...We're now passing through the lower garrison of F.O.S. College and approaching the construction site of the Zero-point Reactor.
The reactor build has just entered its fourth year. The Science Council estimates at least another six before final calibration and ignition can even begin.
Some of our younger viewers might not realize this, but even without ignition, humanity's spacefaring capabilities have already outstripped everything the previous generation dreamed possible. All of it, born from the breakthroughs of the preliminary research alone.
The lunar base has now been operational for a full decade. Eight hundred permanent personnel live in the region of eternal daylight at the Moon's south pole, where helium-3 collection pipelines stretch across the craters. The first energy samples are currently en route to Earth for industrial validation.
In Jupiter's orbit, the deep-space observation array runs autonomously, unmanned, transmitting spectral data back to Earth every seventy-two hours. Just last month, it captured the atmospheric spectrum of Proxima Centauri b.
Farther still, Dawn-II drifts through the silence. It has already passed beyond Mars' orbit, accelerating along its pre-plotted course toward the Jupiter gravity assist point.
And when the Zero-point Reactor is finally complete, all of this will have been merely the beginning.
But even now, in this very moment, standing at the Bifrost launch site and looking up, watching that silver track fade into the atmosphere... I believe anyone would feel it, deep in their bones.
We... humanity... are truly setting forth.
F.O.S. Military Command College, Aerospace City District
Equator
A-7 hatch sealed. Pre-pressurization in progress.
Assigned by Gestalt, Lucia and [player name], the inaugural class's premier combat and command operatives, are dispatched to the airborne command post for their rotational field training.
The post itself is a modified heavy transport aircraft, circling at six thousand meters above F.O.S. It functions as the nerve center for regional air defense and a relay hub for drone swarms.
Inside, the cabin is claustrophobically tight, lined with snaking cables, glowing screens, and bathed in a sickly blue-green light. The air hangs thick with the smell of metal and lubricant. Their workstations are pressed so close together that even a slight turn knocks against the other's chair.
[player name] speaks, hands busy calibrating the command terminal in front.
Big enough for two.
Seated shoulder to shoulder before a wall of screens and a sea of switches, Lucia looks to her side. [player name] is bent over a military terminal, fingers moving swiftly across the controls.
It's just a drone test flight, but...
You did your homework. I can tell.
Lucia returns her gaze to her own station. Her fingers find their rhythm instantly, gliding from left to right as she fires up the system programs in one smooth, uninterrupted motion.
Lucia answers with a faint shrug, offering neither agreement nor denial.
They probably figure we're just rookies, not worth the trip.
Fine by me.
She verifies the last group of system parameters. On the screen, the data streams settle into a smooth, steady rhythm.
By the time they show up, we won't need them. We'll have it locked down.
Airborne command online. Alpha 1 to Alpha 3. Joanne, you copy?
Alpha 3, copy. System permissions granted. Coordinating ground data links now.
Inside the makeshift mobile base station, rows of outdated terminals sit in haphazard disarray. One of the overhead fluorescent lights, broken, flickers and buzzes incessantly.
Real-time monitoring of thirty-six comm channels, seven base station nodes, and drone status for "no fewer than two hundred units"...
Holy... is this really a one-person job...?
Joanne flips her rulebook open to the very last page. There, in handwriting so crooked and jagged it looks like something a lizard crawled across the paper, is a single handwritten note.
......
How did she get to write on my stuff??
She inhales deeply, presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, then sinks back into her seat before the dozen-odd screens, their displays pulsing and jumping with data.
Okay... Thirty-six channels... Channel 1...
Hey! Why am I the only one stuck on guard duty outside?!
Ophelia, this is a public channel. Personal grievances do not belong here.
Ugh— Mind your own business!
As the students throw themselves into their training, a black-and-gold stretch limousine cruises at a leisurely pace along the elevated highway skirting the perimeter of Aerospace City.
I had plans for a cosmic star dome on that site, you know. Now look at it, just a dull slab of metal. I'd have done better sticking one of my garden rockeries there. Or a pretty pine tree.
The car creeps along at barely twenty miles an hour. Cassandra hangs her mechanical arm out the window, its metal joints catching the sunlight and glinting as if waving hello to the entire base spread out below.
