Chapter 199: Damaged Ship Memory Unit
Chapter 199: Damaged Ship Memory Unit
Veska looked mildly surprised.
"That is less stupid than I expected."
Rohan pointed at her. "I am accepting that as praise."
"It was."
Maerin considered for several more seconds.
Then she said, "Tavin, you and Orrel test the seam. Veska, watch the sky and the metal. Rohan, you clear ash only where Tavin tells you. Liora, stay on him. If his eyes start glowing with bad ideas, pull him back."
Liora nodded solemnly. "I have experience with that."
Rohan ignored her.
Maerin’s voice grew firmer.
"No one enters. No one reaches into an unseen gap. No one touches active glass. If I call stop, we stop. If Veska calls sky, we leave immediately. Do all of you understand me?"
Everyone answered properly.
Rohan did too.
They worked.
The next hour became one of the most tense periods Rohan had experienced since arriving on Cael Athis, despite no beast attacking. Every scrape of ash from the hull plate felt like peeling back centuries. Every revealed line of old metal suggested both possibility and danger. Tavin worked with reverence and fear, her tools moving carefully along the seam. Veska muttered readings under her breath, occasionally tapping metal and listening to the answer.
Rohan cleared ash in thin layers.
His Molten Assimilation trembled whenever it brushed too close to the hull. Not because the metal was compatible exactly, but because something in it remembered heat at a scale beyond ordinary fire. Re-entry. Impact. Burning atmosphere. Reactor bleed. The death of a ship.
He kept his control narrow.
At last, Tavin uncovered a recessed panel.
It was warped but intact, about the width of Rohan’s forearm, set beside what might once have been a manual release. The release handle had snapped off. The panel itself bore a row of small dark circles, none glowing.
Tavin’s breath caught.
"External maintenance cache," she said.
Maerin stepped closer. "Can it be opened safely?"
"Maybe. It is not a door into the hull. It should be a shallow compartment for emergency tools or access keys."
"Should be."
"Yes, Captain. Should be."
Veska tapped the panel.
No one breathed.
Nothing answered.
"No active charge," Veska said. "No heat behind it. Air is still. That does not mean safe. It means not immediately rude."
Rohan found himself liking her more every time she spoke.
Tavin inserted a thin hooked tool into the warped edge and pulled.
The panel did not move.
Orrel joined her.
Together, they worked the seam, scraping corrosion, loosening compacted ash, and murmuring to each other in technical phrases Rohan only partly understood. Finally, Tavin looked at him.
"Can you warm the ash around the lower hinge without touching the metal?"
"Yes."
"Are you certain?"
"No, but I can be careful."
"I dislike that answer."
"It is the most honest one available."
Liora stood at his shoulder. "If the wrap heats, you stop."
"I know."
"I am saying it because I know you know and might still push."
Rohan looked at her.
Her face was anxious. Not distrustful. Anxious because she cared whether he hurt himself.
"I will stop," he said.
He placed his hand near the lower hinge and activated Molten Assimilation.
Only a thread.
The ash packed around the hinge softened slightly as warmth moved through it. He did not pull from the hull metal. He did not chase the strange heat-memory inside it. He focused only on ash.
Dryness, grit, old residue, loosen, release.
Iri’s wrap tingled faintly but did not heat.
"Enough," Tavin said.
Rohan stopped immediately.
Tavin pulled again.
The panel opened with a sound like a cough from the dead.
Everyone flinched.
Nothing exploded.
No voice whispered.
No skarn crawled out wearing an engineer’s badge.
The compartment behind the panel was shallow, dark, and lined with old foam that had hardened into brittle layers. Inside lay three objects.
A cracked tool handle.
A sealed cylinder about the length of Rohan’s hand.
And a small rectangular device made from pale metal and black glass.
No one moved.
Tavin let out a trembling breath.
"That is old-tech."
Maerin’s voice was careful.
"Can it be removed?"
"With gloves. Carefully."
Veska looked at the sky.
"The wind turns soon."
Maerin nodded.
"Take the cylinder and the device. Leave the broken tool. We do not know what it is made from, and broken things cut deeper than they look."
Tavin removed both objects using insulated tongs and placed them into a padded salvage case.
The moment the rectangular device left the compartment, the Great System appeared.
[Optional Objective Complete: Investigate Cargo Spine 7 Access Marking]
[Reward Acquired: Salvage Information]
[Item Discovered: Damaged Ship Memory Unit]
[Quest Chain Progress: Ashbound World]
Rohan’s heart hammered.
Damaged Ship Memory Unit.
Memory.
Records.
Maybe not readable. Maybe useless. Maybe centuries corrupted. But not nothing.
Not certainly nothing.
Maerin saw the intensity on his face.
"What did it identify?"
Rohan’s voice came out quieter than he expected.
"A damaged ship memory unit."
The words spread through the expedition like a spark through dry cloth.
Tavin covered her mouth with one gloved hand.
Orrel whispered something that sounded like a prayer.
Liora stared at the salvage case.
Maerin closed her eyes briefly.
When she opened them, her expression was controlled, but there was emotion beneath it now. Pain. Hope. Fear. All held tightly behind duty.
"Seal the case," she said. "We return it to Veyrhold."
Rohan looked at her.
"Not the furnace salt flats?"
Maerin looked toward the eastern dark, then at Veska.
Veska’s answer was immediate.
"The wind turns. The old metal has given us one secret today. Greed asks for a second. Greed gets people buried."
No one argued.
Not even Rohan.
Especially not Rohan.
They sealed the salvage case and marked the cache location for future teams. By the time they left the wreck edge, the first low wind had begun sliding ash across the hull plates behind them.
The voice from the corridor did not return.
Rohan was grateful.
They camped that night farther south, outside the immediate wreck field, in a hollow surrounded by blackstone teeth. The mood was unlike the previous night. No one celebrated loudly. That would have felt wrong. But there was a charge in the air that had nothing to do with storm-silver.