The colossal Ironwood dreadnought rested in the hardened drydock behind Oakhaven. It was a terrifying, beautiful monument to biological and digital synthesis. But biology, no matter how flawlessly calculated, possesses an absolute physical dependency.
Wood requires water.
Inside the cavernous, pressurized interior of the dreadnought, Zenith stood in what would become the primary engineering bay. The twelve-year-old Architect tapped his celestial steel Logic Rod against the dark, living floorboards. The green digital veins pulsing through the bark flickered.
"The structural density is holding," Zenith reported to Orion and Elara. "But the localized atmospheric scrubbers are already detecting a drop in ambient humidity. When we enter the deep cosmos, the freezing vacuum will instantly strip the residual moisture from the hull. The Ironwood will petrify. The roots will shatter. The ship will die."
