The name "Astralis Requiem" echoed through the rusted metal beams of the hangar like a clap of thunder in a cloudless sky, causing even the constant noise of the Lower Zone to cease for an instant in everyone's minds, leaving only the silence of shock at that revelation.
The silence that followed was not merely the absence of sound; it felt as though the air had been sucked from the lungs of every member of Silver Lotus.
Zach, who until then had been wiping his grease-stained hands on an old rag, a constant tic he'd developed over the years, froze in his tracks for the first time in months, letting the wheel wrench he was holding fall onto the concrete floor with a shrill metallic clang.
The sound reverberated, but no one moved to pick it up.
