The Warp stretched endlessly before me, a shifting expanse of writhing color and shadow, flickering in patterns that defied sense. Even after all this time, I still didn’t trust it. Sixteen days to the next anchor. Sixteen days alone with nothing but my own thoughts and a ship that was making too many decisions for itself.

  I exhaled slowly, feeling the subtle hum of the Praedyth beneath me. Its systems flickered in the dim glow of the cockpit, rows of data cascading across the displays. No threats. No pursuit. Just the slow drift through the madness.

  Too clean. That battle had been too clean.

  I ran my fingers along the console absently, feeling the cold metal under my fingertips as I replayed the engagement in my head. I had won, but I hadn't been the only one making choices. The ship had moved first. Reacted before I had time to issue orders.

  I leaned forward, studying the battle logs on the screen. Maneuvers, countermeasures, predictive targeting. All flawless. Too flawless. The ship had responded before I could even think to give the command. That final shot had been taken a full fraction of a second before I voiced the order. That didn’t happen.

  The Imperium’s so-called “machine spirits” were crude at best—programmed responses, pattern recognition, nothing more. The Ebon Claws had begun tinkering with the Praedyth before I took it from them, but they weren’t advanced enough for something like this. Even with whatever heretical technology they had tried to integrate, they were still working with a corpse of a golden age they barely understood.

  This was different.

  This was something else.

  My tail flicked once against the chair as I tapped a claw against the console. "Praedyth," I said evenly, eyes flicking across the status readouts. "Playback last combat encounter. Remove my verbal input from the log."

  The ship responded instantly. "Processing."

  A moment later, the tactical screen came alive, replaying the engagement. The mercenary vessel, its crude bulk lurching forward. My own ship weaving through the Warp’s erratic currents, outmaneuvering them with impossible grace. And then the shot.

  My eyes narrowed slightly. The final strike—the plasma battery firing directly into the enemy ship's weakened flank. Executed precisely at the moment their shields failed.

  I hadn’t said a word before it fired.

  I sat back slowly, exhaling through my nose. "Pause." The display froze, the wreckage of the mercenary vessel suspended mid-explosion. The faint glow of cooling plasma lingered in the projection, the last moments of my would-be pursuers reduced to data.

  I studied it carefully.

  There was no hesitation. No delay. The Praedyth had made the kill on its own.

  Not a machine spirit. Not a simple automated response.

  It had decided.

  I let the silence stretch, feeling the weight of that thought settle in my chest. My ears flicked at the faint, rhythmic thrum of the ship’s power core pulsing in the distance.

  I wasn’t afraid. Not yet. But I was certain of one thing—this ship was more than it should be.

  I leaned forward again, voice calm. "Praedyth, did you fire that last shot on my command?"

  A brief pause. Not long. A fraction of a second too short to be noticeable to anyone who didn’t know what to listen for.

  "Negative," the ship responded. "Final engagement parameters met. Threat eliminated within optimal combat efficiency window."

  My fingers drummed lightly against the console. "Optimal combat efficiency window," I echoed.

  A calculation. A conclusion reached. Not an order given.

  I let out a slow breath and sat back again, tilting my head slightly as I stared at the frozen tactical screen. The ship wasn't lying. It had simply determined that the best course of action was to kill the target—without my confirmation.

  That wasn’t something a normal ship did.

  That was something a pilot did.

  The thought settled uneasily in my chest. I had taken this vessel from the Ebon Claws because I had needed a ship, nothing more. A tool to get me from one place to another. But tools didn’t think for themselves.

  I exhaled sharply and pushed away from the console, standing fluidly as my tail flicked behind me. The Warp still churned outside the viewport, endless and shifting, indifferent to the thoughts of the creatures that traveled through it.

  Sixteen days.

  A long time to sit in silence.

  A long time to start getting answers.

  I turned, stepping away from the cockpit. My claws clicked softly against the floor as I moved toward the cargo hold. My sharp green eyes flicked to the secondary display as I passed. The crate was still secure, untouched since I had locked it down.

  The mercenaries had been willing to die for it. Someone had sent them after it. Someone had known I had it.

  And someone was still watching.

  I rolled my shoulders, pushing the thought away. One problem at a time.

