The lift rose steadily through the spiraling heart of the Academy, piercing skyward toward the Chancellor's spire. From Lu'Ka's view, the rest of the city blurred into pale golds and silvers, domes and towers shimmering under the filtered light of the orbital shields.
The higher he climbed, the quieter everything became.
At this altitude, even gravity thinned its grip.
He stared at his reflection in the polished interior of the lift wall. Blue skin, taut with tension. Eyes darker than usual. His shoulders hunched slightly—not from fatigue, but from the burden he carried on a data crystal in his sleeve.
Beacon 7-R. Active.
Just thinking about it made his fingers curl unconsciously. The idea still felt absurd, even after a full cycle of data verification and AI-confirmed scans.
The beacon was alive.
Dakun was responding.
And if it wasn't the beacon—if it was something new, then the implications were even worse.
As the lift slowed, the floor beneath him gently shifted, adjusting to the near-zero pressure chamber above. The doors opened with a slow hiss.
Light greeted him.
Not artificial white or sterile blue. This light shimmered. It shifted in the air like liquid glass, refracting through the crystalline walls of the Chancellor's spire. The chamber was vast and curved, ringed with panels of information tech, old galactic star maps, and an enormous biological living structure suspended in midair—a kind of golden perch, woven from bioengineered vines and alloy.
The Chancellor's nest.
And in it—watching him already—was Yvith Korr.
Chancellor of the Academy.
Lu'Ka had only seen her descend from that perch twice in his career.
Both times, someone lost funding. Or fingers.
Today, he hoped for neither.
Chancellor Yvith was regal in stillness.
She didn't rise. She didn't speak. She only watched.
Four eyes, violet and gold, unblinking and unreadable. Her feathers were sleek, sharp-edged like a ceremonial blade. Her presence made the air feel thinner than it already was.
Lu'Ka stepped forward with practiced calm, though the back of his throat was dry.
"I wouldn't be here if it weren't urgent," he began, bowing slightly.
"I doubt you would," she replied, her voice crisp and weightless. "Most who climb this tower do so with full petitions and supporting documentation. You bring neither."
"I bring something more important."
Yvith cocked her head. Not a challenge—just patience wearing thin.
Lu'Ka tapped the interface crystal embedded in his wristband. A thin projection spread out in the air between them—layers of static resolving into a rhythmic, pulsing waveform.
The signal.
Beacon 7-R.
"It's been reactivated," he said. "A pulse. Continuous. Steady. Originating from the exact coordinates of the old expedition's last known location on Dakun."
At the mention of the planet, something in Yvith shifted—barely. Her feathers didn't bristle. Her tone didn't change. But the nest she perched on curled slightly inward, as if remembering a pain that had never quite healed.
"No one says that name anymore," she said.
"I'm saying it."
She clicked her beak softly. "And what does your data show?"
Lu'Ka gestured, enlarging the second readout: thermal overlays, recent topography scans, and a fluctuating biosignature nestled inside a region thought to be lifeless for centuries.
"Something down there is alive. Something we don't recognize. The signal is clean, Chancellor. The power cell should've failed long ago, but it hasn't. It's been reawakened—deliberately."
"You're making assumptions."
"I'm making an observation. It was dead. Now it's not. I have the logs, the pulse count, and the AI's confirmation."
Chancellor Yvith narrowed her eyes. "The Council ruled that expedition a failure. We lost twelve specialists. No distress call. No evidence. Nothing to recover."
"Exactly," Lu'Ka said. "We never knew what happened. We just... moved on. Sealed the planet and buried the questions. This signal could be from the team—or from something that found what they left behind."
"You came here for clearance?"
He nodded. "I want to go. Alone. Quietly."
Yvith stood at last, descending from her roost like the slow fall of a sword through air.
"Then you came to the wrong place," she said. "Because silence wasn't a mistake, Professor. It was a warning."
"I understand the risk," Lu'Ka said, his voice lower now, sharper. "But I also understand what it means when something buried starts calling."
Yvith stood at full height before him—taller than most beings in the Academy, wings partially unfurled as if instinctively defending some unseen territory. Her expression remained unreadable.
"The Council's silence wasn't hesitation," she said. "It was certainty. Whatever happened on Dakun was final. The risk wasn't worth reopening."
"That's the logic of the afraid," Lu'Ka replied, stepping forward. "I know what this signal could mean—for science, for our understanding of pre-collapse systems, even for energy reclamation tech. We're archivists, not bureaucrats. We don't hide from the unknown. We document it."
