The moon had no name.
At least, none that appeared in any Council archive or system map. To the Gossamer Network, it didn't exist. No orbit log. No beacon.
Just a jagged piece of rock spinning slowly in the shadow of a dead sun.
And yet, as Julia stood at the viewport and watched its cratered surface grow nearer, her breath caught in her throat.
She knew this place.
Not as a memory.
As a haunting.
The glyph inside her chest pulsed, slow and steady, like it was breathing.
Not just in time with her body.
But in recognition.
They touched down near what looked like a geological collapse—an unnatural ravine at the base of a burned-out mountain range. Rock walls blackened, cracked, bent as if something massive had once pushed upward from below.
No signal came through.
No light.
But deep under the dust, Julia felt it.
A whisper through bone.
Something waiting.
