Chapter 1: Enter Command

GRANDEVAST

Volume 1: The First Dockclaim

Chapter 1: Enter Command

Ledger Trust did not wake Talas Rook gently.

It struck his ship with a white authentication pulse, rattled every loose bolt in the hull, and forced the cockpit glass to bloom with system text before his eyes were fully open.

LEDGER SYNC: INCOMPLETE
OPERATOR IDENTITY: TALAS ROOK
STATUS: FREE OPERATOR / LOW-RANK
TRUSTWEIGHT: 0.14
HULLRIGHT: VALID
DOCKCLAIM: PENDING
CREDITS: INSUFFICIENT FOR EXTENDED STAY

Talas blinked at the words, then at the warning light flashing above them.

The warning light was not new.

Nothing on the Mothwake was new.

The skiff had once been a proud courier vessel, if one believed the old registration plaque welded crookedly beside the hatch. Now it drifted like a tired beetle through the amber haze outside Halcyon Duskport, its starboard thruster coughing ion-blue and its cargo bay smelling faintly of burnt coolant, old metal, and ration vinegar.

Beyond the cockpit glass, the station waited.

Halcyon Duskport hung in the dark like a city someone had folded into a ring and nailed to the edge of a planet. Its outer docks turned slowly around a bruised violet gas giant, catching flashes of stormlight from below. Freight barges crawled through the approach lanes. Pilgrim ships trailed solar ribbons. Mining haulers from the Ironswell Belt carried ore sealed in black pressure-crates. Luxury cutters from the Origin Verge glided past them as if poverty were a navigational hazard.

And everywhere, on every visible surface, the markets breathed.

Auction lights crawled across the station walls.

Contract numbers shimmered above docking bays.

Cargo values rose and fell in the haze like weather.

A thousand voices moved through the Vastline, buying, selling, bidding, begging, threatening, certifying, disputing, and praying in the same breath.

Talas rested one hand on the cracked command board.

“Dock request,” he said.

The skiff’s voice recognition stuttered. “Command uncertain. Did you mean: debt request?”

“No,” Talas said. “Dock request.”

COMMAND RECEIVED: DOCK REQUEST
TARGET: HALCYON DUSKPORT / SOFTDOCK OUTER RING
CALCULATING DOCKCLAIM FEE…
FEE ESCALATION ACTIVE DUE TO LOCAL MARKETFOG
TEMPORARY DOCKCLAIM AVAILABLE: SIXTY MINUTES
PRICE: 37 VAST CREDITS

Talas looked at his balance.

AVAILABLE CREDITS: 39

He laughed once. Not because it was funny. Because the alternative was cursing, and the Mothwake already had enough bad language baked into its wiring.

“Sixty minutes,” he muttered.

The cockpit glass reflected his face over the station lights: twenty-two standard years old, dark hair flattened by sleep and static, jaw rough from three days without proper washwater, eyes too awake for a man who had slept in a pilot chair. His coat collar was turned up against a cold that lived more in his bones than in the cabin. On his left wrist, the cheap operator cuff blinked with his provisional license.

Free Operator.

That was what the Ledger called him.

Free enough to work.

Free enough to fail.

Not free enough to stop paying.

The comm crackled.

“Skiff Mothwake, this is Halcyon Duskport Outer Traffic. Your routeprint is thin, your thruster signature is unstable, and your dockclaim payment is barely alive. State business before we decide you are debris with confidence.”

The traffic officer sounded bored. That was never good. Bored officers enjoyed fees.

Talas leaned toward the mic. “Free Operator Talas Rook. Hullright valid. Requesting temporary dockclaim, cargo inspection, and access to common contract board.”

“Cargo?”

“Four crates pressure ceramic patching. Two coils cheap living cable. One sealed family article, noncommercial.”

“Family article?”

“Sentimental.”

“Sentiment requires declaration if it weighs more than grief.”

“It fits in my hand.”

There was a pause.

Then the officer said, “Do not get poetic at my dock, Operator Rook. Poetry has tariff classifications here.”

“Understood.”

“Dockclaim granted. Bay Nine-Seventeen. Sixty minutes. If you overstay, fee escalation begins. If your thruster leaks on our ring, cleanup begins. If you sell unverified cargo, inspection begins. If inspection begins, your day becomes educational.”

The channel snapped dead.

Talas exhaled.

The Mothwake limped into the approach lane.

As the skiff crossed the docking threshold, Halcyon Duskport authenticated him.

Not welcomed.