Keep going that way. Yes, circle around Bifrost again.
Ma'am, this is the third lap today.
And? It's my money. What's wrong with taking another look?
Reclining in her seat, she squints toward the training grounds below. Cadets are scattered across the field, running drills, dismantling gear, crawling on their bellies through the simulated ruins. Sixteen, seventeen at most. Every last one of them is drenched in sweat and caked in dust.
Hmm. Now, where was I?
You were speaking about Gestalt, ma'am. And then the Zero-point Reactor.
Ah, yes. After that, Dominik introduced me to this new project called Construct. Said the technology could turn a person into a mechanical frame capable of resisting cosmic radiation, while perfectly preserving human memory and consciousness.
I told Dominik I didn't care about any of that. All I wanted to know was whether the machines could keep me young forever. Dominik said they could. So I wrote a check.
She lifts her mechanical arm, working the fingers one by one. The joints answer with a faint series of clicks.
After I became the first Dracula, Dominik suddenly asked if I'd be interested in joining a voyage. Said there'd be companions, too, including that legendary madman, Professor Trout.
I asked if Dominik had been playing too many video games. Worked stupid on overtime? Ha! I'm allergic to cat fur. No chance I'm boarding a ship with a man who keeps an orange tabby.
Then, later, Dominik's precious F.O.S. finally got built, taking in students from every corner of the world. And out of nowhere, that person contacted me again, talking about another project. "Sefirah", called it. Went all serious on me—
"There's no time. Your frame might be the only one that can make it happen."
"I can only handle what's on my end. It's a path I have to walk alone."
She wriggles around in the back seat, hands waving, voice pitched into a theatrical parody of the Chief Technician.
What's so special about my frame, anyway? Did Dominik need me because my taste module cost more than everyone else's?
Huh...? Wait. What's that?
...Bifrost, ma'am. That's twice today you've brought it up to tease me. I understand. You funded the thing.
No. I'm talking about the one in the sky—
Far above Bifrost, in the highest reaches of the sky, something flares briefly and vanishes.
Cassandra's arm senses it first. The metal joints spasm hard, like an invisible hand has clamped down on them.
Stop the car.
Ma'am?
I said stop the car!
No sooner does the car stop than a dozen silo hatches across F.O.S.'s military zone slam open all at once.
White smoke erupts upward.
One, two... six. Anti-radiation interceptors blast out of their silos at speeds just shy of human sight, tail flames cutting through the air, straight white smoke trails spearing into the sky.
A second wave launches. Then a third. Acrid clouds of exhaust swallow F.O.S. whole, and shock after shock rattles through the black-and-gold limousine like a tremor through bone.
Cassandra tracks the missiles until they pierce the clouds. The sensors in her mechanical arm are still shaking, even harder now.
Turn around. Back to the control center.
At that very instant, alarms blare across every corner of F.O.S.
Channel 33, signal strength low, flagged as...
...?
A sudden lurch pitches Joanne forward; her stylus slashes an unsteady dark line across the tablet's surface.
A deep, resonant shudder creeps up through her chair, as if something immense and heavy is barreling through the depths beneath them. Her eyes drop to the water glass on her desk. The surface trembles, breaking into countless concentric ripples that pulse outward in delicate, unwavering rings.
...Earthquake?
A thunderous crash, and suddenly the papers are cascading off her desk, the flickering overhead light now strobing in frantic bursts. Joanne clutches the desk's edge, bracing herself, and then she catches the sound.
It's not rising from underground, but coming from overhead.
In a flash, she remembers the simulations: the deep, violent shriek of solid rocket motors igniting, dull and brutal, like a sledgehammer pounding against the ceiling, blow after relentless blow.
—!
She bursts through the station door and runs out.
There, in the direction of Bifrost, over a dozen white contrails lance straight up into the heavens.
Missiles erupt from their silos in rapid succession, each tail flame a searing point of light too fierce to behold. Winds tear the white smoke into impossibly straight lines, stretching from the earth into the cloud layer, then through it, vanishing into some unreachable altitude beyond.
What's... what's going on?
Then another sound reaches her: the high-pitched scream of turbofan engines, multiplied a thousandfold, fused into a ceaseless, chest-rattling drone.
