:
Deep within the ship's belly, a massive, obsidian shape was cooling, layer by layer, fresh from the atomic forges. It was an exact replica of the machine Elias had died beside.
"Then we're doomed," the Commander sighed. "Without the root directory, gravity fails."
unit, a machine that shouldn't have existed. It was powered by a biological battery that was still, impossibly, pulsing with a faint green light. Elias plugged in his universal bridge, his fingers dancing across a holographic keyboard. "Come on," he whispered. "Talk to me."