anab was quiet when the relay woke. The signal arrived as a clean packet, no static, no apology, no human voice pressing through the black. Just a timestamp from Ceres, a routing mark from Phobos, and a subject line that made the night operator sit up before she had finished her coffee.
Kanab checked the origin twice. The packet had crossed the belt cleanly, then doubled back through a handoff queue that no one on the desk admitted owning.
Received transmission
Origin: Ceres Cooperative / Destination: Mars Transfer Desk
Hold convoy assignments until the burn schedule resolves. The outer tanks are cold, but the arbitration packet is not.
The night operator finally opened the packet. It contained no prophecy, no map, no coded confession from a missing ship. Only a maintenance request, routed badly, marked urgent by someone who had never learned what urgency sounded like in the dark.