In the humming heart of Lahai-Roi's Startorch Academy, where the artificial sun of the Reactor Drive cast an eternal amber glow over vaulted halls lined with glowing server racks, Rover stepped into the Spacetrek Collective's archival chamber. The air thrummed with latent frequencies—whispers of preserved lives, bottled against the Void Storms that clawed at the borders of this subterranean utopia. She had come at Lynae's urging, a newcomer to these caverns, her own frequency freshly captured in a Rebel cassette to anchor her existence amid the frostlands' perils. The chamber's custodian turned at her approach: a poised woman with long silver-white hair cascading like starlight, her delicate frame steadied by elegant prosthetic legs that hummed faintly with neural precision. Professor Mornye, researcher and Exostrider savant, regarded Rover with eyes sharp as calibrated lenses—observant, unblinking. "Yes, this is our first meeting," Mornye said softly, her voice precise, carrying the quiet weight of analysis. "I'm Mornye, Spacetrek Collective researcher and professor at Startorch Academy. Do I not look the part? You came to burn your cassette, right? I'll take you there." As they moved toward the burning room, Rover's hand brushed a rack of cassettes. A resonance stirred—unbidden recollections flooding her: faded echoes of past scholars, staff, students... and fleeting glimpses of workshop nights, napkin sketches, a brave hand steadying faltering steps in Fangspire Chasm. Heat bloomed behind her eyes, fragments too elusive to grasp. Mornye paused, her gaze flickering. "What was that? Recollections of past space researchers, staff, and students. Data stored in the cassettes—memories, crucial to self-aware consciousness. What makes us human." She explained the Void Storm's erasure, the Threnodian's hunger, the cassettes' defiant preservation. But as Rover underwent the burning protocol, awakening amid simulated flames, Mornye's composure cracked ever so slightly. "Breathing normal. Heart rate elevated. You're awake." Rover stirred, murmuring of heat, disorientation. Mornye handed over the calibrated Rebel cassette, her fingers lingering a fraction too long. Then, examining the readouts: "Huh? That noise earlier... wasn't an error." Her brow furrowed, voice dropping to a whisper. "This frequency code—I've seen the exact same one before. Identical. A perfect match... but the file's empty. Deleted." She overwrote it swiftly, masking the anomaly as data glitch. Yet her eyes, fixed on Rover, held a deeper shadow—joy shadowed by ache, recognition veiled in scholarly reserve. An old echo, resurfaced from student days long buried: the friend who had sketched wild dreams beside her, brave and unassuming, before vanishing into the surface world's call.