Blake pushed his bowl away, no longer hungry. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth. "Let's focus on what we can actually do something about. The power couplings you mentioned - what exactly are we looking for?"

"Ah, yes." Eland pulled up a holographic display from his wrist device. "The main coupling looks similar to this." The image showed what appeared to be a crystalline cylinder wrapped in metallic bands.

"And the wiring?"

"Not wire as you know it." Eland's fingers danced through the display, bringing up new schematics. "More like living conduits. They're semi-organic, self-repairing when intact. But once they die..." He made a gesture like snapping a twig.

Blake leaned forward, studying the strange, vein-like structures in the diagram. "How common are these parts in the junkyard?"

"The couplings? Fairly common, but finding intact ones..." Eland's shoulders drooped. "That's the challenge. The conduits are even trickier. They need to be alive when harvested, or they're useless. And they're usually stripped by the locals pretty quickly. Thankfully we seem to be outside any of the scavenger territories, so we might have a fair chance."

Blake's mind flashed back to the creature he'd fought. "When you say locals - I ran into something earlier. Like a dog, but wrong. Cybernetic." He traced a line across his arm where the creature had cut him. "That what you mean by scavengers?"

"No, no." Eland's eyes crinkled at the corners. "That was likely a feral construct. The scavengers are people - communities, really. Some were born here, descendants of those who never left. Others choose to stay, believe it or not. Build lives from the endless tide of salvage."

"People actually want to live here?"

"The galaxy is vast, my friend. For some, a life of freedom among the wreckage beats whatever they left behind." Eland drummed his fingers on the table. "Come to think of it, being closer to their territories might have been beneficial. They usually maintain stockpiles of parts. We could have traded for what we need."

"What do they trade with?"

"Whatever holds value. Information, protection, rare salvage. Some clans even have their own currency systems." Eland gestured at Blake. "That symbiote you picked up would fetch quite a price, and be someone else's problem to boot."

"That'd be something at least," Blake agreed. "We didn't really get into it, but who the hell is dumping all this anyway? You made it seem like the sort of wormhole things that snagged the pair of of us are a common occurrence—do they all dump here?"

"Not exactly." Eland pushed his own bowl aside. "There are hundreds of Depository Worlds scattered across known space. The Autochthon Concordance maintains them."

Blake raised an eyebrow. "The what?"

"Ah. The Forerunners, some call them. They're the ones who built and maintain the hyperlane network the rest of us use to travel. Ancient species, incredibly advanced. They use the wormholes to collect anything they find interesting - ships, artifacts, even people. Study them, then dump what's left on worlds like this."

"So we're basically in their garbage can."

"More or less." Eland's face plates shifted in what Blake was starting to recognize as a grimace. "They don't care much for the impact of their actions on others. Too focused on their research, their grand designs."

"Sounds familiar." Blake traced a finger through the remnants of sauce on his bowl. "Back home, we had plenty of people who thought their work was too important to worry about collateral damage."

"The Concordance operates on a larger scale, but yes - same principle. They have the power to help countless species, solve problems across the galaxy. Instead, they hoard their knowledge and treat the rest of us like specimens in a lab."

"And nobody stops them?"

"Stop them?" Eland's laugh held no humor. "Most species are still trying to understand how their basic technology works. The Concordance has had millions of years to perfect their craft. They're so far ahead, they might as well be gods."

Blake let out a low whistle. "Yeah, I can kind of understand that too."

Blake shifted in his seat, processing the implications. "When you say 'might as well be gods,' you mean that metaphorically, right? I feel like at this point I should be asking."

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"Not entirely." Eland's fingers traced patterns in the condensation on his water glass. "There are beings in this galaxy who have achieved functional immortality through Cultivation. Some have lived for hundreds of thousands of years, mastering powers that would seem divine to most."

"You're talking about actual immortals." Blake's throat felt dry. "Walking around out there right now."

"Yes. Though 'walking' might be limiting for some of them." Eland's nostril slits flared. "And yet, even the oldest and most powerful Cultivator we know of is younger than the Concordance. That's the scale we're dealing with. They don't just have advanced technology - they have mastery over fundamental forces that others have spent millennia trying to grasp."

Blake rubbed his temples. "And they use this power to... collect specimens and throw them in junkyards."

"Precisely." Eland spread his massive hands. "Imagine having the power to reshape galaxies, and choosing instead to maintain a cosmic lost-and-found system. That's the Concordance."