She narrowed her eyes. "And if what's down there isn't just data? What if it's the reason we sealed it in the first place?"
He didn't look away.
"Then I'd rather face it than let it wake alone."
The room was silent.
The projection continued to pulse softly between them—steady, undeniable.
Lu'Ka let the silence stretch before adding, more quietly, "You know we've built our whole culture on what we've found in ruins. You've written about it. And now, something new is calling from a place we thought was lost. That's not noise. That's an opportunity."
Yvith turned away, her feathers shifting down her back like falling leaves.
"You think I haven't thought about that signal every day since it went silent?" she said, voice quieter now. "I signed the order to seal the planet. I buried twelve names under classified documents. They weren't numbers. They were people. And I won't add a thirteenth just to satisfy curiosity."
"Then don't send anyone else," Lu'Ka said. "Send me."
She turned back, looking him in the eye.
"No team. No announcement. No official clearance. No recovery if you disappear."
He nodded. "Accepted."
"And if you find something… you report. You don't touch. You don't awaken it."
He paused, just a breath.
"...Agreed."
Yvith stepped away from the projection, folding her wings tightly against her back. The golden light of the spire caught in the sharp lines of her feathers, casting streaks across the floor like broken sigils.
"This never touches the Council," she said. "You leave under the guise of research travel. Use a private vessel. Shielded. No escort. No flight plan."
Lu'Ka absorbed the words silently.
"If you find nothing," she continued, "you come back. Quietly. If you find ruins—catalogue and leave. But if you find something alive, and it looks at you like it's known you since before you were born…"
She turned to him fully, and for the first time since his arrival, something like fear danced behind her eyes.
"…you run."
He didn't respond.
"I don't care what your theories tell you, or what your instruments detect. Some things are buried because the stars agreed to forget them."
The signal projection continued to pulse in the space between them—steady, soft, patient.
She took a long breath. "You know the myths, don't you? The ones buried in student whispers and unverified archives. Of a species that once touched every corner of the stars. Of the ones who burned too fast, too far, and left only shadows behind."
Lu'Ka nodded slowly. "The myths of humans."
Yvith's voice dropped lower. "That planet was assumed to be their last fortress. Not a home. Not a ruin. A fortress. Built to outlast everything."
She stepped forward and fixed him with all four eyes.
"If the beacon is coming from that place... and if it was a fortress... then you're not waking up old bones."
"You're waking up a door."
Lu'Ka swallowed.
"Do I still have your trust?" he asked.
Yvith stared for a long time. Then, at last, she nodded.
"You have it," she said. "But you also carry a debt with it."
Lu'Ka didn't speak as he descended the lift.
The spire's crystalline shell shimmered around him like a sacred womb of light and silence, but the words the Chancellor left him with echoed louder than anything else:
"You're not waking up old bones. You're waking up a door."
The phrase burned into his memory like a brand.
Below him, the city lights began to sharpen—Academy towers stretching in all directions like the fingers of a sleeping giant. He saw the Lecture Wing, the great Archive Dome, the plasma gardens. All the living heart of knowledge pulsing quietly… built atop a foundation of what little the galaxy knew.
And that foundation was full of holes.
He remembered the Chancellor's last words before the lift closed:
> "No species has ever been studied more... or understood less. There are no artifacts. No Weapons.no Genetic blueprints.no Half-built language cores,and never a body. Never a name. Never a voice. Only fear."
> "They were never found. They vanished before we even arrived in the stars. But they left their myths and legends on everything."
He pressed his hand against the glass.
Everyone knew the myths.
From the earliest Academy scholars to starship navigators on forgotten mining colonies, every child had heard some version of them: the race that built cities inside black holes. That tamed stars and vanished without leaving corpses. That had no genetic anchors. No cultural constants. No agreed-upon shape.
Just presence.
Implied.
Echoed.
Felt.
"Humans," he whispered.
It was almost taboo to say it aloud.
Some believed they were a lie. A collective myth born from the trauma of galactic expansion. Others thought they were precursors—ascended beyond matter, existing now only in form without flesh.
But deep down, no one believed they were gone.
Not really.
He closed his eyes and saw the pulse again.
Steady. Alive.
Not screaming. Not pleading.
Just waiting.
He start to walk to his classroom with thousands thoughts..