The chimes were the worst part.
They weren't a klaxon or an alarm. They were soft, melodic, a sequence of five rising tones that repeated in the dead, silent corridor with a kind of gentle, patient insistence. A sound of civilization, of normalcy. And in the oppressive, rotting dark of the Vanguard, it was the most terrifying thing Haruto had ever heard.
His blood had turned to a slow, cold slush in his veins. The words on the tiny screen of the scanner burned in the low light, a personal, impossible accusation. COMMAND-LEVEL GENETIC MARKER DETECTED.
A strange, vertiginous lurch seized him, as if the deck plates beneath his boots had suddenly tilted. It wasn't the ship's failing gravity. It was his own reality shearing at the seams. The ship didn't just recognize his rank or his codes. It recognized him. His blood. A ghost in his own DNA.
"What is it?" Kaito's voice, a strained whisper from behind him, yanked him back from the precipice. "What's it saying? Is it another trap?"
Haruto didn't answer. He couldn't. His throat was a tight, dry knot of dust and disbelief. He stared at the name on the door. Captain Eva Rostova. The name meant nothing. A random string of syllables from a dead woman's log. A ghost. So why did it feel like a key turning in a lock deep inside his own memory, a lock he had never known was there?
He took a half-step back, his hand instinctively going to the grip of his carbine. His tactical mind was screaming at him. Unknown variable. Potential system compromise. The Warden is manipulating you. Fall back. Reassess. The logic was sound. The correct, military response.
But he didn't move. Rooted to the spot. Held captive by the gentle, chiming inquiry of the scanner and a profound, terrifying curiosity he couldn't suppress. A pull. A current in the deep, still waters of his soul, tugging him towards this door, towards the ghost on the other side.
The blue light on the panel pulsed, waiting. PLEASE CONFIRM IDENTITY.
"Haruto, talk to me," Kaito's voice was sharper now, frayed with fear. "Your face… you look like you've seen a ghost."
"Maybe I have," Haruto murmured, the words a rough rasp. He finally tore his eyes away from the scanner and looked at his team. At Kaito, pale and trembling, his knuckles white where he gripped his weapon. At Riku, a silent, impassive statue, his head tilted slightly, his helmeted face betraying nothing, yet Haruto could feel the man's focused, analytical gaze on him. Riku wasn't scared. He was observing. Collecting data.
"This is a mistake," Kaito insisted, taking a hesitant step forward. "The AI, the Warden, it's playing with us. It tried to kill us, and now it's… what? Ringing a doorbell? It makes no sense. We should go back. Find another way."
"There is no other way," Haruto said, his gaze returning to the door. The chimes had stopped. The blue light held steady, a silent, patient question. He was right, Kaito was right. This was illogical. A tactical nightmare. But the feeling… the pull… it was undeniable. The answer to every question they had was behind this door. The answer to what had happened to the Vanguard. The answer to what the anomaly was. And, he was suddenly, terrifyingly certain, the answer to who he was.
He made the decision. It felt less like a choice and more like a surrender.
"Cover me," he said. He holstered his carbine in a single, fluid motion. The sound of the weapon locking into its magnetic clamp was unnaturally loud in the quiet.
"What are you doing?" Kaito gasped.
"I'm knocking."
He stepped forward, his heart a frantic, hammering drum against his ribs. The stale air of the corridor felt thick, heavy, like wading through water. He raised his right hand, his glove gritty with the dust of the service duct, and hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he pressed his palm flat against the glowing blue surface of the scanner.
The panel was not cold. A strange, unnerving warmth pulsed against his skin. The blue light intensified, bathing his face in its spectral glow. The chimes returned, faster this time, a cascade of notes, the sound of a system waking from a long, deep sleep. The text on the screen scrolled too fast to read, a blur of green code.
A new voice spoke from the panel. Not the Warden's cold, synthesized tones. This voice was deeper, calmer. Male.
The blue light faded. With a sound like a giant's sigh, a hiss of ancient, equalizing pressure came from the seams of the door. Then, a series of heavy, metallic clunks echoed from deep within the mechanism, the sound of locking bolts a meter thick being withdrawn from their housings. A sound of opening tombs.
The door did not slide open. It moved with a slow, ponderous grace, retracting into the wall with a low, hydraulic hum that vibrated through the deck plates. It revealed a darkness within that was deeper, more absolute than the corridor's dim red gloom. The air that drifted out was different. It smelled not of decay or rot, but simply of time itself. The scent of dust, of sealed air, of utter, profound stillness.
Haruto stood on the threshold, his hand still tingling from the scanner's warmth. He drew his sidearm, the weight of the heavy-caliber pistol a small, solid comfort in his hand. "Kaito, with me. Riku, hold the corridor. Watch our six. If anything comes out of that room that isn't us, you seal the door. Understood?"
