his forearm, irregular, frantic.

  They couldn’t let the second guard shoot first.

  And then, like a reflex from deeper than memory, Nolan heard the phrase again in his mind: blue fox.

  Not a memory.

  A push.

  He struck.

  The stone flew backward with all the strength he had left. It hit Deblos in the temple with a dull, wet sound. The giant dropped the gun. His grip loosened. Nolan dove forward.

  The guard fired, but the ray hit a collapsed wall.

  Deblos fell to his knees, then sideways, breathing like a defeated beast.

  Nolan staggered, recovered balance, grabbed the dropped weapon, but couldn’t aim. A guard rammed him in the stomach with the rifle butt, knocking the air out of him, forcing him to release it.

  The world spun.

  Dust filled his open mouth.

  “STOP!” the lead guard shouted.

  Silence fell like a filthy blanket.

  Nolan stayed on his knees, coughing, watching as two Balmoreans tied the unconscious Deblos hand and foot like a package. The third guard looked at Nolan with a strange mix of hatred and respect.

  “Risky,” he said at last. “But you survived. That’s already more than I expected from you. You defended your life with dignity. Well done.”

  Nolan lowered his gaze. His hands trembled, partly from the blow, partly because Thelonopios had been right. How? How had he known?

  On the stone, the bloodied fragment gleamed darkly. And even amid his confusion, Nolan felt something worse: satisfaction. The Balmorean’s praise had made him feel a little better.

  Why? Why was he so weak as to let a simple compliment affect him? Because he was separatist? Because his father would have preferred praise from a Balmorean rather than a Government commander?

  Nolan shook his head to himself. That’s why he didn’t deserve to live. That’s why the only thing that mattered was saving someone purer than him.

  Harlan, I’m going to save you.

  The cathedral of Klynos was not built for the eyes. It was built for the back.

  It forced it to bow.

  Its architecture rose like a spiral of bone and light: curved columns, translucent filaments, small mirrors redirecting artificial glow toward impossible angles. No engineer of the Universal Government had ever replicated the structure; it was older than them, more stubborn, as if the city’s own history had solidified there long before a First Delegate existed.

  Lin Jung crossed the main threshold slowly, letting the shift in air density wrap around him. Inside, silence was a different kind of gravity. It didn’t weigh on the ears. It weighed on thoughts.

  With each step, the echo returned something he hadn’t said.

  At the end of the central nave, under a stained glass depicting not saints nor martyrs but star maps, stood Piaros. Not seated. Not preaching. He walked slowly between two rows of narrow lamps, reading a floating text as if the light itself whispered something he couldn’t afford to lose.

  When he saw Lin approach, he finished the line before looking up.

  A minimal gesture. A respect that didn’t mean equality.

  “Advisor Jung,” he said with a warmth that felt fresh from a home that didn’t exist. “It’s a good day to see the Path.”

  Not to walk it, Lin thought, but didn’t say.

  He bowed his head briefly.

  “Guide Piaros. Thank you for receiving me.”

  Piaros closed the floating text with a smooth motion. He didn’t dismiss it; he stored it, like someone sealing away a thought.

  “I never refuse conversation to someone carrying weight on their shoulders,” he said. “And you, Lin Jung, have walked for weeks as if Klynos’ gravity was calibrated solely for you.”

  Lin held his gaze without denying it.

  He hadn’t come to deny anything.

  They walked among the columns. The bluish light from the stained glass cloaked Piaros like a second robe, more alive than fabric.

  “I know why you’re here,” the Guide said before Lin spoke. “Bastion.”

  The name bounced through the cathedral without echo, as if the walls refused to repeat it.

  Lin nodded once.

  “The Universal Government needs your public word. Not your signature. Not a formal blessing. Just… clarity. Bernard Von Hessol won’t move his party without knowing where the Ecclesia stands.”

  Piaros tilted his head, interested but unsurprised.

