The medbay lights were low, softened to a dim golden hue that barely touched the walls. Outside the reinforced glass, the endless dunes of Dakun lay in silence, their rage spent, their scars hidden beneath shifting sands.
Inside, she slept.
If it could be called sleep.
Lu'Ka stood at the observation panel, hands folded behind his back, posture rigid with something between awe and fear. His blue skin had paled at the edges—an involuntary biological reaction he hadn't bothered to suppress.
The girl—no, the survivor—lay curled on the diagnostic platform. Wrapped loosely in sterile cloth, her breathing shallow but steady. Cuts and burns marked her small frame; bruises bloomed like dark flowers across her skin. One leg had been hastily stabilized. Internal nanites worked quietly to prevent infection and accelerate healing.
But none of that explained her.
No record. No genetic match. No survival history.
No reason to be alive.
And yet—here she was.
Alive after surviving the full fury of Dakun's worms. Alive after the collapse of her shelter. Alive after a life lived beneath two suns that gave no mercy.
Lu'Ka exhaled slowly, glancing at the floating orb contained near the medbay's center. It pulsed gently now, mirroring the faint rhythm of the girl's heart. The AI had failed to categorize it fully—it was listed simply as "unknown artifact: harmonized object."
Whatever that meant.
He touched the comm panel lightly.
"Status?" he asked, voice low.
The ship's AI responded with a whisper:
> "Vitals stable. Neural activity within expected parameters for post-trauma unconsciousness. External stress stimuli minimized."
Good.
He paused, studying the girl again.
There was a tension in her body even in sleep—like she was ready to fight the moment consciousness returned. Like even here, surrounded by clean air and filtered light, she expected attack.
He couldn't blame her.
Slowly, carefully, he stepped toward the medbay door. His boots made no sound on the polished deck.
He had debated sedating her further.
He had debated isolating her.
He had even debated sending an anonymous report back to the Academy.
But in the end, he had chosen silence.
And now, he had to honor that choice.
The medbay door hissed open with a soft sigh.
Let try again he said to him self..
She stirred instantly.
No dramatic gasp, no cry. Just a small, immediate tightening of her muscles. Her fingers twitched toward the edge of the bed, clutching the cloth instinctively like a makeshift weapon.
Lu'Ka froze at the threshold.
Both hands visible.
Non-threatening.
He kept his voice low, almost a whisper of a whisper.
"You're safe," he said.
She didn't understand the words.
Her dark eyes locked onto him—sharp, mistrustful, calculating. No fear. Only a survivor's feral, exhausted vigilance.
The AI fed translation attempts to his datapad silently, but there was no match yet. No shared linguistic roots. Nothing recognizable.
He crouched slowly—lowering himself to her level without stepping closer.
Then, very carefully, he placed a hand against his chest.
"Lu'Ka," he said, tapping once.
A simple gesture. Name. Identity.
She flinched—but her eyes tracked the motion.
Then her hand—trembling slightly—mimicked his.
Not her chest, but the side of her throat.
And when she spoke, the word was broken by dryness and pain, but it was there.
> "Niri."
Lu'Ka exhaled, almost smiling.
Progress.
Slowly, carefully, he repeated the gesture.
"Lu'Ka."
He pointed to himself again, then to her.
She blinked, then nodded—a shallow, wary dip of her chin.
Niri.
He could almost feel the ship adjusting its ambient systems—lowering external noises, damping internal vibrations. Making the space as non-threatening as possible.
Still crouched, Lu'Ka dared a small movement.
He mimed eating—fingers scooping toward his mouth—and then drinking, cupping his hands together.
Her eyes widened a fraction.
Cautious. Suspicious. But there was recognition there.
Very slowly, Lu'Ka rose, backing toward the medbay's supply module. He retrieved a water packet and a soft nutrient wafer—neutral, easy on a starved system.
He placed them on the bed's edge and stepped back again, palms open.
An offering, not a command.
For a long, brittle moment, she didn't move.
Then—slowly, painfully—Niri reached out.
She snatched the water packet first, tearing it open with sharp, jerky movements. She drank greedily, choking once but not stopping. Then the food—small, frantic bites between quick glances toward him, like she expected the offer to be ripped away at any second.
Lu'Ka didn't move.
He barely breathed.
