Varos let the silence stretch just long enough for the weight of his words to sink in. "Today," he said, and his voice echoed through the hangar, "you stop being trainees."
He turned and walked deeper in between the towering machines. The recruits followed him on instinct, their boots sounding small and insignificant on the vast metal floor. This close, the Orbitons felt less like machines than like slumbering giants. Heat came off their frames in faint waves. The low hum of their standby reactors vibrated through the air until it settled into bone and muscle. Varos stopped between a LEX and a Minerva and looked back at them.
"You have trained in simulators. You have memorized procedures, emergency protocols and combat doctrine. But none of that matters if you cannot synchronize with a live core. An Orbiton is not a vehicle. It is an extension of its pilot. Hesitation, fear, arrogance — all of it will be reflected back at once."
Adin's jaw tightened. Kess swallowed. Youri's eyes never left the machines.
Varos raised a hand, and the hangar came alive. Service drones detached themselves from the ceiling rails and glided down with soft mechanical precision. Platforms rose out of the floor beside each Orbiton and unfolded into access scaffolds that climbed toward the cockpits set deep in their chests.
"Each of you will be assigned one unit," Varos said. "This is not a contest of speed or aggression. You will be judged on control, on the stability of your synchronization, on spatial awareness, and on how you respond under stress." His eyes sharpened. "Failure will not be forgiven."
General Presley came out of a side corridor with a data-slate in his hand and began to call out names. "Kess. LEX Unit Three."
Kess let out a sharp breath, relief and nerves crossing his face together. He stepped out of the line toward the massive machine, craning his neck to look up at it.
"Adin. Minerva Unit Two."
A murmur rippled through the recruits. Adin's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he masked it with a confident smile. He nodded once and walked toward his Minerva, plainly pleased with himself.
"Youri Kronos. Minerva Unit Five."
For the briefest moment the world seemed to tilt. Youri felt it before he thought it — a tightening in his chest, a sudden awareness of his own heartbeat. A Minerva. Not a LEX. Not a training downgrade for the late arrival with no family name and no past. A Minerva. He stepped forward without a word.
Minerva Unit Five stood a little apart from the others, its armor gleaming faintly under the hangar lights, the gold traced along its frame like veins of restrained power. As Youri came toward it, its visor flickered once — a single pulse of light — and went dark again. He stopped at the foot of the access platform.
"Take your time," Varos called. "Rushing is how pilots die."
The platform lifted him smoothly. With every meter it climbed, the noise of the hangar faded and the sense of scale grew, until he was level with the great chest of the machine and its armored panels slid aside with a hydraulic hiss. Inside, there was darkness — and then light. The cockpit lit itself as he stepped in, compact and cocoon-like, with cables and neural interfaces coiled along the seat like sleeping serpents. The pilot's chair adjusted itself to his frame with a soft mechanical whir. Youri hesitated for half a second.
The last time he had climbed into a chair surrounded by cables, a man in a white coat had been waiting on the other side of the glass to see how much of him would come back. He looked at the seat and let himself remember it fully, the way his memory always made him, every detail of it. Then he set it aside, the way he had learned to set aside so many things before. This chair was his. He had chosen it. Then he sat.
The restraints locked gently but firmly across his shoulders, waist and legs. A thin halo of light flickered in front of his eyes as the interface came to life.
NEURAL LINK INITIALIZINGPILOT IDENTIFICATION: KRONOS, YOURICLEARANCE: PROBATIONARYSYNC THRESHOLD: UNTESTED
His breathing slowed. "Easy," he murmured to himself.
A sharp sensation pulsed at the base of his skull as the link connected — not pain, but pressure, like a hand pressing against his thoughts — and for a split second disorientation washed over him. And then he felt the machine. Not as weight or metal, but as presence. Limbs that were not his and yet answered as though they were. A vast body, waiting for instruction.
Across the hangar, the other units were stirring. The LEX units powered up with deep, resonant hums, and the Minervas answered more quietly, their movements controlled and deliberate. One by one the Orbitons straightened, servos flexing and reactors climbing toward operating levels.
Varos's voice came through the cockpit comm. "All pilots, this is a basic mobility and control test. You will proceed through the designated course outside the hangar. Weapons are locked. Shields are passive." He paused. "Maintain formation. Any deviation beyond tolerance will mean immediate disqualification."
Ahead of them, the hangar doors opened once more on the training field beyond — a vast, scarred terrain of towering pylons, artificial obstacles and platforms hanging in the air.
Youri flexed the Minerva's fingers, and the enormous hand answered with terrifying precision. Somewhere far below him, on a floor he could barely see, a technician took a step back without meaning to. A slow smile touched Youri's lips.
This, he thought, is real.
All his life, his body had been something other people used — something they cut into, sampled and measured, sold, bought and fought over. For the first time, he was inside a body that answered to nobody but him.
The Minerva took its first step forward, slow and heavy, and Youri felt the movement in his own legs as if he had taken it himself. The ground trembled beneath its weight, and the test began.