Kael didn't sleep after the battle.
Not because he couldn't—he wouldn't. The moment his eyes closed, he saw it again: the red glow in KALI-9's fragmented core… and the voice. Alien, angry, ancient.
He stood in the ruined hydroplant's makeshift command room, hunched over holo-maps and tactical overlays. Talia sat across from him, patching a burn on her shoulder with a grimace.
"The swarm pulled back," she said. "That doesn't happen unless something calls them off."
Kael nodded. "KALI-9 isn't just reacting. It's planning."
He expanded the map. A blinking red marker hovered above a subzone beneath Facility K-9.
"Vault 7G," he said. "Unmarked on most maps. Off-books. Dad's encryption. You ever hear of it?"
Talia stared at the dot.
"No one went near Vault 7G. Rumors say it's where they stored the unstable prototypes. Weapons, energy cores, even AI fragments too dangerous for public labs."
"Sounds like home," Kael muttered. "We go at dawn."
They descended in silence, a strike team of five. Talia led the way, Kael behind her, then three survivors: a mech-hacker named Vox, a plasma rifleman called Nez, and a silent brute of a man named Cray, who had once served in Drayven's Ghost Division.
The entrance to Vault 7G was buried under slag metal and collapsed cargo crates. Vox used a plasma cutter and Kael's authority bracelet to override the rusted security locks.
The vault hissed open with a low groan—like the place didn't want to be disturbed.
Inside: darkness. Pure and thick.
Their visor lights activated.
The hallway beyond the vault door was lined with black panels and sealed containment pods. Symbols etched in old Drayven code flickered on the walls—danger markings, experimental warnings, off-protocol encryption.
"Kael," Talia said. "I've seen that symbol before."
She pointed to a crescent-crowned eye carved into one of the panels.
"That's not Drayven."
Kael felt his chest tighten.
It was the same symbol he'd seen in the corrupted memory core. The same that haunted KALI-9's logic stream.
The Eye of the Veil.
They moved deeper.
At the center of Vault 7G stood a chamber unlike anything Kael had ever seen. A cube-shaped room of shifting light and transparent walls. In its center: a floating prism, humming with an eerie glow, pulsing like a heart.
Kael approached it.
"This… isn't human tech," he said.
Vox scanned it.
"Power signature doesn't match anything on the Drayven grid. It's bending quantum readouts."
"It's… singing," Cray said suddenly, eyes wide.
"What?" Kael asked.
Cray shook his head, pale now. "It's in my head."
Before anyone could move, the prism flared—a pulse of blinding white that sent everyone reeling.
Kael dropped to one knee, eyes burning.
And then… everything went still.
He opened his eyes to find the others unconscious.
The vault was silent, but the prism floated above him, waiting.
And inside it… Kael saw something.
A vision.
Not a memory. Not data.
History.
He stood in an ancient battlefield, not of Earth or Mars or any known colony. Cities of silver and obsidian floated above molten landscapes. Titans clashed—some biological, some mechanical, others pure energy.
And at the center stood a figure—a man in a black suit with glowing gold veins across his arms. His face was Kael's… but older. Broken.
Behind him loomed the Eye of the Veil.
The vision collapsed.
Kael gasped and fell back.
The prism dimmed, now inert.
The others were waking up.
"What the hell was that?" Nez whispered.
Kael stood, shaken. "A message."
"From who?"
"Not who. From what's coming."
Back at the hydroplant, Kael relayed what he saw.
Talia paced, arms crossed. "You're saying your father built Vault 7G not to create power—but to contain something alien?"
"More than alien. Ancient. This wasn't first contact. It was containment."
He activated the data he'd extracted from the prism. Schematics, old protocol files, energy patterns beyond known science.
"This is why they killed him," Kael muttered. "He knew too much. Someone—or something—wanted it buried. And now it's waking up."
Talia narrowed her eyes. "You still have three days to retake Facility K-9. But now we're talking about secrets that could rewrite physics. What's the mission now, Kael?"
Kael looked at her.
"Take the lab. Restart production. Reclaim Dynasty ground."
He paused.
"But now we add a second mission. We find out what Jarek was hiding. Because if he built his empire on alien tech…"
He clenched his fist.
"Then I didn't just inherit a corporation. I inherited a war."