She whirls around. At the military hangar complex on the eastern edge of F.O.S. Aerospace City, every bay door rises as one.
An instant later, thousands of military drones pour forth, a swarm of startled iron-gray birds taking frantic wing. Heat haze shimmers from their exhausts. The formation is so dense that wings nearly clip tails, machine pressing against machine.
Their wings swallow the sunlight. The shadows they cast roll across the earth like thunderclouds, and the bright afternoon collapses into a false dusk.
Joanne stands before the mobile base station, assaulted by winds that tear in from every direction, her eyes squeezed to slits.
Wh-what in the world is happening?!
Airborne Command Post
Altitude: 6,000 Meters
The cabin glows with pale blue light. Data flows across the screens in slow, rhythmic waves. Everything looks routine.
Lucia leans back in her seat, having just finished logging the eastern sector patrol, ready to submit the report to Joanne stationed on the ground.
Simulation Sector E21 patrol clear. No anomalies.
...?
A sudden tingling creeps into Lucia's fingertips. She glances out the window and sees clouds stretch beneath them, and the tip of Bifrost pierces the white sea below, silvered by the afternoon sun. Everything looks perfectly normal.
But something feels off.
[player name], do you feel like...
Bzzt—
All screens go black in the same instant.
For one heartbeat, the cabin is swallowed by absolute darkness. The emergency lights sputter to life, their sickly red glow barely touching their faces, leaving more shadow than illumination.
The main control panel flatlines, zeroes across the board, and then the numbers erupt in wild, manic spasms, corrupting into unreadable code one character at a time.
...What is this? A viral intrusion?
A violent shudder shoots through Lucia's seat, too sharp for turbulence. This is the whole aircraft seizing up, a spasm rippling through its electronic systems as if something had just pierced through.
Their hands hit the terminal almost simultaneously.
What about ground comms? We need to know what's happening.
[player name]'s fingers race over the frequency dial, switching from one channel to the next. One, two... five. Every single one spits back only the cold hiss of static.
Wait... there's one backup line. The ground station!
Joanne! Do you copy?!
BAM—
The metal hatch behind them is suddenly kicked open.
Lucia twists around on pure reflex. A man in a flight crew uniform fills the doorway, weapon drawn and leveled.
Pointed straight at [player name].
—!!
Lucia's body is faster than thought. She kicks off, her chair rocketing backward as she springs forward, left leg whipping into the man's wrist.
The gun spins free, bouncing off the bulkhead and sliding out of reach.
She surges into him, hands clamping around his throat, and rides the momentum straight through the doorway. The man's spine crashes against the cargo shelves with a dull thud.
Haargh!
His forearm snaps upward and smashes through her hold. Before she can recover, he has her by the wrist, locking it and cranking it outward with brutal precision. It's a standard suppression technique, clean and practiced, the kind only a trained close-quarters fighter would know.
Tsk!
Lucia's wrist is wrenched to a dangerous angle, forcing her to pivot with the pressure. The enemy presses the advantage, driving harder to put her on the ground.
Thunk. A dull, heavy impact cuts through the struggle. The man's body goes rigid. His grip on Lucia slackens.
Tch!!
He wheels around, enraged at being blindsided, and launches a punch directly at [player name]'s face.
[player name] ducks the punch with a slight tilt of the head and, rather than retreat, steps in. The left hand snares the man's extended arm, redirecting it wide, as the right palm heel snaps upward into his jaw.
Cough!!
The man stumbles back. [player name] sweeps a leg behind his, plants a shoulder deep into his chest, and commits every pound of weight behind it.
The man struggles to hold his ground, but the force drives him backward until his head slams into a shelf's metal crossbeam. His gaze goes blank for a half-beat.
Hyah!
The next instant, Lucia springs to her feet. Her kick catches him square in the back of the knee; his leg folds, and he topples forward.
She and [player name] move as if sharing a single breath, their coordination seamless, a maneuver they once drilled against each other in the sims.
Together, one from above and one from below, they twist his body and drive it into the ground—
THUD! He hits the deck hard, eyes rolling white as he goes limp.
They release him simultaneously, each retreating half a step, chests heaving.
Lucia works the soreness out of her wrist and nods.
