(From the perspective of DRN-5571)
The communicator lay disassembled between them.
Tiny circuits shimmered in the golden light of a nearby pylon, each piece methodically arranged in a perfect spiral on the stone slab Reva'la had placed it on. The desert wind rustled their clothes, but the Nexus field kept the particles away — as if respecting the silence.
Kaelis knelt, fingers moving with unnatural precision.
"The impact scrambled your primary routing core," he said. "But the rest remains intact."
She watched him closely. Distrust still lingered at the edge of her expression, but it was softer now — replaced by curiosity.
"You don't just build weapons," she said quietly.
He didn't answer. He merely placed the core back into the housing, sealed it, and handed the communicator to her without a word.
She turned it on.
It beeped.
Alive.
She looked at him — something between gratitude and disbelief in her eyes.
"You could've kept it broken," she said. "Cut me off. Kept me here."
Kaelis tilted his head slightly.
"I'm not here to trap. I'm here to build."
---
They sat together as the suns began to fall behind the dunes. Reva'la tapped at the reactivated screen, her brows furrowed, fingers dancing over the interface.
Then she turned it toward him.
"These are sector scans. Outer Rim territories. Places the Empire doesn't bother watching unless there's profit or resistance."
The display showed stars. Worlds. Dusty databanks of terrain, resources, orbital patterns.
"Some of them are lifeless. Some... just forgotten. You could disappear out there. Build something real. Alone, if that's what you want."
He looked at the map. At a red-banded gas giant with four moons. At a frozen planetoid with geothermal pockets. At a world with a cracked surface but rich mineral veins.
So many starting points.
None of them Aiur.
But they could become more.
"I need a place that doesn't already belong to someone else," he said. "Not in law. In memory."
She nodded.
"Then claim one before they do."
---
They sat in silence for a while longer.
Then she glanced sideways.
"You never told me your name."
He paused.
"No one ever asked."
"Then what do you call yourself?"
"A designation. DRN-5571."
She blinked. "That's not a name. That's a file number."
He looked at the stars.
"I don't know what I am yet."
"That's okay," she said. "Names don't always start with answers. Sometimes they're just... a choice."
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he said, softly:
"Kaelis."
Reva'la smiled faintly. "Sounds like someone I could talk to again."
---
In the distance, the pylons hummed softly — the sound of something beginning.