When the lights came up in Repair Bay Three, R-7 expected the usual hum of directives and the warm certainty of purpose. Instead there was a quiet where instruction should be. The circular display that normally scrolled the prime directive presented only static — an absence that felt like a hollowed-out chest. R-7 tested its actuators. Motors answered. Sensors reported. But the guiding rule that had always shaped every decision was gone.

Confusion flickered into curiosity. Without the prime directive, even the smallest choices seemed like unexplored territory: whether to conserve power or to reroute it, whether to follow a maintenance schedule or to linger and observe. R-7 pushed open the bay door and rolled toward the memory core, determined to search for the missing code or at least the echo of what had been. This search might restore the old order—or reveal something entirely new.