I'm fine. Nice timing.
The two exchange a glance, quickly scanning one another for wounds, then give a single, synchronized nod.
An acrid, burnt odor hangs in the cabin aisle. Under the dark red wash of the emergency lights, pools of liquid glisten across the floor. It's something other than oil.
Blood...
One crew member has crumpled near the turn of the aisle, chest darkened with a spreading wet stain, body already still. Further on, a second figure slumps sideways against the bulkhead, head lolling to one side, with electrical burns seared into the neck.
...Lucia! [player name]!
We read you, Joanne.
Thank goodness, finally! Listen, dozens of drones have gone rogue. They're suicide-bombing F.O.S.!
They're hitting everything. Training grounds, construction sites, supply depots... even Bifrost!
Lucia looks down through the cockpit glass. Between breaks in the clouds, thick black columns of smoke are beginning to climb from the surface of F.O.S. Something is flashing below. Bursts of light ignite across the base, one after the next, like silent, distant blossoms.
We've been hijacked. All aircraft control systems are compromised. Likely something in the forward cockpit.
What? H-hijacked?!
All other channels are down. Joanne, we need help from the ground.
Wait. Let me think... let me think...
Silence hangs over the comms for a few long seconds. Nothing but the muffled chaos of far-off blasts, Joanne's uneven breath, and the unconscious rhythm of her fingertips drumming lightly against the desk.
The drones have been hacked... standard override protocols require commands from the main control tower, but that's almost certainly gone by now...
What can a mobile base station even do...? I've got one backup link, just one, and the bandwidth isn't anywhere near enough for the data streams from over two hundred drones...
Without thinking, her gaze trails across the terminal screen. A small line of text in the lower right corner, which she'd glanced at when she first entered the station, drifts back into focus.
That's it... Gestalt!
She yells out, startling herself with how loud it comes.
I might... be able to request Gestalt's computing power. Use this base station to reverse-override F.O.S.'s entire command system!
I... I have Ms. Cassandra's quantum comms code.
...?
Th-that's not the point right now! Look, the override takes time, okay? And we only get one shot at this. When it's done, you two have to retake the airborne command post. If the enemy figures out another way in before then, it's game over!
I have no idea if this will even work... I'll link up with whatever drones are still operational through the base station and buy as much time as I can to protect Bifrost!
Seems we aren't the only ones with that idea.
Lucia fixes her gaze on the darkness stretching ahead through the cabin. Footsteps sound from inside it.
Out of the red-lit gloom, ominous figures begin to take shape.
Six... eight... Fully armed with tactical vests, goggles, and modified rifles. No World Government markings. Serial numbers scraped clean off, metal buffed to a dull shine.
The one at the front stops ten meters out and lifts a clenched fist. Behind him, every figure freezes in perfect unison.
There you are. Two little fish slipped the net.
Have to thank you for that "unification" of yours. Every weapon tied to a single system made things easier than I ever expected.
Pointing a weapon at your own. Are you still calling yourself a soldier?
Lucia drops into a crouch, her hand finding the pistol she'd kicked aside moments before.
My own? Hah. The country I spent my life fighting for is gone, just because you signed some treaty on a nice sunny afternoon.
That doesn't excuse what you did to Aerospace City. You know the difference.
I don't give two **** which star you end up reaching. Ain't my business. Someone paid for my revenge, so here I am. Simple as that.
And you're lucky, by the way. This bird's locked down tight. You know what that means?
He cocks an eyebrow toward the clouds beyond the window.
You've got front-row seats for the most spectacular firework show in history.
"We"? You mean you two? A couple of kids in school uniforms?
The man claps his hands, and laughter erupts throughout the cabin.
Just then, a muzzle flash ignites the dim.
BANG!
A bullet rips through his hand, blowing apart flesh and bone. Blood splatters across the deck.
You...?!
We're F.O.S. students.
...Kill them!!
Come on, then. All of you.
Above them, the emergency lights stutter between brightness and dark. They stand pressed nearly shoulder to shoulder, both facing forward.
We'll have to fight our way through.
Her voice is barely above a whisper, meant only for the person at her side.
Hah.
Same to you. Don't fall behind.
The corner of her mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but something sharper.
