"Because whatever's happening out there, it's connected to the Hollowborn evolution. Sending troops will just give it more bodies to infect."
"Evolution," Alex repeated. "That's the second time that word's been used today. The Covenant representative at the Council used it too. Said humanity needs to embrace change or be left behind."
"The Covenant was at a Council meeting?" Elesa asked, surprised.
"An official 'Ciphar' they said the rank was, Observer status only, but yes. They're gaining legitimacy, whether we like it or not. They're offering solutions to problems the Confederacy can't solve."
"Solutions like human experimentation and sacrafice?" Xander asked bitterly.
"They don't call it that, of course. They call it 'guided adaptation' or 'controlled evolution.' Making humanity more suited to the post-war world."
"By turning people into survivors," Alex corrected. "That's their argument, anyway. And for those who've lost everything, who see no future in the current world... it's a compelling argument. Some view change as good." Akex shrugged
Greg finished with Jyn's wounds and moved on to checking Xander and Elesa for injuries. They were mostly unharmed, just exhausted and stressed, but he insisted on full examinations anyway.
"There's something else," Alex said, her tone careful. "The Council knows about the shard, Jyn. Not details, but they know you have something your parents left behind. Something valuable. The ciphar said everything, even knew where you guys went today and the quote 'magic' you used, this is the evolution they speak of."
"How?"
"The Covenant probably has spies everywhere. They've been spreading rumors, asking questions. The oligarchy is taking serious notice, but they offer really good trade deals from the south."
"What do they want?"
"What everyone aways wants—control. If the shard is as powerful as rumors suggest, they'll want it under Confederate authority. For the good of trade and stability, of course."
"Of course," Jyn said bitterly. rolling his shoulders in sync with his eyes
"We won't let that happen," Greg said firmly. "Your parents entrusted you with the shard for a reason. It's your inheritance, your responsibility. and you are our responsibility now, our kid just as much as Xander"
"Its my burden to bear," Jyn corrected.
"Perhaps. But also potentially your gift." Alex pulled something from a storage cabinet—a device about the size of a data pad, covered in sensors and input ports. "Your mother designed this before... before the end. It's meant to interface with the shard, to help translate its resonances into something comprehensible."
Jyn took the device, feeling its weight. His mother's handwriting was visible on a label: "Echo Translator v3.2"
"She knew I'd need this?"
"She suspected. Your parents were brilliant, but they were also parents. They tried to prepare for every possibility, to give you tools to face whatever came."
"They could have just not studied dimensional rifts," Jyn said, not quite able to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"Could they?" Alex asked gently. "When they knew something was coming through? When they had a chance to find a solution?"
It was an old argument, one Jyn had with himself regularly. His parents had chosen their research over safety, knowledge. But in a world where knowledge might mean the difference between extinction and survival, how wrong were they?
The workshop's main laboratory was full of half-completed projects covered every surface—a partially assembled drone that might have been attempting to fly itself, a chemical synthesis apparatus that was definitely producing something that glowed wrong, and what appeared to be Xander's attempt to create self-repairing armor using Crystalist moss cultivation.
"Don't touch that," Xander warned as Elesa reached for an innocent-looking device. "It's a prototype energy cell. Either it'll revolutionize portable power, or it'll explode. I'm about sixty-forty on which."
"Sixty percent explosion?" Elesa asked.
"Sixty percent revolution. I'm an optimist."
Mira had joined them, her curiosity overcoming any concern about the late hour. She was examining the proto-Hollowborn samples with the kind of intense focus that reminded Jyn of her parents—both of them.
"The crystalline structures in the fungal tissue," she said, adjusting the microscope. "They're not random. Look at the angles, the repetition. It's almost like they're trying to form circuits."
"Biological circuits?" Alex asked, leaning over to look.
"Or something between biological and mechanical. Like the fungus is trying to bridge the gap between organic and inorganic." She looked up at them. "This could be revolutionary if we could understand it."
"Or catastrophic if it understands us first," Elesa pointed out.
They spent the next hour examining their salvage, cataloging the electronic components and trying to understand what they'd found. Some of it was straightforward—pre-war military equipment, research instruments, data storage devices. But other items defied easy classification.
"This," Xander said, holding up a crystal that seemed to bend light around itself, "shouldn't exist. The way it's refracting light suggests it has a negative refractive index, but that's..."
"Impossible?" Greg suggested with a slight smile.
"Improbable. Very, very improbable."
"Your parents were working on edge cases," Alex explained to Jyn. "Places where our understanding of physics breaks down. They believed the bombs didn't just destroy—they fundamentally altered the laws of reality in certain locations, perhaps even brought other dimensions of physics to us."
"The rifts," Jyn said, understanding dawning.
"Microscopic tears between dimensions. Most sealed themselves naturally, but some remained, leaking... possibilities."
The shard warmed in Jyn's pocket, responding to the discussion. He pulled it out, setting it on the workbench where everyone could see it. In the laboratory's bright lights, it looked almost ordinary—a crystal the size of his palm, dark as night but shot through with veins of light that moved like living things.
"It's beautiful," Mira said softly, reaching out but not quite touching it.
"It's active," Alex observed, watching the energy patterns within. "More active than when your parents studied it."
"It's been getting stronger," Jyn admitted. "The whispers, the visions, and now the fire."
"Lets see what it can do then, Show me the fire you speak of." Greg said.