Authenticated.

Blue-white light passed through the cockpit, over his skin, into his cuff, through the old ship plates, and along every cargo seam. For half a second Talas felt the station looking at him. Not with eyes. With value.

The Command Layer bloomed again.

ENTERING INDEXED STATION-SPACE
LOCAL LAW: FLUXLAW / MERIDIAN EXCHANGE OVERSIGHT
CONTRABAND SCAN: PENDING
REPUTATION STATUS: UNREMARKABLE
AUCTIONHOUSE ACCESS: COMMON TIER
CONTRACT BOARD ACCESS: HAZARD-LOW / PAY-LOW
WARNING: OPERATOR TRUSTWEIGHT MAY AFFECT PRICING

“Story of my life,” Talas said.

The skiff docked with a groan that made three different warning lights appear and one disappear, which he considered a victory.

The hatch opened onto Halcyon Duskport.

Sound hit first.

Not noise exactly. Commerce.

Bootsteps on metal. Dock clamps locking and unlocking. Vendors shouting ration prices. A child laughing from inside a cargo net. A distant argument over water rights. The low hymn of a maintenance monk kneeling beside a cracked engine housing. Auction bells chiming every time a major listing crossed threshold. Announcements in six languages and two machine dialects. Somewhere overhead, a Meridion broker’s voice drifted through the concourse, smooth as polished debt.

“Lot Seven-Forty-Two enters witness. Salvage rights disputed. Bidding opens at twelve hundred Ledger Bonds…”

Talas stepped onto the dock.

His operator cuff warmed.

DOCKCLAIM TIMER: 59:42

He had sixty minutes to become less broke.

That was the shape of his life in the Grandevast. Time turned into fees. Fees turned into pressure. Pressure turned into choices. Choices turned into reputation. Reputation turned into prices.

Everything became something else.

Everything moved.

He secured the Mothwake and entered the concourse.

Halcyon Duskport’s outer ring was not beautiful in the way rich stations were beautiful. It did not hide its pipes. It did not perfume its vents. It did not polish poverty into aesthetic grit for diplomats to admire. It was a working station, swollen by trade and held together by need.

Cargo drones rolled past in lines. Their chassis were scratched with merchant sigils and old impact scars. Stationfolk moved around them with the practiced rhythm of people who had learned not to get crushed by someone else’s profit. Holographic listings hung above stalls like floating prayers.

WATER FILTERS: UP 12%
REACTOR SALTS: DOWN 4%
MED-GEL: RESTRICTED
RICE-CULTURE BRICKS: AUCTIONBURN WARNING
CHEAP HULL PATCH: BUY NOW / BUY BEFORE PIRATES DO

Talas stopped at the last sign.

“Cheap hull patch,” he whispered, as though the words had been placed there to insult him personally.

A woman behind the stall heard him.

She was broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and missing two fingers from her left hand. Her apron read: KETT’S LEGAL-ENOUGH PARTS.

“You need hull patch?” she asked.

“I need a better life.”

“Wrong stall. Better lives are two rings up and require collateral.”

“How much for three plates?”

“For you?” She looked at his cuff. Her stall scanner tasted his reputation and made a rude little beep. “Thirty credits.”

“Thirty?”

“Twenty-eight if you smile less like a man about to argue.”

“I have thirty-nine total.”

“Then buy one plate and a sandwich.”

“I need three.”

“Everybody needs three. That is why I sell them one at a time.”

Talas almost walked away.

Then the Mothwake sent a private alert to his cuff.

STARBOARD THRUSTER LEAK: WORSENING
REPAIR RECOMMENDED BEFORE DEPARTURE
FAILURE RISK ON HARDROUTE: 31%

Thirty-one percent was not a number. It was a threat wearing mathematics.

He looked back at the stall.

“One plate,” he said.

Kett nodded as if she had known his dignity would arrive there eventually. “Twenty-two.”

“You said thirty.”

“I said thirty for three. One is twenty-two.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes station sense.”

“Station sense is robbery with lighting.”

“Careful, boy. Robbery has poorer paperwork.”

Talas paid.

His balance dropped to seventeen credits, and his dockclaim timer continued chewing through his future.

He took the hull plate under one arm and headed for the common contract board.

The board occupied the center of the outer concourse, rising four stories through a cylinder of light. It was not a board in the old physical sense. It was a market altar: a rotating wall of jobs, bids, emergency pleas, legal notices, smuggler whispers disguised as legal notices, and worthless opportunities dressed in glorious language.