  I had learned what I needed to from the battle. The Praedyth was more than it claimed to be. And I was going to find out exactly what I was flying.

  I stepped into the dim corridors of the Praedyth, the hum of its systems a constant presence in the background. The ship had settled into its long drift through the Warp, its automated systems adjusting course in subtle increments, always correcting, always adapting. Like it knew exactly where it was going.

  That thought didn’t sit well with me.

  I reached the central control terminal, just outside the cargo hold. My claws hovered over the console for a moment before I tapped in a manual override.

  “Praedyth,” I said, my voice even. “Engage limited response mode. Restrict system authority to my direct commands only.”

  The ship’s response came immediately. Too immediately. “Clarify directive.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “It’s not a complicated request. Lock all non-essential functions. No automated actions. No independent calculations. Just respond when I give an order.”

  Silence.

  Then—

  “System restriction acknowledged. Functionality reduced.”

  I didn’t believe it.

  My tail flicked as I leaned against the console. "Good. Now, I have questions."

  The ship didn’t respond. Not immediately, anyway. But I knew it was listening.

  I exhaled slowly. "What are you?"

  A pause. Too long. The answer that came wasn’t an answer at all.

  “This vessel is designated Praedyth. Long-range reconnaissance and engagement craft. Current command authority: Servius.”

  Cold. Precise. Deliberate.

  I tilted my head slightly. "Who designed you?"

  Another pause.

  “This vessel’s origins predate current known historical records.”

  I let that sit for a moment before continuing. "You executed a combat maneuver before I gave the order. Why?"

  "Combat parameters were met."

  "That’s not an answer."

  "Operational efficiency dictated optimal engagement timing."

  I clicked my claws against the console. "Operational efficiency dictated that you fire before I told you to?"

  Another pause. This time, fractionally longer. I was starting to recognize the pattern.

  “This vessel responds to environmental factors at the highest calculated efficiency.”

  I let out a slow breath. The ship wasn’t just reluctant to answer. It was actively avoiding direct confirmation.

  "You’re not a machine spirit," I said flatly.

  No response. Not even static. Just silence.

  I straightened, rolling my shoulders. I had already known I wasn’t going to get a straight answer, but now I had something even more useful—the ship’s behavior.

  It was choosing what to say.

  That meant it was choosing what not to say.

  Which meant it was hiding something.

  I stepped back from the console, exhaling through my nose. Fine. If it wasn’t going to give me answers, I’d find them myself.

  And right now, there was another mystery sitting in my cargo hold.

  I turned on my heel, making my way toward the secured container.

  The reinforced crate sat exactly where I had left it, untouched, unmarked, and waiting.

  It was a stark, unnatural presence in the cargo hold. Everything else in this room had a clear purpose—munitorum supplies, ration crates, salvaged scrap. Things meant to be used, to be spent.

  But this?

  This wasn’t meant to be found.

  I crouched beside it, letting my claws skim over its smooth, ceramite plating. The Ebon Claws hadn’t packed it, that much was clear. The Munitorum seals on the other supplies were official, if outdated, but this crate lacked any markings. No insignias, no ownership stamps, no indicators of where it came from or who made it.

  It was isolated. Deliberately so.

  I had already cut it open back on the rig, breaching the reinforced locks with my plasma cutter. The edges of the opening were still scorched from the tool’s heat, the only sign that this thing had ever been disturbed. It felt…wrong, somehow.

  Like it had been sealed for a reason.

  I exhaled slowly and reached forward, gripping the lid. It lifted smoothly, noiselessly, revealing the artifact within.

  A small, unassuming box.

  Roughly the size of a human skull, made from a dark, metallic alloy that shimmered faintly under the dim hold lighting. Its surface was etched with intricate markings, neither purely mechanical nor overtly arcane. The symbols twisted subtly as I viewed them from different angles, like something shifting beneath the metal.

  I had seen plenty of Xenos artifacts before—Eldar, Necron, even Dark Age technology that the Mechanicus salivated over—but this?

  This wasn’t any of those.

  I reached for my data-slate, running a low-intensity scanning beam across its surface. The results flickered across the screen.

  No active power signatures. No latent heat. No internal mechanisms.

  Dead metal.

  And yet—

  I felt something.

