The file ended there, a cliffhanger written in binary. Kael looked at his empty inbox. Somewhere out there, floating in the debris of the Little Torch Station, was .

The file arrived on Kael’s terminal with a cold, mechanical ping. It was labeled .

Kael realized the file wasn't just data; it was a timestamped plea. The ".002" wasn't a sequence of size, but a sequence of time . This was the middle of the end. He watched as the drone’s optical sensor turned toward the camera, its internal cooling fans spinning one last time to vent the heat of a dying station.