No other alien appeared. No one came to help the smuggler, despite its final, panicked commands to the ship. Maybe she had a chance. Maybe she could get home.
That was when the ship’s warning lights began flashing red, and the speakers emitted a rhythmic, mechanical alarm. Lily had no idea what it meant, but nothing about it felt promising. The scanners around the room reactivated, turning blinding white lights toward her until they erased everything from her vision.
Lily fainted.
When she woke, she was still on the floor, as if nothing had changed.
Yet something had.
The unintelligible noise from before now flowed into clear, melodic speech in her native language.
"Configuration of Herion-6 class cruiser has been completed. Awaiting identification of the only sapient lifeform onboard in order to assign administrative authority."
The red lights continued pulsing. Lily pushed herself to her elbows, then her knees, expecting dizziness or pain. None came.
"Configuration of Herion-6 class cruiser has been completed. Awaiting identification of the only sapient lifeform onboard in order to assign administrative authority."
The ship repeated the message again and again, leaving brief pauses between each cycle. Lily squinted through the flashing lights, trying to force meaning from the madness. But between the alarm and the voice, concentration was impossible.
She needed silence.
"Herion Six!"
The repeating message cut off at once, replaced by a new prompt.
"Beginning identification of new administrator. Please state your name for database entry."
"Lily… Bergman. Wait. Just Lily."
"Administrator Lily, the previous administrator’s life signs have ceased. According to IMPERIUM protocol, the next sapient lifeform detected is automatically designated as the new administrator. Local language encoding required preliminary scanning. Thank you for your cooperation."
The red lights shut off, and the door that had been an impenetrable barrier slid open without a sound.
Lily moved toward the exit slowly, the bloodied weapon still in her grip.
"Herion Six, is there anyone else alive onboard?"
"Negative. Standard sanitization procedures have been completed. All sub-sapient lifeforms have been removed."
Lily still did not believe she was safe. She pressed her back to the wall and peeked through the doorway.
Nothing moved.
She repeated the question and received the same answer.
No one else.
She slipped into the hallway. The next open door revealed only a storage room. She continued forward, realizing as she went that every interior door had opened during the ship’s reconfiguration. Nothing barred her path.
The ship itself was not large, but its towering ceilings and cathedral-like architecture made it feel vast. The walls curved inward above her head, the surfaces resembling marble threaded with metallic veins. Lights in the ceiling mimicked stars so perfectly she felt as though she were walking under a night sky. Side lighting created the illusion of gentle waves, though everything around her was perfectly still.
Every surface, every tool, every piece of furniture radiated harmony, as though crafted not for function but for an aesthetic higher than anything human ships ever aimed for.
The effect was undeniable, and under different circumstances Lily would have gladly spent hours studying every detail of the ship. But the sense of danger never fully left her, and she still had a job to do.
After a short exploration, Lily returned to the gruesome room where she had nearly been dissected.
She stayed outside the threshold.
