Aiden stepped into the ship and sealed the hatch behind him after leaving the native settlement.
The lock closed with a heavy metallic sound, and it echoed through the corridor before fading away. Only a short time ago, the settlement had been full of life. People moved around him from every direction.
Voices were loud and excited. There had been cheers when the trades were finished, hands clapping against shoulders, and children running past without fear. The place felt crowded, warm, and full of motion.
Inside the ship, there was nothing like that.
The air was cold and still, filtered and recycled without care. No footsteps followed him. No voices carried through the metal walls. The space felt empty in a way the settlement never was.
The sudden quiet made his chest feel tight, and for the first time since leaving the settlement, Aiden felt how alone he truly was.
He adjusted the pack on his shoulders and moved deeper inside, boots tapping softly against the floor panels. The lights were dim and uneven, running on emergency routing only.
He did not stop at the sleeping compartment or the food storage and went straight to the workshop without slowing down.
This was not something he could afford to delay again.
Aiden set his pack down on the central worktable and unfastened the straps with care. He opened it slowly and began removing the contents one by one. Each monster core fragment was wrapped separately, cushioned, and labeled by hand. He laid them out in a straight line, spacing them evenly, his eyes tracking each piece as it touched the table.
Some were whole cores, dense and heavy, while others were fragments shaped from earlier work, each one placed with care. Four of them were Rank D cores, stable but strong, and ten were Rank E cores that still held reliable output. Alongside them were twenty Rank F cores, smaller and weaker, kept separate from the rest.
Aiden did not touch the smallest ones taken from the bunny like monsters. Those cores were too weak to matter right now, and he did not want to waste time integrating them into the ship systems.
He focused instead on the Rank D and Rank E cores. Together, they were enough to restore most of the ship basic functions, providing roughly seventy percent of the power J.E.M. needed to operate safely. It was not full capacity, but it was stable and controllable.
The twenty Rank F cores were set aside. They would be used for tools, emergency devices, and future projects, and if needed, they could supply the remaining twenty percent of power to the ship later.
After counting them again, Aiden no longer hesitated.
He had enough power to bring J.E.M. back online.
The tension that had been sitting behind his eyes since the settlement finally eased, but he did not let himself relax. Having enough power meant nothing if he fed it into the ship the wrong way. A surge could damage systems permanently. An unstable boot could corrupt the AI core beyond repair.
If J.E.M. failed again, it might never come back.
Aiden turned and slid open the wall panel he had left exposed days ago. The interior plating pulled away to reveal cables, ports, and manual access points that were never meant to stay visible. He leaned closer, tracing the thick power lines with his eyes as his mind rebuilt the ship layout from memory.
Main feed > Backup feed > Emergency routing
He knew where each one went now, not because he had been blindly testing things, but because he studied the schematics every singe day during the passing days since the crash.
Even when the ship had no spare power, he spent hours reviewing system layouts, tracing power routes, and memorizing every connection point until he no longer needed a screen.
Most of the work happened inside his head. Day after day, his thoughts ran through thousands of trial and error paths, testing failures, corrections, and safer alternatives without touching a single wire. Every possible mistake had already been imagined and adjusted while the ship stayed silent.
He just needs to execute it well now.
Aiden was one of the geniuses of the younger generation within the Milky Way Federation after all, and this was the moment where all those days of planning were finally put to the test.
He reached into a storage bin and lifted out the device he had built for this exact purpose.
It was a Monster Core Harness Unit, or so what he liked to call it; it was a compact frame designed to hold monster cores securely while controlling how their energy flowed.
The harness had adjustable sockets that could expand or tighten depending on core size, allowing different ranks to be mounted without stressing the housing.This was also done so he would not need to manually cut each monster core, since doing so would always result in some loss of the energy they held.
Each socket fed into an internal channel that stabilized output before sending it onward.
From there, the energy was routed into a power storage unit.
That storage unit had been removed from the ship original nuclear core charging station, repurposed and modified to accept bio energy instead of nuclear output. Aiden had reinforced it by hand, testing it repeatedly with low grade cores until he was sure it would not overload.
This setup would not push power directly into the ship.
