Location: Zurich Space Command, Switzerland
The launch was scheduled for zero-six-hundred hours. Aster num II orbit had aligned perfectly with Titan gravitational corridor, offering a narrow window for interplanetary transit. Inside Zurich Space Command, a high-altitude private facility veiled from most of the world's satellites, Anderson, Cadence, and Elias Silas Vane prepared for the jump.
Technicians in white suits prepped the quantum drive, while security forces loyal to The Continuum—secured the perimeter. The station, built deep within the Swiss Alps, ran on geothermal cores and quantum latency shielding. Nothing entered or exited without deliberate intent.
Cadence checked her harmonic vault one more time. It had been retrofitted to carry both her instrument and an encrypted signal modulator. The harmonic she'd played inside Arcadia had altered something fundamental inside her. Her dreams now pulsed with fragments of a voice—one not human, not entirely alien either.
Elias limped across the bridge corridor, his neural interface pulsing amber. His connection to the formula strand gave him rapid regeneration, but not immunity from the Echo degradation embedded in his old host body.
Anderson stared at the sleek shuttle—the Skylure, a prototype vessel equipped with the newest form of AI-assisted navigation: VeilDrive. It was derived from Dr. Z own memory fragments, recovered from a shard embedded in Silas Vane's synaptic lobe.
"What's our flight time?" Anderson asked.
"Seventeen days to Saturn. Ten more to enter Titan's ice shell." Cadence answered. "If nothing intercepts us."
Elias tapped a display. "GASD has gone dark. That's not good. They're hiding something."
They boarded at 0545. The cabin sealed. Engines hummed low, like a creature holding its breath.
But something was wrong.
Fifteen minutes into liftoff preparations, a security breach triggered in Bay Six.
"Unscheduled system override," the onboard AI spoke. "Code-string origin: internal."
Cadence's eyes widened. "We have a saboteur."
Anderson's pulse surged. "Seal all exits. Begin identity protocol."
"Already in motion," the AI confirmed. "But the intruder is using biometric masking."
Elias staggered toward the shuttle's aft section. "If it's one of the Echo units, we're compromised. They're not human. They mimic patterns."
Within seconds, a scream echoed from the cryo-hold. Anderson raced in, just in time to see one of the tech crew crumpled to the floor, a blade of condensed light embedded in his chest.
A figure in a Continuum engineer's uniform turned—eyes glowing faint red.
"Echo Two," Anderson hissed.
The impostor launched forward. Anderson barely ducked a spinning kick before retaliating with a pulse strike. The formula in his veins reacted instinctively, drawing ambient kinetic force from the shuttle's vibrational hum.
Cadence arrived, bow raised. She plucked a harmonic string that pulsed through the enemy's frequency field, slowing its movements.
"Do it now!" she shouted.
Anderson hurled a resonance core, triggering a directional feedback loop. The impostor collapsed in an instant, circuits frying, synthetic muscles twitching.
"What was it doing here?" Cadence asked.
Elias examined the remains. "Not sabotage. Surveillance. It was mapping our neural signatures. Preparing counter-harmonics."
Anderson turned to the AI. "Purge the ship. Scrub all embedded code. And start ascent."
"Confirmed. Ascent sequence beginning. Launch in sixty seconds."
The crew braced as the shuttle thrummed to life.
Outside, the early light of dawn cut across the snowy peaks of the Alps.
Inside, the path to Titan had been claimed.
But as they ascended through Earth's mesosphere, none of them noticed the smallest piece of the Echo unit—a sub-neural node—still pulsing.
Alive.
And transmitting.
To something listening on Mars.
Something old.
Something awakening.