Project Echelon: The Debris Wars

Chapter 6- Division Ghost

The sky was an iron sheet, trembling with thunder.

Lyra climbed the ridge in silence, rain soaking her through as she scaled the final stretch of rock and broken metal. Beneath her, the ruins of Erevos City glimmered faintly under the storm—empty, charred, still whispering with the ghosts of what Division 9 had built and destroyed.

But here, miles beyond the city, there was no whisper. No signal. Just a dead zone carved into the earth.

Exactly where the Division liked to hide its secrets.

She crouched beside a rusted ventilation shaft and scanned the ridge.

“[Area clear. No motion signatures detected within two hundred meters.]”

The soft voice of her wrist AI flickered inside her helmet, steady but strained—its systems had taken damage from the Echelon surge.

“Then we’re alone,” Lyra murmured, brushing wet hair from her face. “Let’s hope that’s true.”

She found the hatch buried beneath a layer of ash and dirt—a reinforced blast door disguised as bedrock. Division 9 had perfected secrecy long before they started tampering with alien physics.

She hooked her wrist module to the control socket. The console whined weakly, coughing to life as lines of half-broken code filled her visor.

“Old encryption,” she muttered. “Pre-collapse design. They never expected anyone to come back here.”

The lock resisted, its defenses ancient but stubborn. Lyra’s fingers flew over her wristpad, bypassing power redundancies, manually rewriting the security tree. Sweat and rain mixed on her brow as she forced the system open.

After seven long minutes, the console chimed.

ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME, OPERATIVE VANCE.

The blast door rumbled. A gust of stale, frozen air escaped from below, carrying the faint scent of oil and burnt circuitry.

Lyra swallowed hard. “Home sweet home.”

She descended into the dark.

The interior was a mausoleum.

Rows of broken monitors, half-melted consoles, and shattered glass littered the main corridor. Some of the walls had fused into warped metal, as if fire and time had melted the base into its own bones.

Lyra’s footsteps echoed softly as she moved deeper inside.

“Division 9 Black-Site Delta,” she whispered, her voice small against the hum of old machines. “You never shut down, did you?”

“[Energy readings stable. Nanite activity residual—estimated at 2.6% ambient saturation.]”

“That’s low enough for me.”

She moved past a row of containment pods, their glass panels cracked. Inside, she saw the remains of what looked like bodies—or what used to be bodies. Flesh threaded with metal, faces half-dissolved into nanite clusters.

She turned away quickly. “God…”

The deeper she went, the more the walls seemed to breathe. Faint blue filaments pulsed under the steel, like veins feeding a corpse.

She stopped at a central junction where the Division emblem—two overlapping rings—was still painted on the floor. Below it, a small plaque read:

PROJECT ECHELON: RECLAMATION FACILITY

Her pulse quickened. “Reclamation,” she murmured. “That’s what they called resurrection.”

The command center was buried three levels below.

Lyra forced open the elevator hatch and dropped into the darkness, landing on rusted grating. The air was thick, heavy with the electric smell of nanite decay.

Only one terminal still glowed faintly, running on emergency power. She activated it, brushing dust from the screen.

It greeted her with a red logo and a flashing prompt:

USER AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.

She hesitated, then typed her old Division credentials—codes she hadn’t used in five years.

To her shock, the terminal accepted them.

ACCESS GRANTED.

WELCOME BACK, DR. LYRA VANCE.

Lyra froze. “Doctor?”

That title wasn’t hers. Not anymore. She’d been told she was an analyst, a low-level field researcher. But the system knew her as something else—someone who belonged here.

She pulled up the personnel files. Most were corrupted, but one stood out.

SUBJECT E-01 — STATUS: INITIAL TRIAL SUCCESSFUL

She opened it.

Lines of data scrolled across the screen—DNA logs, neural resonance maps, nanite compatibility results. Then she saw her own name.

HOST: LYRA VANCE (PROTOTYPE SUBJECT)

NEURAL COMPATIBILITY: 89.3%

NOTE: MEMORY REDACTION COMPLETE. FIELD ADAPTATION RECOMMENDED.

The room tilted.

“No,” she whispered. “That can’t be right. I—”

“[Confirmation: Nanite patterns within your bloodstream match early-generation integration signatures.]”

The AI’s voice was calm. Too calm.

Lyra’s hands trembled. “So they used me. Just like they used Adrian.”

