Something in my chest tightens. It isn’t fear exactly, but recognition without memory. The sense that whatever waits in that room was never meant to be found this way. Or by us.
And yet I know, with a certainty that settles deep in my bones, that this is where the ship has been leading me all along.
Crossing the threshold feels like stepping into someone else’s intention.
The air inside the chamber is wrong in a quieter way than before.
Not poisoned. Not pressurized. Just sealed.
There’s no dust here, no grit tracked in from the desert, no hint of decay or sand carried on the air. It smells faintly sterile, like a place meant to preserve something instead of use it. The floor slopes gently downward, guiding us inward without a single visible seam, and the walls curve in with deliberate precision.
Measured. Not for Rakkh. Not for Travnyk. For bodies smaller than theirs.
Human-sized.
The realization hits hard and fast, tightening my stomach into a knot. I don’t say it out loud, but I don’t need to. Rakkh feels it immediately. His shoulders tense, wings drawing in tighter to avoid brushing surfaces that suddenly feel too close. The space hasn’t changed—but our understanding of it has.
The hum beneath our feet changes.
It doesn’t grow louder or sharper. It simplifies, stripping itself down until it’s no longer ambient sound but direction—flowing beneath the floor toward a raised platform at the center of the chamber.
At first glance, the platform looks inert. Smooth. Dark. Unlit.
No basin this time. No organic curves or fluid seams. Just a slightly elevated surface ringed with faint etchings that barely catch the light.
Travnyk circles it slowly, careful, analytical.
“This chamber is isolated,” he murmurs. “Minimal power draw. Dormant.”
“Dormant doesn’t mean harmless,” Tomas mutters, sticking close to him.
I step forward anyway.
The moment my foot touches the edge of the platform, the room reacts—not defensively, not aggressively, but decisively. The light brightens by a single degree, just enough to reveal shapes that weren’t visible before.
Panels.
They line the far wall in a shallow arc, dark and unlit, their edges too straight, too intentional. They don’t look grown like the rest of the ship. No organic-metal flow. No living seams.
These are manufactured. Older. Cruder. Interfaces.
My breath catches before I can stop it. “No.”
Rakkh hears it instantly. “What.”
“This doesn’t match the ship,” I say, pulse thudding. “Not the rest of it.”
The panels are segmented—not by seams, but by clear separations. Design choices meant for hands and eyes, not instinct or intuition. I recognize the logic of them even if I’ve never seen these exact systems before.
Human interface architecture.
The hum beneath my feet tightens—not louder, but cleaner—as if the ship has narrowed its attention to a single thread. The ship’s attention settles on me—not urging, not pressing.
It is waiting.
“Why does this look like a lab?” Tomas asks, peering past Rakkh’s shoulder, squinting.
“A command environment,” Travnyk corrects quietly.