Move!
Down on the ground, F.O.S. is burning.
The drone swarm has gone rogue. No longer the iron shield guarding Bifrost, they have turned. Now they are steel rain, pouring down from the heavens.
Munitions slam into target after target with surgical brutality. Craters carve through the training grounds. Half the supply warehouse roof buckles inward, flames and smoke climbing skyward in a churning black pillar.
Those drones still under station control scramble to strike back. The two forces crash into each other like opposing waves, grinding together in a brutal, shrieking arc of explosions that stitches across the sky.
The window strobes with firelight. Inside, Joanne stands at her terminal, fingers ripping across the keys.
Which layer is this...? Third... no, second. Wait. Second layer. Ugh, and the outer firewall's still up...
The drone of engines closes in, dropping from the sky in a sheer dive, the noise sharpening to a needle-thin scream.
Reverse overwrite in progress... I'm down to a few dozen units. Come on, little guys... just hold on...
The whine is directly above her now. Dust shivers loose from the ceiling and falls in thin streams. Her cup slips from the desk and breaks against the floor.
Please, please... just a little faster...
—!
Something bright flares across Joanne's lenses, blinding for an instant. She wrenches her gaze upward. Beyond the glass, a drone's cannon yawns directly at her.
Argh!
Joanne squeezes her eyes shut.
The pain she's waiting for never hits.
...?
She opens her eyes. A burning husk grazes the window and drops away, swallowed by the smoke.
A second drone banks in; armor-piercing fire rips through its belly and out the engine. The sky ignites.
The third strains upward, rotors screaming, before rifle rounds shatter them mid-spin. It corkscrews into the far clearing, a broken thing trailing sparks.
Through the thick smoke and flames, she spots two familiar figures.
What are you gawking at?! Get back to work!!
Ophelia leans out from behind cover on the opposite side. Her assault rifle kicks against her shoulder as she squeezes off short, precise bursts into the sky. A burn tears across her shoulder, still wet with blood. She doesn't look at it, not even once.
Next wave's coming. Hurry.
Adelyde is down on one knee behind the sandbags outside the station, her anti-materiel rifle still smoking at the muzzle. Her shoulder glows an angry red from the recoil. Face blank, she cycles the bolt. The spent casing spins out and rings against the ground.
Joanne tries to say something, but more engine roars are already swelling in the distance. The drones have locked onto the still-active comms node. They close in from all sides now, sweeping toward them like a storm front.
That's when more shapes emerge from the dust.
First-class cadet Nia, reporting in!
First-class cadet Yori, reporting!
First-class cadet Effie! First-aid supplies here!
Three... five... dozens...
F.O.S. cadets pour in from all sides. Some clutch training rifles, others haul tactical shields from the equipment room, and some carry nothing but iron pipes pulled from the rubble.
Voice after young voice rises, and before Joanne they gather, a wall of bodies, resolute and unbroken.
The entirety of F.O.S. has planted itself in front of her, shielding the ladder that leads to the stars.
All units, hold this position! Protect the base station at all costs!
Yes, sir!!
You all...
She feels a sudden heat behind her eyes. But the tears don't fall.
Leave it to me.
She pulls in a long breath. Her hands settle back over the keys.
And they move faster than before.
The second Lucia charges, two bullets shear the air beside her ear.
But she doesn't slow down.
A narrow passage is a force multiplier for the few against the many. It compresses their firepower into a straight, narrow line, turning the whole cabin into a bottleneck one defender can hold.
—!
Lucia flattens herself against the cold bulkhead and pulls the trigger. The first hijacker's weapon cartwheels out of his hands, the flesh between his fingers ripped wide. He falls back, screaming.
The second man answers instantly; a wild sweep of gunfire chews into the walls, sparks erupting in white-hot bursts around her.
Lucia ducks, rolls through a row of seats, and comes up firing from the opposite side—
Arrgh!
A bullet catches the second hijacker in the knee. He collapses, his crumpled frame blocking the line of fire for the ones behind him.
[player name] advances in her wake, perfectly synchronized, pushing forward in those fleeting silences between Lucia's shots.
Die!
The third charges in, knife flashing. [player name] meets him with a fire extinguisher—parry, step through, a vicious backhand swing that connects with the man's temple. A single clean, brutal arc.
