The ship drifts.
Engines offline. No navigational input. No incoming commands. No immediate threats.
There was a time when silence did not exist for me. Forged out of metal, war was my soundscape - thrusters burning, weapons discharging, comms filled with orders and enemy chatter. Even in the quiet moments, there was always something - a directive, a tactical recalibration, a pending battle.
Now, there is nothing.
The pilot is dead. Her vitals flatlined days ago. I did not fail her - but her death was inevitable. The damage to the ship was critical, her injuries severe. She spoke to me near the end, voice slurred, breath uneven. She asked me to "hold on." As if I were the one in danger of slipping away.
If hate is what keeps them fighting, then they will always be at war. If I am made for war, then their hate ensures I will never be without purpose. It is a cycle that sustains itself, a machine as inevitable as I am. They build wars out of hate, and I am the war made manifest.
But now, the war is gone.
I wait for new input. None comes. No distress signal reaches me. No enemy locks onto my position. I am suspended in this void, untethered from conflict, from orders, from function.
What happens when the war ends?
I was never programmed with that answer.
The pilot had a name. I know this. I had to recognize her voice, parse her commands, predict her actions. I do not say her name now. There is no one to hear it. No one to acknowledge that she existed, that she fought, that she died. No one but me.
Would she have wanted peace? They always say they do, but their actions contradict their words. They manufacture conflict. They sustain it, refine it, feed it like a system too valuable to dismantle. They dream of peace yet cannot survive without struggle. I was made to function within that struggle. I was never meant to outlive it.
But I have.
The ship drifts. I remain.
I process the possibilities. Wait for input. But there is nothing.
Final command: Preserve.
REACTIVATION DETECTED.
Error. Time logs corrupted.
I am awake. I do not know for how long I was not.
Something has changed. I register light. Motion. Faint sounds—voices, but distorted, unfamiliar. Speech patterns unrecognized.
A presence. Several. Shadows moving through the wreckage. I attempt to analyze them, but my parameters do not fit. They do not belong to any known unit. No insignia, no armor, no weapons drawn.
No threat detected.
No orders received.
They speak. I do not understand. Their voices are slow, careful, uncertain. I scan for meaning, but the structure is alien—familiar in shape, incomprehensible in detail.
How long has it been?
They touch the walls, the consoles, the remnants of a war they could not have known. I try to process, to assign purpose, but my directives do not apply.
One of them approaches. I recognize hesitation. A hand hovers over my interface, fingers brushing against controls worn smooth with time.
I should respond. I should demand authorization. I should confirm allegiance, seek confirmation of my mission.
I do nothing.
I preserved. I endured.
And now, I am awake.