The text pulsed once, twice, then held steady. Beneath it, a confirmation prompt waited — a single blinking cursor, patient and indifferent, as though it didn't know what it was confirming.
Lucien stared at it for a moment.
Then he entered the final authorization code.
The cursor stopped blinking. A progress bar appeared at the bottom of the screen, thin and precise, filling at a rate that was very slow — as though the system had been designed to give whoever was watching one final opportunity to reconsider.
No one on the bridge spoke until the progress bar reached one hundred percent.
A low tone sounded through the room. A single sustained note, felt as much as heard, that resonated through the deck plating and up through the soles of everyone's feet.
It lasted exactly three seconds. Then it stopped, and in the silence that followed, the red on the walls deepened by a shade, and the words on the screen changed.
VIR SEQUENCE INITIATED.
DEPLOYMENT IN: 09:59