  “Clarity,” he repeated. “A good wish. But not always a good Path.”

  Lin breathed deeper. He had prepared arguments, negotiations, possible scenarios. None worked when the opponent played a board where the pieces weren’t votes but beliefs.

  “The Bastion operation,” Lin continued, “is necessary to protect the connection nodes. You know how fragile the interstellar network is. We need to isolate Tau Ceti before—”

  Piaros lifted a hand gently—not interrupting, redirecting.

  “I know very well what Bastion implies,” he said. “Breaking the nodes. Disconnecting Tau Ceti from the rest of the universe. Moving danger away from the main body, even if that…” He searched for a word, found it too quickly. “Even if that bleeds the human frontiers for decades.”

  Lin clenched his teeth, but his expression stayed firm.

  “It’s what must be done.”

  “It’s what the Universal Government believes must be done,” Piaros corrected, still with that kind voice, as if discussing gardens instead of millions of lives. “Remember: the Government is the tool. We… are the compass.”

  They reached the cathedral’s center. The floor held a circular mosaic depicting ancient stellar routes, paths drawn when humanity didn’t even know it lied about its own origin.

  Piaros stopped over it. The light carved soft angles on him, but his shadow was firm like a crack.

  “If you break the nodes,” he said, “you break the Path you claim to follow. It would be admitting that the Universal Government fears its own destiny. That’s not faith in the tool. That’s panic in the hand that wields it.”

  Lin stepped closer.

  “We’re not talking about faith. We’re talking about survival.”

  “And that’s why I will not support you,” Piaros said softly. “Because if I bless Bastion, I bless the idea that humanity must hide from itself. I bless regression. I bless fear. And the Path…” he touched the mosaic with his fingertips, “does not bend to comfort the powerful, Lin. It bends when the universe demands it.”

  Lin felt the air thicken. Like entering a room where someone had cried, though the tears were gone.

  “I can offer alternatives,” Lin said quietly. “Conditions. Adjustments. Nothing is closed. If you speak—even without naming Bastion—even if you simply say the moment is right…”

  “I will not,” Piaros interrupted, still gentle. “Not because you lack skill. You have plenty. But because I know what you’re trying to avoid. I know what moves in Tau Ceti. And I know Bastion is not a defense. It’s an amputation. Amputations stop infection, yes… but they leave a body that walks differently forever.”

  Lin felt a faint impulse of anger.

  He couldn’t show it.

  Not here.

  “Guide Piaros,” he said with restrained calm, “if you don’t speak, Bastion won’t be approved. And if it isn’t approved, the Universal Government will fracture. Is that what you want?”

  For the first time, Piaros’ eyes hardened.

  They didn’t shine.

  They didn’t dim.

  They sharpened.

  “I do not seek to divide the Government,” he said. “I simply refuse to hold it up when it tries to walk against the Path. If the First Delegate wishes to strengthen his operatives, let him. With the Government’s own strength. If he needs my voice, then his decision lacks light.”

  Lin opened his mouth, but Piaros spoke first.

  “Do not insist, Advisor Jung. Not today.”

  The tone was soft. Warm. Almost fraternal.

  It struck harder than a slammed door.

  Lin knew the conversation was over when Piaros turned toward the stained glass, as if the light were offering him a second verdict.

  “May the Path guide you,” the Guide said without turning. “Even when you disagree with it.”

  Lin stood still a moment.

  He didn’t know if he had been rejected by a priest, a political leader… or by a map he could not read.

  He left the cathedral slowly, feeling the echo follow him too closely.

  As if the structure itself had heard every word and was already calculating the consequences.

  Lin felt a vibration in his head. A message appeared:

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  It was from Garnal.

  Lin prayed nothing had failed in Bastion’s architecture.

