RISE FROM THE VOID

Chapter 5

Three weeks in the Void changed Xander.

His body hardened,muscles adapting to constant combat, lungs adjusting to toxic air. His bracers evolved with him, the wire flowing faster, responding to thoughts before he'd fully formed them. 

He could shape twenty configurations now: blades, shields, grappling hooks, even thin wire that could slice through wraith armor like thread through cloth.

But it was the nightmares that wouldn't leave.

Every night, Harlan's face. The pool of blood. The masked killer's soft voice: 

‘"The old man knew too much."’

Xander woke gasping, bracers flaring hot in the darkness of his assigned bunk. Other Exiles had stopped asking if he was okay. Down here, everyone had nightmares.

"You're up early." 

Veyra sat on a supply crate near the entrance, sharpening her Remnant blade with a whetstone. The sound was rhythmic, almost soothing.

 "Can't sleep?"

"Never could." 

Xander joined her, looking out at the Void's perpetual twilight. 

"You?"

"Gave up trying years ago." 

She tested the blade's edge against her thumb, drew a thin line of blood.

 "I dream about my daughter. Wondering if she's still alive up there. If she remembers me. If she hates me for failing her."

Xander had learned not to offer empty comfort. Down here, grief was currency. You spent it or you drowned in it.

"I need to ask you something." 

He said. 

"The killer who framed me. They said Harlan asked too many questions. Saw things he shouldn't have. What could an old tinker in the under-rings see that was worth killing for?"

Veyra's whetstone paused.

 "You're still thinking about revenge."

"Every second of every day."

She was quiet for a long moment. Then:

 "There are rumors. Things the Council doesn't talk about."

 She glanced back into the Rust Haven, ensuring no one was listening.

 "Come with me. There's someone you should meet."

They descended through the ship's lower levels, past sleeping quarters and storage rooms, down to a section Xander had never seen. The corridor was darker here, lit only by bioluminescent fungus. At the end, a sealed door marked with symbols Xander didn't recognize.

Veyra knocked three times, paused, knocked twice more.

The door opened.

The woman inside was ancient,easily seventy, maybe older. Her face was a map of wrinkles, her hands twisted by arthritis. But her eyes were sharp, calculating. And her Remnant,a necklace of interlocking gears that rotated constantly,hummed with barely restrained power.

"Veyra." 

The old woman's voice was surprisingly strong.

 "And the fresh meat who killed the Broodmother. Xander, isn't it?"

"How do you…"

"I know everything that happens in the Void." 

She stepped aside. 

"Come in. Quickly."

The room was small, crammed with salvaged papers, maps, and what looked like surveillance equipment cobbled together from scavenged parts. A wall was covered in photographs,faces, locations, notes written in tiny script.

"This is Maren." 

Veyra said. 

"She was a magistrate in Celestara before they threw her down. Now she's our archivist. Our memory."

Maren settled into a chair made from welded pipes. 

"I keep records of everyone who falls. Their crimes, their stories, the lies Celestara told to justify their disposal." 

She studied Xander. 

"Tell me about your mentor. Everything."

Xander recounted it all,Harlan's murder, the masked killer, the false witness, his fall into the Void. Maren listened without interrupting, her gear-necklace rotating faster as he spoke.

When he finished, she stood and moved to her wall of notes. Her finger traced connections between photographs. 

"Harlan Vex. Tinker, scavenger, under-ring resident for forty-three years." 

She pulled down a photograph,Harlan, much younger, smiling. 

"Did he ever tell you what he did before the under-rings?"

"No. He never talked about his past."

"Because he was ashamed."

 Maren pulled down another photo,Harlan in an engineer's uniform, standing beside gleaming machinery.

 "Harlan was a master engineer for Celestara's waste management system. He designed the disposal chutes, the maintenance protocols. He understood the infrastructure better than anyone."

Xander's breath caught. 

"He never said…"

"They discarded him when he started asking questions. Where did all the waste go? What happened to the people they threw away? Were there survivors down here?" Maren's expression darkened.

 "Celestara doesn't tolerate curiosity. They framed him for theft, threw him into the under-rings, and when that wasn't enough to silence him..."

"They sent someone to finish the job."

 Xander's bracers pulsed.

 "But why now? After forty years?"

Maren pulled down a final photograph. It showed a section of Celestara's underside,massive machinery, glowing conduits, and something else. A hole. Not a disposal chute, but a deliberate opening, leading down.

"Because three months ago, Harlan discovered something." Maren tapped the photograph. "A service access point that Celestara uses to send people down here. Not prisoners. Not criminals. Agents."

The room went cold.

"What?"

 Veyra's hand found her sword hilt.

"Celestara monitors the Void. They send people down,disguised as discarded criminals,to observe, to report back, to ensure that nothing down here threatens them."

 Maren's gear-necklace spun wildly now.

 "Harlan found proof. Documentation of these agents, their missions, their reports. He was going to expose it to the under-rings, prove that Celestara wasn't just discarding people,they were infiltrating the disposed."

Xander's mind raced.

 "The masked killer. They were an agent."

"Almost certainly. Sent to eliminate Harlan and recover the evidence." 

Maren pulled out a salvaged datapad, its screen cracked but functional.

 "But here's what they didn't know. Harlan was paranoid. He kept copies. And before he died, he hid them."

"Where?"

"He never told me directly. But in our last communication, he said something odd." 

