Chapter Three: Return Signal
The reply doesn't come right away. Just a hollow pulse of static humming in my receiver—like the universe was thinking about answering but couldn't find the words.
I know how that feels.
I've sat in silence for so long I've forgotten what it's like to hear a voice that matters. Traska's corridors are filled with noise—shouts, hisses of air valves, clanging metal. But none of it says anything real.
Mira's voice was different. Even in a few clipped words, it shook me loose from the numbness I've worn like armor.
I wait twenty hours before the signal blinks green. Encrypted. Repeating. Just coordinates and a timestamp. No voice. No message. Just a cold call to come find her.
Juno Wastes. Sector Nine. Dorian Edge. Two days from now.
And then it ends.
The Juno Wastes are a bad place to meet someone. Not because of who might be waiting—but because of what might be watching. Dorian Edge is outlaw territory, thick with pirates, broken code smugglers, and mercs who'd sell your organs before your name.
But if Mira's choosing that spot, it means she's desperate. It also means she doesn't trust open channels. Smart.
I pack light.
An old pulse pistol, unregistered. Half a medkit. Some ration tabs and a burner comm. My ship's not much, but it's fast enough—the Solace, a worn stealth runner I salvaged from a battlefield and rebuilt with bloody hands and second chances.
Before I leave, I stand in the center of my dim cabin and stare at the wall where I once carved the names of the dead.
Not all of them. Just the ones I couldn't forget.
Her name isn't there. Not yet.
I wonder if it should've been.
When I launch from Traska, the station doesn't blink. No one stops me. No one cares. That's the beauty of being a ghost—you don't cast a shadow anymore.
Space swallows me in silence. A comfort I didn't expect.
The stars out here don't sparkle. They burn. Cold and sharp like knives in the dark. And in that black stretch between systems, I feel it again—something I haven't let myself admit since the day I deserted:
I'm afraid.
Not of the mission. Not of dying.
I'm afraid she'll look at me and see the man I became.
The one who followed orders. The one who didn't save her.
The one who left.
But if she's asking for me now, then maybe she never gave up the way I did.
Maybe redemption is still out there—drifting like a forgotten signal.
I punch the coordinates in and engage the drive.
The Solace hums beneath me, like it remembers how to hope.