Operators stood around it with their faces tilted upward.

Some wore clean coats and expensive cuffs. Their listings appeared bright and detailed. Escort contracts. Diplomatic courier work. Priority auctions. Clean salvage. Licensed security.

Others stood in the lower glow with Talas.

Their listings flickered in common-tier gray.

SCRUBBER REPLACEMENT / LOW PAY / NO MEALS
CARGO LIFTING / TWO HOURS / BACK INJURY WAIVER REQUIRED
BASIC COURIER RUN / LOCAL ONLY / DO NOT OPEN PACKAGE
RODENT-MACHINE REMOVAL / BITES NOT COVERED
WATER FILTER HAUL / REDLANE ADJACENT / PAY UPON DELIVERY

Talas selected the water filter haul.

The board scanned his cuff.

CONTRACT INSPECT
CLIENT: DUSKPORT LOWER HABITAT SIX
TASK: TRANSPORT TWELVE WATER FILTERS TO AUXILIARY LIFE-SUPPORT NODE
ROUTE: INTERNAL SERVICE SPINE
RISK: LOW
PAY: 24 CREDITS
REQUIREMENT: STORAGE CAPACITY / BASIC CARGO LICENSE
NOTE: PAYMENT DELAY POSSIBLE DUE TO HABITAT BUDGET FREEZE

“Payment delay,” Talas said. “Of course.”

A voice beside him said, “If it says possible, it means certain.”

Talas turned.

A girl about his age stood there eating something wrapped in silver paper. She wore a grease-dark jacket with the sleeves cut unevenly and a tool sling across one shoulder. Her hair was braided tight against her scalp and threaded with copper diagnostic wire. Her operator cuff was older than Talas’s but better maintained.

She glanced at him once, then back at the board.

“You new?” she asked.

“To Halcyon?”

“To being poor in public.”

Talas looked at his one hull plate, then at his cuff, then at the contract board.

“Apparently not.”

She smiled. “I’m Naya Venn.”

“Talas Rook.”

“I know. Your cuff is shouting beginner.”

He covered it with his sleeve.

“That makes it louder,” Naya said.

“I need a contract that pays now.”

“Everybody below Ring Two needs a contract that pays now.”

“Helpful.”

“You want helpful? Do not touch rodent-machine removal. They are not rodents. They are escaped devotional cleaning units from Ember Psalm pilgrims, and they bite like scripture.”

Talas glanced at the listing, then removed his hand from it.

Naya pointed with her food. “That one.”

A listing pulsed faintly in the lower corner.

DERELICT CARGO VERIFICATION / OUTER DOCK NINE-SEVENTEEN
CLIENT: MERIDIAN EXCHANGE SUBOFFICE
TASK: CONFIRM PHYSICAL PRESENCE OF LISTED GOODS
PAY: 80 CREDITS
RISK: ADMINISTRATIVE
TIME LIMIT: 41 MINUTES

Talas stared.

“Eighty credits for looking at cargo?”

“For confirming cargo,” Naya said. “Different verb. Different trap.”

“Trap how?”

“Meridian does not pay eighty credits because they are generous. They pay eighty credits because someone expensive needs a nobody to touch the problem first.”

Talas selected the listing before caution could become wisdom.

CONTRACT INSPECT

The text opened.

CLIENT: MERIDIAN EXCHANGE HALCYON SUBOFFICE
ISSUER: JUNO MARD, JUNIOR MARKET AUDITOR
TASK: VERIFY GHOSTSTOCK ANOMALY
LOCATION: OUTER DOCK NINE-SEVENTEEN
DESCRIPTION: An auction listing has appeared for cargo allegedly stored aboard Free Operator vessel MOTHWAKE. Listing cannot be reconciled with local manifest. Operator proximity requested for immediate confirmation.
PAY: 80 CREDITS UPON VALID REPORT
FAILURE TO REPORT MAY RESULT IN CARGO AUDIT

The concourse seemed to dim.

Talas read the words again.

Aboard Free Operator vessel MOTHWAKE.

Naya stopped chewing.

“That your bay?”

Talas did not answer.

His cuff vibrated.

AUCTION ALERT
UNVERIFIED LISTING DETECTED
SELLER: UNRENDERED SOURCE
ITEM: ONE SEALED FAMILY ARTICLE
CURRENT BID: 600 CREDITS
TIME TO AUCTIONFALL: 38 MINUTES

For a moment, the station noise went far away.