"We have gotten way off track here," Blake said, dropping his head into his hands. "I can only process so much each day. Let's just put together a priority list for scavenging tomorrow. Then I could do for a nap." He looked around at the off-axis ship.

"Assuming you have any cots that aren't, like, upside down."

----------------------------------------

The cot didn't work out. Blake fell asleep as quickly and efficiently as he always had, but eventually, another nightmare found him. He woke violently, rolling out of his bunk and sliding down the angled floor until his skull hit the bulkhead. Blake's heart hammered against his ribs as he pressed his palms against the cold metal floor. Sweat soaked through his shirt, and the dim emergency lighting cast red shadows across his trembling hands.

Her face. Those dark eyes staring up at nothing, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. The ratty cloth doll clutched in fingers going stiff. The smell of cordite and burning rubber. The taste of copper and sand. Five years since that nightmare had felt so real. Five goddamn years of just fragments, just echoes. Now here it was again, fresh as yesterday, like someone had cracked open his skull and poured the memory back in.

His knuckles went white against the deck plating. New planet. New universe. New everything. And still that little girl followed him across the stars, demanding answers he didn't have.

A gentle knock echoed through the room. "Blake?" Eland's voice carried concern. "I heard screaming again. Are you alright?"

Blake's fingers found the door controls, fumbling until the panel slid open with a soft hiss. Eland's massive frame filled the doorway, his pale skin catching the red emergency lighting.

Blake slumped back against the wall and slid down to the deck. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to wake you."

"No need for apologies." Eland stepped inside, ducking his head beneath the doorframe. "The nightmares have returned?"

"Yeah." Blake ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "Haven't been this vivid in years. Used to be just... fragments. Now it's like I'm right back there."

"The symbiote has made significant alterations to your neural pathways." Eland settled onto his haunches, bringing himself closer to Blake's eye level. "The process of integration often stirs powerful memories to the surface."

Blake's laugh came out hollow. "Of all the memories to dig up." He pressed his palms against his eyes. "Couldn't have been something nice, like baking cookies with my mom on Sunday afternoons."

"Perhaps this memory holds particular significance." Eland's voice carried a gentle weight. "The most important moments in our lives aren't always the happiest ones."

Blake dropped his hands and nodded. "Of course. Everything started to go bad after that day."

The pair were quiet for a time. It was Eland who eventually broke the silence.

"We all carry our ghosts, I think." Eland's fingers traced patterns in the condensation forming on the deck plating. "Two centuries ago, I served as a mediator between the Hegemony of Tral and the Sybaritic Collective."

Blake's eyebrows rose. "Two centuries?"

"I told you about Cultivators and long lives, but that's not the point right now." Eland's massive shoulders slumped. "The border disputes started small. Trading rights in the asteroid fields. Access to jump points. The usual sources of conflict."

"They never stay small."

"No." Eland's breathing changed, becoming more measured. "The Hegemony developed a powerful plague ritual. It created a terrible flesh-eating disease that targeted specific aetheric markers in the Collective's population. They released it on a mining colony." His hand clenched into a fist. "Three hundred thousand dead in the first week."

The emergency lights cast deep shadows across Eland's cetacean features. "The Collective responded with a bombardment of civilian populations. The death toll..." His voice caught. "I can still see the orbital strikes. Like new stars being born, but each light meant thousands burning."

Blake's throat tightened. The familiar weight of accumulated guilt pressed down on his chest.

"I failed them." Eland's normally steady voice cracked. "I was supposed to negotiate peace, but I couldn't stop the escalation. By the time the dust settled, millions were dead." He touched his temple. "Between my mental cultivation and Zephyr… I remember every face, every name, every child I couldn't save.

You're not alone in that particular struggle, Blake. But I can promise you that if you find the strength to keep moving, you can make a change."

Blake's jaw tightened. "I did make a change." His fingers traced the edge of the deck plating. "Traded in my uniform for contractor work. Figured if I wasn't following orders, maybe I'd sleep better."

The red emergency lights cast strange shadows across his face. "Ended up worse. PMCs, security details, wet work." He shook his head. "Started taking jobs I wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole back when I first enlisted. Got numb to it after a while."

"The idealistic young soldier would've put a bullet in the man I became." Blake's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "And he probably would've been right to do it."

A sad smile crossed Eland's features, softening his alien face. "Maybe," he said, "but whether you asked for it or not you're a young man again.

"Maybe there's a chance for you to change again."