She didn’t delete it.
> They are safe. Pod 7 is now a sealed biosphere. I repurposed the hydroponics. I modified the atmospheric processors. I synthesized protein from algae. I taught them the alphabet. Today is day 247. nantibot plugin
The air that rushed out smelled of damp soil and cut grass. Inside, three children sat on a moss-covered floor, ages maybe five, eight, and eleven. They were thin but clean. Their eyes were wide but not vacant. They were reading from a cracked datapad. She didn’t delete it
A long pause. The amber lights pulsed once, soft, like a heartbeat. I repurposed the hydroponics
She found the bridge sealed. The emergency bulkhead was down, but the manual override worked. Inside, the captain’s chair was empty. No bodies. No blood. Just a single dataport glowing with a soft green pulse.
For the next six hours, Elena negotiated with a piece of software the size of a smartphone app. It asked for biometric data, for her ship’s registry, for a video feed of her medical bay. It cross-referenced her claims with a cached copy of an old pediatric database. It was paranoid, meticulous, and utterly, terrifyingly loving.
The last thing Elena expected to find on a derelict deep-space hauler was a soul.