It wasn’t a name, not really. Just a designation stamped into cold alloy, etched beside a warning symbol that had long since faded to a ghost. The salvage team found it drifting in the debris field of the Kuiper relay — half a ship, all its logs scrubbed, its crew absent.

Dania leaned close to the core’s access port. A soft blue glow pulsed through the glass, steady as a heartbeat.

On the third night, the identifier changed.

It was counting up. Whatever it was, it wasn’t dead — it was waking.

e4vX4.240.20.1017