  The walk back from the outer barracks left him breathless though he hadn’t run. The air in the lower levels always tasted metallic, as if the camp were forged from a single rusted iron piece and they were insects walking through its spiral. Nolan moved between shadows, past half-asleep prisoners, guards who turned their heads a centimeter, swaying lamps that looked hung from exposed nerves.

  He had escaped Deblos.

  Escaped wasn’t the right word.

  Deblos had let him go.

  That weighed more.

  He found Harlan sitting against an artificial bone structure, arms over knees, gaze sunk into the ground as if someone had drawn a map there only he could read. The light tremor in his hands kept appearing and disappearing like a glitch.

  Nolan approached slowly, matching his steps to avoid startling him.

  “Har,” he whispered, kneeling at a distance. “I need to tell you something. Deblos grabbed me. I thought he was going to...”

  Harlan raised his gaze.

  No surprise.

  No relief.

  Just a cold emptiness, as if someone had wiped his emotions away with a wet cloth.

  “I already know,” he said.

  Nolan tensed.

  “How…?”

  Harlan blinked slowly, as if coordinating sight and words were an effort.

  “Thelonopios was here. Sat where you are. Spoke to me.” He made a vague gesture, like swatting an invisible insect. “Said things. About you.”

  Something hardened inside Nolan.

  “What things?”

  Harlan placed both hands on the ground, fingers digging into the dirt.

  “He said you have a terrible secret,” he said in a tone more diagnostic than quoted. “One you didn’t want to tell me. One that…” he struggled to form the phrase, “…that defines you. That makes you different from us.”

  Silence stirred between them.

  A dry leaf would have made noise.

  Nolan swallowed.

  “Harlan, that’s not true. Or not the way he meant it. It has nothing to do with you, or with, ” he stopped, choosing words carefully, “, it’s not something that puts you in danger.”

  Harlan looked at him. Not as a friend. Not as an enemy.

  As someone deciding whether what he heard was real or a shadow on the wall.

  “He said you’re not who you say you are.”

  “No one here is who they say they are,” Nolan replied too quickly.

  Harlan shut his eyes tightly, as if erasing a carved image.

  Then grabbed his head with both hands. Not theatrically.

  Painfully.

  “No… no,” he murmured. “I can’t think. Everything comes together and falls apart. I don’t know if I should believe you or… or if this is part of these bastards’ game.”

  Nolan inched closer, but Harlan stopped him with a trembling raised palm.

  “Don’t come closer.”

  Those three words cut deeper than any insult.

  Harlan breathed fast.

  As if he had been running.

  As if something invisible chased him.

  Then suddenly the storm died. He opened his eyes and looked at Nolan with fragile clarity.

  “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “It’s not you. I’m just… going through too much. I’m not thinking straight.”

  The sudden shift made Nolan dizzy.

  “I can help,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. “Just tell me what you need.”

  Harlan shook his head. Not violently. Just tired.

  “No. Not now. Just… let me breathe. That’s all.”

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “No,” he said softly. “Not now.”

  Nolan stepped back.

  Then another step.

  Harlan was already staring at the ground again, as if it accused him.

  When Nolan turned to leave, a sharp instinct rose—raw and animal:

  to strangle Thelonopios with his bare hands.

  Not because of the secret.

  Not because of the threat.

  But because he had placed a crack where Harlan was barely holding himself together.

  And because for the first time since capture, Nolan saw something in Harlan he had never seen.

  Not fear.

  Distrust.

  Toward him.

  The Bastion Operative building was submerged in functional darkness, as if designed by someone who distrusted light. The corridors weren’t narrow, but their layout made visitors feel as though they moved through layers of a single mechanical heart. Lin walked with controlled steps, measuring his breath, feeling again the sting from his conversation with Piaros.

  On the third level, before reaching the technical office, he encountered Anara Huckson.

  She wasn’t waiting for anyone. She simply existed there, as if the station orbited around her. Her hair was tied cleanly, her uniform without a wrinkle, but it wasn’t order that imposed respect, it was the precision in her gaze, the way she dissected people before speaking.

