Bonus Chapter: “The Sound of Silence”

  Scene 1: The Hum Beneath Her Fingers

  —-: Hana

  The hangar was sleeping.

  Its shadows were longer at night, draped across the deck like discarded coats, pooling beneath crystal stands and hanging tool cables. The only sound was the faint, rhythmic pulse of residual energy cycling through the Silver Dart’s power loop.

  hmmmmmm—click—hmmmmmmmm

  Hana stepped barefoot across the floor, her socks nearly silent on the cool tile, clutching a small crystal spindle rigged with copper vibration coils and a bent audio siphon.

  The Dart stood above her, wings folded. At rest. But not silent.

  Never silent.

  She pressed her fingers to the underside of the cockpit panel—just below the sync core. The metal was warm.

  The hum lived there.

  Deep. Full. Almost… maternal.

  She fitted the coils into place one at a time, hands moving slowly. Carefully. Like threading a loom in the dark. Every click and clink of the crystal teeth made her heartbeat spike—too loud, too real.

  Then she activated the siphon.

  A soft whirr. A chime. And then—

  The hum spilled into the spindle.

  Low-frequency vibration converted to waveform, flowing like a heartbeat on a screen. Hana stared at it, eyes wide. Mouth slightly open.

  It was beautiful.

  There were notes in it she hadn’t expected—high harmonics that fluttered like wings, a bass that rumbled low in her stomach.

  She closed her eyes.

  Listened with everything she had.

  This wasn’t just a ship.

  This was voice.

  And she realized—

  She’d never been able to describe her own.

  Not in words. Not in jokes. Not in those awkward silences when Ren looked at her too long and she looked away first.

  But this?

  This she understood.

  This was what her heart sounded like, if it ever had the courage to speak.

  She stayed there for a long time, knees tucked under her, the spindle resting in her lap, the Dart’s hum resonating beneath her fingertips.

  She didn’t need to fix anything.

  She just needed to listen.

  Scene 2: What Does a Voice Even Sound Like?

  —-: Hana

  Jiro held the coil spindle up to the light, eyes squinting through a monocle that wasn’t necessary but looked cool.

  “Okay,” he muttered, turning it in his fingers, “so this records ambient vibration patterns—layered by decibel depth? Where’d you even get that kind of isolation crystal?”

  “I didn’t,” Hana said, not quite meeting his eyes. “I grew it.”

  “You grew it?”

  “Accidentally. In the greenhouse. Long story.”

  He blinked. “You’re kind of terrifying.”

  She smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

  They were sitting cross-legged on the open tail ramp of the Dart, the morning sun barely skimming the hangar’s eastern windows. A faint breeze stirred the fringe of Jiro’s hair, and a spanner rolled gently across the floor and hit his ankle. He ignored it.

  “So…” he said after a beat, tapping the spindle. “What are you gonna do with it?”

  Hana shrugged. “I just wanted to hear the Dart properly. Like, really hear her.”

  “Okay. But… why?”

  She looked down.

  Paused.

  And then said it. Quiet. Like it might fall apart if said any louder.

  “Because I don’t know what I sound like.”

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  Jiro’s smile flickered. “What?”

  “I mean, I know what I say. The jokes. The reports. The ‘pass me the 5mm torque key.’ But that’s not… a voice. Not really.”

  She fiddled with the seam on her glove. “No one’s ever really asked. And I’ve always been the one fixing things—not explaining them.”

  Jiro was quiet.

  Which was rare.

  She kept going, voice softening with every word.

  “So I thought… maybe if I record something that matters to me, and I’m the one who shaped it—then maybe, just maybe… that’s what I sound like.”

  The silence afterward wasn’t awkward.

  It was careful.

  Held like a tuning fork between them.

  Jiro exhaled through his nose and set the spindle down gently between them.

  Then, still looking forward:

  “…For what it’s worth, I think it sounds like something I’d want to hear more of.”

  Hana smiled.

  And for once, she didn’t try to fix the silence.

  She just let it be.

  Scene 3: Echoes Without Permission

  —-: Hana

  The Dart’s engines weren’t supposed to be on.

  Not for another hour. Not until Mei ran the sync check. Not until Ren signed off on the lateral flux alignment.

  So when the central diagnostic node lit up and spoke—in her voice—Hana nearly dropped the calibration wrench.

  “Initiating startup cycle. Primary resonance pattern aligned.”

  Her voice. Not the AI.

  Her.

  Laced over the steady hum of the ship. Matched to the core’s rhythm like a heartbeat sync.

  Then—

  “Stabilizer feedback loop engaged. Crystal intake at 84% efficiency—no, wait, 83—just give me a sec—okay, there.”

  That last part?

  A voice log.

  From last week.

  Private. Clipped.

  Embarrassingly real.

  And now echoing through the hangar like some kind of cruel loudspeaker concert.

  Her eyes snapped to the diagnostic rig on the side table—and Taiga, grinning proudly, half a sandwich in his mouth.

  “I modded the playback,” he said through a mouthful of peanut paste. “Figured it’d make the system feel more you, y’know? Adds warmth! Like AI, but with heart!”

  “You—what—why would you—?” she stammered, already backing away.

