Read Chapter 28: The Missing Piece

The shuttle’s cabin hummed with the quiet of exhausted bodies. Amara sat in the co-pilot’s seat, her hands resting on the console as if she could feel the ship’s pulse through the metal. Naomi stood behind her, one hand on the back of the seat, her eyes fixed on the distant smear of Helix lights on the horizon. Lena was curled in a corner, knees drawn to her chest, watching the floor.

Caleb moved to the nav display and pulled up the Hellas Basin coordinates Naomi had given them. He stared at the blinking point for a long moment. Then he looked at his mother.

“You said the archive is sealed by Mei Lin’s biometrics,” he said. “Her signature. Her DNA, her retina, her voiceprint. All of it.”

Naomi nodded slowly. “She was the original security chief. She designed the lock herself, so no one could override it. Not even the other founders.”

“So the evidence—the whole archive—is useless without her.”

“Not useless. Inaccessible.” Naomi’s voice was careful. “It’s a tomb until she opens it.”

Caleb turned back to the console. His fingers traced the edge of the screen. “Where is she?”

“Elysium Planitia,” Amara said. She didn’t look at him. “Helix headquarters. They’ve held her in the executive detention wing since the consolidation.”

“Consolidation.” Caleb let the word sit. He’d heard it his whole life, a clean corporate term for the year Helix had absorbed every competing colonial interest and declared itself the sole authority on Mars. His father had called it something else. The Purge.

“How many people know she’s there?” he asked.

“Everyone who matters,” Amara said. “She’s a liability they can’t execute and can’t release. She knows where all the bodies are buried. Literally.”

Caleb looked at Naomi. “You said seven founders are still alive. Where are the others?”

“Scattered. Hidden. The resistance cells aren’t centralized—we never let them be, after what happened.” Naomi’s voice was tired. “Mei Lin is the key. She always was.”

The shuttle’s proximity alarm chirped. Caleb glanced at the screen. Two Helix corvettes had adjusted course, tightening their sweep pattern. They had maybe twenty minutes before the shuttle’s passive stealth systems were compromised.

“Then we stop running,” Caleb said. “And we go get her.”

Naomi’s jaw tightened. “Elysium Planitia is the most fortified corporate enclave on the planet. You can’t walk in there.”

“I can if I’m supposed to be there.” Caleb pulled up a datachip from his vest and inserted it into the console. A contract file opened, dated eight years prior. His own signature at the bottom. Helix Corp’s seal beside it. “I still have an open salvage debt with them. Ninety days of work I never completed. They’ve been trying to collect for years.”

Amara turned now, her eyes sharp. “You’d walk into their headquarters with your real identity?”

“Why not? I’m exactly who they think I am. A frustrated salvage specialist with a dead father and a mother who died in a canyon accident. I owe them time. I’m finally ready to pay up.” He looked at her. “The contract means they won’t shoot me on sight. It gives me a reason to be in the building.”

“It gives you a leash,” Amara said. “They’ll know you’re there. They’ll watch you.”

“Then I’ll do what I’m there to do before they decide to watch harder.”

The cabin went quiet. Naomi’s hand tightened on the seat back. “Caleb. Mei Lin is not a passive prisoner. She chose to be captured.”

He blinked. “What?”

“After the Purge, she could have fled with the rest of us. She chose to stay. She let them take her into custody.” Naomi’s voice was low. “She believed—still believes—that if she remained visible, they wouldn’t dare destroy everything. She’s a hostage by her own choice.”

“Or she’s compromised,” Caleb said. “Ten years in Helix custody. That changes people.”

“It does. But it doesn’t change her.” Naomi met his eyes. “You’ll know when you see her. She’ll either give you the key or she won’t. But she won’t lie about it.”

Caleb considered that. He didn’t have time to parse the politics of it. He had a plan, and the plan was simple: get into the building, find Mei Lin, get her out. Whatever she decided after that was her business.

“I’m going with him,” Lena said.

The voice was small and rough from disuse, but it cut through the cabin like a blade. Everyone turned. Lena had uncurled from her corner. Her eyes were still shadowed, but there was something bright behind them now.

“The hell you are,” Caleb said.

“Grendel trusted me with the tunnel maps.” Lena’s voice steadied. “I know the underground approach to the Elysium complex better than anyone else alive. He drew them for me, in case—in case he didn’t make it.” She paused. The silence in the cabin had teeth. “He told me to give them to you if something happened to him.”

Caleb stared at her. Grendel had a daughter. Grendel had known the risk. Grendel had drawn maps of a facility he’d never planned to infiltrate himself, leaving them for someone else to use.

“You’re not trained for this,” Caleb said.

“I was trained by my father since I could hold a scanner.” Lena’s jaw set. “I’ve spent the last three days in a Helix holding cell. I know what their sleep cycles look like. I know their guard shifts. I know where they hide their blind spots.” She met his gaze. “I’m going, Caleb. Whether you approve or not.”

The shuttle’s alarm chirped again. The corvettes were closer now.

Amara looked at Naomi. Some silent exchange passed between them. Then Amara turned to Caleb and pushed herself to her feet. She crossed to him, took his face in her hands, and held it there a moment. She hadn’t touched him like that since he was a boy.

“You were never meant to carry this alone,” she said. “But you have. I’m sorry for the time I lost. I’m sorry for the years I slept while you grew up without me.” Her voice cracked. “Come back from Elysium. That’s an order.”

Caleb’s throat tightened. He put his hands over hers. “I’ll come back.”

“Not an answer,” Amara said. “You’ll come back. And when you do, we’ll open the archive together. All of us.” She glanced at Naomi. “Your father spent his life hiding the truth. Don’t you dare die trying to reveal it.”

Caleb pulled his mother into an embrace. She was thin—still weak from the thaw—but she held him with unexpected strength. For a moment he let himself just be her son. Then he stepped back.

“Keep the shuttle off the grid,” he told Naomi. “If I don’t make it back, find another way to the archive. Don’t let it rot down there.”

Naomi’s eyes glistened. “We’ll be here.”

Caleb grabbed his pack and motioned to Lena. She stood, smaller than he remembered, but steadier. She slung a scanner over her shoulder and followed him to the hatch.

At the door he paused and looked back. Amara stood alone in the middle of the cabin, her arms wrapped around herself. Naomi had moved to the console, already plotting their exit vector. The corvettes loomed larger on the screen.

“Mom,” Caleb said quietly. “What did my father know about Elysium? Before the end?”

Amara’s face flickered with something unreadable. “He knew the building’s core had a secondary power system. Independent of the grid. Designed to keep the detention wing operational even during a total facility shutdown.” She paused. “He helped design it. Before he knew what Helix would use it for.”

Caleb tucked that away. A secondary power system. Grendel’s maps. A salvage contract. It was the beginning of a plan.

He turned and dropped through the hatch.

Lena followed without a word.