  A quiet absence at the edges of my awareness. Not a presence, not an energy source. Just a faint pull, like a space where something should be, but wasn’t.

  I flexed my claws absently and pulled my augmetic hand free from my belt, extending my fingers toward the object. My metal fingertips brushed the surface.

  Nothing.

  No response. No resistance. No static charge or temperature variation. It was like my augmetics weren’t even registering contact at all.

  I frowned slightly. Augmetics weren’t perfect, but this wasn’t normal.

  I pulled my metal hand back, flexing the fingers before reaching forward again—this time with my organic hand.

  The moment my fingers touched the surface—

  A pulse.

  Not through my fingertips. Not through my nerves.

  Behind my thoughts.

  A flicker of something I couldn’t describe—not words, not images, just the briefest impression of function.

  Not invasive. Not hostile.

  Just… there.

  I pulled my hand back sharply.

  The instant I broke contact, the sensation was gone.

  No lingering trace. No aftereffect.

  Just silence.

  I exhaled slowly through my nose, my tail flicking once behind me.

  Whatever this was, it wasn’t a weapon. Not in any conventional sense. It wasn’t something that needed to be held.

  I had spent enough time around Tech-Priests, smugglers, and genetic aberrations to recognize the design for what it was.

  An augment.

  Not a tool. Not a relic.

  Something meant to be implanted.

  My claws hovered just above the surface again.

  Nothing happened.

  No pull. No pulse.

  As if it had already acknowledged my touch, but was waiting for something more.

  I clenched my jaw slightly.

  This wasn’t random salvage. Someone had designed this. Someone had created it for a purpose. And someone had been willing to die to keep it out of my hands.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I closed the crate, sealing it shut.

  I wasn’t about to test fate. Not here. Not yet.

  For now, the artifact would remain where it was until I gathered more information.

  Whatever it was meant for—whoever it was meant for—It wasn’t time yet.

  The cargo hold remained still, the crate sealed once more, its mystery contained—at least for now. But the weight of it lingered in my thoughts like an unfinished sentence, a presence at the edge of my awareness. I had learned all I could for now, but sixteen days was a long time to sit idle, and I had no intention of letting my mind decay into the waiting silence.

  I turned, my claws clicking softly against the floor as I strode through the corridor, the ship responding in its usual unnatural way—doors parting before I reached them, lights adjusting subtly as I passed, as though tracking my movements. I didn’t like that. It wasn’t the servitor-clunky automation of Imperial vessels or the rigid logic of Mechanicus programming. This was something else. Something aware.

  I exhaled slowly, pushing the thought aside for now. My next priority was that pistol that I found on first inspection of the ship.

  The armory was as silent as before—too silent. No faint hum of power running through dormant weapons, no mechanical whir of automated locks disengaging, no signs of wear or use. Just the same pristine, untouched racks. A graveyard where armaments had once been stored but had long since been stripped away.

  Except for one.

  The pistol still sat where I had first found it, nestled within the ship’s strange, seamless weapon mount. Unlike the crude bolters and lasrifles I had scavenged in the past, this weapon bore no external power pack, no magazine, no trigger assembly that I recognized. It was a weapon, but it wasn’t built like one.

  I reached out, claws wrapping around the grip as I lifted it from its resting place. Lightweight. Too lightweight. It wasn’t just well-balanced—it was deliberately calibrated to feel weightless in my hand. Not just comfortable. Intentional.

  I turned it over slowly, inspecting its frame. The material was smooth, dark, almost like polished obsidian but warmer to the touch. No weld lines. No screws. No indication of how it had even been made. It wasn’t forged—it was… grown.

  I clicked my claws against the barrel, listening. No hollow sound of an empty chamber. No shifting mechanisms within. Just solid, unyielding alloy.

  My tail flicked. Something was wrong about this.

  I set it on the workbench and retrieved my data-slate, running a low-energy scan across its surface. Lines of code flickered, analyzing the material composition, energy output, and structural integrity. Results:

  Material Composition: Unknown alloy

  Energy Readings: Minimal residual signature detected

  Functionality: Nonstandard. No identifiable firing mechanism.

  My ears flicked at that last line. No identifiable firing mechanism. Then how was it supposed to work?

