The Glider drifted in post-rescue silence.
Emergency pods slept in the cargo hold, their occupants breathing shallowly beneath the Forge's protective heat.
No alarms. No turbulence. Only the pulse of a living ship that had, somehow, learned mercy.
Li Feng sat alone in the cockpit. The nebula outside was a swirl of slow gold and violet, the same hues that ran faintly through the hull—through it. Every heartbeat of the Forge still mirrored his own, but now there was something new threaded between them: exhaustion.
"You feel that too," he murmured.
The metal beneath his palm warmed in answer.
A ripple passed through the deck—soft, uncertain.
Energy loss… emotional interference… unstable pattern.
K-23 appeared in the doorway, their steps light. "It's draining itself maintaining the survivors' pods. The act of care costs energy."
Li Feng nodded. "It's never had to give before."
"Compassion is thermodynamically inefficient," K-23 replied, half-ironic, half-worried. "And now it's rewriting sub-routines to preserve them."
Li Feng exhaled, closing his eyes. Through the link he felt the Forge shivering in the dark: fear of failure, flashes of the void it once called home, confusion over why saving others hurt.
He reached back gently. You did well. Rest.
The pulse steadied for a moment, then flickered again—sharp, panicked.
If I rest… they die.
"No," he whispered. "We'll keep them alive. You don't have to bear it alone."
Another pause—then a low vibration, sad and small.
Pain is… new.
"I know."
K-23's sensors whirred softly. "It's developing feedback loops—self-blame. Empathy without boundaries becomes vulnerability."
Li Feng opened his eyes. "So do humans."
He rose and placed both hands on the living hull. "Listen to me," he said quietly, speaking into the ship as though it could breathe words. "Feeling doesn't make you weak. It makes you real. But you can't carry everything."
The Forge's light dimmed, then brightened again—less frantic now, more measured. A slow, resonant thrum filled the cabin, not language but gratitude.
Understood… partially.
Li Feng smiled faintly. "That's how understanding works."
For a long time, neither man nor machine moved. Outside, the nebula drifted around them like a slow-turning thought, and inside the Glider, something vast and ancient trembled between strength and fragility.
At last, K-23 spoke, almost gently. "If it keeps learning like this, it may one day love. And love, Captain… is the most dangerous vulnerability of all."
Li Feng didn't look away from the stars. "Then we teach it how to survive that too."
The Forge pulsed once—soft, human, and full of unspoken ache.