Signal of the Forgotten

"Humanitarian rescue."

After Lin Yuan said those four words, Sheng Lan's pen paused for two seconds before touching the paper again.

"Director, where is this humanitarian rescue taking place?"

Lin Yuan tapped the faint electromagnetic signal marker on the tactical display.

"An abandoned facility on the outskirts of the Julius 7 ruins. The signal matches the standard PLANT civilian emergency broadcast format and has been transmitting continuously for at least two weeks. If it were residual equipment activating automatically, its output would gradually weaken as the batteries ran down. Ye Qingluan, has the signal strength shown any decline?"

Ye Qingluan flipped through two pages on her terminal.

"No. The signal strength has remained constant over the past two weeks."

"Constant means someone is maintaining the power supply."

Sheng Lan turned her memo to a fresh page.

"Director, do you mean there are survivors in the facility?"

"After the Julius 7 Incident, a large amount of PLANT civilian infrastructure debris remained within that Rubble Belt. Some facilities' life-support systems were not completely destroyed in the explosion. If someone sealed the breaches in time, then in theory they could survive for a period with limited oxygen and stored supplies."

Ye Qingluan looked up from her terminal.

"Director, neither PLANT nor the United Army conducted rescue operations in that area?"

"PLANT has been busy with political purges. The United Army has been busy tracking the G Weapons and reinforcing Alaska. A group of Coordinator civilians hiding in the Rubble Belt is not a priority to either side."

Sheng Lan drew a line across her memo.

"Director, if we rescue Coordinator civilians, public reaction within East Asia will be complicated. Luo Qiming's faction is already watching the budget issue. If you use East Asian ships to rescue PLANT citizens as well, he will bring it before Parliament for public debate."

Lin Yuan turned his chair toward Sheng Lan.

"Sheng Lan, what is Blue Cosmos's logic?"

Sheng Lan's expression did not change.

"Using Naturals' fear of Coordinators to create hatred, then turning that hatred into political capital."

"If East Asia's order is also founded on mobilizing hatred, how would it differ from Blue Cosmos?"

Sheng Lan lifted her pen from the paper.

"Director, I am not questioning whether we should save them. I am asking how we handle the political cost at home afterward."

"I'll handle the domestic cost. Tell me this: is Chen Linhai's Xuanwu Three still in low orbit?"

"It is. Lacus is still aboard."

"Notify Chen Linhai. Have Xuanwu Three alter course for the signal source in the Rubble Belt. Bring all medical supplies and portable oxygen regeneration modules."

Sheng Lan closed her memo, then opened it again.

"Director, you are having Lacus participate in the rescue?"

"She is a Coordinator. The survivors in that facility are most likely Coordinators as well. Having a PLANT citizen help calm her compatriots will be far more effective than direct contact with East Asian soldiers."

Sheng Lan stood by the door for three seconds.

"I'll notify Chen Linhai. But Director, Lacus is not one of us. Letting her contact the survivors means allowing her to build political influence independent of East Asia."

"The more influence she has, the more weight her words will carry in PLANT later. A puppet sustained solely by East Asia has no value. A political figure trusted by her own people does."

Sheng Lan pushed open the door and left.

Two hours later, the order for Xuanwu Three's course correction reached Chen Linhai. He stood in the CIC, read the full order, and pressed the shipwide communications switch.

"Miss Clyne, please report to the CIC."

When Lacus arrived, she was holding her personal terminal. Its screen was still open to the full text of her father's seventh peace proposal. Seeing the newly marked route on the star map, her gaze paused for a beat on the flickering signal point.

"What is this?"

Chen Linhai brought up a summary of Lin Yuan's order on the secondary screen.

"An abandoned facility near the Julius 7 ruins has been sending a continuous distress signal. Director Lin has ordered this ship to proceed with rescue operations."

Lacus set her terminal on the edge of the console.

"Survivors near the ruins?"

"We believe they are PLANT civilians trapped in fragments of civilian infrastructure when the incident occurred. The signal has continued for more than two weeks and bears signs of manual maintenance."

Lacus stared at the marker showing the location of the Julius 7 ruins on the star map.

She knew that place too well. Every memorial day, screens throughout PLANT broadcast images of that Rubble Belt while a narrator recited the names of the 243,721 dead whose identities had been confirmed.

"Mr. Lin Yuan wants me to take part in the rescue."

Chen Linhai nodded.

"His exact words were to have you help reassure the survivors."

Lacus's fingers rested against the edge of her terminal for two seconds.

"Captain Chen, do we have any estimate of the survivors' supply situation?"

"Based on the signal output and facility type, if it is a standard PLANT civilian shelter module, a fully loaded life-support system was designed to sustain thirty people for seventy-two hours. It has already been two weeks."

Lacus's breath caught for half a beat.

"Two weeks. A system designed for seventy-two hours lasted two weeks."

"The director said the oxygen will only last another six hours. That calculation was made by working backward from our arrival time."

Lacus put her terminal into her pocket. Her hands fell to her sides, her knuckles tightening for an instant before relaxing.

"Captain Chen, can we go any faster?"

"The engines are already at maximum thrust. Six hours is the limit."

When Lacus turned and left the CIC, her steps were half a beat faster than when she had entered. She stopped in the corridor and pressed the communications key on her terminal.

"Mr. Lin Yuan."

Lin Yuan's voice came through the encrypted channel with less than a second of delay.

"You know already?"

"Yes. I want to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"What if everyone inside is already dead?"

Three seconds of silence came through the terminal.

"Then we document the bodies, record their identities, and bring back everything we can. The dead should at least have names."

Lacus held the terminal to her ear. Beyond the porthole at the end of the corridor, starlight was broken into tiny white flecks by the sparse reflections of the Rubble Belt.

"Mr. Lin Yuan, what you just said was not part of your calculation of interests."

"What do you mean?"

"Saving the living has political value. Bringing back the bodies of the dead does not. When you said to bring back everything, you were not keeping accounts."

A faint sound came through the channel, like fingers lifting from a desk.

"Miss Clyne, I am not calculating every second."

The corners of Lacus's lips curved slightly. It was neither a singer's smile nor a politician's practiced expression, but something closer to an emotion she was still trying to identify herself.

"Six hours."

She closed the connection and headed for the medical bay.

The hum of Xuanwu Three's engines rose by a register. The ship accelerated amid faint vibrations, its heading fixed on that dark region filled with rubble and wreckage.

Chen Linhai watched the countdown tick in the CIC.

Five hours fifty-eight minutes.

Five hours fifty-seven minutes.

The signal was still there.