The Composite (part I)

***

Immediately following the incident on one of the space infrastructure's most advanced Phoebe-class habitats, the sterile, cold routine of the investigation began. There was a biting irony in the station's name: Heidelberg. It was named after the ancient terrestrial city famous for preserving its oldest building, yet here, in the vacuum of space, names preserves the history.

First and foremost, a shuttle was deployed for the dirty work -- scouring the void to collect every remnant of the shattered structure and the cloud of debris that followed. In the vicinity of a rotating habitat, space debris is more than a nuisance; it is a lethal kinetic threat. Even a small fragment could puncture the hull of the massive rotating drum, leading to repairs that were both complex and staggering in cost. But beyond these practical concerns, an even more critical task was on the table: the search for evidence of what had actually happened.

The boxy shuttle was operated remotely -- a choice that was safe, cost-effective, and eminently practical. Unlike its ancient predecessors, which boasted sleek aerodynamic lines, elegant foils, and the distinct, powerful sterns of atmospheric craft, this distant descendant was a brutalist block with rounded corners. Every face of the craft was cluttered with a utilitarian array of thruster ports, cameras, docking sockets, and sensor clusters. Only the underbelly -- if such a term even applied in the space without distinct up and down -- remained mostly clear, dominated by a massive, reinforced latch that served as the gateway to the shuttle's cavernous cargo and instrument bay.

The shuttle was far more versatile and pragmatic than its distant ancestors. Tucked within its cargo bay was a sophisticated suite of instruments ready for any contingency: precision repairs, electron beam welding, complex rescue operations, or the grim task of debris collection. Depending on the mission, the necessary tools were deployed with surgical efficiency. Minimising cost, optimising time, and mitigating risk were the core priorities of these dull-looking vehicles -- but for those in peril, the sight of that matte-gray, rounded box was the ultimate beacon of hope. In the aftermath of a space accident, its arrival meant the difference between a tragedy and a survival story.

The shuttle operator possessed a total, spherical view of the vessel's surroundings, stitched together from an array of cameras positioned every few meters across the hull. This visual feed was augmented by a flood of sensor data: infrared overlays and, when necessary, visualisations of the radio-frequency spectrum were projected directly onto the operator's glasses. In the void of space, where human eyes are easily deceived, this multi-spectral vision allowed the pilot to see the invisible threats -- heat signatures from leaking gases or the silent ghost-radio of distorted electronics.

The operators assigned to these massive space habitats were the elite. Hundreds of simulation hours and an equal number of real-world missions were the baseline requirements for such an assignment; they were the best the infrastructure had to offer. Yet, despite their expertise, the debris collection was troubling. While they moved quickly to secure the remnants of the shattered structure, the material itself seemed to defy them. Much of the mysterious hull had almost vanished, disintegrating into fine dust and leaving only a few small fragments behind. Even the most seasoned operator and a vehicle equipped for every conceivable contingency weren't enough to capture the full thing.

The shuttle worked in silence, moving with almost mathematical precision as it gathered the sparse remnants of the explosion. There was no wasted motion; every thruster burn was calculated. With that same mechanical grace, the vessel navigated back to its berth and docked with the base, ready to hand over its meagre findings. Somewhere in the sterile labs of the Heidelberg, an investigation crew was waiting, eager to see what -- if anything -- was left of the strange structure that had dared to latch onto the habitat static part.

***

Humanity's collective psyche was an erratic tide -- flawed, aggressive, and relentlessly territorial. It was a recipe for eternal friction. Even within the fine-tuned machinery of their global orbital society, governed by rigid protocols and agreements almost carved in stone, corporate espionage found the shadows it needed to thrive.

The great engineering marvels -- the space habitats -- were not merely the domain of engineers, traders, and social specialists; they housed a silent, almost invisible, and minuscule population. The spies. Deeply integrated, these folks never slept. They were the static in the radio feed, the microscopic drift in the telemetry -- a permanent, predatory presence woven into the very fabric of the infrastructure.

Matthias Klein was one of them. On the surface, his life was a sequence of formal checklists: technical assistance during damage assessments, accident forensics, and gruelling safety reviews. But these responsibilities were merely the host for his true obligation. His real work was a shadow hunt -- to identify proprietary processes, new emerging technologies, and weak points, then siphon information about that back to the North American Cluster he was working for.

This time, fortune had favoured the predatory. He had secured a position in the first group of experts assigned to investigate the catastrophe that occurred during Mair's final inspection of the static space habitat's area. To the mega structure, he was an ordinary expert helped to sustain work flow; to the real employer, he was a first class industrial spy in the front row.

The North American Cluster -- known more commonly by its formidable moniker: the American Technate -- was a sprawling industrial titan, dominating with seventy percent of the total output of the orbital industrial complex. It was a behemoth on the global market, yet its success wasn't born from the spark of original technology inventions. Despite its massive output, the Technate was notoriously starved for true innovations; its singular, driving obsession was the expansion of market share and the cold constant prosperity within its borders.

The Directorate -- specifically those from the power-bloc holding the majority of votes -- operated under a cynical, ironclad rule: a professional corporate spy is a far better investment than a dozen brilliant scientists. Their methodology was as ruthless as it was effective: identify an emerging technology in a rival's Cluster lab, steal it or buy the leads, reverse-engineer the core components, and pivot immediately to mass production.

