A Stranger’s Aid

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The wound beneath Kiran’s shoulder throbbed like a separate heart—raw and insistent—and the Seeker’s Wake echoed its pain with every rattle and shudder. The world of ruins was receding astern, ringed by that cemetery of ancient constructs, but the threat that had dogged them—machine talons, spectral warnings, the uncanny code in the comm static—clung to the shadows of the cockpit. Tala’s hands worked frantically over the consoles, shunting power between defense screens and dwindling med supplies. Jace piloted with forced composure, while Arien hovered in the corridor, eyes flicking between the battered hull and the makeshift bandage crossing Kiran’s upper chest. Around them, the artifact pulsed in dim, worried blue, and on the floor the data disc trembled with unread secrets.

They’d barely escaped the waking drones below. Now, in the hard vacuum above a world steeped in forgotten warnings, there was scant comfort in solitude.

"We need to jump to a safer orbit," Jace grunted. "The drone swarm’ll regroup. That signal in the comm—someone might still be tracking."

Tala shook her head, voice thin but determined. "Kiran barely made it through. We jump without stabilizing—hull may shear. Emergency patch or not, we hold here and hope the artifact can mask the signal leak."

The artifact sat at the central console, glyphs flickering, subdued. Even now, Kiran felt its restless energy, like a tide longing for a moon. He closed his eyes—and again the vision flickered behind his eyelids: stars falling, faces blurring, that cautioning, sorrowful voice.

Suddenly, sensors warbled. The display painted a new arrival: a tight, unmistakably artificial signature, closing fast. But unlike the council interceptor, this read as cool and silent—an angular silhouette against the void, indigo-lit, moving with predatory grace, all sharp facets and organic curve.

"Incoming!" Arien hissed. "No ID, no recognizable drive signature—just…there."

Tala’s nerves found voice. "That’s not council. I don’t think it’s Elorian at all."

Jace’s hand hovered over the weapons panel, though the Wake's arsenal would barely singe a council drone. They braced for the worst, watching as the unknown craft glided close—a motion as smooth as a shark threading a coral maze.

It docked.

In the tense, airless pause, Kiran’s artifact blazed with warning, projecting a shimmer of alien script—too swift for his mind to catch, yet unmistakable in its urgency: Prepare. Unknown. Not enemy. Not yet.

A three-toned proximity alarm sounded. Across the airlock, hull plating flexed with unnatural ease. Kiran’s mouth was dry. "Weapons?" he whispered. No one answered. The nav lights flickered—then the outer airlock iris shrieked open with a muffled thud of decompressed gas.

She—he—they—stood at the threshold: tall, robed in dusk-pale membrane, body slim where it should be broad, angular at the joints, with features both eerily beautiful and unsettling. Skin like stormcloud marble, eyes faceted and silver-black. An aura of ambiguous calm. One hand up, palm out—not in threat, but in warning.

Behind, a metallic thump: a council drone—silent stalker, left behind or newly arrived—latched onto the hull, its intent unmistakable in the coiling of weapon emitters. The figure in the airlock flicked their hand with preternatural speed. A ribbon of violet energy crackled from their wrist implant, lacing across the control panel and slicing through the drone’s access prongs. It shorted, spasmed, fell, dead weight in vacuum.

So polished was the movement, so fluid, that no one spoke at first. Arien exhaled with a disbelieving curse. Tala, ever the linguist, recovered first. "You…you know Elorian? You understand us?"

The figure’s voice, when it came, held a rough edge—honed by old grief, layered in music. Not gendered, not entirely human, but undeniably alive. "Enough. Your tongue has changed in the centuries, but…not beyond my reach."

Kiran, shakily, unsnapped the artifact from its holster and held it between them—a naive offering or a shield. The stranger’s eyes widened, reflection catching every line of the artifact’s pulsing script. Their voice caught—a sound trembling between awe and agony.

They stepped forward, palms open. “Do not fear. The blade is not for you. I disabled the hunter.”

Jace, ever blunt, braced himself in the cockpit. “Who are you? Why’d you help us?”

A gentle tilt of the head. "Names are only anchors—I am called Xael. I come because I heard the signal. The one your artifact carries, and the one you awakened in the ruins below."

A Brief Truce

The air was thick with unasked questions. The crew tensed, but Xael leaned closer to the artifact, fingers skimming its surface. The glyphs responded, swelling in three-dimensional coils, the translation matrix half-resolving into familiar diaspora script.