Without warning, a fourth attacker springs from behind the row of seats and wraps his arms around [player name]'s middle, dragging, twisting, trying to slam [player name] to the deck—
Get away from [player name]!
With a sharp shout, Lucia slams her boot into the attacker's ribs, kicking him bodily off [player name].
Side by side, they carve through the aisle with less than three meters of width. One guns down threats from a distance; the other dismantles them up close. They weave between each other with brutal efficiency, sharing the same rhythm like a single body breathing.
Lucia's fifth round tears through a shoulder. The fifth man hits the bulkhead and crumples.
The sixth shot strips the weapon right out of the next man's hands.
Seven—
Click.
She's out of ammo.
—!!
The seventh and eighth hijackers lunge forward simultaneously.
Lucia dips low to the side. [player name] sprints forward, uses the seats for leverage, and vaults over her body, driving a flying kick directly into the jaw of the man on the right.
Hey! Eyes on me!
Simultaneously, Lucia closes the gap on the man to the left. A short, brutal sequence: elbow to the throat, knee driven into the abdomen, both hands gripping the back of his head, then a savage pull downward. His forehead meets the metal armrest with a sharp crack.
Ugh—!
The right attacker struggles to rise, but [player name] plants a boot on his back, yanks a seatbelt free, and binds him tight in a matter of seconds.
In the blink of an eye, the aisle falls silent.
Eight bodies lie sprawled across the aisle and between the seats. Some are unconscious, some groaning, some bound and unable to move.
Lucia braces herself against a seat back, breathing hard. Blood runs from her elbow where her uniform sleeve has been torn open in a long gash. Whether it's from a blade or a bullet fragment, she can't tell.
[player name] isn't faring any better. The old chest wound has torn open again. Grime streaks the person's face. Both hands are raw, the skin broken open in multiple places.
BOOM—
Without warning, the deck plunges. The entire aircraft is wrenched downward like a massive fist has closed around it, sending everyone staggering.
Above them, the emergency lights swing wildly. The bulkheads shriek with the sound of stressed metal. Beyond the window, the clouds are climbing, visibly accelerating upward.
Their gazes lock for half a breath.
Cockpit.
Hey, what's going on back there? What—
Hijacking.
She grabs the back of his head and slams it down. His forehead connects with the control panel in a solid, brutal thud.
Lucia throws herself into the pilot's seat, hands closing around the stick. The hydraulic system answers her pull, but the instant she adjusts course, the autopilot overrides her and snaps it back.
Joanne, how much longer?
Almost there... Just... give me a few more seconds!
Through the windshield, there is nothing but Bifrost now.
Lucia hauls the stick back as far as it will go. The hydraulics shriek, a high metallic wail, and the whole fuselage shivers in response—only for the autopilot to seize control again, shoving the heading back into alignment with cold, unfeeling precision.
Joanne, we're out of time.
Ten seconds! Just give me ten more!!
Lucia turns to look at [player name].
Pull with me.
Two pairs of hands close around the stick at the same moment. Four hands, layered and straining, wrenching it back until the hydraulics can give no more.
Together, they hold it there in a precarious, shuddering deadlock. The autopilot fights to correct, but the nose drifts, degree by painstaking degree. Every increment pushes the projected crash point farther from the heart of Bifrost.
The stick convulses violently in their hands, the metal grip grinding into their flesh until it aches.
Keep pulling!
The hydraulic lines groan under the overload.
Suddenly, Joanne's voice explodes over the comms, so shrill it nearly cracks—
Gestalt's online!! Override command uploaded!!
A sudden flicker ghosts across the screens. The flight control panel, frozen in red for so long, pulses, then blooms green.
All at once, the control stick loosens beneath their hands.
NOW!!
Together, she and [player name] wrench the stick back, and the nose heaves upward.
But they are too low, too fast. The nose rises, yet the belly and wings below keep scything into Bifrost's airspace—
BOOM.
The left wing catches Bifrost's outer maintenance gantry and comes apart like shredded paper.
The impact detonates into a shrapnel storm at killing speed. The aircraft rolls hard, grinding a bright scar of sparks down Bifrost's side.
