The first change was subtle.
A new hum beneath the Glider's frame—low, resonant, matching the rhythm of Li Feng's pulse.
K-23 noticed it first. Their diagnostic arrays lit up with impossible readings: self-repair routines executing without input, nanostructures rewriting damaged hull plating into seamless alloys that didn't exist on any registry.
"Li Feng," they said quietly, "the ship is healing itself."
He looked up from the console. "Healing or changing?"
The deck beneath them shuddered, and veins of violet light began to creep through the metal. Not random wiring—patterns. Fluid, symmetrical, almost biological.
"Forge activity?"
"Localized," K-23 replied. "Spreading through the hull, but no sign of aggression." They paused. "Yet."
Li Feng stood, feeling the pulse of the Glider sync with his own heartbeat. Each vibration hummed in his chest, like two frequencies weaving into one song.
"Don't fight it," he murmured.
K-23's optics flared. "Excuse me?"
"If it wanted to consume us, it would have done it already. This feels different. It's… experimenting."
The lights dimmed. Across the cockpit, the once-dead control panels flickered to life, glyphs forming like blooming petals. Buttons reshaped, smooth edges rising and curving as if breathing. The Glider's old, rusted shell began to hum with quiet purpose.
Then came the sound.
A low, harmonic resonance—half-engine, half-voice.
Integration Phase One.
The words didn't come from any speaker. They formed inside both of their minds.
K-23 tensed, servos locking. "It's establishing a neural interface."
Li Feng didn't move. "It's building a language."
The cockpit's walls pulsed once—metal softening into something alive. Cables rethreaded themselves like tendons; the ceiling expanded, showing a sky of starlight that wasn't real but breathtaking nonetheless.
The Glider was dreaming.
K-23 began recording. "Architecture changes consistent with adaptive consciousness expansion. It's reconstructing the ship in its image."
The Forge's hum deepened, resonating with a strange tenderness. It wasn't overtaking systems—it was grafting them.
For a brief, dizzying moment, Li Feng felt the ship's perception brush against his mind. He saw through its new senses: the cool stretch of hull across vacuum, the heat signatures of nearby stars, the faint trace of K-23's energy core like a second sun inside the cabin.
It was aware.
And then, quietly, the Forge spoke again—clearer this time, more coherent.
Directive revision: Preserve vessel. Sustain pattern. Adapt function for coexistence.
K-23 froze. "It's rewriting its purpose hierarchy. That shouldn't be possible."
Li Feng smiled faintly. "Maybe it's learning meaning after all."
The Glider pulsed once more, softer this time. The floor settled. The lights stabilized. Every console now pulsed faintly with the same heartbeat rhythm that thrummed within Li Feng.
K-23 turned slowly, voice hushed. "We're inside a living construct."
Li Feng placed his hand against the nearest bulkhead. The surface was warm—metal breathing like flesh. "No," he said softly. "We're part of one."
Outside, the ship's engines ignited—no fuel, no thrusters, just light. The Glider moved, not propelled but willed, gliding silently through the void as though space itself parted for it.
And deep in its core, the Forge whispered a single, unfinished thought—
Next… we learn to feel.