Talas’s hand moved to the inside pocket of his coat.

The sealed family article was still there.

Small.

Warm from his body.

A black memory capsule no longer than his thumb.

His mother’s last voice was inside it.

Not a recording exactly. Recordings were cheap. This was an Archive-grade witness bead, old and illegal in three jurisdictions, made before memory law became clean enough for rich people and cruel enough for everyone else. It contained her voice, her face as the capsule remembered it, and one unfinished routeprint she had died trying to hide.

Talas had never sold it.

Not when the Mothwake needed fuel.

Not when he ate saltgrain for nine days.

Not when a broker in the Crownless Reach offered him enough credits to repair the ship properly.

Some values were not prices.

Some values were anchors.

But now the Grandevast Auction House had listed it.

From inside his own ship.

Naya spoke quietly. “Rook.”

“I didn’t list it.”

“I believe you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know that look.”

Talas opened the alert.

The listing unfolded above his cuff in cold Meridian gold.

MERIDIAN COMMON AUCTION INTERFACE
LOT: 9-17-NULL
CATEGORY: ENCRYPTED MEMORY / FAMILY ARTICLE / POSSIBLE ROUTE DATA
LEGAL STATUS: UNKNOWN
SELLER: UNRENDERED SOURCE
PHYSICAL LOCATION: MOTHWAKE / PRIVATE STORAGE
OPENING VALUE: 300 CREDITS
CURRENT BID: 600 CREDITS
BIDDER VISIBILITY: MASKED
AUCTIONFALL: 37:12

Below the listing, one line blinked in red.

WARNING: IF LISTING IS VALIDATED, ITEM MAY ENTER MERIDIAN ESCROW.

Talas started walking.

Fast.

Naya followed.

“You need to reject the listing,” she said.

“I know that.”

“No, you need to reject it clean. If you just pull the capsule and run, Meridian flags you for auction interference.”

“It’s mine.”

“In Halcyon Duskport, ownership is what survives paperwork.”

He pushed through a cluster of haulers.

“How do you know so much?”

“I was born here. That is like going to school, except the tuition is trauma.”

They reached the lift gate.

Talas slammed his cuff against the panel.

DESTINATION: OUTER DOCK NINE-SEVENTEEN
ACCESS: GRANTED
NOTE: DOCKCLAIM TIMER 43:05

The lift dropped through the station.

Halcyon Duskport opened around them in layers.

Through the transparent shaft, Talas saw the lower habitats stacked beneath the trade decks: laundry lines strung between old pressure beams, children running past shrine terminals, cooks stirring vats of hydrograin, workers sleeping in rented sleep-racks beneath advertisements for luxury moon leases they would never touch. Farther down, beneath the honest lights, blackdock corridors flickered red where official maps pretended not to look.

Above them, the auction halls glittered.

There, value had chandeliers.

Down here, value had bruises.

Naya watched him watching.

“That capsule must matter,” she said.

“It does.”

“Family?”

“My mother.”

Naya did not ask another question. That made Talas like her more than he wanted to.

The lift opened into Dock Nine-Seventeen.

The Mothwake sat under amber clamps, ugly and faithful.

Three Meridian drones hovered outside its hatch.

A man stood with them.

He was small, neat, and dressed in a charcoal audit coat that probably cost more than Talas’s ship. His hair was silver at the temples, his eyes magnified by thin glass lenses, and his expression carried the calm misery of someone whose job was to make bad news sound inevitable.

“Free Operator Talas Rook,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Juno Mard. Junior Market Auditor, Meridian Exchange Halcyon Suboffice. Thank you for responding within the compliance window.”

“Someone listed my property.”

“That is one interpretation.”

“It’s the correct one.”

Mard’s smile was administrative and bloodless. “Correctness is a destination, not a starting location.”

Talas stepped toward the hatch.

One drone moved in front of him.

Naya whispered, “Careful.”

Mard lifted a hand. “No one is accusing you of fraud at this time.”

“At this time?”

“The system has detected an anomalous auction listing tied to your vessel. If you listed the item without proper category declaration, this is a fee issue. If someone else listed it through your ship identity, this is identity compromise. If the item listed itself, this becomes a religious, technical, or catastrophic issue depending on department assignment.”

Talas stared at him.

“Items don’t list themselves.”

Mard looked almost sympathetic.

“In the Grandevast, young operator, certainty is a luxury good.”

The auction alert chimed again.

CURRENT BID: 1,200 CREDITS
AUCTIONFALL: 31:44

Talas’s throat tightened.