He watched, steady and silent, until the edge of desperation faded from her motions.
She slowed.
Looked at him.
Watched him.
Her shoulders eased—but only a fraction.
Trust wasn't a gift. It was a siege. And he would have to earn every grain of it.
But she hadn't attacked. She hadn't tried to run.
That was enough for now.
The medbay lights hummed faintly, steady as a heartbeat.
Niri finished the last of the water packet, her fingers tightening around the soft polymer pouch as if afraid it might vanish. The nutrient wafer crumbled slowly between her teeth—chewed carefully, suspiciously, as if even now she wasn't convinced it was real.
Lu'Ka remained exactly where he was.
Still crouched. Still silent.
Letting her set the pace.
When she finished, Niri dropped the empty packet onto the bed beside her, never taking her eyes off him.
Sharp, dark, assessing.
He knew that look.
Predator and prey were both cautious of traps.
He shifted slightly, slowly, and tapped his chest again.
"Lu'Ka."
Her gaze flicked to his fingers, then back to his face.
Testing.
He repeated the gesture—fingers tapping his chest, voice low.
"Lu'Ka."
This time, she didn't mimic immediately.
Instead, she stared at him a moment longer—then raised her own hand again, two fingers tapping lightly at the hollow between her throat and collarbone.
> "Niri," she rasped.
The name was softer this time. Less forced. A thread of something behind it—worn, fragile pride.
Lu'Ka allowed a small nod.
Recognition.
Acknowledgment.
He held up both hands now, palms outward.
No threat. No demands.
Slowly, he touched the side of his own head—miming thought.
Then he pointed gently at her.
Then at himself.
A slow gesture. A bridge.
I think. You think.
Communication.
Niri watched.
Her brows drew together slightly—confusion, then suspicion—but something sparked behind her exhaustion. Curiosity.
Cautiously, she mimicked the first part—fingers brushing her temple..
Lu'Ka smiled—small, barely-there.
Good.
He tapped the air once with a single finger, as if placing a stone between them.
A question.
Slowly, exaggeratedly, he gestured to the side—flattening his hand and sweeping it across an invisible surface, then closing it into a tight fist and drawing it back sharply.
Collapse.
Fall.
Ruin.
Niri stiffened.
Her body tensed in a way no injury could fully explain.
Memories rising.
Pain, too close to the surface.
For a heartbeat, Lu'Ka thought she might pull back—shut down completely.
Instead—
She moved.
Haltingly. Awkwardly. But with fierce intent.
She mimicked the fall he had made—flattened her hand and dragged it down.
Then, more urgently, she brought her other hand up—fingers spread wide—then slammed both hands together with a muffled clap.
Impact.
Collision.
Lu'Ka's heart skipped once.
The worms.
The collapse.
He nodded slowly, encouragingly.
Yes. I saw.
But Niri wasn't done.
Her breathing was ragged now, but she pushed through it—her hands moving again, trembling but precise.
One hand curved into a spiraling motion—turning, twisting—rising from an invisible surface.
Then a second spiral, opposite the first.
Then she mimed them colliding violently—fingers locking, pushing, crashing.
Lu'Ka could almost hear it—the memory of sand splitting open, of beasts screaming without voices.
The worms fighting.
The violence that destroyed her shelter, that nearly took her life.
She had seen it. Survived it. Escaped it.
And now—she was telling him.
Without words.
Without a language they could share.
Lu'Ka swallowed, feeling the air thicken around him.
Very slowly, he mirrored her last motion—hands spiraling, then crashing together.
Niri watched him.
Carefully.
Warily.
But when he completed the gesture, she exhaled—an almost soundless breath.
A release.
Understanding.
He pointed gently at her leg, then mimed walking—then stumbling, falling.
Her expression sharpened—not fear. Not anger.
Recognition.
She nodded—barely.
Her shoulders sagged slightly, as if the effort of communicating cost her strength she barely had left.
Lu'Ka stayed very still, allowing the silence to settle between them like soft sand.
You are seen, he thought. You are heard.
Even if no words passed between them.
He raised his hand again, this time slowly sketching a small spiral in the air with one finger.
The desert.
The danger.
Niri watched, and her lips parted—dry, cracked, but shaping something that might have been a sound.
No voice came.
Only silence.
But her hand rose.
Trembled.
