Tartarusios drifted through the endless dark, its colossal frame cutting silently between the stars like an ancient god wandering forgotten seas. Inside the control chamber Youri stood before the immense viewport with his cloak hanging loose over his shoulders and the silver glow of distant systems reflected in his face. The stars stretched endlessly ahead, cold and beautiful, scattered through the void like fragments of shattered glass. Behind him the chamber hummed softly with the steady rhythm of awakened engines and ancient systems working in perfect harmony.
Then the AI spoke. "Initiating jump. Destination selected: closest habitable world, Antia."
Youri kept his eyes on the stars. "Antia? What kind of place is that?"
"Antia is the nearest inhabited planet matching your requested conditions."
He raised an eyebrow. "And those conditions are?"
"Eating and drinking."
A smirk finally touched his lips. "Well," he muttered, "at least someone on this ship knows what matters."
"Antia possesses multiple settlements capable of providing nourishment, lodging and recreational consumption."
He folded his arms. "Antia it is, then."
"Command acknowledged."
The control room dimmed, energy surged beneath the ship, and outside the viewport space warped. Then Tartarusios jumped. The stars collapsed into streaks of white and silver as reality folded around the vessel. The massive ship vanished from one region of space and emerged almost instantly in another. The jump ended smoothly. Youri steadied himself and looked ahead.
Antia hung in space beneath a pale sun, massive and weathered, its surface unlike anything he remembered of the Terrian worlds. Vast gray-brown plains stretched across it, broken by jagged black mountain ranges and canyon systems so deep they seemed to swallow light. Scarred impact zones marked its crust like ancient wounds, and slow storms of dust drifted over its barren lands. It looked harsh and unforgiving, and strangely beautiful.
"Antia has no public orbital port available for a vessel of Tartarusios's class," the AI said.
Youri sighed. "So we improvise."
"There is suitable landing terrain within the northern plains."
"Fine by me. Just don't land somewhere that means walking half a continent. I don't feel like suffering for food."
"Command understood."
Tartarusios descended, entering Antia's atmosphere like a falling fortress. Its hull groaned softly as layers of cloud and dust burned around it, until copper-colored skies appeared outside the viewport and cast a warm bronze light over the control room. The planet greeted them with wind. Endless rocky terrain stretched below — cracked plains, stone ridges, dry crater fields scarred by ancient violence — and then the ship found its landing point: a giant impact crater. Its descent slowed, its thrusters roared, dust exploded outward, and Tartarusios settled onto Antia with enough weight to make the ground tremble. The engines powered down, and silence followed.
"You have arrived on Antia."
Youri let out a slow breath. "Finally."
He walked to the exit hall. The corridors still felt too large and too ancient, but he ignored the feeling. At the massive doors he stopped for a moment and simply stood there, taking a breath. Then the doors opened. The wind greeted him at once, heavy and dry, tearing back the hood of his cloak and whipping his brown hair across his face. He stepped forward anyway. The world outside smelled of dust and stone. Antia's copper sky stretched above him. Somewhere beyond the crater, civilization was waiting. According to the AI, the nearest large settlement lay only a few kilometers away. It was called Brussels.
So he walked. The plains of Antia were harsh and uneven, rocky outcrops jutting from the ground like broken teeth and deep fissures cutting through the land. Here and there ancient wreckage littered the ground — half-buried machinery, forgotten transport hulls, metal skeletons devoured by time. The wind never stopped howling across the plains, and yet Youri found himself enjoying it. Hours passed. By the time the settlement came into view darkness had already crept across the sky, and Antia's twin moons hung overhead, pale and uneven, casting silver light over the land.
And there, between cliffs and scattered wreck-fields, lay Brussels. The city looked improvised, as though it had been stitched together by desperation and stubbornness alone. Ancient shipwrecks formed its crooked skeleton. Broken frigates stood upright like rusted towers, gutted cargo haulers had become apartment blocks and marketplaces, and massive hull sections fused together with scavenged steel and welded reinforcement made a tangle of streets and layered walkways hanging overhead. But Brussels was far from lifeless. Warm lights glowed everywhere. Among the wreckage stood enormous domes — arched shells of reinforced glass and carbon lattice scarred by years of storms, glimmering faintly beneath the moons. Inside them lived whole worlds: markets, food stalls, repair shops, music, artificial sunlight, and the smell of cooked meat and machine oil hanging together in the air.
Youri walked deeper into the city. The streets were full of people — miners, scavengers, drifters, mechanics, mercenaries. Their languages blended beneath the hum of generators and distant engines. Eventually he found what he needed. A crooked sign glowed faint orange above an entrance: The Rusted Halo. From outside it looked like the split-open carcass of an old frigate, its walls covered in rusted plating, patched metal sheets and exposed pipes, as though it had survived out of pure spite. Youri smirked. Perfect.
He stepped inside, and warmth hit him at once. The Rusted Halo was loud, crowded and alive. The bar itself had been built from a salvaged reactor casing cut in half and reinforced with polished scrap steel, its surface covered in countless scratches and etched names — trophies, apparently, left by survivors of the establishment's famous brawls. Behind it stood shelves packed with bottles of every imaginable color: dark liquors, synthetic brews, fungal spirits, and jars of substances that looked vaguely illegal. Youri walked up and sat down.
The bartender looked at him — a broad-shouldered woman with a square jaw and tired eyes, one of them natural and the other glowing faintly mechanical. "What do you want?"
Before he could answer, a voice shouted across the room. "Hey, Marella!" A drunk waved from a nearby table. "Another bottle!"
Marella rolled her eye. "Over my dead body, Marvin. You haven't paid for the last one."
The man shoved his chair aside and stood, looking half drunk and entirely stupid. "No drinks till you pay," Marella went on. Then Marvin pulled a pistol, and the bar went quiet.
"You bringing that fucking bottle," he growled, "or am I taking it?"
Marella snorted. "Marvin, I swear I'll shove that pistol so far up your ass you'll cough bullets."
His face twisted. "You bitch!" He fired. Glass exploded behind the counter as Marella ducked and bottles shattered, and the room froze while Marvin marched toward the bar.
Youri, who had travelled between worlds, survived Tartarus, and fought beside gods and monsters, took a long breath and muttered, "Fuck it." As Marvin passed him, he grabbed the man's wrist.
The drunk spun around. "Who the fuck are you?"
Youri sighed. "Buddy…" He looked at the bar. "It's been ages since I had a proper drink. I travelled across the stars to get here." He tightened his grip, his voice perfectly calm. "And you think I'm going to let someone like you stand between me and that bitter, fresh sensation?"
Marvin frowned. "You picked a really bad time."
Youri twisted sideways, and Marvin's arm broke with a crack. The man screamed. Before the scream was fully out, Youri punched him straight in the face. He dropped instantly and hit the floor face first.
Silence followed. Then Marella rose slowly from behind the counter with a shotgun in her hands. She looked at Marvin, then at Youri, and laughed. "Damn," she said, setting the gun down. "You saved me a headache." She reached under the counter for a glass and a bottle of gin and set them both in front of him. "This one's on the house." Youri looked at the drink, then at her. Marella leaned on the counter with a grin. "Enjoy yourself… mysterious man."