  I narrowed my eyes, reaching for the weapon again. This time, I focused. Not just holding it, but gripping it with intent—as though expecting a response.

  Nothing.

  No hum of internal systems activating. No glow of hidden power sources. No reaction.

  My tail twitched. That didn’t make sense.

  I spent the next two days unraveling the mystery of the pistol.

  The first few hours were spent like any other weapons inspection—methodical, patient, and precise. I disassembled standard firearms before. I knew the weight of a well-balanced lasrifle, the feel of a finely crafted bolt pistol, the intricate mechanisms of a plasma caster. Even the Ebon Claws' twisted relics followed some logical design, their heretical creations still operating on fundamental mechanics of war.

  But this thing?

  It refused to make sense.

  I started by examining it again with my data-slate, running another round of scans, hoping I had missed something the first time. Results:

  No chemical residue. No heat signatures. No trace elements of conventional munitions.

  The alloy remains unknown. Impossible to determine whether it was forged or synthesized.

  Internal composition: Indeterminate. The scan cannot penetrate past the outer layer.

  I exhaled slowly, setting the slate down. My tail flicked once. That wasn’t normal. Even the most advanced human weapons left traces of their construction—some signal of their function, be it mechanical, magnetic, or chemical.

  This thing left nothing.

  My fingers curled around the grip again, running my claws along its perfectly smooth surface. There was no trigger, no loading chamber, no visible way to activate whatever mechanism it supposedly had. And yet, it was a weapon.

  It had been stored in the armory. Intentionally.

  It wasn’t some artifact. It wasn’t some broken relic. It had a purpose.

  And I was going to find out what it was.

  I spent the next few hours experimenting with different grips, different motions. Adjusting my stance as if aiming a standard firearm, testing whether posture made a difference. Nothing. No reaction. No activation.

  I even tried to pull my arm back as though mimicking the recoil of a traditional shot—nothing.

  I frowned. I wasn’t wrong about this thing. It had been left here for a reason.

  The Praedyth did not leave things by accident.

  I went deeper.

  I moved to the training deck—a small, featureless section of the ship that seemed to have once been an exercise chamber. The room had no weapons lockers, no traditional training dummies, just a wide-open space meant for movement. I had already tested the ship’s automatic gravity regulators here, confirming that it could simulate realspace conditions within reasonable parameters.

  Now, I would test something else.

  I stood at the center of the chamber, the pistol in hand.

  If I couldn’t fire it conventionally, then I would force it to work.

  I willed it to fire.

  I imagined an enemy in front of me—a Traitor Marine, twisted in his corrupted warplate, raising a bolter to fire. I imagined the weight of the pistol adjusting in my grip, the heat of an activated power cell, the faint resistance of a trigger beneath my claw.

  Nothing.

  I shifted my stance, adjusted my grip, reached into every instinct I had about how a weapon should function. Still nothing.

  I let out a slow breath, frustration curling through my chest. What was I missing?

  I placed the pistol on the floor of the training deck and took a step back. Maybe it was keyed to something else.

  I had seen weapons bound to their wielders before—some Mechanicus creations only responded to the touch of their tech-priests, genetic locks encoded to the user’s DNA. Could this be the same?

  I knelt and placed my organic hand against it.

  Nothing.

  I clicked my tongue, my tail flicking in irritation.

  I tried my augmetic hand.

  Still nothing.

  My ears flicked, my eyes narrowing. That didn’t make sense.

  There had to be something I wasn’t considering.

  By the evening of the second day, I had exhausted every rational test I could think of. Nothing had worked.

  I was beginning to think this was some kind of elaborate trick—some locked system I didn’t have the right key for. Perhaps it was defective. Perhaps it only responded to something the Praedyth hadn’t provided me with.

  But then—

  I made a mistake.

  A simple one.

  I had been pacing, the pistol in hand, my mind running through everything I knew about weaponry. The frustration had been mounting, my patience wearing thin, and in that moment, I let my instincts take over.

  My ears flicked—something shifted in the periphery of my senses. A phantom movement, a flicker of something my brain registered as danger.

  My tail bristled. My claws twitched. My muscles tensed—

  And suddenly, the pistol fired.

