The word soon hung between them like a blade.
Youri didn't move at first. His fingers were still curled into fists at his sides, his nails biting into his palms hard enough to sting, but he barely felt it. His thoughts were already light-years away on Volar — on its streets and its low skies, on faces he had memorized because he was afraid that one day his memory would be all he had left of them.
"So you're saying," he began slowly, in a voice that was unnaturally calm, "that after everything… after six months of grinding myself down to the bone… they're just going to erase it."
Barnaby didn't answer at once. He came further into the room, and the door slid shut behind him with a muted hiss. Outside, the hangar lights dimmed as evening settled over the base and long shadows stretched across the spartan quarters. "They won't call it erasing," he said at last. "They'll call it containment. Strategic purification. A necessary calculation."
Youri let out a short, humorless laugh. "They always do."
Barnaby studied him closely. He had seen that look before — in mirrors, years ago. That hollow focus. That dangerous stillness that comes just before a man decides he has nothing left to lose. "The God Units are never deployed lightly," he went on. "This isn't punishment. It's fear. Whatever is happening on Volar, the Empire believes it can no longer be controlled."
Youri turned on him sharply. "You knew this was coming."
Barnaby didn't deny it. "I knew it was possible."
"And you still pushed me through the academy," Youri said, his voice rising now. "You still let me believe—"
"I gave you a chance," Barnaby cut in firmly. "The only one you were ever going to get."
Youri stared at him. "A chance to watch my home die from a cockpit window?"
Barnaby stepped closer. "A chance to stop it."
Silence fell again, heavier than before. Youri's breathing slowed, and his thoughts, which had been chaos a moment ago, began to sharpen and fall into place. The special unit. The God Units. The timing.
"The graduates," he said quietly, "are each assigned to a unit."
Barnaby nodded. "That's right."
"And the God Units need a full cadre of pilots to run at peak output."
This time Barnaby didn't answer, and Youri stepped closer — close enough to see the faint lines around his eyes that hadn't been there years ago. "You didn't bring me here to give me a future," Youri said. "You brought me here because you needed someone on the inside."
Barnaby let out a slow breath. "I brought you here because you're the only person I know who might choose to pull that trigger — or refuse to."
Youri recoiled a little. "You think they'd let me anywhere near it?"
"They already have," Barnaby said. "You just don't know it yet."
The transfer orders came the following week. On the edge of the inner runway, a sealed military transport was waiting to take Youri, Kess and Adin up to orbit, its hull painted with no unit designation at all — only a single symbol etched into black alloy, a circle cut through by one vertical line. God Unit Command.
Commander Varos stood in front of them with his hands clasped behind his back, his face unreadable but his voice carrying a gravity that cut through the morning air. "Kess Pert. Adin Roe. Youri Kronos. By decree of the Imperial High Command, you are hereby reassigned. You no longer answer to this academy. From this point on, your training, your orders and your lives belong to God Unit oversight." He let it settle. "You will be briefed in transit. There will be no further contact with outside parties. No leave. No delay."
Kess swallowed hard but stayed steady. Adin's jaw tightened with his eyes fixed forward. And Youri felt strangely detached, as though he were watching all of it from somewhere outside his own body. Off to one side, Barnaby stood and watched.
Varos stepped aside. "Board."
The transport's doors opened, and as they climbed in, Kess leaned close to Youri. "You knew this was coming, didn't you?"
Youri didn't look at him. "I hoped it wasn't."
Adin, walking ahead of them, said nothing, but his shoulders were tense and coiled like a spring.
The transport lifted smoothly from the base and accelerated toward orbit. Through the narrow viewport Terria shrank to a blue-green jewel beneath them. Minutes passed in silence before the cabin lights dimmed and a holographic display came to life at the front of the cabin. A rotating image appeared in it — a shape that was overwhelming even as a projection.
"This," a synthetic voice announced, "is God Unit Altopereh."
Data scrolled beside it: output yields, energy thresholds, operational casualties. Projected annihilation radius: planetary.
"That thing," Kess whispered, "isn't a machine."
"No," Adin said quietly. "It's a monster."
The display shifted. Mission directive: Volar System. Youri's pulse thundered in his ears. Objective: planetary annihilation. His hands began to tremble. Estimated execution window: forty-eight standard hours. And the hologram faded, and the lights came back.
For a long moment nobody spoke, until Adin broke the silence. "So this is it," he said. "They didn't choose the best pilots." He looked at Youri. "They chose the ones who could live with it."
Youri met his eyes. "Or die trying to stop it."
Kess looked from one to the other. "You're talking like there's a choice."
Youri leaned back against his seat and closed his eyes for a moment. "There's always a choice," he said. "The problem is what it costs."
The God Unit facility was not so much a place as a fortress — a colossal sphere hanging beyond Terria's orbit, anchored to nothing anyone could see, its surface swallowing light rather than reflecting it. The transport docked in silence, its magnetic clamps engaging with soundless finality, and inside, the air felt wrong — too clean, too still. They were escorted down corridors of black alloy lit in soft white, their footsteps echoing strangely, past no banners, no insignia, not a single window, until at the heart of the station they came into a vast chamber.
And Altopereh stood there. Not dormant. Waiting.
Youri felt it before he truly saw it — a pressure behind his eyes and a low vibration in his bones — a power so dense that it felt alive and aware.
A figure stepped out of the shadows, tall and slender, in a high-command uniform marked with sigils Youri didn't recognize. "I am Overseer Halvek. From this moment on, you belong to the God Unit." His eyes settled on Youri. "Pilot Kronos. Your neural profile shows… anomalies."
Youri said nothing.
Halvek smiled faintly. "Good. Altopereh responds poorly to obedience. It prefers conviction."
Barnaby had promised him a place in his own unit, once. Standing there in front of that machine, Youri understood that it had never been Barnaby's to promise. He had been bought and sold all his life. This time, the buyer was the Empire itself