The Echohound drifted through dead space, cloaked and silent.
Inside, Kael sat alone in the war room, the holographic map before him humming with unreadable coordinates and broken signals.
Each blinking point was a place lost to time, a memory of what had been destroyed.
And somewhere among them, hidden deeper than history itself, was the Heart of Echoes.
Kael clenched his fists.
They couldn't run forever.
They couldn't fight blindly either.
They needed allies.
Information.
A way to outpace the Silence before it swallowed everything whole.
Rax entered, wiping grease from his mechanical hands.
"Engines are stable, for now," he said. "But we're low on quantum fuel. We need a resupply."
Kael didn't look up. "We don't have the credits."
"Yeah," Rax said, grinning darkly. "But there's always the Bazaar."
Kael finally turned.
The Bazaar.
Even among pirates, smugglers, and warlords, the Bazaar was a whispered legend—a marketplace drifting through the ruins of shattered planets, changing its location every few cycles.
No rules. No laws.
Only deals.
And debts.
Kael's jaw tightened.
"It's dangerous."
Lira entered behind Rax, her arms folded.
"More dangerous than waiting here for the Silence to catch up?"
Kael stood.
"Plot a course. We're going to the Bazaar."
It took three days to find the Bazaar's latest hiding place.
A broken world once called Trion-7, now reduced to a shell of ash and magnetic storms.
Amidst the wreckage, the Bazaar floated—a massive, cobbled-together station made from the corpses of old ships, planetary debris, and alien tech.
Lights blinked in a thousand colors.
Ships of every make and nightmare drifted nearby—some still bleeding smoke from old battles.
As the Echohound approached, a swarm of old security drones surrounded them.
A voice crackled over the comms:
"State your business."
Kael leaned forward.
"Trade. Information."
There was a long pause, then the drones parted.
"Welcome to the Bazaar.
No gods, no kings, no laws. Only bargains."
Inside, the Bazaar was a chaos of life and death.
Stalls lined twisted streets—selling weapons, black market Shard tech, memory downloads, even bottled quantum storms.
Mutated beings, mercenaries, and broken AI constructs mingled under the flickering lights.
Kael kept his hand near his weapon as they moved.
Everything here had a price.
And everyone was hunting for someone to pay it.
Vakya whispered in his mind:
> Caution: Probability of hostile engagement 87%.
> Recommended protocol: Limited contact.
Kael ignored it.
They needed a lead.
A clue.
Anything to guide them toward the Heart.
In a dark corner of the Bazaar, beneath a collapsing spire of junked satellites, they found her.
The Oracle.
An old woman—or what had once been a woman—her body fused with shimmering crystal veins that pulsed with strange light.
She sat atop a cracked throne, surrounded by offerings: data-drives, bloodstones, bones.
Her empty eyes turned toward them as they approached.
"I smell it on you," she rasped.
"The Weaver's Mark."
Kael stiffened.
"You know about the Heart of Echoes?"
The Oracle laughed, a sound like breaking glass.
"I know everything that was... and fragments of what will be."
She leaned closer, crystal veins glowing brighter.
"But knowledge is not free, Weaver-child."
Kael gritted his teeth.
"What do you want?"
The Oracle smiled.
"A memory.
A true one.
Something precious."
Kael froze.
The Shard pulsed against his chest.
He could feel Vakya stirring, calculating.
> Warning: Surrender of personal memory may result in identity degradation.
Kael hesitated.
Lira touched his arm lightly.
"You don't have to," she whispered.
But Kael knew he did.
Without a map, they were dead already.
He stepped forward.
"Take it."
The Oracle reached out, her cracked fingers brushing his forehead.
Pain.
Blinding.
Kael gasped as she tore through his mind, searching, ripping—
And then she found it.
A memory:
Himself, as a boy, standing beneath a blue sky, laughing with a woman whose face he could no longer fully recall.
A mother.
A home.
Gone now.
Erased.
When he opened his eyes, he stumbled.
Lira caught him, fear in her eyes.
Kael barely heard her.
The Oracle smiled wider.
"In the Coreward Reaches," she rasped, "beyond the Rift of Sorrows, lies a dead star.
There, hidden in the Cradle's ruins, the Heart waits."
She leaned back, already fading into her crystal cocoon.
"But beware, Weaver-child.
Others seek it too."
"Who?" Kael demanded, voice hoarse.
But she was already gone.
As they turned to leave, Vakya buzzed urgently:
> Hostile signals detected.
Kael spun around.
A dozen mercenaries stepped from the shadows—armor black, faces masked.
Their leader—a tall figure with a sigil shaped like a broken crown—stepped forward.
"The Warden sends his regards," he said, leveling a plasma rifle at Kael's chest.
Kael swore under his breath.
Of course.
The Warden—one of the last surviving warlords from the Collapse—had agents everywhere.
And if he knew about the Shard...
He would never let Kael leave alive.
The firefight erupted instantly.
Lira drew her blaster, taking down two before they could react.
Rax slammed into another, crushing his helmet with a single blow.
Kael ducked a plasma bolt, returning fire with pinpoint shots.
The Bazaar erupted into chaos.
Stall owners screamed, drones activated emergency shields, and opportunistic scavengers rushed to loot the dead.
Kael shoved through the crowd, the Shard burning against his chest.
They had to reach the Echohound.
Behind him, the mercenary leader barked orders, summoning reinforcements.
Bullets and energy blasts filled the air.
They burst through the outer gates, sprinting across the shattered landing fields.
The Echohound's engines roared to life as Rax remotely activated it.
Kael and Lira dove aboard just as plasma fire scorched the hull.
Rax peeled away, engines flaring, dodging incoming fire.
Kael collapsed into the co-pilot's seat, heart hammering.
Vakya's voice whispered in his mind:
> Coordinates acquired.
Destination: Cradle.
Kael wiped blood from his cheek.
"Set course," he rasped.
"Before the Warden sends the whole damn fleet after us."
The Echohound roared into the stars, leaving the Bazaar—and its treacherous bargains—behind.
Ahead, through the broken remnants of forgotten systems, lay the Rift of Sorrows.
Beyond it, the Cradle.
And within the Cradle...
The Heart of Echoes.
Their only hope.
Or their final doom.