The Ember Record
Saturn’s B ring glittered like a grave field when Nomsa Khumalo stepped out of the EVA lock. The debris cloud that had been Helios Station drifted ahead, a smear of glass and hull plating that still traced the old rotation vector. Every flash of reflected sunlight marked a life she had sworn to carry home.
“Nomsa, I have you on tether two,” Mandla van der Merwe said over the loop. “Trajectory stable, ten meters per second closure. Keep your angle; the cascade core is venting.”
She breathed through her teeth, counting heartbeats to slow them. The Salvage Protocol badge on her sleeve caught the stray light, a reminder of the oath she signed three years after the invasion: recover everything, no matter the cost. Helios had been humanity’s crown at Saturn, ripped apart on Day Eight. The Protocol wanted more than scrap today. They wanted the Ember Record, the station’s archive spool that held duty rosters, sensor logs, the words of the three thousand and eighteen dead.
The wreck’s outer shell loomed. Fragments of hydroponic glass flared around her like frozen rain as she threaded through the fractured plating. Inside, corroded conduits hung in loops. A dried smear of coolant floated beside a crushed handrail. She rotated slowly, letting the suit’s microjets answer each thought. No filters. No distance. The station’s silence lived in her bones.
“Telemetry flare from sector six,” Mandla warned. “Probably a live capacitor.”
“Copy,” she said. “Sealing suit vents.”
The archive vault floated ahead, a scorched cylinder clamped at the heart of the command spine. Nomsa reached for the manual release. Her glove brushed the engraved motto still visible on the rim: Helios wakes the dark. Heat brushed her fingers despite the vacuum. The core still held charge.
The release lever refused to move. She anchored a boot clamp to the bulkhead and pulled again. Nothing. The Vethrak beam that gutted the station had fused the housing. She could return with cutters, but the debris field shifted with every orbit. Leave the core, and black-market crews would find it before Recovery Command made another pass.
“Time check,” Mandla said. “Radiation threshold in six minutes.”
“I am not leaving the spool.”
“Nomsa,” he warned.
“I said no.” The word cracked sharper than she planned. She let the anger burn through her lungs, then focused. Her brother had been on Helios. No body, no goodbye. Without the archive, families like hers stayed in limbo.
She unclipped the plasma saw from her belt and ignited the blade. Blue light curved around the fused latch. Metal vaporized slowly; molten droplets drifted toward her visor. She shifted her forearm to shield the glass. The saw whined higher. Sweat gathered under her collar, prickling down her spine. Mandla muttered prayers under his breath, letting the open mic carry them. The sound steadied her hands.
The latch gave. The core floated loose, a cylinder the length of her arm, plated in copper-black segments. Glyphs shimmered beneath the soot, Vethrak sigils layered beside human numerals. Nomsa shut down the saw and cradled the spool against her chest. The thing pulsed faintly, as if the dead exhaled inside it.
“Got it,” she said softly.
“Confirming mass transfer,” Mandla replied. “Bring it home.”
A flash lit the corridor. Her visor slammed to blackout before the burn hit her eyes. The capacitor Mandla warned about released, hurling shards past her shoulder. One fragment sliced through tether two. The suit lurched. Nomsa’s shoulder jammed into a strut, and her grip on the core slipped. She snapped both arms around it and fired a microjet burst. The thrust spun her toward the ragged hull breach that looked down on Saturn.
Mandla swore. “I lost your tether vector.”
“Manual control. I am free-drifting.”
She flattened her boots against the bulkhead, hooked her calves, then pushed hard. Her path scraped along the corridor, shredding the suit’s knee padding, but the vector lined up with the EVA hatch. The second tether stretched tight and stopped her drift. Her teeth clacked together from the jolt.
“Twenty seconds to threshold,” Mandla said. “Reactor vents rising.”
“Almost there.” The core hummed in her arms. Each vibration raised gooseflesh along her forearms despite the suit. For a heartbeat the dead seemed to speak through it, asking not to be left in the dark.
The EVA lock swallowed her. Atmosphere hissed in, thin and metallic. Mandla stood on the other side of the inner hatch, helmet tucked beneath his arm, eyes wide. Nomsa keyed the purge cycle and set the core in the cradle between them.
“Protocol is going to lock this in cold storage the second we land,” he said. “You want a moment before the suits come in?”
She studied the cylinder. Through the inspection slit she made out stacked crystals, each one etched with microscopic veins. “Help me activate the memorial pass-through.”
Mandla nodded and punched in the manual override. A soft tone filled the lock. The core’s shell peeled back enough to expose a black glass surface. A holo flickered, then aligned into text.
HELIOSTATION EMBER RECORD 0001
Nomsa touched the glass with two fingers. Names cascaded across the display, faster than eyes could track. Duty shifts, airlock logs, messages flagged to send once the station cleared jamming. No bodies, yet the promises they never delivered filled the little chamber.
A final file stitched itself to the list. Commander Yusuf Okafor’s voice filled the lock, thin but unbroken. “We never stopped fighting,” he said. “Whoever finds this, tell them Helios burned but did not bow.”
Nomsa closed her eyes. Her brother’s last transmission to her had ended with the same words. She let the recording finish, then sealed the core again.
“Send the summary to Geneva,” she said. “Route a copy to the civilian ledger. Families deserve to claim their names.”
“Protocol will fight that.”
“Then they can fight me.” She lifted the core, the weight pressing through the suit for the first time. “We keep their voices. That is the work.”
She carried the Ember Record toward the lab section, every step measured. Behind her, Mandla released a small foil streamer into the lock. The strip shimmered gold as it drifted toward the ceiling, a tradition they invented after their first recovery. Helios would have a marker, even if no one else ever saw it.
Outside, the B ring kept shining, patient and cold.
Author’s Note: Year 3 Post-Invasion, Recovery Command finally risked deep Saturn sorties to reclaim Helios Station’s data. This story follows the divers who treat every spool and shard like the human beings still attached to them.
If you enjoyed this story, you can follow the main story arc in The Exodus Rush, the first book in The Vethrak Requiem series.