Pfes-005

It traced the residue.

It was a standard-issue retrieval drone, serial PFES-005, no more than a scuffed metal sphere the size of a clenched fist. Its mission was simple: drift through the wreckage of the Odysseus mining vessel, locate the emergency black box, and return to the salvage bay. It had done this a thousand times on a thousand other dead ships. PFES-005

PFES-005’s logic core churned. This was unsolicited, emotional, unscientific. It should have ignored the log and resumed its search for the black box. It traced the residue

Instead, it copied the file.

PFES-005’s micro-thrusters fired in soft, precise bursts as it navigated a corridor choked with frozen coolant and torn insulation. Its internal chronometer ticked past the three-hour mark. No black-box signal yet. Instead, its spectrographic sensor caught something odd—a faint, repeating pattern of organic residue on the bulkhead. Not blood. Something older. Duller. Like powdered bone mixed with rust. It had done this a thousand times on

The last transmission from PFES-005 to the salvage vessel Recurve arrived forty-seven minutes later, corrupted but partially recoverable:

But the Odysseus was different.