She looked down at her palms—scarred, steady, hers. Yet now she wondered how much of that was true. How much of her was still human.

Further inside the control room, a single holographic projector buzzed to life. A man’s image flickered into existence—tall, severe, with Division 9 insignia on his chest.

Director Marcus Havel.

“If you’re viewing this,” the hologram said, “then the Echelon array has been compromised. The debris network is self-expanding—autonomous. We’ve lost control.”

He paced slowly, eyes hollow even in projection.

“The only way to contain it is to access the Vault Network. The Vaults hold the original quantum code used to bridge the debris interface. Without that foundation, the network cannot sustain transdimensional synchronization.”

He looked directly at the camera.

“Do not attempt to destroy the Vaults. They are part of us now. If they die, so do we.”

The recording ended abruptly, replaced by static.

Lyra stood motionless. “Too late for that, Director.”

She began scanning for Vault coordinates. The system was old, but her access clearance—whatever Division had made her—was enough to unlock deeper layers.

Finally, she found what she was looking for.

LOCATION: ORBITAL RING // EAST SECTOR

STATUS: ACTIVE // CLEARANCE REQUIRED: DIRECTOR LEVEL

Her eyes widened. “The Vault’s not underground. It’s in orbit.”

“[Affirmative. Orbital Ring built to serve as Echelon relay and storage network. Estimated mass: 36 kilometers in diameter.]”

Lyra leaned back in the chair. “Of course they put it in space. Can’t risk your gods dying on the ground.”

She was still staring at the coordinates when she heard it—footsteps. Slow. Heavy.

Her pistol was in her hand before she realized it. “Show yourself.”

No response.

The footsteps grew closer, echoing through the steel corridor. A shadow flickered at the doorway.

Then a voice—distorted, mechanical—broke the silence.

“Unauthorized presence detected… identify yourself.”

Lyra aimed. “Division 9’s gone. You’re talking to its last mistake.”

The figure stepped into the light—a soldier in half-melted combat armor, the Division insignia burned across his chestplate. His visor glowed red, scanning her.

“Division 9 doesn’t die. We adapt.”

He raised his rifle. Lyra fired first. Two rounds struck his chest. Instead of blood, silver mist erupted from the wounds—nanites, boiling and reassembling.

He staggered but kept coming.

She ducked behind a console as bullets tore through the wall. Sparks rained down like embers.

“Nanite soldier,” she muttered. “Early series. Half-human, half—whatever you are.”

He laughed, voice fractured through digital distortion.

“We’re beyond human. We’re the Ghost Division. Flesh rewritten for survival.”

He charged again. Lyra activated her EMP pulse. Blue light burst across the room, the hum shaking the walls. The soldier convulsed, his armor smoking.

When he collapsed, she knelt beside him. His face was human—barely. The skin was stretched thin over metallic veins.

He smiled weakly.

“You… can’t stop it. The Vault’s already opening.”

His eyes dimmed, leaving nothing behind but silence and the faint hiss of dissolving nanites.

Lyra stood, breathing hard. The entire bunker vibrated faintly. Somewhere above, thunder rolled like distant artillery.

On the fallen soldier’s wrist, something blinked. A small beacon device, still active. She pried it off, turning it in her hand.

The emblem was strange—an eye encircled by debris fragments, etched with the words:

PROJECT ASCENSION.

Her throat tightened. “Ascension,” she whispered. “That’s what they were building toward.”

She turned toward the exit, rain echoing faintly from above.

“[Query: Next objective?]”

Lyra holstered her weapon. “Vault’s in orbit. That’s where Adrian’s signal will lead us.”

“[Warning: Atmospheric shuttle networks offline.]”

“I’ll find another way. There’s always another way.”

She stepped into the elevator shaft and began the long climb back to the surface.

The storm had ended when she emerged, leaving the ridge bathed in silver moonlight. The sky was clear for the first time in weeks—clear enough to see the faint blue ring stretching across the heavens.

The Orbital Vault.

It pulsed like a living thing.

Lyra stared up at it, exhaustion and determination burning together in her chest.

Somewhere up there, Adrian was still alive. Maybe no longer human—but alive.

“Hang on, Cross,” she murmured. “We’re not done yet.”

She turned toward the distant horizon, where the remains of a derelict shuttle port glimmered under the moon.

Time to go to war in orbit.