Chapter 5: Continuity

The Continuity briefing filled the ring’s assembly hall. Holograms showed a lattice of light, a world without hunger or Night Cycles. The Council’s words were soft, careful, practiced.

“We can preserve the mind,” Dax said. “We can keep the mission alive without risking the core. We can be present at arrival, intact.”

Mara watched the faces around her. Some looked relieved. Some looked afraid. A few looked angry, as if their bodies were being negotiated away without consent.

An elder raised her hand. “Will I feel my hands?” she asked.

“You will feel what you need to feel,” Dax said.

Mara felt Lysa’s shoulder against hers. “Listen to the language,” Lysa whispered. “Needed. Not real.”

Afterward, the Wake Circle met in a maintenance alcove. Kaito showed them the covenant film. When the founder spoke of conversion, the room shifted. Some shook their heads. Some leaned forward as if hearing a private truth.

“The reserve reactor can power a habitat,” Kaito said. “But to light it, we must enter austerity. The ship will go thin. We will lose people if we make mistakes.”

Joss, a senior Wakekeeper, folded his arms. “We already lose people. We lose ourselves. How many Nights do we have left?”

“Two,” Kaito said.

The silence that followed felt like a decision.

Mara spoke. “If we accept Continuity, we choose to end embodied life. If we choose conversion, we choose hardship now for breath later. Either way, we choose.”

The Wake Circle voted to resist a forced Continuity. They would not begin the next Night unless the ship voted openly. It was a strike in everything but name.

When Mara left, a message blinked on her console. Arrival window entering in five days. Final burn protocols primed.

The choice had become a clock.