"Seal the… seal the door?" Kaito stammered.
"That is an order," Haruto said, his voice flat, leaving no room for argument.
Riku simply nodded once, a short, sharp dip of his helmet. He raised his carbine, his body a solid, immovable anchor in the corridor, his attention focused not on the open door, but on the long, dark hallway behind them.
Haruto took a breath of the dead, ancient air and stepped through the doorway. He had crossed a line. No longer just an intruder. An invited guest in a dead woman's house.
The room was a time capsule.
His shoulder-light cut a sharp, white path through the darkness, revealing a captain's personal quarters, perfectly preserved, untouched by the chaos and violence that had consumed the rest of the ship. A layer of dust, thick and gray and soft as velvet, covered everything, muffling the sound of their footsteps, turning the entire room into a silent, gray tableau.
It was a spacious, well-appointed room, divided into a small living area and a sleeping alcove. A low, comfortable-looking couch. A small table with two chairs. A single, sealed viewport that showed nothing but the black, dead rock the ship was buried in. Everything was neat. Orderly. The only sign of disturbance was a single overturned cup on the floor near the table, a dark stain spreading out from it like a dried, faded flower of ancient blood.
"Gods," Kaito whispered from behind him, his voice a reverent, horrified thing. "It's… it's like she just stepped out for a moment."
Haruto didn't respond. His tactical mind was already working, scanning, assessing. He swept his light across the room. No sign of the black ooze. No signs of a struggle. No bodies. Just the dust. The stillness. And the feeling. A heavy, oppressive feeling of sorrow, of a tragedy that had played out in this room a thousand years ago.
He moved deeper into the quarters, towards a small, partitioned-off area that must have served as an office. His boots made no sound on the thick, dust-covered carpet. The air was so still, so dead, he felt as if his own breathing was a violent intrusion.
The office was small, functional. A single, large desk dominated the space, its surface covered in the same thick layer of gray dust. Behind it, a high-backed command chair. And on the desk, two objects sat side-by-side, the only things that seemed to have been recently disturbed, their outlines clear in the otherwise uniform blanket of dust.
One was a data slate, a standard, military-issue model, its screen dark and lifeless.
The other was a small, silver picture frame.
Haruto approached the desk cautiously, his pistol still held at the ready. He reached out a gloved hand, the movement feeling slow, sacrilegious, and wiped the dust from the surface of the frame. The glass beneath was cracked, a fine, spiderweb pattern spreading from the center. He picked it up. It was heavy. Real silver. An affectation from a bygone era.
He angled it towards his light. The holo-image was faded, its power source dead for a millennium, leaving only a ghostly, two-dimensional photograph behind. It was a formal portrait. A woman in the crisp, high-collared dress uniform of an Imperial Fleet Captain. She was beautiful, with sharp, intelligent eyes, a firm, determined mouth, and dark hair pulled back in a severe, military bun. There was a severity to her features, a hardness born of command, but her eyes… there was a hint of something else in her eyes. A deep, weary sadness. Captain Eva Rostova.
She was not alone in the portrait. Standing beside her, his hand resting lightly on the back of her chair, was a man. He was younger, dressed in the simpler, more functional uniform of a junior officer. He was handsome, with a sharp jawline and a quiet, confident smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. His face was a ghostly, faded blur, the details lost to the decay of the image. But the way he stood… the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head…
A jolt, sharp and electric, shot through Haruto. A shock of impossible recognition. He knew that stance. He saw it in the mirror every morning.
His hand trembled. He slowly, carefully, set the frame back down on the desk. His heart was a wild, frantic thing, a bird beating itself to death against the cage of his ribs.
"What is it?" Kaito asked, his voice soft, cautious. "What did you find?"
Haruto didn't answer. He reached for the data slate. His movements felt slow, detached, as if he were watching someone else's hands. He placed the slate on his own wrist-unit, the magnetic connectors clicking into place with a soft, final sound. He initiated the data transfer, a direct, hardline connection to bypass the dead power cell.
A single green progress bar appeared on his screen. It filled with an agonizing slowness, pulling a thousand years of dead data into the light. The silence in the room was absolute. He was aware of Kaito's breathing behind him, of Riku's silent vigil in the corridor, of the low, almost sub-audible hum of the ship around them. But it all seemed very, very far away.
The bar filled. TRANSFER COMPLETE.
A single file appeared on his screen. It wasn't a ship's log. It wasn't a tactical report. It was a personal audio file, designated with a simple, two-word title that made the world tilt and the air leave his lungs in a single, ragged gasp.
The title read:
FOR HARUTO.