Xael spoke softly, words falling heavy in the confined space: "My kind once lived. We were shields and architects to the Sevenfold Diaspora. When the storm of the ending swept the stars, we scattered—some found new homes, most did not. I have walked alone since. Searching, hoping."

Tala, hands trembling, activated her translation rig. “You’re diaspora?”

Xael’s expression was unreadable. “One of many children, yes. My world is gone, the fleet lost. And now…what you carry is their inheritance. Not merely a warning, but a key. If the right hands find it—" Xael looked away, voice rough—"the armadas sleep no more.”

Kiran felt the weight anew, the dreams and grief of a hundred lost worlds now thick on Xael’s shoulders as well. “Why help us?” he asked, raw. “You don’t know what side we’re on. For all you know, we could be here to wake those fleets.”

Xael’s eyes softened. “I know desperation when I see it. And I know the call. That artifact is a beacon—it does not just warn. It summons. Every time you use it, you risk waking not only sleepers, but old enemies who hunger for power, for vengeance, or for what lies beyond memory.”

Tala’s thoughts leapt ahead. “The drones—the archive defenses—they were there to keep anyone from activating that key." Her lips pressed thin, mind racing. "You…knew these places?"

Xael nodded, with an almost reverent grief. “Every diaspora world had its stewards, its sentinels. Those machines were not made to attack—they were made to safeguard what was left. Against fools…and the council’s kind.”

A heavy silence. Arien looked from Xael to the artifact, then to Jace, who only shrugged in a rare display of helplessness.

Trust, or No Trust

Kiran, feeling the raw ache of his wound, gestured weakly. "If what you say is true… what happens if we destroy it?"

Xael’s answer was a whisper. “You cannot. It contains layers—codes written in history itself. Even if you shattered its surface, the pulse would echo. The knowledge will find a way to survive—among your people, or the next wanderers.”

Jace gripped the controls, voice bitter. “So what are we supposed to do? Run until someone catches up? Wake a nightmare to stop another?”

Xael regarded the cabin, face creased by an ancient fatigue. "There is a reason your world endured so long in the quiet. The artifact only calls to those who listen or seek. Strong hands can guide it. Weak hearts will fail it."

He—no, they—paused, then leaned close, speaking directly to Kiran as if in confidence: "You dreamed the warning before you found it, didn’t you? The visions—the sorrow—the promise of what comes if the war wakes. That is your burden now."

Kiran found he could not meet Xael’s gaze.

Jace was first to recover his cynicism. “Charming story. Still doesn’t answer what you want, stranger.”

“Your trust, for now,” Xael replied simply. “And to teach you what not to do.”

A New Pact

Tala touched Xael’s sleeve warily, drawing their attention. “We’re…trying to understand, not to hurt anyone. The data disc from the temple—there was something more. Star maps. Names. A code—StarSun Legacy.”

Xael’s eyes widened at that. “That is the cipher. The fail-safe. Each artifact holds a sequence; each map a route to hidden sentinels, or sleeping fleets. Unlocking them—deliberately or not—sends a beacon. To friend and foe alike.”

Kiran’s voice caught. "Then we weren’t just running. We sent up a flare."

Xael nodded grimly. "And others will come. Machine remnants—fragments of the uprising that ended the diaspora. Scavengers grown fat on lost worlds. Your own council, desperate to claim what they do not understand."

The sense of being hunted grew heavier still. For a moment the cabin was only breath and old grief. Tala placed her hand on the artifact, and it pulsed with a new color—a gentle gradient of hope, fragile but bright.

“We can’t do this alone,” Kiran murmured, the admission tasting of both defeat and longing.

Xael inclined their head. “Alone is how we lost it all. Unity is the only thing that can redeem the legacy—or avert its worst outcome.”

In the viewports, the ruined world turned on, silent and infinite, bearing scars both ancient and fresh. The artifact, its light now shared between Kiran, Tala, and Xael, cast shifting patterns across the battered cabin—reminding them that inheritance was not fate, and that legacy was still, perhaps, theirs to choose.

A fragile truce bound the four. From now on, the road through starlight would be taken together—and every choice would carry the weight not just of Eloria’s peace, but of countless lost civilizations, and the hope—not certainty—of something better.