The clearing was silent, save for the hiss of cooling metal and the ragged breaths of the crew. The Artemis IV sat hunched like a dying animal, its hull streaked with alien light that pulsed faintly, almost like a heartbeat.
Hayes paced in the dirt, his boots grinding over shattered panels. "That thing is trying to kill us. We rip it out before it drags us all down."
Marquez wiped grime from her face, shaking her head. "We rip it out, and the ship never flies again. You saw it, Captain. Our tech alone couldn't get her off the ground."
Okafor spoke from where he sat against a tree, still clutching his bruised ribs. "It's not just power. The systems changed. Glyphs merged with our code. Controls adapted themselves mid-flight. That wasn't us."
Hayes spun on Daniel. "And you—what the hell was that? You lit up like a reactor core and nearly cooked us alive."
Daniel swallowed hard, feeling the crystal burn faintly beneath his skin. His voice came low. "It wasn't me. It was… speaking. Not in words. In… pulses. Like it was showing me how it wanted to move."
The others stared. The forest wind whistled through the silence.
Marquez's jaw tightened. "You're saying it's alive."
Daniel shook his head. "Not alive the way we think. But aware. And it doesn't see the ship as just metal—it sees it like… like a body. My body. Our bodies. It doesn't just want to fly—it wants to evolve."
Hayes slammed a fist into the hull. "I don't care what it wants. We're not letting some alien parasite decide if we live or die."
But even as he spoke, the ship pulsed brighter, as though answering him. The glyphs along the cracked panels glowed in unison with Daniel's heartbeat.
Okafor whispered, almost to himself: "It's listening."
---
The Choice
That night, around the fire, no one slept. Shadows prowled at the tree line, but the crew's fear was fixed on the glowing wreck behind them.
Marquez leaned forward, eyes flickering in the firelight. "If it's intelligent, then maybe it can be bargained with. Controlled."
Hayes scowled. "Or maybe it's playing us. Using Daniel like a tether. You don't gamble with an alien mind."
Daniel sat apart, staring at the sky, at the red glimmer of Mars that hung like an accusing eye. The crystal throbbed in his chest, not painfully, but insistently—like a call. He remembered the vision of the ship's veins, the way he had seen through its circuits. It wasn't malice he had felt. It was hunger.
And deep beneath that hunger, a whisper that wasn't a sound but a knowing: More. Deeper. Forward.
Daniel finally spoke, voice steady. "It doesn't want to kill us. It wants to test us. And if we survive… it'll take us further than any ship ever could."
Hayes rose, fire snapping behind him, his silhouette sharp against the smoke. "Or it drags us into hell. We decide here and now—do we cut it out and take our chances on foot, or do we let this thing lead us?"
The crew exchanged glances. Marquez's eyes burned with curiosity. Okafor's face was pale, but resolute. Daniel's chest glowed faintly in the dark, the crystal pulsing in answer to the silence.
No one spoke the choice aloud. But the firelight flickered, the shadows stirred, and the ship's hum deepened as though it already knew.