6.3 LIGHT

Juna awakens from shelving alongside Ste Etienne and Jerennian, signaling something urgent on Shroud. They learn they’ve been under only forty-one days and are assigned together—an unusual step—suggesting a coordinated mission. Their orders: meet Opportunities after reviewing dossiers on increasing field failures and disappearances across Acquisitions’ expanding operations.

The briefs outline rising breakdowns and unrecoverable units, both wired and autonomous, amid Shroud’s harsh, scan-blind conditions. Crucially, defense drones at the anchor recently killed several Shrouded after the locals approached and began dismantling equipment, likely escalating tensions. Juna notes her unique rapport with the Shrouded may be relevant.

In a meeting, Terwhin Umbar tasks the Remedial Work team—nominally minor but under pressure—to find a cause and fix. Ducas FenJuan, acting deputy, has compiled extensive footage and EM logs from Juna’s expedition and Acquisitions’ units. FenJuan cautiously advances a theory: the Shrouded are social, rapidly adaptive, and communicate complex information through EM signaling across groups.

Discussion of evidence follows: Shrouded respond to the expedition’s signal; they dismantle drones; and footage shows a larger individual bearing an integrated rotating drum spooling cable—an embodied echo of human cable-layers—demonstrating swift technological incorporation. Ste Etienne frames this as proof of their curiosity and engineering-by-being; Juna stresses many died assisting humans, complicating intent.

FenJuan notes the Shrouded have avoided the anchor since the shooting, indicating learned caution. Juna argues the disruptions aren’t from a “local colony” near the resource zone (a biological desert) but from a larger, coordinated structure transmitting knowledge between colonies. The team converges on a new premise: they face a distributed, organized network capable of learning from and repurposing human tech, not incidental interference.