INTERNAL MEMORANDUM – EYES ONLY

  NeuroSynth Strategic Assets Division

  Subject: Reevaluation and Strategic Justification for Reacquisition of Asset [Lila - Project Orpheus-12]

  Prepared By: Dr. L. Harrow, Director of Espiritus Integration Research

  Timestamp: [Redacted]

  Project Orpheus-12 was classified as a partial success and released from active observation following stability benchmarks that appeared to plateau. However, recent telemetry and third-party conflict reports suggest the subject has exceeded the projected performance thresholds for a Level 5 Espiritus—by an estimated 68% in high-stress zones. This anomaly warrants a strategic reclassification and reevaluation of her termination status.

  Project Orpheus aimed to achieve manifestation anchoring through neural wetware conditioning and controlled pain-response imprinting. While collateral psychological deterioration was observed in early cohorts (see Appendix D, “Catatonia Index”), the data acquired from Orpheus-12 presents the first recorded instance of:

  

  
• Stable manifestation during delta-space turbulence
  
    


  
• Partial autonomous recall of the projected archetype
  
    


  
• Emergent synchronization without total override
  
    


  

  Although the manifestation appears to be gaining agency—classified internally as incipient dominance state—this development may represent the first naturally evolving Espiritus stabilization protocol in a civilian-grade host.

  The subject was removed from custody prior to the completion of Phase 3 psychotemporal integration. It is the assessment of this office that such removal was premature and economically negligent. With minor updates to the dampening protocols and stricter environmental conditioning, reacquisition could restore a valuable testbed for manifestation-cognitive fusion.

  Asset reacquisition is recommended under sanctioned corporate salvage protocols. Discretion and deniability are encouraged.

  AURORA’S PROMISE LOCAL SPACE // 287 sec until Kael’s “plan”

  Kael Varn had made bad calls before.

  Risky extractions. Badly timed hacks. Once, in a different life, he’d greenlit a smuggling route through a live drift minefield. But even that didn’t compare to this.

  This wasn’t a plan. It was a prayer in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a plan.

  And Mira was furious.

  “This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, and I’ve watched you fall off a space elevator drunk.”

  Kael adjusted the feed from his cracked slate, angling the view toward the container bay camera.

  “I didn’t fall. I descended rapidly.”

  “Kael, no one goes Dutchman. Not cultists. Not junkers. Not maniacs. That maneuver is suicide with extra steps.”

  “That’s why they won’t expect it.”

  Mira’s voice dipped an octave. Dangerous.

  “You want them to drag Lila into a crate. Stuff her in. Seal it for atmo. And then you want me to breach it. On purpose. People come out changed from close contact with Delta-Space and you want them to drift in the void with an 8 cm hull between them and whatever horrors hyperspace can conjure?”

  “She’ll survive. It’s just for a few seconds.”

  “There’s a reason going Dutchman is a horror story we tell new AIs. Madness is the least of our worries.”

  Kael’s slate flared with Mira’s tactical overlays. The crude shipping container lit up—marked, rigged, patched with enough environmental sealant to buy twenty seconds of vacuum tolerance. Maybe thirty.

  “I’m not even mad because it’s risky,” Mira growled. “I’m mad because it’s almost clever.”

  Kael smirked. “You’ve taught me well.”

  “If I had a body, I’d punch you in the throat.”

  “Noted.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He tapped a control. A container in bay four hissed and unlocked, its mag-clamps disengaging. If Kael believed in anything other than the random chaos of the universe he would have prayed; instead he crossed his fingers.

  The Aurora’s breach had held just long enough. The Onryo would find the crate, follow the instructions, and—hopefully—not ask too many questions before the detonation.

  Kael toggled Mira’s drone feed. The recovery unit hovered, waiting, its claw grip trembling with tension.

  “Get ready. As soon as it blows, you catch it and lock it onto the Drift’s clamp.”

  “If I miss, they’re gone.”

  “If you miss,” Kael said, “I die broke. You die haunted. So don’t miss.”

  “That’s your pep talk?”

  “I’m not the cheerleader.”

  Mira growled again.

  And somewhere below them, deep inside the broken ship, the Onryo were about to step into one of the worst ideas Kael had ever had.

  AURORA’S PROMISE LOCAL SPACE // 177 sec until kael’s “plan”

  Saito meditated.

  And that was hard right now.

  Lila had burst into the room, trailed by G?tz, and demanded to be in on "the plan." Whether a plan existed was debatable. Saito assumed there must be one, if only because Julie was pacing like a caged tiger and G?tz was too focused to be grumbling.

