:** * *Drafting the text:* ...rattle his teeth. He paused, locking his knees to anchor himself against the dead-metal floor. The HUD on his

*Thunk.*

The vibration did not travel through the airlessness of the vault, but rose through the soles of his magnetic boots, climbing the marrow of his bones to rattle

decades of silicon-ash.

He drifted onward, his stabilizer thrusters whispering in the vacuum, though the sound of his own movement was entirely swallowed by the oppressive, rhythmic thunk.

...rified data-arrays that once held the collective memories of a dead world. They stood like calcified giants, their once-brilliant neon copper veins now dull and choked with

...he had believed himself the sole tenant of this tomb. But the cadence did not lie. It grew louder as he drifted down the central nave of the vault, past the towering columns of pet