Kael stared at the file name on the decrypted drive: OUTRIDERS.part08.rar . It was the final piece of the puzzle, the last data fragment salvaged from the wreckage of the S.S. Flores ’ central archive. For weeks, the resistance had been hunting for this specific archive. Parts one through seven were nothing but corrupted environmental logs and personnel manifests, but Part 8 was different. It was the largest file, protected by a military-grade biometric lock that had cost three of their best coders their sanity.
The screen flickered. Instead of a standard folder structure, a video feed jerked to life. It wasn't a recording from the planet Enoch's surface, but from the cryobays during the initial jump. The footage was grainy, distorted by the Anomaly’s interference. It showed a high-ranking ECA official standing over a cryo-pod—Kael’s pod. OUTRIDERS.part08.rar
"They knew," Kael realized, his hands shaking on the keyboard. "The ECA knew the Anomaly was coming before we even landed. Part 8 isn't just data... it’s a manifest of everyone they 'altered' before we even hit the atmosphere." Kael stared at the file name on the