  Even stuck in the pod, maybe especially so, Saito could feel the world around him. With no distractions, his aura came alive.

  It wrapped gently around Julie—steadying, supportive, a quiet embrace. It settled over G?tz like a weighted hand on the back, helping him hold his posture upright and shoulders square.

  Through that haze of calm and gravity, he felt it: G?tz exclaiming. Lila echoing it faintly. One word, tangled with disbelief and fury.

  "Dutchman."

  Saito’s mouth twitched into a smirk—an involuntary expression, more felt than seen.

  His first Dutchman.

  And he wasn’t even awake to see it.

  Soon, he felt the pod shift. G?tz was hauling it with one shoulder and a single iron-clad arm, muscles working like a winch. They were moving through corridors at speed—furniture and walls whisking by.

  Tension crackled through them, but Saito radiated calm as best he could. Whether it worked or not, he liked to think his presence acted as a grounding stone—something for his kōhai to steady themselves on.

  Minutes later, the pod was shoved into the crate. The shipping container, sealed for atmosphere. Julie and G?tz took up positions beside him. Emergency helmets snapped into place.

  Lila, reluctant but grim-faced, slipped in last. Then she quickly began to hyperventilate and mutter about floating in space, forgotten forever.

  Saito was the only one not wearing a helmet.

  Julie and G?tz could survive vacuum exposure for a time. Painful, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But survivable.

  Saito would be the first of them to fly Dutchman without even a helmet.

  The eldest.

  Showing the juniors what was possible. An example of a legacy written in deeds, not blood.

  AURORA’S PROMISE LOCAL SPACE // 009 sec until kael’s “plan”

  Space didn’t care.

  When the crate vented, it tumbled end over end, spinning like a drunk coin across the void. Lila screamed and Gotz grumbled about the insanity of it all. Julie just laughed.

  Atmosphere screamed into vacuum, and all went silent. The container was flung clear, a leaking, patched-up miracle box loaded with ghost fugitives.

  For three long seconds, nothing happened.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The Fed laser cutter, a Harrowlight-Class, tracing thermal drift and stray pings, caught Mira’s last jettisoned drone transmitting ghosted command echoes—and fired.

  A surgical lance of light slammed into the dead pirate cutter’s carcass. The corpo missile destroyer, a Velostrike Asset Inspector, interpreting the strike as sabotage, volleyed its entire forward rack at the cutter.

  The opening shot contained thirty saturation pattern missiles. Each missile carrying 12 Kinetic Kill Rods left their tubes and filled space with rods moving at nearly 25,000 kilometers per second.

  The laser cutter’s point defenses kicked in—pulsed bursts of bomb-pumped lasers swatting some rods aside, vaporizing others. But it wasn’t enough. Two rods struck home, gutting the cutter’s flank and scattering ablative panels into orbit.

  The damaged ship launched pigeon messenger drones into the epsilon layer and began squawking for backup.

  The missile boat, now convinced it was in the jaws of a trap, followed suit, squawking and reloading to missiles packing payload instead of the KKRs.

  Within minutes, two patrol boats stooped from the Epsilon layer—hulking things, war-forged and bristling with armor and attitude. They had likely exchanged tense messages up-layer—now all bets were off.

  The Federation stooped in with their version of a Merchant Raider, a Gavel-Pattern Interdictor. It launched with classic discipline: mazer batteries, bomb-pumped lasers, and blinding webs of anti-fighter scatter fire.

  The Corpo’s answer to securing the tradelanes was the branded Heavy Corvette the Kineticum-Class Interdictor. It returned fire with hypervelocity slugs, Kinetic Kill Rods and missiles hived from the Corvette, ripping through void with brute force and industrial precision.

  In moments, the sector devolved into a full-blown skirmish.

  Picket-class Scouts detached from both battling giants and scrambled, earning their nickname of “Fleas”. Drone clouds thickened. Sensor nets collapsed into static.

  Amidst it all, Mira’s drone twisted like a dancer through the debris and fire, claws extended.

  It caught the crate.

  Snagged the mag-clamp.

  And everyone held their breath, waiting for the ping of sheared metal and the inevitability of the crate drifting in hyperspace forever.

  The clamp held…

  Onboard the Drift, Kael stared wide-eyed at the chaos unfolding on every screen.

  “DROP US TO GAMMA!” he shouted. “Now. Right now. GO!”

  In the background Mira cheered her future in sportsball or whatever nonsense humans do for fun.