It would store it first it first.
Only then would the stored energy be released in carefully measured amounts, providing J.E.M. with exactly the level of power it required to operate safely.
He gathered everything he needed before moving on. The core harness unit, the power storage module, his multi tool, and the supporting devices were secured in his arms along with the selected cores. Once he was sure nothing was missing, he left the workshop and headed deeper into the ship.
The nuclear core room sat at the center of the vessel, sealed behind multiple layers of protection. With J.E.M. still unavailable, the automated systems did not respond, forcing Aiden to rely on manual security instead. He stopped in front of the door and placed his hand against the scanner. The bio lock activated, reading his thumb print, scanning his eyes
Then he picked up the first D Rank Core.
It rested in his palm with a weight that felt wrong for its size, as if gravity itself bent slightly around it. The surface was cool and smooth, absorbing heat without reacting. Aiden did not dwell on it.
He brought it to the mounting socket he had prepared and locked it into place.
The mechanism tightened with a sharp click.
He watched closely.
Nothing happened.
That was good.
He connected the monster core to its regulator and began tightening the screws, applying pressure slowly and evenly. He tested each connection with a probe, checking resistance and flow tolerance, making sure there was no chance of arcing if demand spiked. When he was satisfied, he moved to the second monster core.
This one went into a separate socket, spaced deliberately away from the first.
This one went into a separate socket, spaced deliberately away from the first, and as it locked into place the power display panel came to life, showing the power storage module rising from zero percent to one percent, then two, then three percent as energy began to flow and stabilize.
The second monster core was now locked into place, and he wired it through its own regulator, keeping the lines independent until they reached the junction. He tested it twice before moving on.
The third monster core was larger.
He mounted each core carefully, securing them one by one into the harness sockets and keeping the switches open until everything was in place. All four Rank D cores were added first, their combined output feeding steadily into the system until the power display climbed to forty percent.
After that, he installed the ten Rank E cores, watching as their energy joined the flow and pushed the total higher.
The numbers on the display continued to rise in a slow, controlled manner.
Fifty percent.Sixty percent.Then finally, seventy percent.
Aiden finished locking the final socket and stepped back, eyes fixed on the panel as the power storage module stabilized at seventy percent capacity. The flow remained smooth, with no spikes and no warning indicators, exactly as he had planned.
He leaned back slightly and scanned the entire setup, checking every connection, every socket, and every readout.
This was enough.
J.E.M. now had the power it needed to come back online safely.
The setup was crude compared to the ship original systems, but Aiden knew it was solid.
The core harness unit was stable. The power storage module was holding seventy percent of the ship total power without fluctuation. Every regulator showed smooth output, and no warning lights were active. He checked the readings one last time before lifting the assembled device with both hands.
It was heavier now, dense with stored energy.
Aiden carried it deeper into the ship, toward the nuclear core chamber. The path felt different this time. The lights were still dim, but he knew that was about to change. He reached the charging station positioned beside the nuclear core housing, a reinforced port originally designed to accept controlled nuclear output and distribute it across the ship.
He aligned the power storage module carefully and slid it into place.
The locking rails engaged with a deep mechanical sound, and the interface seals tightened around the module. For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then the charging station indicators activated, and the transfer began.
The nuclear core started drawing power in slowly.
The ship responded almost immediately. Emergency lighting shifted to standard illumination as panels brightened across the corridor. Systems that had been dormant hummed back to life, the sound spreading through the hull like a long held breath finally released. The vibration under his boots changed, subtle but unmistakable.
Power saving mode was disengaged automatically.
The ship no longer needed to cling to survival settings.
Aiden watched the displays as the flow stabilized. Environmental systems adjusted. Internal circulation resumed. Basic infrastructure came online without strain. The ship was awake again, not fully restored, but functional in a way it had not been since the crash.
A slow smile formed on his face before he could stop it. The tight pressure that had been sitting in his chest for days finally eased, replaced by a quiet sense of relief and satisfaction. Hearing the ship hum again, feeling the vibration return under his boots, made the long nights of planning and waiting feel worth it.
Just because he had enough power, doesn't mean he needs to use it all though.
