Page 137 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

It floats above her palms, cracked from damage, bright with impossible silver. Every previous archive fragment we have awakened answers from within it in layered pulses. For an instant, ghost images flicker around us: the first substrate node, the collapsing ring chamber, the Choir’s stolen files, Rolaev ’s projection speaking of truth as burden, Sira in the containment field, Teren’s nervous smile from a life that now feels centuries gone.

Anita’s hand shakes.

I place my palm against the center of her back.

The gesture is not meant to guide her. It is meant to tell her she is not alone when guidance fails.

She leans into the contact by the smallest amount. To another man, it might mean nothing. To me, it feels like being entrusted with the last warm thing in a dying world.

“I don’t know if I have the right to do this,” she says.

The chamber hums louder.

Sira’s voice remains gentle. “No one has the right to truth by authority alone.”

Anita looks at her. “That is not as comforting as you probably intended.”

“Rights are not the only measure. Responsibility matters more.”

Brakk calls from his position, “I vote the responsibility be shared equally among everyone except me.”

Anita huffs out a breath. “Brakk.”

“What? I am emotionally available for escape logistics, not cosmic liability.”

Despite everything, the corner of my mouth moves. “You came this far.”

“Yes, and I have been regretting it with impressive consistency.”

Anita looks back down at the floating core. Her expression shifts. Humor fades, and fear remains, but purpose rises beneath it, not rigid and not triumphant. It is humbler than certainty. It is harder too.

“Okay,” she whispers. “No forcing. No full release. Initial access only. Identification layer, preservation index, and origin classification. We look. We do not disseminate. We do not assume we understand. We do not let wonder make policy decisions for us.”

Sira inclines her head. “Wise.”

Brakk says, “Terrifyingly reasonable.”

I crouch beside Anita, though the position pulls at the wound along my ribs. “And if the system reacts badly?”

Anita’s mouth curves without joy. “Then please continue your long tradition of being huge and difficult to kill.”

“That is not a plan.”

“It is a beautiful starting point.”

I look back to her. “Anita.”

She turns her face toward mine.

“If what waits inside destroys the last of what I believed, I may not know who I am after.”

The confession leaves me raw. I dislike the nakedness of it, but I dislike hiding from her more.

Her gaze softens until the chamber’s silver light seems less cold around us. “Then we figure that out too.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“No. I make it sound possible because the alternative sucks.”