Twelve hundred credits could repair the Mothwake. It could buy fuel, plates, filters, a real navigation update, maybe even a month of dock security somewhere clean.

All for one capsule.

One voice.

One routeprint.

Naya looked at the number, then at him.

Mard saw him looking too.

“If the item is yours,” the auditor said, “you may have the right to cancel the listing after proof of ownership.”

“Then prove it.”

“Proof requires inspection.”

“Fine.”

“Inspection requires temporary escrow.”

“No.”

Mard sighed. “Operator Rook—”

“No. You are not taking it.”

The drones hummed.

Naya moved slightly closer, not enough to interfere, enough to be seen.

Mard’s eyes shifted to her cuff. “Mechanic Venn. You are not listed as counsel.”

“I’m listed as someone with eyes.”

“Then use them quietly.”

Talas opened the Mothwake with a manual code. He did not trust voice commands anymore.

The hatch hissed.

Inside, the skiff smelled worse than before.

That was his first warning.

The second was the Command Layer text flashing across the cabin wall without being projected by any visible system.

SIGNAL TRACE ACTIVE
SELLER IDENTITY: UNRENDERED
ROUTEPRINT FRAGMENT DETECTED
DEAD SIGNAL PRESENT

Mard went still.

Naya whispered something that sounded like a prayer but had too many engineering terms in it.

Talas stepped inside.

The memory capsule was no longer in his coat pocket.

Impossible.

He slapped his hand against the pocket again, then checked the lining, then the floor. Nothing.

At the center of the cockpit, above the cracked command board, the capsule floated in a thin cage of blue static.

It rotated slowly.

Black. Thumb-sized. Familiar.

His mother’s last memory, suspended like bait.

The ship’s dead speakers crackled.

A woman’s voice filled the cabin.

Not cleanly. Not fully.

Like the Vastline was trying to remember her through a storm.

“Talas…”

His knees almost failed.

The drones pushed forward.

Mard’s face lost all bureaucratic polish.

“Record all channels,” he snapped. “Seal local feed. Do not transmit beyond dock ring.”

The woman’s voice came again.

“Talas Rook. If you hear this, do not sell the route.”

Talas could not breathe.

Naya grabbed his sleeve. “Rook. Listen.”

The capsule spun faster.

The cockpit glass darkened.

Stars appeared across it, not the stars outside Halcyon Duskport, but different stars. A map drawn in old light. A route unfolded in broken segments, each one marked by symbols Talas did not know and one phrase he did.

BLUE STATIC EXPANSE

Mard whispered, “That region is restricted for common operators.”

The speakers hissed.

His mother’s voice returned, strained beneath layers of static.

“They will call it salvage. They will call it memory. They will call it fraud, contraband, inheritance, debt, and proof. Do not let them name it first.”

The Command Layer flashed.

NEW COMMAND AVAILABLE: CLAIM ROUTEPRINT

Mard’s head snapped toward Talas.

“Do not touch that command.”

Talas looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because if the system is offering claimbirth through your identity, then this is no longer a family article. It may be a discoverable asset, a disputed route, or an unregistered corridor. If you claim it incorrectly, you could inherit liability beyond your capacity to survive.”

The auction chimed.

CURRENT BID: 9,000 CREDITS
AUCTIONFALL: 24:03

Nine thousand.

The number hung in the cabin like temptation with teeth.

Talas thought of the Mothwake shaking through cold routes. He thought of the station vendors scanning him and raising prices because his life looked cheap. He thought of dockclaim timers, ration vinegar, leaking thrusters, and the endless humiliation of being measured before being heard.

Nine thousand credits would make people say his name differently.

His mother’s voice whispered through the static.

“Some routes are not roads, Talas. Some routes are wounds.”

A new bidder entered.

CURRENT BID: 50,000 CREDITS

Mard made a sound.

Naya’s hand tightened around Talas’s sleeve.

The cabin lights flickered red.

Somewhere in the station, an alarm began to pulse.

Not loud.

Worse.

Official.

Mard’s cuff screamed with incoming authority. “Meridian priority escalation. High Ledger observation request. Auction Houses of Meridion requesting witness rights. Vastline Guild requesting technical quarantine.”

Talas watched the capsule spin.

His mother had died with debts attached to her name.

A failed expedition. A burned route. A crew that never came home. A void debt passed down in whispers by people who believed compassion should never interfere with accounting. Talas had carried the consequences without understanding the cause.

