6868c -

"Odyssey, I've got visual on 6868c. It's… active."

The hum spiked. The lights went out. When they came back on, Dmitri and Park were gone. Elara stood alone, touching the warm casing of 6868c-2. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then the Odyssey 's main screen lit up with a single line of text, repeated in every language on Earth's database: "Odyssey, I've got visual on 6868c

She didn't. A sliver of light pulsed from the satellite's main sensor array—not a transmission, but something slower, more deliberate. It washed over her suit, and for a second, she felt understood . Not scanned. Not recorded. Understood, the way a key understands a lock. She heard a voice, though her radio was silent: We are not broken. We are waiting. When they came back on, Dmitri and Park were gone