A single line from Julian. The horizon is clear, Commander.

Vanguard is standing down. I turned the phone face down and left it there, and I watched my daughter laugh at something in the garden, safe and whole in the ordinary morning light.

The Phantom Commander stayed buried, where he belongs, where I put him nineteen years ago and where I will keep him until I die.

But the father he had made room for was still here — and if the darkness ever reached for my daughter again, the old friends would answer the call, every one of them, without a question.

Always.