  Taiga blinked. “I thought it’d be fun! You said you didn’t know what you sounded like, so—”

  “I didn’t mean I wanted it broadcasted!”

  The hum behind her warped slightly, picking up speed. Her voice looped again:

  “Just give me a sec—okay, there.”

  Hana’s cheeks flushed.

  Then burned.

  She shut the rig off with a slam of her palm against the kill switch, and the silence that followed rang louder than the playback had.

  Taiga stepped forward, guilt edging his tone now. “Hey, I didn’t think you’d—”

  “I need air.”

  She turned. Walked. Fast. Each step louder than it should’ve been on the polished floor. Tools clattered in her wake.

  Taiga didn’t chase her.

  The recording spool flickered once.

  Then went still.

  Scene 4: What Mei Gives

  —-: Hana

  The air outside still clung to the last of the late evening warmth, but it couldn’t stop Hana’s lungs from tightening with each breath. Her steps had led her behind the greenhouse—barely a walkway, just a narrow patch of flagstones littered with rusted tool crates and wild thistle.

  She’d stopped running. But her heartbeat hadn’t.

  The echo of her own voice—her real voice—was still crawling up her spine like it didn’t know how to leave.

  It hadn’t sounded like the way she imagined herself.

  It had sounded… alive.

  And that scared her more than anything.

  So when she heard footsteps, light and purposeful, she didn’t turn.

  “Taiga sent you?” she said flatly, rubbing a thumb across her palm like she could scrub off the moment.

  “No,” came the quiet reply. “I came for me.”

  Mei.

  Of course.

  Hana didn’t look at her, but she didn’t walk away either.

  “I know it wasn’t malicious,” Hana said. “He meant well. But it still felt like—like someone pulling the words out of my chest without asking if I was done holding them.”

  Mei stood beside her now, close but not intrusive. She carried a flat case—simple steel, no ornamentation. She set it on the stone ledge, opened it.

  Inside was a playback slate.

  Not factory-default.

  Customized.

  Trimmed in deep violet crystal, humming faintly at the edges like a thing breathing.

  Mei didn’t speak. She just tapped the interface, then stepped back.

  The recording began.

  But not the chaotic splice Taiga had played.

  This was… clean.

  Pure resonance from the Dart’s hum—layered gently beneath Hana’s voice. Not talking, not rambling, just one line:

  “If I build something carefully enough… maybe it can speak for me.”

  The words echoed once, softened by low harmonics. As if the ship had whispered back.

  Hana’s breath caught.

  “That’s not what I recorded.”

  “No,” Mei said. “It’s what I heard.”

  She didn’t elaborate.

  Didn’t need to.

  “I cleaned the waveform. Smoothed the edges. Tuned the backing resonance to your original spike pattern. Removed Taiga’s edits.”

  Hana finally looked up.

  And Mei, for the first time since they’d met, looked a little… uncertain.

  “I thought you deserved to hear what it sounds like,” Mei said. “When someone listens without interrupting.”

  The words hit her harder than the recording.

  Not because they were sweet.

  But because they were true.

  Hana’s fingers brushed the slate. It was still warm from Mei’s hands.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  No sarcasm.

  No wall.

  Just her.

  Mei gave a small nod.

  Then turned to go, pausing only to add:

  “It’s not about how loud you are, Hana. It’s how much the sound stays.”

  And with that, she was gone.

  Leaving Hana with the stars.

  And the echo of her own voice—no longer terrifying.

  Just hers.

  Scene 5: Harmony, at Last

  —-: Hana

  The roof of the West Wing wasn’t technically open to students.

  But that had never stopped Hana before.

  She’d climbed up using the side vent scaffolding, tool pouch slung over her back, playback slate tucked under one arm. The night air wrapped around her like an old coat—cool, whispering, full of distant machinery and the hum of airships far overhead.

  The stars were clear tonight.

  For once, her thoughts were too.

  She sat cross-legged on the slate tiles, the whole campus spread out below like a miniature city. Little golden windows flickered in the dorms. Somewhere, a turbine hissed in its nightly cooldown cycle.

  But here?

  Silence.

  And then—she pressed play.

  “If I build something carefully enough… maybe it can speak for me.”

  Her voice.

  Still strange. Still unexpected.

  But this time, it didn’t send her heart racing with panic.

  This time, she listened.

  The Dart’s core resonance sang beneath the words—her calibration work echoing back in harmonic tones. Mei had pulled out the rawness. Had left just enough of her stammer, her unsure breath at the end, to make it honest.

  Not perfect.

  Just real.

  The recording ended.

  Hana sat still.

  Then played it again.

  And again.

  Each time, the words sank in deeper—until she wasn’t flinching anymore.

  She could feel it now: how she’d shaped every part of that ship to move like feeling, not just function. Her loops weren’t just efficient—they felt right. Her pressure coils didn’t just work—they sounded like they belonged.

  She had always been building emotion.

  She’d just been too busy fixing bolts to realize it.

  A breeze lifted a strand of her hair, brushing it gently across her cheek. She smiled—small, soft, real.

  Then looked up at the stars and whispered, without any recording:

  “I sound like something worth hearing.”

  The silence didn’t answer.

  It didn’t have to.

  It just held her.

  Like music.