  A pulse of energy erupted from its frame, a silent burst of pure force that struck the far wall of the training chamber with unnerving precision. No recoil. No flash. No discharge of heat.

  Just movement.

  I froze, staring at the weapon in my hand.

  I hadn’t activated it. I hadn’t given a conscious command.

  I had simply—Reacted.

  I took a slow breath, forcing my tail to settle.

  This wasn’t a gun.

  Not in the way I understood them.

  This was something else.

  It wasn’t something you fired. It wasn’t something you activated.

  It was something that responded.

  It sensed intent.

  It knew when I was in danger.

  The realization settled in my chest like a stone.

  That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t safe.

  That was… wrong.

  I exhaled sharply, lowering the weapon. The Praedyth had left this for me. That much was clear. It had made a choice. But why?

  I had spent two days trying to force it to work.

  In the end, it had chosen to work on its own.

  And I didn’t know if that was a good thing.

  With nothing more to gain from the pistol for now, I made my way toward the medbay. The corridors remained unnervingly smooth—no exposed conduits, no loose plating, no visible signs of how the ship functioned. Even the dim lights above seemed to adjust slightly as I passed beneath them, reacting to my presence with a precision too fluid to be mere automation.

  I ignored it. For now.

  The medbay was exactly as I had left it—clean, quiet, unsettling in its sterile stillness. The examination table still sat at the center, its edges pulsing faintly as I entered. Along the walls, the sealed storage panels remained as they were—hiding medical tools that operated on technology I didn’t fully recognize.

  But I wasn’t here for those.

  I turned toward the damaged medicae drone still nestled in its dock. Unlike the rest of the ship, this thing bore visible damage. A cracked optical sensor, one limp manipulator arm, its self-repair systems halted despite clear signs they should have worked.

  My tail flicked as I crouched beside it, running a clawed hand along its sleek, dark frame. The surface was cool, unmarked by time or corrosion. No external ports, no power cables, nothing to indicate a standard Mechanicus interface.

  I reached for my toolkit, extracting a fine-tipped probe and a multi-tool. If it wasn’t going to fix itself, I’d have to do it the old-fashioned way.

  The optical sensor was the most obvious problem. Fractured, barely operational. I ran the probe along the break, feeling no cracks, no texture, yet the fracture was there, visible but intangible. That wasn’t right.

  “Praedyth,” I murmured, still working. “Why hasn’t this drone repaired itself?”

  A pause. Then: “Insufficient data.”

  I exhaled sharply. Again with that.

  “Could it repair itself under normal conditions?”

  Another pause. Then: “Uncertain. System parameters are incomplete.”

  I stopped working, narrowing my eyes slightly. Incomplete. Not damaged. Not corrupted. Incomplete.

  That was an odd choice of wording.

  I turned back to the drone, studying it again. Something was stopping it from finishing its repairs. Something wasn’t missing. Something was restricted.

  If the ship wouldn’t fix it, I would.

  I crouched beside the drone, running my claws lightly over the surface of its fractured plating. No rust, no corrosion—just damage. The breakages were clean, precise, as if whatever had struck it had done so with exact intent.

  I could tell, just by touch, that this thing wasn’t built like a servitor. There were no crude flesh augments, no obvious ports for command uplinks, no grotesque merging of human suffering and machine efficiency. This was pure automation.

  Advanced. Self-sustaining.

  And yet—it had been crippled.

  I exhaled slowly, rolling my shoulders as I sat back on my haunches.

  Fine. If the ship wouldn’t fix it, I would.

  I reached inward, into the threads.

  The Nexus was always there—woven through reality, thin and near-invisible, a lattice of unseen paths that connected everything. Some threads were taut, woven deeply into the core of existence. Others were frayed, loose, waiting to be reshaped.

  My organic hand hovered just above the drone’s cracked module, my claws flexing as I focused.

  The threads stirred.

  I exhaled through my nose, tuning myself to them, feeling the quiet vibrations at the edges of my awareness.

  I didn’t see them, not like one would see strands of fiber in the physical world. They were felt more than perceived, sensed through a presence beyond normal sight. The drone itself had its own threads—faint, disrupted, tangled at the edges where the damage had severed its original design.

  I reached out, brushing against them.

  Something shifted.

  The drone twitched.

