Liyanu leaves Meral Voss and the sealed optical slate in the science lab, returning through the internal passage to the command station. The junction remains isolated behind her.
Nahuli and Nikayo stand over the command display. The refusal is logged beside the valid signature, the impossible route, and the confirmed access model.
Nahuli
You are back. Meral’s notice remains sealed, and nothing has crossed into command, navigation, or medical systems.
Before the review can settle, a second panel illuminates. The command station identifies another authenticated acknowledgment, generated after the refusal.
Nikayo
It carries Amber Wing’s equipment signature, but there is no authorized sender. The route is not the maintenance feed, diagnostic junction, or recorded handoff.
Nikayo freezes the acknowledgment in read-only display. Its authentication chain is intact, yet the sender field remains blank while the earlier notice stays quarantined.
Nahuli
Liyanu, we can preserve this as evidence and ask nothing of the live systems. What boundary do you want recorded before we continue?
✓ Quest Accepted
Establish a verifiable boundary around the command channel
Nahuli's turn“What is our progress on analyzing the planet?”
Nahuli
What is our progress on analyzing the planet?
Nahuli’s question shifts the command display from the disputed acknowledgment to the sealed rogue-planet survey. The star-anchored orbit, heat pocket, mineral basin, and plume field remain available for comparison.
Nikayo
The planetary analysis is stable. We have separated the beacon’s unreliable timing from the star reference and confirmed that the nightside heat pocket is a natural subsurface concentration, not an active transmission source.
Nikayo expands the read-only survey layers without touching navigation. Mineral signatures remain consistent across the basin, while the plume field follows a regular thermal cycle and shows no evidence of engineered guidance.
Liyanu
The environment is suitable for a later passive survey if we keep the current safeguards. Nothing in the data justifies exposing the crew, opening the sealed records, or accepting outside direction.
The display records the planet as a verified future target: a stable orbit, mapped hazards, and a bounded approach profile. Amber Wing’s command and medical boundaries remain unchanged while the analysis package is archived.