“If it keeps operating like this,” I say, forcing the words past the tightness in my chest, “the contamination will spread. Deeper. Farther from the crash site.”
Rakkh’s claws curl. “Then it must be stopped.”
“It’s not that easy,” I say, shaking my head. “If we stop it outright, whatever it’s containing will release all at once.”
Travnyk’s jaw tightens. “Catastrophic failure.”
“Yes,” I say, the implication settling like a weight on my spine.
“So what,” Tomas says quietly, “we just… let it keep killing everything?”
“No,” I say. “We change how it operates.”
“Can you,” Rakkh asks.
I hesitate, staring at the basin. I close my eyes and try to understand this strange connection the ship has with me. The images, the ideas that I’m getting from it. In a way it makes me feel crazy. I can’t help but wonder if this is real and if it is, why me? It can’t be only that I’m human because if that was it, then why isn’t Tomas experiencing this too?
But it is me. And I know, with a certainty that I can’t explain, that the ship has chosen me and that I’m the only one who can do something about all of this.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But it thinks I can.”
The basin pulses again—slower this time. The light shifts, forming a faint pattern across the floor that I recognize now not as a path, but aprocess. Steps. Dependencies.
The ship isn’t finished. It’s just getting to the part where decisions matter. Rakkh’s hand shifts to the small of my back, steady and grounding.
“Then we do not rush,” he says. “And we do not let it decide alone.”
I nod, throat tight. Because deep down, I already understand the cost of what the ship is asking. It doesn’t just want authorization. It wants correction. Intervention. A human judgment layered over an ancient war machine that has never learned how to stop. And if I’m wrong—if I misjudge even once—the desert won’t be the only thing that pays the price.
The basin dims, the light along the seams softening into a steady glow. The ship has shown me enough, for now at least.
And as we stand there—four living beings inside a machine that has outlived its makers—I realize with a clarity that makes my hands tremble this isn’t about survival, not anymore. It’s about responsibility. And the ship has already decided who it belongs to.
21
RAKKH
The ship does not quiet; it redistributes.
I feel it first in my feet—uneven pressure beneath my soles. A subtle shift in vibration that has nothing to do with movement. The platform beneath us is stable, but it feels like the structure around it tightens in places I cannot see, like scars forming around a wound.
Lia stands near the basin, her attention focused inward, her shoulders tense, but she is okay and seems to be in control. The glow along the seams has softened, but the air feels wrong. It is warmer along the left wall and drier near the ceiling. They are small imbalances, but they are the kind that grow teeth if ignored. I turn slowly, letting my senses stretch through the chamber.
There.
A faint vibration runs through the wall behind me. It is not rhythmic and does not feel intentional. I close my eyes to focus on the sound, and then I recognize what it is. Metal compensating where it was not designed to—reacting to stress.My wings twitch, and Travnyk notices. His eyes narrow, his head tilting as he listens with that unsettling precision of his.
“It has shifted load,” he murmurs.
Lia looks up sharply. “Shifted where?”
Travnyk gestures not at the basin, but beyond it. His eyes are tight, and his frown is so deep that his tusks almost touch his nose.
“Away from this chamber.”
I bare my teeth. Of course it has.
The ship did not fix anything. It contained the immediate threat by pushing the problem outward. Deeper. Farther. Somewhere we are not standing.