While the process was fraught with technical hurdles, the returns were undeniable -- a relentless growth in market dominance and profit. The Technate maintained a vast network of high-security research facilities where these hidden operations took place. These sites were so elusive and deeply shrouded in layers of unclear black-budgeting, encryption, and enormous bureaucracy that no rival power had ever successfully traced a stolen technology or idea back to its source.

A few hours before the catastrophe struck the Heidelberg space habitat, a drop of data arrived for Matthias via an encrypted high-tier channel. It was a special message, appearing on his private terminal for only a limited time before its self-scrubbing protocols engaged.

"Be advised: based on intelligence from leaked sources, an incident is imminent, probability of event is sixty seven percent. Secure a position within the first group of current investigation team. Next communication window opens in four standard hours. Wipe all remnants of this transmission immediately. No confirmation required."

The message was brief, stripped of human warmth or signature -- a typical by-product of the Technate's operational security.

Matthias had served the Technate for over ninety years -- a tenure he wore with a cold, quiet pride. He had even begun to envision his centenary; a hundred-year anniversary of service to the most powerful industrial titan. But this latest transmission was an anomaly. It was cryptic, bordering on the mysterious. Until this day, every directive had been distinct and comprehensive, providing clear objectives, detailed subject profiles, and the necessary context to ensure success. Most importantly, the protocol had always been rigid: every order required an immediate, encrypted confirmation of receipt.

This message was different. No explanation. No confirmation. It felt just like a command whispered from the shadows of some unknown leaked source. It left Matthias with a hollow sensation that no amount of energy credits or accumulated wealth could soothe.

The message forced Matthias to immediately scrub his itinerary. He reached out to the habitat's technical board, offering a strategic trade: he would make himself available for any emergency duty over the next three standard days in exchange for a shift-swap later in the next eight standard days. It was a mundane request, framed as a tired expert looking to balance his schedule, but it ensured he was exactly where he needed to be.

Despite his preparation, a gnawing uncertainty remained. He had no clues regarding the true origin of information in the message or the nature of the event to come. He chose the only logical path: he would submerge himself in his routine, avoid any suspicious deviations, and wait for the black swan to appear.

***

Michael returned to the warmth of his office with a rare sense of satisfaction. It was a pivotal moment -- the long-awaited clarity of knowing exactly what to do next, what results to expect, and how to orchestrate the reports for the involved parties. The biting Frankfurt am Main winter still lingered in the tips of his fingers, a numb reminder of the freezing morning air, but he didn't wait for his circulation to return.

He unlocked his terminal, his fingers finding the familiar rhythm of the keyboard. He felt a quiet pride in the flow of human evolution; some inventions were so perfect they defied time. Keyboards, much like wheels, were primal, simple artefacts born centuries ago, yet their efficiency had allowed them to survive every era of exploration and progress. Just as the wheel was still required to rotate, the keyboard remained the essential bridge between thought and action. Like the spoon or the blade, these simple things had secured their place in the machinery of civilisation for millennia to come.

The instrument of his gambit today was an old good known thing: the Tyflos cargo agreement. It was a long-standing treaty that permitted the unscanned passage of freight between the Inner and Outer Solar System, a relic of frontier diplomacy. However, the only challenge lay in the ascent.

The era of expensive chemical rockets -- laboriously lifting payloads bit by bit was a story of the past, ancient times. In its place stood the network of orbital rings, massive active support structures that served as the primary arteries for escaping Earth's gravity well. Spanning entire continents, these rings were governed by strict inter-Cluster treaties. This was by design; the global community ensured that no single Cluster or any other organisation could ever seize a monopoly on the planet's only viable throat. Yet, this shared oversight created an obstacle: before reaching the ring, every cargo was subjected to exhaustive scanning. In the sterile, high-security zones of the ascent-elevators, the Tyflos style of diplomatic immunity simply did not exist.

However, within the crushing weight of global bureaucracy, there is always a gap. Michael Berndt was a master of the procedural loophole, an architect of the fine print. His plan was elegant in its morbidity: mark the cargo as a bio-hazard.

By attaching research papers from a high-security medical lab and documenting the contents as contaminated, frozen corpses, he created a zone of institutional fear. No customs agent at the orbital ring was eager to perform a tactile inspection of a viral tomb, especially when protocol allowed to avoid such a thing. This designation bypassed the standard deep-tissue scans and granted him the high priority he desperately required. The logic was unassailable: in the interest of planetary safety, any hazardous material or high-risk research was mandated to be processed in the isolation of space located laboratories. Michael wasn't smuggling; he was merely safeguarding the world from a threat he had invented on paper.

Lizzie Wolters research was scattered across a handful of specialised space labs, but one particular facility anchored in the Outer Solar System caught Michael's eye. Its remote location was a tactical gift. It provided the perfect justification to requisition a standard-issue space container for a long-haul delivery under the Tyflos cargo agreement. By routing the bio-hazard to this specific deep-space station, Michael ensured the cargo would drift beyond the reach of inner-system jurisdiction, disappearing into the vast, unregulated silence of the outer reaches.

He completed the necessary digital paperwork within the hour. As the final encrypted message has been sent, and final formal approve took place, he felt the crushing weight of the mountain lift from his shoulders. The office, once a warm sanctuary, now felt stifling. The fresh, freezing air of the city called to him, pulling him back out to the stone wall where he had waited earlier. He was driven by a singular, obsessive need to witness the departure -- to see the vehicle leave the facility with the same clinical detachment with which he had watched its arrival.