The Whispering Hollows earned their name for good reason.
Even when the wind was still, there was a sound—faint, elusive, like static caught in bone. The Dawnbreakers had made temporary camp beneath the skeletal frame of a collapsed hover-freighter, its hull fused into the obsidian stone from years of exposure to radiation and heat. The stars above were distant and cold.
Aera couldn't sleep.
Her journal lay open, but she hadn't written anything. Not tonight. Instead, she stared into the pale glow of her datapad, rewatching a scan of the corrupted mechs from earlier that day. Their formation. Their reaction time. Their coordination.
They weren't acting like disorganized scavengers.
They were hunting.
She looked up toward the horizon, past the campfires and the soldiers curled beneath heat blankets. The wind whispered again, and she felt that old chill creep down her spine—not from fear, but from intuition.
There's something down there.
With her rifle slung across her back and the datapad tucked under her arm, she made her way across the edge of the camp toward Elian, who was seated near the perimeter, tinkering with a busted optical drone.
"You're still up?" he asked, not looking up.
"I could say the same to you," Aera replied, settling beside him.
The drone let out a spark, and Elian muttered a curse. He set it down. "Too much on my mind."
"Same."
She hesitated. Then, "Elian… you've studied war strategy, right? Before all this?"
He glanced at her, curious. "That's… not the kind of thing you usually ask."
"I want to learn," Aera said, voice steady. "Not to become Kael. But I can't just lead with emotion forever. It's not enough. I need to be… better."
That gave Elian pause. But then he nodded, thoughtful. "Alright. I'll help you. It's not easy, and it's not fun. But it's necessary."
They sat in silence for a while. Then Aera pulled out her datapad and brought up the terrain maps again—this time, not for navigation.
She tapped a section of the Hollow that was unmarked.
"I think there's something buried here," she said. "The mechs we fought weren't just rogue. They were coordinated. And the deeper we go, the stronger the signal interference. I think something's controlling them."
Elian frowned. "A command AI?"
"Maybe. But if it's still active, that makes this place a ticking bomb."
"You want to investigate it."
"I need to."
He considered her for a long moment. "Then you'll need more than just instinct. You'll need plans. Timing. Terrain control. Tactical fallback positions."
"Then start teaching me," she said with a small grin. "Professor."
Elian groaned. "Please don't call me that."
Aera laughed, but her eyes were serious. This was the start of something bigger—not just for her, but for the squad. For the war.
Beneath the Hollow, secrets stirred.
And she was ready to uncover them.