Amber Wing holds at the corridor mouth while a maintenance tether carries Nahuli through the relay shadow. Lahani keeps the return lane steady, with Ranuko monitoring the isolated bridge.
The compact object turns slowly beyond the sensor haze. Its hull is cold, scarred, and deliberately masked, with no active drive plume or recognizable registry markings.
Lahani
Tether tension is stable. Riyanu, Nikayo, and Saven remain aboard with Ranuko. Kiryati is still on Avalon with emitter three.
Nahuli reaches a recessed service panel. The mechanism accepts power but rejects every standard handshake, returning only a silent diagnostic pulse through the tether.
Ranuko
No remote command path detected. The panel is isolated, but it is responding to physical contact and recording the attempt.
A narrow maintenance seam opens under manual pressure. Inside rests a dormant recorder, its storage shielded beneath layered plating and marked with fragments of the Captain’s private navigation codes.
Recent sensor logs sit beside the old code fragments. Their newest entries track Amber Wing’s departure, corridor crossing, and present position, leaving the recorder silent and waiting.
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine whether the Captain enabled the observer’s surveillance