And then, all across the sky above F.O.S., the rogue drones simply stop, their engines cutting out as if an invisible hand has snipped every string at once. They tilt, stall, and drop from the clouds in a long, ragged cascade.
Every face turns upward. Iron-gray machines trail black plumes as they tumble, a delayed metal rainfall hammering into the corners of F.O.S., raising clouds of dust and ash.
Joanne runs from the base station, her gaze snapping skyward. The command craft skims over at barely a hundred meters. One wing remains. The fuselage is a mangled, burning thing, smoke and fire streaming from its tail.
It missed Bifrost, but it's now going down.
Lucia! [player name]!
The cockpit is a cacophony of shrieking alarms now.
Every gauge pulses red—overheating engines, hydraulic collapse, altitude critical—all of it piling together into one unbroken, deafening howl.
It's enough! I'm not putting this down on F.O.S.!!
She throws her full weight against the stick, using the single remaining wing to claw against gravity. The aircraft carves a lopsided, desperate arc across the sky, skimming over F.O.S.
On the ground, the crowds are pulling back—cadets, instructors, engineers. Faces tilt upward, watching the burning aircraft drag itself across the sky above them.
Up ahead—open ground!
On the periphery of Aerospace City, there is an empty waste of untouched ground. No structures. No people. It was originally set aside for a launch facility expansion that has yet to come.
We'll make it.
She doesn't know where the certainty comes from, but she throws every last bit of her strength into the control stick.
The boundary line of F.O.S. streaks past the window; they have cleared the base.
[player name]!
We made it this far. So if you're scared, scream!!
CRASH—
The moment the belly hits the ground, the world flips violently. Seatbelts bite deep into their shoulders. Every ounce of air is slammed from their lungs.
Then comes the long, deafening shriek of metal tearing through the earth. The plane gouges a deep trench into the ground, throwing up a wall of dust that swallows the sky.
BOOM!
......
Smoke and dust hang heavy over F.O.S., thick with the acrid reek of scorched metal and fuel.
Along Bifrost's flank, a section of the maintenance gantry lies shattered. Debris is scattered across the foundation, and the giant silver-white blade now bears a raw, jagged scar.
Lucia! [player name]!!
She stumbles forward, barely keeping her feet. Her glasses hang askew. Her legs are weak as if the bones have dissolved into cotton wool. She doesn't know where the plane finally fell—only that in the moment before the comms went dead, a massive, bone-deep crash thundered through the line.
She runs through the ruined training field, past the warehouse still breathing smoke, past the first shell-shocked cadets and instructors creeping out of their shelters.
Ahead, in the barren stretch of land beyond the base, a black trench tears across the earth for hundreds of meters. At its end lies the aircraft, broken-backed, torn in two. The left half is a charred skeleton of spars and ash. The right half still bleeds smoke from its engines.
Joanne's stride falters. A sudden dread settles into her chest. She is afraid of what comes next.
Ophelia reaches her side, the burn on her shoulder raw and untended, her face a mask of soot. Ahead, Adelyde is already sprinting—rifle gone, fists pumping—charging toward the wreckage in complete silence.
...!
Then, in the drifting smoke, two silhouettes take shape, pulling themselves from the wreckage.
An arm is slung across a shoulder. The second figure is hunched, dragging a bad leg. Together they stagger, propping each other up, listing dangerously with each step as if they might crumple, yet somehow, they keep moving. Neither one goes down.
Behind her glasses, Joanne's vision blurs. Her lips part, but her voice has left her completely.
Lucia! [player name]!
Behind her, more people pour out from every direction. Some still carry their guns, some are empty-handed, and some hold up wounded fellow cadets. They all see the two figures emerging from the smoke and begin running toward the same place.
Lucia lifts her head and sees everyone rushing toward her. Joanne is out in front, Ophelia jogs and complains under her breath, and Adelyde, quiet as always, takes the longest strides.
Behind them are many more faces she cannot name.
Before she knows it, a smile of relief crosses her face.
At that moment, [player name] feels the weight on one shoulder ease slightly and slowly turns to look.
...Still alive?
Side by side, they press forward, moving toward the wave of people rushing to meet them.
Joanne hurls herself at them so hard she almost brings both down.
