John Anderson carried a secret off the transport, and it weighed more than his bag. Eight months from Earth, and he still had not told anyone what he found in the restricted archives. A buried contact log. A warning to never respond. A vanished ship called the Meridian. He had traded a relationship for this posting on the UEF Clark, and now he feared the posting was a trap. The spaceport air hit him first. Sharp with metal and ozone. Lights ran down polished corridors, and machinery hummed somewhere below. Colonists and crew streamed past the docking gate. None of them knew what he knew. Captain Elizabeth Shaw waited near the gate. Hands clasped behind her back. Spine straight. Her eyes swept the arrivals until they stopped on him. This was their first mission together, and he had heard she missed nothing. "Welcome to Valridion, Commander," she said. "How are you holding up?" "Tired," Anderson said. "Long trip." She studied him a beat too long. "You've seen the Clark's specs. Sensors, drives, hull. All built past standard." She started walking. He fell in beside her. "A ship that good launches three years early for a reason." Anderson's pulse jumped. She had just named his own fear out loud. He kept his face flat. "What reason?" "That's the question." She did not slow. "I pulled the Clark's deck schematics last night. Every level has isolation protocols. Contamination measures, the file says." She glanced at him. "They lock from the outside. They open only with command clearance." He stopped. A cargo lift rumbled past them. "That's not a contamination design," he said. "That's a containment design." "I know." Her voice went flat. The subject was not up for debate. "Walk." They moved through the terminal. His mind raced over the log, the Meridian, the deleted crew manifest. He had meant to guard it. Now the captain was handing him pieces of the same picture. She led him to a quiet alcove off the main concourse. The crowd noise dropped. She faced him. "Someone at Command has watched this ship since before it launched," she said. "I don't know who sent us or why. I want an officer who checks things himself." She paused. "Not one who waits to be told." Anderson looked at her. She was offering trust before he had earned it. He could keep the archive breach buried and stay safe. Or he could show her he had already started digging. "Captain," he said. "There's a sensor anomaly the Clark keeps crossing. Same sector. Three times." His voice dropped. "I found something in the archives about it. Something I wasn't cleared to see." Shaw's jaw tightened. She did not look angry. She looked like a woman whose worst guess had just come true. "My cabin," she said. "Tonight. Start at the beginning." She walked off toward the docking bays. Anderson stood in the hum of the spaceport. He had crossed a line he could not uncross. Now two people carried the secret, and both were bound for the sector that swallowed the Meridian.