Toren didn't flinch.
He gave her a look somewhere between a sigh and a smirk. "Could we start with hello?"
"Hello. What the hell is that?" She nodded toward the flickering diagram.
"I'm working on something," he said, not quite answering.
"I can see that." Mira stepped closer, narrowing her eyes. "What I can't see is how you got a stabilized projection interface without a power relay or data core."
"Trade secret."
"You don't have anything to trade."
"Yet."
That made her blink. She tilted her head, inspecting him like he was a malfunctioning droid. "Something happened, didn't it?"
"Maybe."
"You fall into another power crystal and start glowing again?"
"No glowing this time."
She crouched beside the blueprint, holding out a hand just close enough for the shimmer to ripple at her fingertips. Her eyes widened slightly. "This isn't standard salvage. This is responsive. Did you make this?"
"Sort of."
"That's not a thing people can do, Vale."
"Well," he said, straightening, "I'm not people."
She looked up sharply.
"I didn't mean it like that," he added quickly. "Look, I need help. I need to build this. And you're the only person here who could actually help without hammering the walls together backward."
Her lips pursed. "And what do I get?"
"What do you want?"
"Tools. The good kind. Pre-crash stuff. Plus first pick of whatever you pull from your magic box next."
"I don't have—"
"You do," she cut in. "I don't know what's going on, but I've built enough junk from enough wrecks to know when I'm looking at something not from our world."
He hesitated. Then nodded.
"Deal."
She stuck out her grease-slick hand. "No take-backs."
He shook it.
And just like that, Toren's first alliance was formed.