As my fingertip brushed across the crystalline surface, the sorting gripper’s jaws sparked a cascade of sharp, crackling blue static electricity⚡. I’m a waste-sorting worker aboard the derelict “Scrap Iron No. 7,” a garbage dump left behind by the Orbital Consortium—a relic of the old‑era interstellar wars. With three million star credits owed in residency loans, I’ve been forced to hide in this lawless graveyard of decommissioned warships, hoping to scrape together enough intact, high‑grade components from the ancient era to secure a loan extension—otherwise, the Consortium would drag me off for human experimentation. This half‑bust was what I pried loose today from the wreckage of an anonymous flagship half‑submerged in a sea of molten slag. My portable scanner failed to read any product code after three attempts, yet its sharply faceted, crystalline structure felt smoother and colder than even the finest military‑grade memory alloy. Late at night, huddled inside a drafty insulated tent, I sorted through my day’s haul, setting the piece on the only folding workbench I owned. As I calculated how many star credits it might fetch, I suddenly heard an ultra‑low‑frequency hum slowly emanating from deep within the crystal cluster—its frequency perfectly resonant with the neural interface implanted at the base of my neck, making my teeth tremble🌐. Gradually, translucent, indistinct figures began to emerge from the prongs jutting outward; each face belonged to a colleague I knew well, someone who had long since vanished from this very graveyard. They hadn’t disappeared—they’d simply had their consciousness sealed away within the crystal lattice of this sentinel bust, silently maintaining the seal over the void rift beneath the molten slag below🔲. The Orbital Consortium has long known about this artifact. They deliberately lure debt‑ridden scavengers like me into the fray, tempting us with the chance to find it first. Whoever locates it will trigger their neural implant, which automatically transmits the coordinates back to the Consortium headquarters. Then, exploration teams descend along those coordinates, seeking to shatter the seal and harvest the void energy trapped within the rift as a weapon. My own tracking chip had just flashed red; lifting the tent flap, I could see the faint blue glow of an exploration vessel’s thrusters on the distant horizon. Reaching out, I pressed my finger against the diamond‑shaped crystal panel embedded in the bust’s face. A familiar resonance coursed through my fingertips, and suddenly I understood why those who came before had willingly stayed: if the seal were broken, the entire edge region of the Orion Arm would become a hunting ground for void‑borne monstrosities. And as for ordinary people like me, hiding at the bottom rung of society, no faction would ever spare us a ticket to escape. I yanked the tracking chip free, crushed it in my hand, then sat back at the workbench, quietly waiting to merge with this sentinel once more🌌.