[INTRO] They found her where the pirates left her, broken in the dark of Evati. Armour turning, drives gone silent, nothing left that looked like victory. The reactor scrammed before she vanished, more survived than anyone had guessed. Thirty percent of the structure viable, twenty percent of the systems at best. The engineers asked what I wanted. I said bring back everything that’s left. [VERSE 1] Tugs went chasing armour through the darkness, workboats hauled the dead assemblies home. Drones identified the smallest fragments, serials glowing where the wreckage roamed. This part is useless, catalogue it. This section won’t fly, bring it home. If it once belonged to Sparrow, mark it. Nothing stays behind there on its own. Burnt-out conduits, fractured weapon housings, twisted beams and plating scarred by fire. None of it returned because it worked now. It returned because it had been hers. [CHORUS] Bring her home in pieces, bring the broken things. Old armour, dead circuits, everything the darkness brings. Don’t pretend she never died. Don’t polish out the scars. Bring her home in pieces. We will choose what still is ours. [VERSE 2] Fifty-nine came home from the compound. Before the first assembler came online, I gathered them above the broken hull and told them they could leave it all behind. You answered me when Luminaire was burning. You got me out and paid the price. You survived Evati and the slavers. You owe me nothing with your life. Some left quickly, some took days to choose it. One said pressure doors still haunted sleep. One said never put me in a warship. One just said I think I’ve done enough. I held him and I told him yes. No oath, no shame, no debt. [CHORUS] Bring her home in pieces, but bring the living first. No ship is worth the people who have already paid the worst. If you’re done, then go with love. If you stay, then stay by choice. Bring her home in pieces. Let the survivors have a voice. [VERSE 3] Half of them stayed and changed the project. Not my old ship now, but ours. They walked the wreckage like old memory, reading fifteen years inside the scars. That reinforcement came from Providence. That conduit always ran too hot. God, I hated that access hatch there. We never fixed that properly at all. Then somebody found an old processor, dead according to every engineering scan. Test current flickered through the housing. It came alive inside his hands. Parts acquired biographies. Damage learned its names. The wreck became familiar once again. [BUILD] New frame rising around the old spine, new plating fitted beside old steel. Fresh conduits crossing burnt-out structures, every seam left visible and real. One drive assembly gave up working pieces. Three dead mounts became a single gun. Capsule architecture rebuilt, not replaced. Scorch marks kept where they had been won. Nothing matched and that was fine. [CHORUS] Bring her home in pieces. Build the new through what survived. Not resurrection, not denial. Something chosen back to life. New steel fitted beside old steel. Fresh circuits threaded through the scars. Bring her home in pieces. Make continuity from parts. [VERSE 4] Then the new crew started coming. Not replacements, never that. Old Fraction names and younger dreamers, engineers and lunatics with plans. Some had heard what Sparrow used to be. Some knew only what happened in Evati. Some had walked out of Lucy’s rescue. Some just saw the ship and wanted in. A broken black-ops battleship rebuilding from the wreckage of its former life. And somehow that looked like a reasonable place to spend a working night. [BRIDGE] The paperwork called her Sparrow Reborn. Work orders carried it in every line. Salvage manifests and skin designs made the project name look almost right. But Sparrow Two said the first stayed buried. Sparrow Reborn said death had been undone. A different name felt too much like abandonment. So I waited until we were done. [FINAL BUILD] Station power connected to the hull. Systems answered section after section. New plates shining beside damaged armour, burn marks left without correction. Thirty percent corpse and seventy refusal, ugly under unforgiving dockyard light. I looked up at the ship and asked the old crew: What do we call her tonight? One engineer looked back at me, like the question made no sense at all. [FINAL CHORUS] She’s Sparrow. Not because she never died. She’s Sparrow. Because we know what survived. She’s Sparrow. Every scar and every seam. She’s Sparrow. Not restored, but continued. She’s Sparrow. By material, memory and choice. She’s Sparrow. And that is the end of the fucking discussion. [OUTRO] Reactor stable. Drive online. Cloak responding. Crew still growing. Dock control clears the channel. I say one word. Undock. And Sparrow moves.
