Zara unspooled the Up16 packet. Hidden inside its third layer was a single line of executable code—her own signature from seven years ago. It wasn’t destructive. It was a .

The oscillation hit 0.99 Hz. Kovac screamed something about “protocol seven” and then went silent. A moment later, the station’s safety overrides flickered—and unlocked. Manual control flooded to every department.

She checked the station’s public telemetry. The magnetic bottle was oscillating at 0.97 Hz. The critical threshold was 1.00 Hz.