And drew the same spiral in the air.
For the first time since she had opened her eyes, the lines of terror along her body loosened.
A fraction.
A crack in the armor.
Lu'Ka didn't smile. He didn't speak. He simply tapped his chest again—Lu'Ka—and waited.
She touched her throat again, fingers brushing the bruised skin.
> "Niri."
This time, it wasn't a whisper.
It was a vow.
A declaration.
A survivor's name.
And Lu'Ka knew—deep in the marrow of his bones—that whatever she was, wherever she had come from, she was no ordinary lost child of the Reach.
She was something the desert itself had forged.
And now—she was there with him..
Lu'Ka shifted his weight slowly, careful not to break the fragile stillness between them.
Niri sat now with her back pressed lightly against the raised support of the bed, one leg curled beneath her, the other braced stiffly. Her hands rested on her thighs, fingers twitching slightly—not in fear, but in thought.
Watching him.
Measuring him.
He could feel her calculating every breath he took.
She trusted nothing.
Good, he thought.
Trust would have been too easy.
Trust would have been wrong.
But communication—
That was still possible.
Lu'Ka raised his hand again—not a signal this time, but a question.
He pointed at himself, then at the small, sleek datapad holstered against his belt.
Niri's eyes narrowed, sharp and suspicious.
He moved slowly, letting her see each step.
Unclipping the datapad.
Holding it open-palmed.
No weapons. No tricks.
Only a device.
Carefully, Lu'Ka activated it with a tap.
The display flickered to life—cool blue light reflecting in the low medbay gloom.
Data streams filled the surface—maps, biometric overlays, thermal scans.
He hesitated for a breath, then flicked through the interface.
Selected the file.
The video.
The one captured by his survey drone during the collapse—the footage of her.
Niri.
Fighting the desert.
Fighting the worms.
Fighting to live.
He let the datapad hover above his palm, angling it slightly so she could see.
Niri tensed immediately—hands clenching on the bed—but she didn't move away.
She watched.
The recording began silently.
A top-down view of the dunes.
The battered metal tower listing in the sand.
And there—small, battered, half-buried—her figure.
Lu'Ka glanced at her, gauging her reaction.
Niri's jaw tightened.
Her shoulders rose in slow, rigid defense.
But still, she watched.
The footage shifted.
The worms.
The eruption of sand and fury.
The impossible violence of the battle between the two titans, tearing the desert apart.
The tower's collapse.
The explosion of dust and metal shards.
And her.
Emerging from it all.
Running.
Bleeding.
Evading the tremor paths with precision that no machine could predict.
Lu'Ka tilted the datapad a little closer—showing her the end of the sequence:
her staggering collapse into the dunes, her fingers clutching the glowing orb even as her body failed.
For long moments, there was no sound in the medbay except for the faint whisper of the ship's filtration systems.
Niri stared.
Her lips parted slightly—barely breathing—as she watched herself move across the tiny projection.
Watched herself survive.
Not as a passive victim, but as a force of stubborn, unbreakable will.
Her hand lifted—hesitant, slow.
Fingers touched the edge of the projection, disrupting the light for a second.
As if to make sure it was real.
She flinched slightly at the touch, then pulled her hand back.
Lu'Ka deactivated the projection immediately, respecting the unspoken request.
He tucked the datapad away again, slowly and visibly.
And waited.
Niri stared at him now—longer, harder.
But it was different.
Not accusation.
Not fear.
Something deeper.
Recognition.
Lu'Ka lifted his hand again—pointing first at her, then drawing a circle in the air.
The desert.
Then he mimed collapse again—hands coming together violently.
And then—he pointed at her heart.
At her.
Survivor.
Niri's throat bobbed once in a dry, painful swallow.
Her hand lifted slowly, mirroring the desert-circle.
Her fingers, shaking slightly, drew the spirals of the worm battle once more—slower this time, less panicked.
Memory replayed with precision.
Then she pressed her palm lightly to her chest.
Not tapping.
Not claiming a name.
Just... anchoring herself.
Lu'Ka exhaled silently, chest loosening a fraction.
He pointed once more at her.
Then at the ship around them.
Then gently spread his hands wide—offering space. Safety.
Here.
Alive.
Niri didn't smile.
But her shoulders eased. Just slightly.
Enough.