Atid-60202-47-44 Min Info

It was a name. And her name was Jae.

Min detached the data core and placed it in a shielded pouch over her heart. Then she activated her suit’s long-range transmitter.

She cut the channel and set a new course. Not toward the salvage vessel. Not toward the nearest spaceport. Toward the relay station on Titan, where a journalist was waiting for proof of the ATID cover-up.

It was Jae’s emergency beacon. The casing was cracked, space-welded to a strut of twisted metal. Min pried it loose with a trembling hand. The data core was still intact, a tiny obsidian chip humming with residual power. ATID-60202-47-44 Min

The designation was . It wasn’t a name. It was a log entry, a line in a spreadsheet, a ghost in the machine.

Static.

Min closed her eyes. For three years, she had needed to know if Jae had suffered. Now she knew. She had been afraid. She had been brave. And she had been murdered by the very corporation that signed her paychecks. It was a name

She found it wedged inside the crumpled cockpit of a lifeboat. Not a drone.

Tonight, Min was done staring.

The recording was only twelve seconds long. Grainy, flickering. But it was her sister. Jae’s face, younger, wild-eyed, her lip split and bleeding. Then she activated her suit’s long-range transmitter

She slotted it into her suit’s reader.

"Sloane," she said, her voice steady for the first time in years. "I’m not coming back to the Rake . I’m taking the long way home."

The outer door cycled with a sound like a held breath.