The panel came off with a screech of warped alloy.
Mira stepped back, wiping her hands on her pants, eyes narrowing at the newly revealed gap. "That wasn't a storage wall. It's a divider. Someone sealed this deliberately."
Toren leaned in. A narrow crawlspace extended beyond the breach, half-choked with dirt and tangled root-veins. The smell was different too—less rot, more dry, like a sealed tomb.
He didn't hesitate.
He dropped onto hands and knees and crawled in.
"Of course," Mira muttered, following with a grunt. "No hesitation. No question. Just, 'Hey, spooky root corridor? Let's go face-first into it.'"
Toren didn't answer. His pulse had kicked up again—not from fear, but anticipation. Something was in there. He could feel it like a vibration just beneath his skin.
They emerged into a small chamber.
Square. Quiet. Intact.
The walls weren't corroded. The ceiling hadn't collapsed. It looked like someone had cleaned and left just yesterday—except for the thick layer of dust on everything.
There were shelves. Cases. A console unit against the far wall. A sealed crate with foam-padded interiors—empty now, but clearly once used for sensitive tech.
"Looks like secondary command," Mira muttered, already drifting to the console. She brushed a hand across its surface, frowning. "No power. But these…" She knelt, pried open one of the cabinets. "Data cores. Pre-crash."
Toren circled slowly, eyes tracing every panel.
The walls were lined with maps.
Not just planetary ones—star charts. Half-burned, some flaking at the edges, but others still partially intact, sealed in transparent panels or reinforced sleeves. A few showed unfamiliar constellations. But others...
He stopped.
One of the charts showed a spiral.
Not an abstract one. A galaxy.
And not just any galaxy. He recognized the outer rim pattern. The core worlds. The deep space notations that had haunted games and wikis from his old life.
This was a galactic map.
And it wasn't fiction.
He reached toward it—his fingers hovering inches away—when something else caught his eye.
A sigil.