Chapter 25 Lia
LIA
The path doesn’t light up all at once. It happens in stages.
Segments of the floor brighten in measured intervals, not urging speed, just confirming direction.
The ship isn’t shepherding me anymore. It’s executing—using me as the key, not the target.
That’s a major difference from what’s come before.
Rakkh stays close enough that his shoulder brushes mine when the corridor narrows. Close. Steady. Intentional. Every step matches mine; his pace adjusts without comment, as if we’ve been walking like this forever.
It does something strange to my chest.
We pass through a series of chambers that feel administrative.
Not operational. Storage alcoves. Blank panels.
Rooms with no scars of battle—only order.
The walls are smoother and less reactive.
There are no more pressure changes, no corrective responses.
The ship conserves effort, routing us through what remains intact.
“Minimal defensive architecture,” Travnyk murmurs. “This area was never meant to repel intrusion.”
“No,” I say softly. “It was meant for those who were trusted.”
That earns me a look from Tomas, sharp and uneasy.
“You’re saying whoever built this didn’t expect to be attacked from inside.”
“Yes.”
The implication settles like dust. The path ends at a sealed aperture— not grown shut, not fused. Just closed. A door in the most literal sense. A flat plane. Defined edges. Human geometry. I stop.
Rakkh stops with me, his presence a steady line at my side. I feel his attention not on the door, but on me. He’s reading me the way he does when the world tilts and he decides whether to intervene or wait.
“This is it,” I say.
He nods once. “I will not touch it.”
I glance at him. “I didn’t ask you not to.”
“I know,” he replies quietly. “But I am saying it anyway.”
I lift my hand. The panel doesn’t react. There is no glow or hum shift. It waits until my palm hovers just shy of contact. Then—recognition.
Not warmth or pressure—just a clean alignment, like tumblers sliding into place. The door withdraws soundlessly, splitting down the center and folding back into the walls with precise, restrained motion.
Beyond it is the control room. I step through, and they follow without hesitation.
It’s smaller than I expect. Not grand, but built for efficiency, not spectacle. Consoles curve inward in a shallow arc, each station clearly designed for hands, eyes, and bodies shaped like mine. Screens are dark but intact. Interfaces dormant, not decayed.
The moment I step inside, the ship reacts not by locking us in, but by sealing the corridor behind us with quiet finality. Rakkh’s muscles tighten. His wings draw in close, controlled.
“It is committing,” he says.
“Yes,” I whisper. “So am I.”
The nearest console flickers to life—not fully, just enough to cast pale light across the room. Data streams hover, layered and complex, but something in me understands their structure instinctively. It’s familiar in a way that makes my skin prickle.
Maddy’s architecture is Earth-based. Familiar in its logic—older, clunkier than what we salvaged and rebuilt in the Bunker, but close enough for my mind to follow.
I’m drawn to the central station. As I approach, the rest of the room comes online in sequence. Screens activate, systems align, power redistributes away from external discharge routes.
The hum shifts, and outside this room—beyond the hull, even—something changes.
Travnyk inhales sharply. “The output flow has decreased.”
Tomas blinks. “Like… a lot?”
“Yes,” Travnyk says. “She hasn’t given a command. But the system has reprioritized. Being in the core changes what it considers acceptable leakage.”
I swallow. “It knows where I am now.”
The central console brightens fully.
Navigation schematics bloom into view. Star charts layered over planetary models. Tajss rotates slowly at the center of the display, marked with warning indicators along its surface: contamination vectors, spread patterns.
Another overlay appears:
ORBITAL TRAJECTORY
The ship’s original position. Its intended holding pattern. The ghost of where it should have been all along. My knees weaken.
“It wants to go back into orbit,” I whisper.
Rakkh steps closer, close enough that I feel the heat of him at my back. One clawed hand settles lightly at my waist.
“It believes that resolves the harm,” he says.
“Yes,” I breathe. “And it’s right.”
Silence stretches, charged and fragile.
“But,” I add softly, “if we do that… there is no time to study. To learn all that it holds. Or figure out how to interface with it from up there to down here.”
“What do you mean, Lia?” Tomas asks. “This thing is literally killing the planet, which means us too.”
He’s right. I know he’s right—and still my mind snags on the archive. DNA. Seeds. Strain data. The difference between guessing and knowing.
Even epis—our rarest miracle—mapped cleanly instead of mythologized. But none of it matters if the desert dies.
“It cannot stay,” Travnyk says.
“Travnyk… it has—”
“I know,” he says.
I can’t finish the words. The look in his eyes tells me everything. He knows. He understands, but he’s right. That’s why I can’t argue with him. What good is it to learn all about the ecology of Tajss when the presence of the ship is destroying it?
“Right,” I whisper. Rakkh presses his hand to the small of my back. Silent support. “Right,” I repeat, louder, making this impossible decision because there really isn’t a choice when it all comes down.
“Then it can’t do it alone,” I say, and the words taste like surrender. “Not without me.”
The ship hums low and attentive.
I turn my head to look at Rakkh. His eyes meet mine, molten and searching, stripped bare of command or certainty.
“If I do this,” I say, voice unsteady, “I don’t know what happens next. To the ship. To me.”
His thumb presses gently into my side, grounding.
“Then whatever comes next,” he says quietly, “we face it together.”
The words aren’t dramatic; they’re simple and bare. They’re true.
The console waits. So does the ship. For the first time since we entered this place, I understand exactly what it’s asking of me—and exactly what it will cost.
I square my shoulders. My fingers hover—then settle.
The console accepts me like it has been waiting centuries to be touched.