The silence of the lunar surface was absolute.

In the Sea of Tranquility, beneath centuries of dust and darkness, something awakened.

It stirred not with motion, but with frequency. A harmonic resonance, long dormant, now pulsed through subterranean coils of silver-veined stone and non-terrestrial alloys. The satellite wasn’t natural. It never had been. It had simply waited—for Polaris.

And Polaris had called.

Back on Earth, Emma Carter stood in the shadow of a massive projection in the ...