Silence was no longer unsettling.
It was complete.
The Valkyris-9 floated through interstellar darkness like a forgotten relic, swallowed by a cosmos too vast to notice it.
Its once-polished hull was now dulled, scarred from micro-impacts and time. Faint etchings of the designation code were barely visible beneath layers of stardust and carbon scoring.
Inside, the temperature had dropped below survivable. The cockpit was dark blacker than the void beyond the viewport. What remained of the interior systems had finally failed.
Power: 0%
Auxiliary: Offline
Emergency backup: Terminated
Life Support: Disconnected
AI Core: Standby hibernation initiated
EVA's once-familiar voice no longer echoed through the ship. Her neural core had been safely ejected days prior, encapsulated within a titanium pod drifting gently away from the hull, broadcasting the only heartbeat left Atlas's logs.
But here, in the belly of the ship, there was only stillness.
The lights had gone out long before, but the final flicker came with no fanfare. A subtle blink in a hallway. A dim red sensor dying with a faint click. The Valkyris-9 didn't shudder, didn't groan it simply stopped.
Like a sleeping animal drawing its final breath.
Atlas Kael's body remained in the pilot's seat, buckled in. Eyes closed. Hands resting on his lap. His figure was still, peaceful, as if the ship had become a tomb he chose unmarked, unreachable, but his.
Outside the viewport, galaxies spun in distant silence. Nebulae pulsed in rhythms far too slow to perceive.
The universe danced its ageless waltz, unaware of the man who had drifted into legend without witness.
And yet…
Something remained.
Not in power.
Not in circuitry.
But in presence.
In the pitch black, if one listened closely, it was almost as if the ship itself remembered him. Not as ones and zeroes. Not as data. But as the very air that once carried his breath.
As the chair that held his weight. As the cabin that warmed his hands when hope was still alive.
The Valkyris-9, stripped of function, had become sacred a grave, yes but also a monument. Not to war. Not to conquest.
But to existence.
To being.
To one soul that refused to vanish without a trace.
Hours passed. Or was it days? No one knew.
But far beyond the dead ship, light shimmered faintly perhaps a passing signal, perhaps a scout drone.
Perhaps the future arriving too late.
Still… the logs were out there.
Still… the message pulsed.
And the lights? The lights were off.
But memory burns longer than electricity ever could.