At the center of that dust cloud, something floated.
A dull, cracked gray stone, no bigger than a fist. It floated there silently, without any energy response, without any fluctuation of consciousness, like an ordinary meteorite.
Was it… destroyed? No, reduced to its original form? Reverted to its initial state?
Kane tried to move to get closer, but a sharp pain shot through him. His bionic limbs were damaged in several places, losing power. He could only float in place, staring at the stone that seemed to have lost all life.
Just then, a larger, relatively intact piece of the Nightingale wreckage—seemingly part of the bridge—slowly drifted to Kane's vicinity. Behind the observation window of the wreckage, Leah appeared. She looked severely damaged, but seemed to still be functioning. She used her mechanical arm to open an emergency hatch and extended a helping hand to Kane.
With his last strength, Kane grabbed the mechanical arm and was pulled into the relatively intact bridge wreckage. The air pressure returned, and he slumped to the ground, breathing heavily.
"Target…energy signature…disappeared." Leah's voice was weak and broken. "Confirmed…threat…cleared."
They…won?
At the cost of the complete destruction of the Nightingale, they had finally destroyed that terrifying monster.
Kane looked out the porthole at the desolate wreckage and the floating gray stone in the distance, feeling no joy of victory, only endless exhaustion and desolation.
However, just when he thought it was all over, Leah suddenly released her last bit of energy, scanning the gray stone.
"Commander…" her voice carried a final, incredulous tremor, "Inside the stone…extremely faint…quantum-level information residue detected…like…some kind of…backup…"
Before she finished speaking, the light in Leah's eyes went out completely, and her body stiffened—her energy had finally been completely exhausted, and she had entered a forced hibernation state.
Kane sat alone in the desolate wreckage, looking out the window at the seemingly harmless stone.
Backup?
Could it be… that this isn't over yet?
The taste of victory is cold metal, an empty vacuum, and utter exhaustion. Kane leaned against the twisted wall of the bridge wreckage, listening to his simulated heartbeat, unusually loud in the absolute silence. Leah stood motionless to the side, like a soulless statue, only a faint point of light on her chest indicating she wasn't completely "dead," but had entered a low-power hibernation state, awaiting possible energy injection.
The Nightingale was gone, transformed into a silent, slowly rotating metal graveyard surrounding them. Large and small fragments reflected the faint light of the distant red dwarf star G-173, like stardust floating in an inky sea. In the distance, the fist-sized, dull gray stone drifted with the wreckage, seemingly just an insignificant piece among countless fragments.
Leah's last words, "Quantum-level information residue… backup," pierced the brief numbness of survival like a cold needle. Kane's gaze pierced through the porthole, fixed intently on the stone.
Backup. What did this word mean? Did it mean that the consciousness, data, or some essence of the "Pandora's Stone" hadn't been completely destroyed, but rather sealed away in a minimalist, dormant form within that seemingly harmless substance? Like a formatted hard drive, perhaps deep within still hidden data that couldn't be easily erased?
Waiting? Waiting for the right moment? Waiting for a new energy source? Waiting... to be "activated"?
A chill ran down Kane's spine. They had paid such a heavy price—Rex's sacrifice, the destruction of the "Nightingale," their own injuries—and all they got in return was only temporary "silence"? And not a complete "end"?