Read Chapter 4: The Question of Lyra

The smoke still clung to the Archives when they came for him. Two guards in charcoal-gray uniforms, the Captain's insignia stamped on their collars—not security drones, not lower-deck patrol. These were Command Circle enforcers, the kind who only appeared when something mattered.

Kaelen stood in the corridor outside the intact Acquisitions Annex, arms crossed, watching the fire crews work. The blaze had gutted the central reference hall before the suppression systems kicked in. Somewhere in that ash was the terminal where he'd spent the last four days digging through ship logs. Gone now, along with whatever secrets it held.

"Mister Voss."

He turned. The taller guard—a woman with a shaved scalp and cold gray eyes—held up a datapad. "Captain's Guard. We need to discuss the fire."

"Discuss it with the fire," Kaelen said. "I was on the other side of the ship when it started. Check the movement logs."

"We did." The woman's face betrayed nothing. "You accessed the Archives at 14:00. The fire was reported at 18:30. Plenty of time to plant an incendiary and leave."

Kaelen laughed—short, bitter. "You think I burned down the one place I was assigned to work? I'm a maintenance tech. If I wanted to destroy evidence, I'd know how to make it look like an accident." He nodded toward the smoldering wreckage. "That's not an accident. Suppression system was routed around the hall. Someone wanted this gone."

The guards exchanged a glance. The woman's jaw tightened.

"You have a theory, then?"

"Sure." Kaelen rubbed the back of his neck, playing the role he'd rehearsed in his head since the alarms sounded. "The Archives hold old guild contracts. The Refrigeration Coalition's been fighting the Grooming Guild over custodial rights in Deck 12 for months. Their last arbitration was denied—by the Command Council, but guess whose office files the complaints?"

He'd learned all this from Elara, two days before the fire, when she'd shown him the current disputes log. She'd called it "the quiet war" between the labor guilds. Whether it was true or not didn't matter. It sounded plausible, and it pointed away from the truth.

The woman guard studied him for a long moment. "The Captain's Guard will verify your claims." She tapped her datapad. "You're confined to your quarters until further notice."

"For how long?"

"Until we're satisfied."

They left without another word. Kaelen waited until they turned the corner, then exhaled. The fire had been meant to burn him—or to burn what he'd found. Either way, someone in the Command Circle knew he'd been digging.

And that meant Lyra's trail was still hot. Whatever she'd touched, whatever she'd seen, it was dangerous enough to kill for.

He pulled out his tablet, thumbed to the encrypted message queue. One name sat at the top, untouched for years. *Jena Park*. Childhood friend. His sister's closest confidante before the disappearance. Now a junior administrator in Deck 2, upper habitation level.

She answered on the third ring, her face flickering across the screen—older than he remembered, with new lines around her eyes and a careful blankness that hadn't been there when they were kids.

"Kaelen." Her voice was neutral. Guarded. "It's been a while."

"Four years," he said. "I know. I'm sorry."

"You never call. You never answered my messages after Lyra—" She stopped, pressed her lips together. "Why now?"

He didn't bother with small talk. "I need to know what happened to her. The real story, not the airlock report."

Jena's expression flickered—something between fear and relief. She glanced over her shoulder, lowered her voice. "They told us never to talk about it. You know that."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The same people who told you to stay out of the Archives." She paused. "I heard about the fire, Kaelen. I saw the alert. You're poking something you don't understand."

"Then help me understand."

Silence stretched long enough that he thought she'd hung up. Then Jena leaned closer to the camera, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Two weeks before she vanished, Lyra came to see me. She was working in the Archives—same posting you just had, I guess that's not a coincidence. She said she'd found something. Something in the Bridge Command logs, buried deep enough that no one was supposed to see it. She was going to confront them about it."

"Them?"

"The Bridge." Jena's eyes darted to the side. "She said she'd been summoned. A direct order from the Captain himself, which is unheard of for deck-level employees. She was scared, Kaelen. More scared than I'd ever seen her. But she was also determined. She said if she didn't come back, I should tell you."

"Tell me what?"

Jena hesitated. The screen glitched for a moment, then cleared.

"She said to tell you that the stars are real. And then she said—" Jena's voice cracked. "She said 'Kaelen will know what that means. Kaelen will know what to do.'"

The words hit him like a blow to the chest. The stars are real. Lyra had said those words to him once, years ago, in the dark of their cabin when she'd shown him a children's book about voyagers. She'd pointed to the illustrated night sky and told him that somewhere out there, those stars still existed. That the ship was going to meet them someday.

And now she'd sent that message through Jena, hoping he'd understand.

"Did she say anything else?" He kept his voice steady. "Anything about where they took her?"

"She said they were taking her to the Bridge Command." Jena's face went pale. "I watched her walk down the main corridor toward the elevators. She looked back at me once. She was crying. But she smiled."

"When was this?"

"The day before she disappeared."

Kaelen's hands tightened around the tablet. The official report said Lyra died in an airlock malfunction during her shift in Deck 7—the same deck where he'd found that diagnostic screen. But she'd been in Bridge Command the day before, summoned by the Captain, terrified.

"Jena. The Bridge Command—what does it look like now?"

"Same as always. Restricted. Guards at every access point. You can't get within three decks of it without clearance." She paused. "Why? Kaelen, you're not thinking—"

"I'm not thinking anything." He was already planning. "Thank you for telling me. I owe you."

"Kaelen, wait—" She lowered her voice to barely a whisper. "I kept something. After she disappeared, I cleaned out her locker before they sealed it. I found a data chip, hidden in the lining. I never knew what to do with it—I was too afraid to look. Do you want it?"

His heart hammered. "Yes. How can I—"

"There's a cargo splice point in Deck 4, near the recycling chutes." She rattled off coordinates. "I'll drop it there tomorrow. If anyone is watching me, it'll just look like routine waste disposal."

"Jena, I—"

"Don't thank me yet." Her face hardened. "Whatever Lyra found, whatever you're chasing—promise me you'll be careful. I can't lose anyone else to the Bridge."

She cut the connection before he could answer.

Kaelen sat in the dark of the maintenance alcove, tablet clutched in his hand. The smoke from the Archives still clung to his clothes. Someone had burned the evidence. Someone had locked him to his quarters. But Jena had given him a thread—Lyra had been taken to the Bridge Command hours before her supposed death, and she'd left a data chip behind.

He tucked the tablet into his pocket and began plotting the route to the Bridge. The Captain's Guard had told him to stay confined to his quarters.

He had two weeks of Archives access, a dead sister's cryptic message, and more questions than answers.

He didn't plan to stay confined for long.