The path back to Last Hope wasn't marked by celebration.
It was quiet.
The kind of quiet that didn't need silence to be loud. Every footstep pressed into dust still warm from what the Echo Path had left behind. Wind stirred lazily across the cracked terrain, brushing against their armor with no urgency—just presence.
Kaela walked at the front, her stride steady, eyes flicking between the terrain and the path projected on her HUD. But the HUD wasn't what she was truly watching. She didn't trust it here—not after what they'd seen below.
She trusted patterns. Pressure. Gut.
Behind her, Darin was hunched slightly, holding the recovered data module in both hands. His scanner kept flickering—trying to parse something that didn't want to be read.
"This isn't just encrypted," he muttered once. "It's buried under intent."
No one answered. Zeyna walked to his left, arms crossed, gaze somewhere far off. Not at the mountains. Not at the path. Just… far.
