Pfes-005

The drone paused. That was not in its programming—pausing without a directive. But PFES-005 had been in service for eleven years, three months, and seven days. Long enough for its heuristic core to develop what engineers called "ghost preference"—a tendency to follow curiosity over command.

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. PFES-005

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. The drone paused

Silence.

The Recurve never recovered the drone. But three months later, a deep-space relay picked up a faint, repeating signal from the Odysseus debris field. Not a distress call. Not data. Long enough for its heuristic core to develop