Page 82 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Silver light emerges beneath its surface, spreading in delicate branching veins. The air warms. The humming mechanism buried through the chamber changes pitch, becoming almost musical. Script appears around the base of the node, not projected, not carved, but suspended a finger’s width above the surface in luminous threads.

Sira translates before I can ask.

“This nexus contains preserved records from the first suppression cycle.”

My mouth goes dry. “First suppression cycle?”

Sira looks toward me, and her calm finally shows strain. “The phrase implies there were others.”

Ghar’s eyes close briefly.

I step closer to the node, no longer able to feel exhaustion. This is bigger than a single cover-up, bigger than one buried archive, bigger than the inheritance phrase or the vision of entities before light. The Precursors may not have merely hidden the truth once. They may have curated galactic memory repeatedly, pruning knowledge until the story of existence became survivable.

Or useful.

The node hums louder.

The archive case unlocks in my hands without my command.

Ghar says my name sharply, but this time I do not move forward. I remain where I stand, staring as the scanner core rises from the open case and floats toward the nexus in a cradle of silver light.

The node accepts it.

For one astonishing second, the entire lower chamber illuminates.

Every ring, bridge, pillar, and suspended mechanism flares into visibility. The deep archive system stretches around us like an artificial galaxy buried inside the rogue planet, each point of light a record, each line between them a relationship, each pulse a memory older than every temple, government, war, treaty, and love song that has ever claimed certainty.

I forget to breathe.

Ghar steps beside me, his shoulder almost touching mine.

He does not tell me to stop.

He only watches the impossible wake up with the same dread I feel beneath the wonder.

A new aperture opens, revealing a preserved chamber beyond the black surface. Inside it, rows of suspended archive lattices hang untouched in perfect darkness, each one glowing faintly with sealed memory.

Billions of years old.

Waiting.

Brakk whispers from behind us, stripped of profanity for once. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Sira’s voice trembles slightly. “A complete nexus.”

I stare into the preserved archive, exhilaration rising so sharply it nearly becomes pain. “This is what they tried to hide.”

Ghar’s face is pale beneath the dust and blood when I glance at him.

I realize then that I am not the only one standing at the edge of ruin.

His ruin is quieter than mine.

It is happening inside him.

The knowledge sends guilt through me, but it does not make me step back. That may be the worst thing I learn about myself in this moment. I can see what this is doing to him, and I still need to know.

Ghar meets my eyes, and for once neither of us hides what the chamber has made obvious.