Captain Nibbles keeps his paw steady as the dandelion-seed beings hover close, bells whispering in approval. The crumb disappears into delicate feelers; a tiny leader alights on his helmet rim, tilting like a crown. Nibbles taps his chest, taps the hissing conduit, and mimes a careful wrapping motion. The little creatures answer with a bright, tinkling chord—agreement.

He flicks the thruster to idle, letting the metal cool. At once the weavers descend, anchoring silvery spore-fiber along the hairline crack, crosshatching it like a dew-slick net. Nibbles braces a support ring from his kit over their lattice and smooths a dab of resin to lock it in place. The hiss thins to a whisper, then vanishes; the patch gleams, firm and springy. The air fills with a joyous, bell-bright spiral of sound.

The smallest drifts forward with a gift: a pearly spore-seed that glows faintly in Nibbles’s paws, pulsing in time with the ship’s radio static—as if it understands. A soft tremor ripples beneath the glittering plain, and a candy-sweet breeze tugs toward the horizon. The ship can breathe again, and Nibbles must decide what to do with this newfound friendship and fragile fix.