The Meridian Cross lies on her side in ninety meters of black water. She took three men Mara loved down with her. Now Mara hangs above the torn hull, her own breath bubbling against her helmet, the signed salvage claim folded against her chest. Two hundred meters off, the Vares team's dive lights swing toward her through the dark. They have no claim. They came anyway.

Mara holds her position. She wants to know who these people are before she turns her back on them in the dark. One diver leaves the Vares group and rises to meet her, hands open, no tools, no weapons. A voice crackles over the shared channel: "We need to talk before you go in there."

Mara doesn't trust a stranger between her and her own wreck. She refuses, drops past him, and disappears into the gash alone. Behind her, the Vares lights hold back. They don't follow. Whatever the diver wanted to warn her about, she'll find it herself, in the dark, with no one at her back.

Inside the hold, Mara finds the crate already open and empty, dragged out through a second breach. Vares beat her to it years ago. All that's left is a single page caught under a beam: a manifest with her husband's signature on the bottom. It's thin, but it's a thread. She carries it up into the light, and starts pulling.