Youri walked down the silent corridor toward his assigned quarters while the station hummed softly around him, a constant mechanical heartbeat running up through the metal beneath his boots. The lights overhead dimmed a little more with every step he took away from the central decks. The noise of the crews faded into something distant and unreal, so that by the time he reached his door, the world felt muted, as though he were already halfway removed from it. The door slid open with a quiet hiss, and he stepped inside.
The room was small and efficient. A narrow bed ran along the left wall, built seamlessly into the architecture, its blankets folded with rigid precision, the soft fabric a quiet contrast against the matte alloy panels around it. It looked as though nobody had ever slept in it. Lying neatly on top of it was a folded uniform — a full pilot suit, skin-tight and jet black with a faintly reflective surface, the God Unit insignia embossed across its chest and shoulders, its flexible material reinforced with layers of micro-plating along the spine, the joints and the ribs. It wasn't clothing. It was a second skin. Beside it lay the helmet: dark, angular, predatory, layered with armor panels that flowed into one another in an unsettling organic symmetry, its faceplate skeletal and severe, tapering into sharp contours around the jaw, with an opaque visor that hid the eyes completely. It didn't look like something made to protect a human face. It looked like something made to erase one.
Youri stood still for a long moment and took in the room. Its walls were crowded with built-in controls — switches, dials, compact holographic screens, every one of them functional and none of them decorative. Cool white light fell across the metal surfaces, just bright enough to feel safe and just dim enough to feel isolating. At the far end, a wide window filled the wall, and beyond it lay space, black, vast and silent, with stars glittering faintly across it like cold embers. In the glass his own reflection blended into the darkness until his outline seemed to dissolve into the unknown. He let out a slow breath, and his eyes went back to the uniform.
The suit sealed itself to him as he pulled it on, tightening and adjusting on its own until it fitted perfectly — too perfectly — as though it had been made not just to his measurements but to his anatomy, to his bones and his nervous system. When he was finished, he stood in front of the window and looked at himself. For a moment he didn't recognize the man looking back. Then a soft chime broke the silence. A device on the wall began to pulse with a faint blue glow. He lifted it, and Halvek's voice came through, crisp and immediate. "Pilot D7. Your escort has arrived. You are requested at the main dock." And it went silent.
A hollow feeling spread through Youri's chest. It wasn't fear, and it wasn't dread. It was absence. He frowned and pressed a hand to his sternum. It felt as though something were missing — something he couldn't name — like reaching for a word that had been erased in the middle of a thought.
"I'm forgetting something," he murmured.
The thought slipped away before he could catch hold of it. Each time you call upon my power, I take a part of you. He had only linked once. He wondered what it had already taken.
"Yes, sir," he said into the device, automatically, in a voice that sounded distant even to him. He tucked the helmet under his arm and left the room.
The doors of the main dock towered in front of him, massive, reinforced and sealed shut. He stood before them with that hollow feeling still clinging to him like a shadow, his heart beating steadily but without urgency, as though his body hadn't caught up with reality yet. He lifted the helmet and slid it over his head. The seal locked with a sharp click, and his display flickered to life across the visor. Then the doors hissed open, and light flooded out.
Halvek stood at the center of the dock with his hands behind his back, and beside him stood General Aurelion Kaelthorn. Youri recognized him instantly. The same posture. The same eyes. The man who had stepped off a ship in the hangar at Altex years ago, and placed his dying daughter's life in Malden's hands. The memory surged up without warning — the vents, the dim room, the sound of laughter, and Leonora's voice reading aloud, fading and out of reach. He had long ago given up any hope of ever seeing her again. But seeing her father — his hand trembled. Only slightly. He clenched his fingers and hid the movement behind his back.
As he came closer, Halvek turned and gestured toward him. "There he is. Pilot D7. Designated pilot of Altopereh."
Aurelion studied him closely. Then, unexpectedly, he saluted, a full, formal salute. For a moment nobody spoke. There was nothing in the dock but the distant hum of engines. Then Aurelion turned toward his ship.
"I never thought I would end my military career with a purge order," he said quietly, and he shook his head once. "There is no glory in genocide. Only malice. And hatred."
The words hit harder than any command could have. Something shifted inside Youri. The hollow numbness cracked, and the mission parameters slammed into his awareness like a blow. Three billion. Innocent lives. Faces. Children. Liam. Emma. His breath hitched as fragments of daylight burst behind his eyes — blurred faces he couldn't quite recognize and voices he couldn't quite place. His hands began to shake violently, and he dropped to his knees.
"Pilot down!" someone shouted.
Halvek spun around and strode toward him. "What's happening?"
The intervention crew rushed in and knelt beside Youri. One of them took out a syringe and drove it into his arm. Youri gasped sharply.
Halvek's jaw tightened. "Why isn't he in Flow State?"
Flow State — the condition induced in every God Unit pilot before deployment, a suppression of emotion, empathy and self-awareness. A pilot in Flow State did not hesitate, and did not question. He obeyed. It dulled the feelings, narrowed the focus and turned pilots into weapons. It also shattered minds. Ninety percent of those who went through it suffered mental breakdowns. Forty percent took their own lives, if they survived long enough to make the choice.
"We don't know," one of the crew answered, shaken. "This has never happened before." He looked down at Youri. "The syringe should induce it again."
Halvek growled under his breath. "What is wrong with these new pilots…"
Youri's vision steadied slowly. The shaking eased. He drew in a long breath and pushed himself up, and Halvek stepped right into his line of sight and waved a hand in front of the helmet. "D7. Can you hear me?"
Youri nodded.
"Good," Halvek said, and he turned toward the waiting ship. "Then get on board. Your mission is waiting."