The child was failing.

  The guardian crouched low beside the pod, black claws flexing into the earth, nostrils flaring with shallow exhales. Its sleek, obsidian-colored fur glistened beneath the mist. Beneath the surface, semi-organic musculature twitched in anticipation, processing distress it had no clear protocol for.

  Breath: shallow.

  Temperature: rising.

  Cellular degradation: accelerating.

  Infection. Rapid onset. Viral.

  But from where?

  The cradle’s environmental seal had held through reentry and activation. No detected punctures. No fluid transfer. Internal systems had remained secure until the moment of emergence.

  It scanned again.

  Still no trauma.

  Still no exposure points.

  Yet the boy’s skin glistened—not from rainfall or humidity, but from rising heat. His internal systems were destabilizing.

  The guardian froze.

  What did I overlook?

  Data scrolled through its neural matrix—lists of default Volarrian enhancements administered to all bio-born children.

  Ocular calibration.

  Pulmonary resilience.

  Neurological priming.

  Metabolic equalizers.

  Immunoenhancer.

  Its pupils narrowed.

  He didn’t have one.

  The guardian’s elongated limbs tensed. Vertebrae arched slightly. Internal tension coiled through its half-matured frame.

  He had been born into emergency, cast away during collapse. He had never received the suite of defensive augmentations. No antibody scaffolding. No resistance profile. No encoded microbiotic layers.

  He was undefended.

  On Volarria, even filtered air required multiple pathogen countermeasures. Here—surrounded by an untamed biosphere, teeming with microscopic threats—everything was hostile.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  It turned to the cradle’s med-support unit. Inert. Filters dry. Synth storage: compromised. The crash and centuries of stasis had rendered all supplies unusable.

  No backups.

  No artificial antibodies.

  The guardian rose, fur rippling with subtle motion, and scanned the dense forest beyond. Its sensory nodes swept through layered foliage, tracking heat trails and molecular traces. Its gait remained low and controlled, though each movement revealed an animalistic grace—limbs jointed like a predator, spine flexing with deliberate economy.

  There had to be something.

  It moved to the bear’s carcass—still warm. Blood pooled beneath the mass of tangled fur and ruptured flesh. The guardian lowered its head and extended a filament from beneath its forelimb, sliding it into exposed tissue.

  Adrenal saturation: high.

  Pathogen presence: unstable.

  Adaptive markers: present.

  Too volatile to use. But… instructive.

  It retracted the probe and turned toward the forest, scanning again.

  Plant life pulsed with raw, unshaped biochemistry. Leaves. Spores. Moss. Bark. Roots.

  Search parameters expanded.

  The creature's snout twitched as it absorbed chemical traces directly through olfactory receptors and secondary dermal channels embedded across its jaw and chest. A subtle tremor passed through its left hind leg—a reminder of unfinished growth. It could not risk self-evolving now. The pain would be catastrophic. The changes would be minor at best.

  No. Not yet.

  Instead, it gathered what its systems deemed most promising. Bitter leaves. Viscous root bulbs. A fibrous growth shaped like coral protruding from a rotting log.

  Time fractured.

  Back and forth. Search and return. Collect and process.

  Between every scan, it checked the child.

  Sweat clung to the boy’s pale skin. His breath came in ragged pulses. Beneath the thermal wrap, his limbs jerked softly with fever tremors. Oxygen efficiency continued to fall.

  The guardian nudged him gently, elevating his upper body. It repositioned the wrap. Adjusted ambient airflow. Activated the cradle’s failed filtration system to recycle any moisture from the air it could condense.

  Blood saturation: falling.

  Pulmonary response: unstable.

  Temperature: reaching irreversible limits.

  The guardian turned to the nutrient synthesizer—a device not built for medicine, but for basic survival. It rerouted power, redirected heat flow, rewrote its internal command line.

  Sample one: unstable.

  Sample two: short-lived.

  Sample three: collapsed under compound stress.

  The child gasped.

  The guardian was instantly beside him, large black frame curled low. Its snout pressed softly against the boy’s chest.

  Heart rate: fluttering.

  Lungs: near failure.

  Skin: cold beneath the heat.

  It lingered there a moment—then pulled away.

  Back to work.

  It ground the fourth and fifth samples. Added stabilizer pulp. A thin line of enzyme-rich fluid from the bear’s liver. Forced it through the nutrient sieve with every bypass it could engage.

  The lights above flickered.

  It ignored them.

  The boy convulsed.

  The guardian leapt to his side, catching him before he collapsed again against the pod floor. It pulled him upright, cradling him gently in its forelimbs, wrapping around his body like a curved obsidian shell.

  Then, it fed him.

  Drop by drop, it let the steaming compound fall into the boy’s mouth, pressing his throat in precise rhythmic pulses to encourage swallowing.

  He did. Once. Then again.

  His body stilled.

  Still no change.

  The guardian administered the rest of the dose and reset the wrap to reduce internal energy loss. It scanned again.

  No improvement.

  No reaction.

  Only instability.

  The rain fell harder. The pod creaked beneath it.

  The guardian turned and stared down at the boy’s face, now pale and motionless under the flickering glow of the medbay.

  There was nothing more to give.

  No more material.

  No more enhancements.

  Only night.

  And the slow, silent hours it would endure.

  It curled at the edge of the cradle, talons tucked beneath its limbs, sleek black fur damp and steaming against the cold.

  It did not move.

  It did not sleep.

  It waited.