Still smiling faintly, Aiden moved to the control panel and re enabled power saving mode manually, setting it to a controlled operational state rather than emergency restriction.
The ship did not need full output to function now, and wasting energy was still dangerous on this world. The difference was that now he could move through the ship, use its facilities, and work without fear of sudden shutdowns.
He returned to the regulators and began setting a failsafe.
If the core harness malfunctioned, power would be cut instantly. The ship would never receive a direct surge from the monster cores themselves. Instead, the power storage module would absorb the fault, isolating the failure before it could reach the main systems. He tested the cutoff twice, watching the indicators respond exactly as intended.
The charging station continued drawing power at a steady rate. The regulators remained stable. There was no heat buildup, no pressure warnings, and no irregular readings across the entire system.
Aiden stood there for several seconds, listening to the hum of the ship as it filled the space around him.
For the first time in a long while, the ship felt alive again.
As the terminal responded, integrity scans began running across the screen in steady lines of data. Aiden watched closely as memory blocks were checked one by one, followed by logic chains and internal failsafe that governed how the AI made decisions.
Each process took time, and he forced himself to stay still, reading every result instead of skipping ahead.
Some of the entries returned clean, marked as fully functional and stable. Others returned warnings, showing areas where data had degraded or where logic pathways no longer matched their original structure.
Aiden had expected this because the ship had suffered heavy damage, extreme power loss, and long periods of partial shutdown, and several sections had been completely destroyed on impact.
Some internal wiring had been burned beyond repair during the fire while he was unconscious, and although he managed to save parts of it later, the damage was already done and could not be fully reversed.
He was not trying to restore the ship to a state where it could lift off again anyways, because that was impossible now. What Aiden truly needed was J.E.M. operational.
Aiden began isolating the corrupted data with care. He did not delete anything. Instead, he placed damaged memory blocks into quarantine, cutting them off from active use while preserving their contents for future repair.
Each decision was made slowly, with confirmation after confirmation. J.E.M. had spent years learning, adapting, and refining its processes. Erasing that history would weaken it far more than any temporary malfunction.
His fingers moved steadily across the terminal as his eyes burned from constant focus. He paused after every action to double check the results, refusing to rush even when the system urged him forward. One mistake here could cause unstable behavior later, and he would not allow that.
When the final warning cleared, the terminal updated its status.
The AI core was stable and capable of limited operation.
Aiden did not allow himself to relax.
He initiated a staged boot sequence, bringing J.E.M. online in carefully controlled steps. First came diagnostic awareness, allowing the AI to understand its own condition without interacting with the ship.
Next came internal awareness, limited to systems inside the hull. After that, power management routines were restored so J.E.M. could monitor energy flow without influencing it.
He kept personality simulation disabled. He kept autonomous control locked.
This was not the time for comfort or conversation.
As each layer came online, the hum inside the walls grew steadier and deeper. The ship no longer felt like a dead shell. It felt aware, responsive, and grounded. Power demand increased gradually, exactly within the limits he had calculated.
Aiden monitored the readings and made his decision.
He activated the final power input.
The larger fragment fed into the system smoothly, its output absorbed and regulated without any surge. The indicators brightened across the panel, but none of them wavered or flashed. The flow remained clean and stable, just as he had planned.
He returned to the terminal and began imposing new operational limits on J.E.M. He tied every restriction directly to available power thresholds, making sure the AI could never overextend itself by accident. Background simulations were disabled. Continuous monitoring was restricted. No system wide actions could be taken without explicit approval.
This world punished waste.
The ship had to learn that rule as well.
Aiden finalized the configuration and started one last confirmation cycle. The terminal paused, processing the final checks. He did not realize he was holding his breath until his chest tightened and his lungs burned.
Then the screen updated.
The AI was operational.
A second line appeared beneath it, clean and unmistakable.
[Core link established.]
J.E.M. was awake.
It was not whole, and it was not fully restored, but it was alive.
Aiden straightened slowly, keeping his eyes on the screen as the tension drained from his shoulders. His hands relaxed for the first time since he began the process, and a quiet sense of completion settled over him.
The hardest part was finally done.