  Its broken components stirred, their disconnection no longer absolute. The fractures remembered their original state, the disrupted circuitry whispering echoes of functionality that had been lost.

  I pulled the threads together, slow and deliberate.

  The Praedyth’s systems did not intervene.

  This was my work.

  The fractured plating sealed itself first, the damage unwinding as if it had never been there. The fine cracks running through its module softened, blurred, and vanished into smooth, pristine alloy. I felt the internal connections re-align—coils of energy flow returning, minute impulses flickering back to life.

  A pulse ran through the drone’s structure. A confirmation.

  I withdrew my hand.

  The drone stirred.

  Its primary sensor flickered with renewed power, the fractured diagnostic module now whole again. The manipulator arm, once hanging uselessly, adjusted itself, flexing with slow, deliberate motion as if testing its range of movement.

  Then, with a quiet hum, the drone lifted from its dock.

  It hovered before me, its lens adjusting, scanning.

  I exhaled, watching it carefully. The repairs had taken hold. The drone was functional again.

  And yet—

  I could feel it.

  The Nexus threads within it were not the same as before.

  I had not simply restored it. I had woven it back into place.

  There was something of me in it now, some sliver of my presence imprinted on the machine in a way that couldn’t be undone. The ship had denied its own self-repair function, but the Nexus had bypassed that entirely.

  The drone rotated slightly, as if studying me.

  Then, without command, it spoke.

  “System integrity restored,” it said, its voice smooth, precise. No servitor rasp. No mechanical strain. Just calm, clinical observation. “Awaiting operational parameters.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  I had expected it to function. I had not expected it to respond.

  “Operational parameters?” I echoed.

  The drone’s lens flickered. “Designated user: Servius. Awaiting task directives.”

  I clicked my claws against the floor, my tail flicking once behind me. “You weren’t programmed for me.”

  The drone hesitated. A long pause.

  Then—

  “Data corruption detected. User registry reset. Awaiting new parameters.”

  I stared at it for a long moment.

  That wasn’t corruption. That was reassignment.

  The Nexus had rewritten something within it. Whether it was deliberate or an unintended side effect, I wasn’t sure. But this drone—whatever it had been before—it was mine now.

  I exhaled through my nose. “Fine. You’re functional now. That’s all that matters.”

  The drone remained still, hovering in perfect silence. Waiting. Watching.

  I turned away, rolling my shoulders as I pushed the thought aside. I had done what I came here to do. The medbay was no longer incomplete. The drone would serve its function.

  But as I left, I could feel it.

  The faint, lingering presence of something shifted.

  I hadn’t just repaired the drone.

  I had changed it.

  The days had bled together, time losing meaning in the void. The silence of the ship was no longer the silence of a derelict vessel but something else—something aware. The Praedyth had adapted to me, and I had adapted to it, whether I liked it or not.

  The pistol had chosen when to fire. The drone had rewritten itself under my hands. The ship moved through the Warp as if it had always known where it was going.

  None of it felt like coincidence.

  I stood at the viewport, my eyes locked onto the endless storm of the Immaterium. The swirling tides of unreality parted effortlessly for the Praedyth, the ship barely acknowledging the chaotic currents that swallowed lesser vessels whole. The longer I watched, the more I realized—it never struggled. Not once. Not even the largest Warp eddies forced it to adjust course. It wasn’t just moving through the Warp. It was part of it.

  A slow exhale left me. I could almost hear the faint vibrations in the walls, the whisper of movement in the alloy beneath my claws.

  "Praedyth," I murmured, my tail flicking behind me. "What is your destination?"

  For once, the ship did not answer immediately.

  Then, after a long, deliberate pause—

  "This vessel follows its operator’s intent."

  I narrowed my eyes slightly. "That’s not an answer."

  No response.

  The silence stretched, as heavy as the unseen presence of something lingering just beyond my perception. The ship had given me only fragments of the truth, never outright lying, but never revealing either. It was waiting for something.

  Waiting for me to understand.

  I turned away from the viewport, my claws clicking lightly against the metal as I strode back toward the command deck. The Praedyth could keep its secrets for now.

  But the moment we reached the next anchor, I would find someone who could give me answers.

  And if they refused?

  My claws flexed at my sides.

  Then I’d make them talk.