Youri didn't move at first. The words had already been spoken, and yet they went on echoing in his mind as though they had only just begun, repeating, tightening, pressing against something deep inside him that he had buried long ago. Altopereh is calling your name. The air in the study felt heavier. Colder. For a moment he simply sat there staring at the screen — at Alan — without really seeing him. Then his hand rose slowly, almost unconsciously, to his face, and his fingers pressed against his forehead as though he were trying to hold something back. His body shifted — not forward, but back — and the chair creaked as he sank into it, his posture losing the quiet composure he had built over two years. The man who had learned to sit in peace was gone in that instant. What remained was something older. Sharper. Far more dangerous.
"Prime Minister," he said, low and strained, in a voice that carried a weight that hadn't been heard from him in years. "I thought I had left that part of my life behind." His fingers tightened against his face. "What brought you to the decision to ask me for something like this?"
Alan didn't answer at once. He took a slow breath, his posture unchanged and his gaze steady. He let the silence settle deliberately between them before he spoke. "Duke, I hope you understand when I say this. Those who serve this Empire are bound to serve it until death. And that does not exclude the nobility." Youri didn't respond, but his hand dropped slightly from his face. He was listening. "But I will explain why this decision was made."
Behind Alan, the screen shifted as fragments of data flickered into view — reports, battle recordings, analysis logs, ghosts of the past resurfacing. "You were there on the day of the incident. You understand the scale of the threat we faced. A single ship. A single Orbiton. And yet it shook the Empire." His voice lowered. "That event exposed the traitor Trevor Mosioh. And his escape left something far worse behind. The Empire cannot function in the shadow of an enemy it cannot find. So we acted. Through two years of intelligence work, we traced his escape route."
The screen changed again — coordinates, regions beyond Terrian control, a single marked zone. "We have found where Trevor fled. And the Emperor has made his decision. He has ordered the total annihilation of that region."
Youri's head lowered a little. "Of course he has," he murmured.
Alan didn't react. "They sheltered a traitor. They will share his fate." Another silence. "And you know there is only one God Unit capable of carrying out such an order."
This time Youri didn't answer at all, because he already knew.
"We tried to wake it," Alan went on, and Youri's fingers slowly tightened on the edge of the desk. "Three pilots were sent in, and all three died. No sync threshold. No activation. Immediate neural collapse. The fourth…" Youri slowly raised his head. "…survived. Barely. He never reached synchronization. But before he lost consciousness, he kept repeating a name. Youri Kronos."
For a moment nothing moved. Then Youri leaned forward slowly with his eyes fixed on the screen, and something unreadable was burning behind them now.
"We believe Altopereh is not dormant," Alan said. "It is waiting. For you."
The words hung in the air like a blade. Youri let out a slow breath and leaned back again, shaking his head faintly as if he were rejecting the very idea. "I'm sorry, Prime Minister," he said, more quietly now, but firmly. "I swore to my wife, and to myself, that I would never set foot in that machine again." The words were final. Clear.
For a moment Alan simply looked at him. Then he blinked once, and something shifted. "Is that so," he said quietly, without raising his voice. "Then let me show you something."
The screen behind him changed instantly to a new schematic — large, complex, unfamiliar. Youri's eyes narrowed as it zoomed in on a massive cannon structure, layer upon layer of energy conduits, charging cores and focusing arrays. "A weapon," Alan said. "Developed by the same intruders we encountered two years ago. Our intelligence confirms that it is capable of mass destruction on a scale we have never seen." The image shifted to simulations — impact projections, whole fleets erased in a single discharge. "If it fires, it could wipe out an entire battalion in an instant. And we believe it is already operational."
Youri watched the projections loop in silence. He had seen weapons like this before — not this one, but its kind. He knew the difference between a threat made for show and a threat made to be used. Nobody built something on that scale to keep it in a canyon. Nobody hid it at the edge of the frontier unless they meant to point it at something.
Youri's expression had darkened. When he spoke, it was low and controlled. "So what does that have to do with me?"
This time Alan didn't hesitate, and his eyes locked onto Youri's. "If Altopereh does not deploy, we will send someone else. Someone you know very well." The air in the room shifted, subtly and dangerously. Alan leaned forward a little. "General Leonora Kaelthorn."
The chair screeched violently across the floor as Youri shot to his feet, and his hand slammed down on the desk with a force that echoed through the room. "What did you just say?"
His voice wasn't raised. It was something worse — sharp, cold, dangerously controlled.
Alan didn't flinch. "It's simple. If you refuse, we will send your wife." Youri's eyes were burning now. "And she cannot refuse," Alan went on, "because it will not be a request. It will be an order from the Emperor himself."
Silence fell, heavy and crushing. Then Alan spoke one last time, and this time there was no softness left in his voice at all. "Believe me when I tell you this. If that weapon is fired, there will be no saving anything afterward. Only destruction." He paused. "The same destruction that you bring."