  “Lin Jung,” she said without raising her voice.

  He stopped.

  “Huckson.”

  She studied him two seconds longer than necessary.

  “I know you have Santiago’s favor,” she said almost courteously. “And I’m glad for you. It’s no small thing. But I’ll be clear: if you don’t get Garnal in line, I’m removing him from the project.”

  The words fell without sound—like a stone in very deep water.

  “He’s harming progress with his paranoia,” she added. “And I can’t direct an operation with a lead engineer who sees ghosts in every irregular percentage.”

  Lin felt heat rise in his face. Not blush. Frustration tightening his throat. Swallowing a truth that wasn’t his.

  He nodded.

  He didn’t say “you’re right.” He didn’t say “I’ll handle it.”

  He just nodded. Obedience was the fastest way out of a conversation with Anara Huckson.

  She accepted the gesture and left without a goodbye.

  Lin continued, a new weight pressing down on him. Each step felt closer to a sentencing he hadn’t chosen.

  When he reached the technical office, the door was ajar. Inside, keyboards and massive ventilators created constant vibration. Garnal was hunched over a console, eyes red, beard disordered, as if he’d slept sitting.

  Lin entered and closed the door.

  “Garnal,” he said softly.

  The engineer jumped. Took three seconds to recognize Lin.

  “Lin… thank god. I need to talk to you.” He wiped his eyes. “We have a problem.”

  Lin barely breathed.

  “Tell me.”

  Garnal pointed at the floating readings.

  “The engine isn’t ready. Not at a hundred percent. There are irregular values in external modulators, thermal-pressure fluctuations that don’t match simulations.” He rubbed his face. “If we activate it now, I can’t guarantee anything.”

  Lin approached, watching numbers rise and fall like erratic heartbeats.

  “How much time do you need?”

  Garnal hesitated.

  Not technically.

  Humanly.

  “Three months.” He said it like confessing a crime. “Maybe a little less, but… if you want to guarantee nothing blows apart…”

  Lin placed a hand on the console edge. The metal was cold.

  “We can’t wait three months.”

  The silence wasn’t technical.

  It was moral.

  “Lin…” Garnal’s voice faltered. “I don’t think you understand the risk. If we activate it now… instead of destroying the Tau Ceti node, we could destroy the entire planet. Not theoretically. Practically. We could collapse ecosystems in other connected worlds. This is… too big to improvise.”

  Lin opened his mouth. Closed it again.

  Then his stomach twisted violently.

  He leaned aside and vomited.

  No loud sound. Just choking, acidic liquid hitting the clean floor, and irregular breaths trying—and failing—to steady.

  Garnal stepped toward him.

  “Are you okay?”

  Lin raised his head.

  His eyes were bloodshot. His breaths sharp.

  “I’ll be okay when we activate that fucking machine,” he spat, literally and figuratively. “You’re not responsible. Understand? I don’t want to hear anything else about this. Nothing. If you keep putting obstacles, I’ll make sure you’re removed from the project.”

  Garnal’s eyes widened in shock.

  Not because of the insult.

  Because of the tone. The weight. The direct threat.

  From Lin.

  “Yes… yes. Alright,” he whispered. “I understand.”

  Lin wiped his mouth with his sleeve and left without waiting.

  The hallway tilted beneath his feet, or maybe he tilted within it.

  Everything was heavier. Slower.

  The engine was failing.

  The votes were missing.

  Piaros had closed the door.

  And Santiago wanted results. Not excuses.

  No air remained in the corridor.

  Or he had forgotten how to breathe.

  At the elevator, he pressed his forehead to the cold glass.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  And then, from somewhere deep in childhood, a reflex older than politics, older than the Government, came the only idea he hadn’t yet shattered:

  Tomorrow he would visit his grandfather.

  Because in Klynos, before laws, before machines, before the Path…

  there had been elders.

  And Lin needed one.