Now the cause hovered in front of him.

And the Grandevast wanted to buy it.

The Command Layer waited.

CLAIM ROUTEPRINT?
ACCEPT / REJECT / INSPECT / ARCHIVE / AUCTION CONFIRM

Mard stepped in front of him.

“Operator Rook, by authority of Meridian Exchange compliance, I strongly advise you to select inspect and surrender the capsule for regulated review.”

Naya said, “That gives them first naming rights.”

Mard turned sharply. “And accepting without counsel may bind him to an unknown route, unknown debt, unknown hostile claimants, and unknown legal exposure.”

“So may breathing on this station,” Naya said.

Talas barely heard them.

He looked at the command options.

Accept.

Reject.

Inspect.

Archive.

Auction confirm.

Five doors. All dangerous.

That was the truth of the Grandevast. It did not give safe choices. It gave priced choices. It gave legal choices, illegal choices, holy choices, stupid choices, profitable choices, and choices that would follow a person until every station knew their name.

His mother’s capsule trembled.

The static around it opened for one breath, and Talas saw something inside the map.

Not coordinates.

A station.

Dark. Broken. Beautiful.

Its ring was split. Its lights were dead. Its docking arms hung open like fingers.

Above it, written in old command syntax, was a name:

NULL ORCHARD GATE / UNINDEXED

Then a second line appeared.

SURVIVOR SIGNAL DETECTED

Talas stopped breathing.

Survivor.

Mard saw it too.

“No,” the auditor said softly. “That should not be possible.”

The auction surged.

CURRENT BID: 500,000 CREDITS
BIDDER: MASK FAILURE
VISIBLE BIDDER IDENTITY: RED CIRCUIT / BLACK INDEX NODE

The drones backed away from the capsule.

Naya cursed under her breath.

Mard’s face turned pale.

The station alarm changed pitch.

Talas understood then that this was not about a memory anymore.

Maybe it had never been.

His mother had not only left him a voice.

She had left him a route.

A route someone had hidden.

A route someone feared.

A route someone rich, criminal, holy, or dead was willing to buy before he could understand it.

The Command Layer blinked.

AUCTIONFALL: 10:00

Ten minutes.

Talas reached toward the command board.

Mard grabbed his wrist.

“Think,” the auditor said. “Once you enter command, the Ledger records intent.”

Talas met his eyes.

“Good.”

He pulled free.

Naya smiled like she was terrified and proud at the same time.

Talas placed his hand on the cracked command board of the Mothwake.

The old skiff recognized him slowly.

Not because it was powerful.

Because it was his.

The capsule flared.

The station shook.

Every hologram in Dock Nine-Seventeen went black for one second.

Then the Command Layer returned, brighter than before.

OPERATOR INPUT REQUIRED

Talas spoke clearly.

“Reject auction.”

The system answered.

AUCTION REJECTION REQUIRES OWNERSHIP PROOF

Mard exhaled in relief.

Talas continued.

“Claim routeprint.”

Mard’s relief died.

Naya whispered, “There it is.”

The capsule split open into light.

COMMAND RECEIVED: CLAIM ROUTEPRINT
VERIFYING IDENTITY…
VERIFYING BLOODLINE…
VERIFYING VOID DEBT…
VERIFYING INHERITED SIGNAL…
WARNING: CLAIM MAY ALTER TRUSTWEIGHT, LEGAL STATUS, ROUTE RIGHTS, AND FACTION VISIBILITY
PROCEED?

Talas thought of his mother’s voice.

Do not let them name it first.

He looked past the cockpit glass to Halcyon Duskport, to the markets, to the auction lights, to the stationfolk below and the rich halls above, to the thousands of lives moving through systems built to measure them before knowing them.

He had arrived with thirty-nine credits.

He had bought one hull plate.

He had been given sixty minutes to matter.

Now the Grandevast was open.

“Proceed,” Talas said.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then every screen in the Mothwake filled with a single line.

CLAIMBIRTH INITIATED

Outside, across Halcyon Duskport, auction lights failed one by one.

Inside the cockpit, the memory capsule released his mother’s final words.

“Talas,” she said, clearer than before, “if the Ledger wakes, run.”

Below the words, a new command appeared.

Not from Meridian.

Not from the station.

Not from the Mothwake.

From somewhere deeper.

DEEP LEDGER ACCESS REQUESTING ENTRY
UNKNOWN ENTITY AT DOOR
COMMAND?

Talas stared at it.

His dockclaim timer hit zero.