The transport skimmed low across the cracked surface of Vehrmath's outer ring, its shadow stretching over abandoned spires and fractured leyline canals. Inside the armored cabin, Echo Team One sat in silence—each member checking gear, reviewing pulse readouts, or quietly bracing for the unknown.
Del Marn glanced across at Kesh. "You think this'll be like the drills?"
Kesh shook his head. "No drills had black pulses. No drills had missing people."
Del smirked. "So a normal day in Vehrmath, then."
The runeinked woman, Alari, was seated beside a flickering stabilizer core. She muttered a quiet incantation as she checked its containment bindings. "Focus. If the pulse fluctuations spike, I'll need five uninterrupted minutes to anchor this thing. Maybe four, if I cut the arcane bracing."
Del gave her a thumbsup. "No problem. I'll wrestle the shadows myself. Oneonone. No magic."
"Just remember," Kesh added, "shadows bite back."
Kael, seated at the front console, rolled his eyes. "Save the banter for postmission drinks. We're approaching the drop zone. Minimal interference. But something's warping the terrain signature—be ready for unstable footing."
Del leaned toward Alari. "You think Kael ever smiles?"
"Only when things explode in the right direction," Alari replied without looking up.
"Remind me to build him a firecracker bouquet," Del muttered.
The transport touched down with a soft hiss. The ramp lowered.
Sector 7A was quiet.
Too quiet.
Vehrmath's deeper zones were always eerie, but here the silence was heavy. As if the very dust had stopped breathing. Fractured spires leaned inward like conspirators whispering secrets. Broken pulse conduits crackled faintly with ghost energy.
Kael led them forward, motioning for Alari and Kesh to secure the perimeter. Del walked beside the stabilizer, cradling it like an egg.
"Careful," Kesh said. "Drop that thing and we'll all be lawn ornaments."
Del winked. "I cradle tech better than I cradle people."
"You cradle people?" Alari asked dryly.
"Once. He cried," Del said. "It was beautiful."
Kesh snorted. "Let's just hope the stabilizer doesn't need emotional support."
They reached the deployment point—a collapsed pylon that once served as a leyline node.
"Alright," Kael said. "Alari, begin setup. Kesh, map the distortion perimeter. Del, eyes wide."
Minutes passed. Then seconds started to feel longer.
Del turned suddenly. "You feel that?"
A ripple passed through the air.
Then another.
Kael snapped his fingers, motioning everyone to halt.
Pulse silence.
The stabilizer core flared briefly, then dimmed.
Alari hissed. "It's reacting to something. I need to accelerate the binding."
Kesh raised his bracer. "We've got movement. Not human. Four signatures. Surrounding us."
Kael's voice was steady. "Positions. Don't fire unless I call it."
Figures emerged from the mist—humanoid, but flickering, translucent. Not illusions. Not holograms.
Pulse echoes.
The same ones reported by the missing scouts.
Kael raised his hands slowly. "We don't want a fight."
The echoes didn't respond.
They watched.
And then—one of them pointed.
Not at Kael.
At the stabilizer.
The core began to tremble.
Alari cursed, invoking a second containment weave. "It's not resisting—it's resonating!"
Del moved to help—but one echo stepped in front of him, hand out.
He froze.
And in his bracer, new glyphs bloomed—symbols no one had programmed.
Ancient.
Familiar.
They matched the glyph from the black pulse.
Kael stepped between Del and the echo, eyes wide. "They're not attacking. They're... showing us something."
The lead echo tilted its head.
And vanished.
So did the others.
The stabilizer core hummed back to calm.
And in the silence that followed, Del looked at his bracer again.
The glyphs were gone.
But one line of text remained:
REMEMBER US.
Kael led the group into a collapsed alcove where the pulse readings were clearest. "We need to anchor the stabilizer now," he said. "Del, start unpacking. Alari, help me shield the local node."
Kesh paced the perimeter with deliberate steps. "Still no hostile signals. But those echoes didn't feel random."
"They weren't," Alari said, rubbing her temples. "They were scanning us. Not for weapons. For... resonance."
"Resonance with what?" Del asked, activating the stabilizer's firsttier mode.
"History," Kael muttered. "Or memory."
Kesh sat on a broken pylon. "If they wanted to kill us, they would've. So what was the point?"
"To see if we were ready," Del said quietly.
Kael looked at him. "Ready for what?"
Del's bracer blinked again. One final echo glyph shimmered and vanished.
Then static.
"They were testing our stabilizer," Del said. "And they left it intact. Which means…"
Alari's eyes narrowed. "They approved."
"Congratulations," Kesh said. "We passed a test we didn't know we were taking."
"And with no study materials," Del added.
"Sounds like my exams back at the Tower," Alari muttered.
"Did you pass those?" Del asked.
"Obviously," Alari replied. "I'm alive, aren't I?"
An hour later, the stabilizer was fully anchored. The pulse lattice reconnected in a jagged web that reached out to the distant Vehrmath relays.
"Upload the field report," Kael ordered. "And mark this sector as 'watched.' Not hostile, but... observed."
"Watched by ghosts with good manners," Del said. "That's new."
"Think we should send them a thankyou note?" Kesh asked.
"Only if it comes with snacks," Del replied. "Diplomacy is hungry work."
Back on the transport, as it lifted into the dim violet haze, Del looked down at Sector 7A through the viewpane.
Far below, just for a moment, one of the echoes reappeared.
It raised its hand—not in threat, but in farewell.
Del raised his own hand, surprised at the gesture.
Kesh leaned over his shoulder. "You making friends now?"
"Ghost pen pals," Del said. "Very exclusive."
"Just don't start inviting them to poker night," Kael muttered.
"Please," Del grinned. "I'd win. They're transparent."
And then the echo vanished again.
This time, without glyphs.
Just silence.