The weeks that followed were a blur of academic triumph that felt utterly hollow.
The red capsules worked flawlessly.
Russell didn't just pass his exams; he aced them, his name appearing near the top of the merit list for the first time ever.
But the equations and historical dates were just ghosts in his mind, meaningless noise.
He couldn't shake the images from his uncle's lab.
The chittering horrors on Titan.
The grim, determined Hunters.
And most of all—the raw, undisguised fear on Salvador's face when he'd ordered him to forget it.
Why?
The question became a constant, nagging rhythm in his head, syncing with the beat of Neo-Aether City's transit systems.
Why was he so afraid?
He deals with dangerous tech every day.
This was different.
It wasn't a warning about danger…
it was a warning about me being in danger.
He thinks I can't handle it.
He sees me the same way everyone else does.
---
The final straw came when the university's acceptance lists were published for the next semester.
His eyes scanned the page—and there it was:
Juliet Valerian – Accepted, Vanguard Naval Flight Academy.
She was gone.
Launched into the stratosphere of the elite.
Her path to the stars secured.
Later that day, a comm-call from his mother—stationed on a deep-space freighter—only cemented his feeling of stagnation.
"My brilliant boy! Top of your class! I'm so proud. It's such a relief to know you're safe and sound on-planet. It's so dangerous out here in the black."
Her words were loving…
but they painted him as the fragile child who needed to be kept in a cushioned box.
Safe.
Sound.
Static.
---
That night, he went back to the warehouse.
He found Salvador not in the main lab, but in a sub-level, elbow-deep in the wiring of a large, unfamiliar device. He was distracted, stressed.
"Uncle, we need to talk. About Titan."
"Not now, Russell!" Salvador snapped, not looking up. "The phase calibrator on this interceptor is completely misaligned. One wrong calculation and it'll scatter a person across a kilometer of subspace."
Frustrated and dismissed yet again, Russell stepped back into the main lab.
His eyes were drawn like magnets to the isolated panel still streaming the live feed from Titan.
The Hunters were fighting a running battle against a new, faster breed of creature.
It was terrifying.
It was glorious.
Acting on an impulse born of weeks of pent-up frustration, he reached out and touched the screen, tracing the path of a Hunter.
His finger brushed a seemingly innocuous icon in the corner.
---
A deep, resonant hum filled the lab.
From the wall behind him, a section of seamless white paneling retracted, revealing a chamber he'd never seen before.
It was lined with crystalline focusing arrays and humming with immense power.
A Teleportation Booth.
A real, working, short-range matter transmitter.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
This was it.
The point of no return.
Before his rational mind could scream in protest, he stepped inside.
The door slid shut behind him.
A synthetic voice echoed in the small space:
> "Destination pre-set: Titan Outpost 7, LZ Gamma.
Atmospheric suit synthesis: engaged.
Matter transfer: initiating."
---
The world didn't fade to black; it shattered into blinding, painful white.
A sensation of being pulled apart at a molecular level, then violently slammed back together—
The white faded.
A crushing, icy cold replaced it.
The air in his lungs burned thin.
Russell gasped, stumbling on the uneven, frozen ground.
He was on a rocky plain under a hazy, orange sky.
The colossal sphere of Saturn dominated the heavens, its rings a breathtaking, silent scythe.
The silence was deafening.
This was Titan.
A thrill of terror and exhilaration shot through him.
He'd done it.
He was—
---
A guttural screech ripped through the silence.
From the dense shadows of a methane ice ridge, a nightmare of chitin and claws launched itself at him—moving with impossible speed.
A grotesque parody of a scorpion the size of a ground-car, its maw dripping with corrosive slime.
Russell froze.
Every lesson, every equation, every bit of academic knowledge wiped clean by primal, sheer terror.
This was death.
A plasma bolt sizzled past his ear, striking the creature in the shoulder and spinning it aside with a shriek of pain.
A strong, armored hand grabbed the collar of his hastily synthesized environment suit and yanked him backward with brutal force—throwing him behind a jagged outcrop.
Russell looked up, his visor fogging with panicked breaths.
Standing over him, plasma rifle smoking, was his uncle.
But this wasn't his lab-coat-wearing uncle.
This was a warrior in scarred tactical environment armor, his face a mask of fury and fear behind his helmet.
---
"YOU FOOL!" Salvador's voice roared over the private comms channel, raw and shaking with anger.
"WHAT DID YOU DO? I TOLD YOU! I ORDERED YOU TO STAY AWAY!"
Russell scrambled against the rock, the reality of his near-death crashing down on him.
But beneath the terror, a defiant ember glowed.
"I just wanted to prove it!" Russell shouted back, his voice cracking.
"To you! To Juliet! To my mom! To myself! Juliet got into Vanguard! She's going to be a hero! Mom just sees a child she needs to protect! And you… you see a helpless kid who can't be trusted with the truth! I'm more than just an everyman! I want to do this… for me!"
The words hung in the thin, toxic atmosphere between them—
a desperate confession shouted over the screech of alien monsters and the hum of a charged plasma rifle.
Salvador stared down at him, his anger momentarily stalled by the sheer, stupid, heartbreaking bravery of the boy he'd tried so hard to keep safe.