The junction speaker crackles alive over the alarms. A shadowed figure appears across the vault display as explosions shudder through the station, shaking dust from the ceiling.
The Unidentified Station User
Leave. The remaining data is not something the subject can have right now. This station and all its horrors will be destroyed. Take the ship. There is enough fuel for—
The transmission cuts off mid-sentence. Emergency route indicators flare red, then seal one after another while Mara remains restrained beneath Lokier’s steady hold.
Archive Echo
The speaker signal is isolated. Its return path leads toward the station’s sealed departure systems, not an external transmitter.
Behind the sealed routes, old departure controls begin waking in sequence. The delayed command package also breaks from its holding loop and resumes transmitting toward the ship.
Mara Venn
That was not a warning meant to save us. It was an order to abandon the evidence before the station destroys it.
A departure-system indicator begins counting down somewhere beyond the junction. Echo’s optic fixes on the route display, awaiting direction while the sealed station groans around them.
Lokier's turn“I follow Echo and try to help guide Mara and Tessa to the ship with my spores as explosions continue to rock the station we can’t stay here”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +4)
Lokier releases a dense spore stream into the transit spine. It clings to walls and junctions, forming a luminous route toward the ship while explosions roll through the station.
Archive Echo
Your biological markers have mapped a stable passage. I am following the illuminated route and transmitting it to Mara and Tessa.
Echo rolls ahead as the ceiling buckles somewhere behind them. Mara supports Tessa through the shaking corridor, guided by spores that brighten at every safe turn and fade near damaged sections.
Mara Venn
I see the route. Keep it ahead of us, Lokier. We are moving.
A violent impact drops the main lights, but Lokier’s spores remain visible through the smoke and dust. They reveal a maintenance bypass that avoids the collapsing departure corridor and joins the ship’s loading access.
Tessa Orin
That bypass was not on the station map. It leads directly to the ship.
Echo reaches the ship first and opens the loading access from inside. Mara and Tessa cross the threshold under Lokier’s spore-lit guidance, safely aboard as the spores reveal the ship’s fuel reserves are fully available.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get the ship clear of the collapsing station