---
At dawn, Fort Sentinel was cloaked in storm fog. Visibility barely stretched beyond 100 meters, and the breakers crashed harder than usual along the southern reef wall. Reeve stood on the command tower's upper platform, wind biting at his coat, eyes fixed on the recovery dock.
Beneath the white tarpaulin structure, the recovered orbital descent module—PDM-31—lay in stasis. Its composite hull glistened with sea salt, streaked from being towed through rough water. Inside it, an AI core pulsed faintly, locked behind a vault chamber no one yet understood.
Inside the R&D dome, Keira led the engineering crew.
"Pressure seals stable. External contamination zero. Internal rad levels below threshold. We're green for entry."
Reeve gave the nod. "Do it."
Three drone units moved into position, welding cutters and plasma drills attached. With a hiss of depressurized air, they opened the first layer of shielding.
Beyond it, a coffin-sized vault of ceramic-wrapped alloy waited. Inscribed along the side was the emblem of a defunct military coalition—"SOUTHCOM STRIKE GROUP ECHO"—along with the words BLUE CONTINGENCY: CLASSIFIED – EYES ONLY.
Keira read the lines aloud. "This wasn't built to be found. It was built to be buried."
---
> DECRYPTION PROTOCOL INITIATED
Memory Core: Active
Vault Lock: 87% Encrypted
Estimated Time to Full Access: 22 Hours
R&D systems lit up. Streams of ancient OS strings scrolled across command lines. The AI began extracting fragments—mostly damaged. But one stuck.
> PRE-COLLAPSE MILITARY ARCHIVE – ACCESS FRAGMENT: AEGIS SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK
Status: Partial Blueprint Data Acquired
Reeve's eyes narrowed.
"Aegis," he said slowly. "We're not supposed to see that until HQ Level 10."
Keira grinned. "Technically, we haven't. Just... samples. Patterns. Concepts."
Reeve wasn't convinced. But he said nothing. Not yet.
---
Elsewhere in Fort Sentinel, the Tier II drydock expansion was nearing completion. Weld drones zipped between rising gantries and armored bulkhead reinforcements. Conveyor arms hauled 10-ton segments of modular hull plating into stacked rows.
> DOCKYARD STATUS: 93% Complete
New Capabilities Pending: – Extended Keel Trench (Frigate-Length Builds x2 Simultaneous) – Reinforced Hull Lift (Up to 4,000 Tons) – Power Grid Split for Active and Passive Cooling
Once done, Reeve could mass-produce frigates and support ships with half the downtime.
He authorized the next ship queue:
> CONSTRUCTION ORDER – FORMIDABLE-CLASS FRIGATE 02
Callsign: Vanguard
Purpose: Escort and AA Platform Status: Resources Allocated – Assembly Begins at 0600
---
By midday, weather had cleared, and the sea beyond Fort Sentinel was calm—too calm.
Satellite drones dispatched from the western grid reported no movement from the pirate sectors. No ship trails. No data bursts. Not even scavenger drones.
"Where the hell did they go?" Keira muttered. "They were probing our outer range just two days ago."
Reeve pulled up tactical overlays. "They're waiting for something. Consolidating maybe. We just hit a node that was supposed to stay hidden."
---
Inside the vault, the decrypted memory map expanded.
> VAULT CORE UNLOCK: 52%
Recovered:
– Naval Design Framework – MKI VLS Cell (Dual SAM/ASM Compatibility)
– Torpedo Defense Grid (Bubble Shield Node - Experimental)
– Partial Blueprint: ORP Vengeance – Unfinished Pre-Collapse Destroyer Design
He stopped reading.
Destroyer.
Technically, Fort Sentinel wasn't cleared for it. HQ Level 10 was the official threshold for heavy vessels. But this was a pre-collapse asset—analogues, templates, no digital fabrication files yet.
Still...
He flagged it for offline storage.
Not now. But one day.
---
By late evening, Keira entered the war room with two datapads.
"Status update," she said. "The power core inside the descent module is stable. The radiation's thermal—not fission. We can pull another 10–12 hours of scan cycles before it fades."
"Priority?" Reeve asked.
"Blueprint archive. There's something nested deep we haven't cracked. Something labeled PROJECT NEMEAN."
He stared at the name. "Myth reference?"
"Probably. We'll know when the vault opens."
Reeve tapped the command screen.
> SYSTEM ORDER: – Extend Airstrip Fuel Reserve by +15% – Begin Logistics Routing to Omega-7 (Forward Ops Node) – Assign NH90 for Overwater Recon: Sectors Theta-6 and Zeta-3
---
That night, standing on the eastern cliff, he looked out toward the darkening sea.
He didn't feel like a survivor anymore. Not a commander holding ground.
He felt like a strategist in a war that hadn't yet declared itself.
And the moment the vault opened, he knew—
That war would begin.
---
[End of Chapter Fifteen]