The extraction request reached the passage before Eli reached the core chamber.
An Aegis operator repeated the load description into a communication set, pausing between phrases to wait for acknowledgment through the gate. The request had gone ahead with the first scouts and specialists while the injured scout rested. By the time Sera led Eli and Juno through the marked approach, a second transmission was already being prepared.
Juno stopped at the threshold.
On her recorder, the passive trace had broadened into a band too dense to read. She checked the connection with her thumb, then looked toward the operator. The band narrowed during his pause and spread again when he spoke.
“Hold the next transmission,” she said.
The operator looked at his leader. The leader stood beside the raised central structure, where a dark mass rested among fine supports. Eli could not yet distinguish its edges from the stone behind it. The chamber was larger than the service passage had suggested, with more than one floor level and several exits partly hidden by projecting walls.
“The request isn’t acknowledged,” the leader said.
“Your signal is interfering with the passive recorder.”
