The Extra's Rise

The Ouroboros throat emptied us into Tycho's airlock, where lights burn clean and the dust smell never quite leaves the filters. The main corridor curved like a bone rib toward the dome. Through the inner glass we could see the Yard: dark posts in neat grid, floodlights throwing long stripes, and beyond them the crater rim. Earth hung too blue over the horizon, beautiful enough to pull eyes off work if you let it.

Chief Imani Hale waited with her helmet under one arm and the stance of someone who had been awake one hour too long. A faint hum lived in the metal at our boots—soft, insistent, tugging west like a river trying to change banks.

"Boss," she said to Reika, then to me with the same calm. "We've got a hum that isn't ours. The yard lattice keeps wanting to settle into the wrong note. I can hold safe idle, but it's like a bad habit trying to teach itself."

"We'll listen before we touch," I said. "No heroics."

"Music to my ears," she said, deadpan.

Years ago, Reika led the first team that drove a stake here and called it a yard, when Aetherite was still myth and Tycho was just a crater on a slate. We scratched WE CAN BUILD THIS into a wall and then did. Every time I come back, I look for the scratch and feel stupidly proud we hadn't painted over it.

We helmeted out of habit, not fear, and took the mag-lane. The Yard hummed against my soles. Luna raised one gloved hand to the nearest post and closed her eyes. "Patient wrong," she murmured. "Like a habit that thinks it has time."

Seraphina stood still for a long count, just listening. "Three points," she said, eyes still shut. "Talking to each other. Not loud. Deliberate."

Cecilia pointed northwest on reflex. Rose pointed far west a heartbeat later. Seraphina turned and pointed south. Three corners of a triangle you'd miss if you were reading only panels. Mana sense before instruments—technology helps, but it lags the truth.

"Those housings have calibration crystals from the last maintenance window," Chief Hale said, already paging the part list. "We can swap one by one. Slowly, politely, or the lattice will throw a tantrum."

"Slow," I agreed. "But first we settle the yard."

Luna took my right hand. I set my left palm to the post. Together we let Lucent Harmony out in bands—no push, no shine. Just a steady center, a quiet invitation for a system to return to itself. Tranquility is a tool, not a sermon. The hum thinned under our hands. Hale's crew bled flows toward true idle like careful fingers smoothing a wrinkled sheet.

"Hold," Seraphina said, voice a metronome. "Release. Again. Good."

Only then did Hale open the first housing. The calibration crystal looked perfect until you stared too long—angles a breath off standard, a shade too eager to align. Not ours. Not a saboteur, not a curse. Just the wrong kind of right.

We kept the calm wrapped around the post while she swapped the piece. Seat. Twist. The note changed like a throat cleared. The post forgot it had ever wanted the other song.

"Next," Reika said.

We walked the grid to the northwest turn. Same patience. Same rhythm. Erebus unrolled a thin bone ribbon at boot height along the inside lane—ugly and useful, the sort of tripwire only idiots find. Rachel watched our numbers and hers; when my breath tried to race, she said "fours" and my ribs obeyed. Cecilia crouched and pointed at a cable run. "Board here," she told Hale. "Under stress, this eats a stretcher wheel." Boards appeared. Rose stood with Hale's slate and rewrote the maintenance rotation with three finger flicks and a quiet "please." The crew smiled because someone had made Tuesday less stupid.

By the third post—the far west stand—the yard sounded like a familiar song you hadn't heard since spring. We didn't rush. We walked the grid once more, palms to metal, Lucent Harmony laid in quiet rings so the wrong habit had to walk through calm to find itself and decided not to bother.

"Status?" Reika asked.

"Stable," Chief Hale said, and this time her jaw unclenched enough to prove it. "We'll hold a full loop to be sure. Nothing spiky in the feed, nothing clever in the corners."

We stood in the clean light for a breath and listened to nothing. It's hard to celebrate nothing until you've learned what happens when the wrong note wins.

Earth floated over the rim—fat, blue, too pretty. The dome dimmed for shift change. Inside the airlock, warm filtered air pushed the dust back. Rachel clipped a sensor on my wrist, checked the readout, and gave me the smallest smile—the one that says numbers behaved. Luna bumped her helmet to mine—visor to visor, a silent "good." Seraphina flicked me a neat timemark. Cecilia and Rose had already redrafted the yard's "when" so the "what" stays honest. Erebus folded the bone ribbon into a shadow like it had always belonged there.

We didn't crowd Chief Hale with thanks. Professionals know thanks when they see crews doing their jobs well. "You staying through a loop?" she asked, practical.

"As long as you want us," I said. "If it keeps singing, we hand it back to you."

"Deal."

A tech jogged up, panting only a little. "Chief, west-by-south panel shows minor temperature creep."

Hale's chin tipped toward Rose without thinking. Rose looked once. "Shift the window by sixty minutes for that bank," she said. "Let it sleep through peak." The tech nodded and vanished.

"Courtesy channel?" I asked on our private line.

"Green," Reika answered. "South, North, West, East, Central, and the Seven: received and acknowledged. No meddling. No 'help.'"

"Good," I said. "Let's keep it that way."

We moved deeper into Tycho, not to make noise, but to make sure the quiet held. I passed the wall where WE CAN BUILD THIS is still scratched under the clearcoat. Someone had traced it with a fingertip recently—the dust left a pale streak. Reika caught me looking.

"Still true," she said.

"Still true," I answered.

On the far side of the dome, a small crew paused at the glass and pointed up for a beat—Earth's trick, even for people who see it every day. Luna's hand found mine again, warm through gloves. "Your calm sits better now," she said. "Less command, more invitation."

"Yours taught mine how," I said. She laughed softly and squeezed.

A last walk of the posts. A last listen at the soles. No clever hum hiding in corners, no river pulling west. Just the good boring weight of a yard doing what a yard is supposed to do.

We didn't save the world. We kept a grid honest—one that feeds ships, and pylons, and a thousand small lives downstream. This is the work I trust: the kind that looks like nothing happened because everyone did their part early enough that nothing had to.

"Log it," Reika said. "Tycho stable. Cause recorded as calibration drift. Fix recorded as patience."

Chief Hale saluted with two fingers and returned to the board. Earth hung blue over the rim. Somewhere under that sky, people were eating dinner and not knowing a yard stopped wanting the wrong song. That's the right ratio of knowing.

We turned toward the airlock as a new crew filed in, boots leaving clean prints in dust. No speeches. No hero shots. Just a quiet base, a steady note, and a job finished the way I like it: so well it disappears into the next one.