Maren scrolled through garbled text messages. 

"'The boy knows where the copper flows. Tell him to follow the current home.'"

Xander's bracers blazed with sudden heat.

 "The workshop. He's talking about the workshop's wiring. He always said copper remembers, that electrical current leaves traces in the metal. He taught me to track power flows through salvaged circuits."

Veyra stepped forward. 

"If this evidence exists, if we could prove Celestara is infiltrating the Void…"

"It changes everything." 

Maren's eyes gleamed. 

"The Exiles aren't just survivors anymore. We're witnesses to a conspiracy. And Celestara will do anything to keep us silent."

A sound echoed from the corridor outside. Footsteps, moving fast.

Maren's expression shifted from excitement to fear. 

"Someone followed you."

The door exploded inward.

Garreth stood in the opening, his staff glowing, five Council members behind him. His face was carved from stone.

"Maren. I told you to stop digging." 

His voice was soft, dangerous.

 "I told you some secrets are better left buried."

Veyra's blade came up. 

"Garreth, what are you doing?"

"Protecting the Exiles." 

He stepped into the room.

 "Do you know what happens if Celestara discovers we know about their agents? They'll purge the Void. Drop bombs, seal the chutes, kill everyone down here to protect their secret."

"So we stay ignorant?" 

Xander's bracers formed blades. 

"Let them keep murdering people?"

"We stay alive!" 

Garreth's staff slammed down, cracking the floor.

 "That's all that matters! Survival, not revenge, not justice,survival!"

Kael appeared behind Garreth, daggers drawn but hesitant.

 "Xander, just... just let it go. Please. This is bigger than one old man's death."

"He was my family." 

Xander's voice broke. 

"And you want me to pretend it didn't matter?"

"I want you to live!" 

Garreth's staff pointed at Xander's chest.

 "But if you pursue this, if you threaten the fragile peace we've built down here, I will stop you. By force if necessary."

Maren moved between them. 

"Garreth, you're afraid. I understand. But we can't hide forever. Eventually, Celestara will decide the Void is too dangerous to maintain, and they'll eliminate us anyway. This evidence might be our only leverage."

"Or it's our death warrant." 

Garreth's eye blazed. 

"Council vote. Do we allow Xander to pursue this investigation, knowing it might doom us all?"

The Council members exchanged glances. One by one, hands rose.

Five votes against. Only Seris abstained.

"The Council has spoken."

 Garreth's staff powered down.

 "Xander Cray, you are forbidden from investigating Celestara's operations. You will not seek this evidence. You will not leave the Void. You will be an Exile or you will be nothing. Choose."

Xander looked at Veyra. She met his eyes, and he 

saw the apology there, the helplessness.

He looked at Maren, who straightened despite her age, defiant.

He looked at Garreth, who genuinely believed he was protecting his people.

And Xander realized the truth: the Council was just another cage. Different from Celestara's, but a cage nonetheless.

"I choose nothing." 

His bracers retracted.

 "I'm leaving. Tonight."

"Then you leave as an exile from the Exiles." Garreth's voice was heavy.

 "You'll have no protection, no supplies, no allies. The Void will kill you in days."

"Maybe." 

Xander turned toward the door, and the Council members stepped aside, unwilling to physically stop him. 

"Or maybe I'll prove that even trash can climb back up."

He walked past them, out into the corridor.

Veyra caught his arm. 

"You're insane. You can't survive alone out there."

"I survived the fall. Forged a Remnant in combat. Killed a Broodmother." 

He smiled, sad but determined. 

"I'll find a way."

"Then you won't go alone."

 She pulled a map from her pocket,hand-drawn, detailed. 

"The western wall. There's a maintenance shaft Harlan told Maren about. It leads up, toward the under-rings. It's a three-day climb through wraith territory, and there's no guarantee it's still accessible. But it's a path."

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because my daughter is up there. And if there's even a chance your evidence could change things, could make Celestara answer for what they've done..." 

Her hand tightened on his arm. 

"I can't go with you. The Council would see it as mutiny. But take this."

She pressed something into his palm. A locket,small, tarnished, warm from being held close to her heart.

"That's your Remnant's source." 

Xander whispered.

"I have another memory to forge from."

 Her smile was fierce. 

"When you get up there, when you expose them,remember that every person in the Void deserves to be remembered. We're not trash. We're people they threw away because we were inconvenient."

Xander pocketed the locket.

 "I'll remember."

He gathered his few possessions,a salvaged pack, water filtration tablets, dried rations. As he prepared to leave the Rust Haven, Exiles watched from doorways. Some with pity. Some with anger. Some with something that looked like hope.

At the main entrance, Kael appeared. 

"You're really doing this."

"I have to."

Kael stared at him for a long moment. Then extended his hand. In his palm, three of his Remnant daggers.

 "Take them. They'll answer to you if the need is great enough. Consider it... insurance."

Xander took the daggers, felt them pulse with borrowed power.

 "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just...

don't die stupidly." 

Kael's expression softened.

 "And if you make it up there? Burn it all down."

Xander nodded once, then stepped out into the toxic twilight.

The Void stretched before him,three days of wraith-haunted territory between here and the western wall.

Behind him, the Rust Haven's lights flickered. Home. Safety. Everything he was leaving behind.

Ahead, darkness and death and the faint possibility of truth.

Xander's bracers pulsed steady against his skin.

He began to walk.