Earth no longer appeared on navigation charts as a destination.
It still existed—its mass still warped spacetime, its gravity still held the Moon in a silent, eternal orbit—but no ship had descended into its atmosphere in generations. Satellites remained above it like corpses that refused to fall, their solar panels cracked, their instruments long blind. To the people who lived far beyond the solar system, Earth was not a place. It was a closed chapter.
History classes still mentioned it. Not with reverence, but with restraint. Teachers avoided emotional language when discussing the planet's collapse, relying instead on dates, environmental metrics, and population curves that dropped so sharply they looked unreal. No single catastrophe had ended life there. It had been a convergence—climate failure, resource exhaustion, ecological collapse, and finally the quiet end of systems that had once kept billions alive.
Humanity did not flee in panic. There had been no great evacuation fleet, no last-minute miracle. People left in waves, slowly, painfully, over decades. When the last permanent habitats were sealed and the final supply convoys departed, Earth had already been functionally dead.
What survived were stations.
Massive structures built in orbit around distant stars, assembled piece by piece by generations who had never felt planetary soil beneath their feet. These stations were not temporary shelters. They were intended to last. Their frames were layered with redundancy upon redundancy—pressure hulls within pressure hulls, power grids isolated from one another, entire sectors capable of sealing themselves off from the rest.
One of those stations was Astra Station, suspended in the dark like a mechanical continent.
It rotated slowly, its outer ring providing artificial gravity through centripetal acceleration—just under one standard G. Enough that bones formed properly. Enough that muscles did not waste away. Enough that people could forget, if only briefly, that there was nothing beneath them but vacuum.
Kenji had been born there.
He did not remember a time before the station, because there had never been one.
Kenji Okuda stood near the observation corridor, his boots magnetized lightly to the deck as the station's rotation carried him forward. The corridor curved gently upward on both ends, a visual reminder that gravity here was manufactured, not natural. Through the thick, layered viewport panels, space stretched endlessly—black, indifferent, scattered with stars too distant to provide warmth.
He was sixteen.
Old enough to understand that Earth was gone. Young enough to still imagine it.
His school uniform was utilitarian rather than symbolic: dark fabric reinforced at the seams, embedded identification threads woven into the sleeves, emergency pressure seals folded flat along the collar. Every student wore the same thing, regardless of specialization. Fashion had lost relevance long ago.
Kenji rested his forehead lightly against the viewport, feeling the faint vibration of the station through the glass.
Behind him, the corridor buzzed with quiet life. Students passed in small groups, voices low, footsteps measured. There was no running in public sections of Astra Station—not because of rules, but because sudden impacts wasted energy and risked damage. People learned early to move with care.
Kenji exhaled slowly.
Today's classes had not gone well.
In Flight Systems Fundamentals, he had failed his third simulator evaluation in a row.
The instructor, a woman named Hoshino with close-cropped hair and the posture of someone who had lived through multiple hull breaches, had not raised her voice. She never did. Disappointment, here, was expressed through data.
"Your response latency is too high," she had said, her eyes scanning Kenji's performance metrics. "You overcorrect thrust vectors. You rely on visual feedback instead of inertial data."
"I'm trying," Kenji had replied, and meant it.
Trying was not enough.
Modern spacecraft were not flown the way planes once were. There were no sticks to pull, no intuitive banking turns. Everything operated on vectors, momentum, and conservation laws that did not forgive hesitation. A ship in motion stayed in motion. A mistake carried forward until actively canceled.
Kenji understood the equations. He could recite them. He simply could not feel them.
Some students seemed to adapt naturally, developing an instinct for three-dimensional movement without an up or down. Kenji was not one of them.
When the simulator run ended, his virtual craft had spun slowly, helplessly, its thrusters firing in uneven bursts as he fought to regain control.
Hoshino had shut the simulation down before he could crash it—again.
"You're not stupid," she had said, more quietly this time. "But space does not reward hesitation. Remember that."
He had nodded, cheeks burning.
Now, staring out into the dark, Kenji wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with him.
Across the station, in a section far removed from student corridors, Chief Systems Engineer Marcus Hale monitored Astra Station's structural telemetry.
Hale was in his early fifties, though microgravity-assisted aging and strict health protocols made him appear younger. His workstation was surrounded by suspended holographic panels, each displaying a different subsystem: power distribution, life support flow rates, rotational stability.
Everything was nominal.
That, more than anything, made him uneasy.
Astra Station had been operational for nearly eighty years. It had endured micrometeor impacts, solar flares, minor internal fires, and the slow fatigue of materials under constant stress. "Nominal" was a statistical state, not a guarantee.
Hale sipped recycled water from a sealed container and adjusted the display to show external traffic.
Civilian shuttles moved in carefully managed lanes, their approach vectors calculated hours in advance. There was no improvisation here. Every maneuver cost fuel, and fuel was life.
He checked the defense readouts out of habit rather than concern. Astra Station was far from any known hostile region. There were no active conflicts in this sector of space. No pirate activity had been recorded within dozens of light-years.
Still, the defense grid remained armed.
Experience had taught him that peace was not a permanent condition.
Back in the residential ring, Aya Nakamura hurried through a narrow passageway, her tablet clutched against her chest. She was late—again—and silently cursed the station's rotation for making distances deceptive. What looked like a straight path often wasn't.
Aya was one of Kenji's classmates, though they rarely spoke. She excelled in navigation theory, her mind capable of processing spatial relationships with frightening speed. Instructors often used her performance as an example.
She hated that.
As she rounded a curve, she nearly collided with Kenji.
"Sorry," she said quickly, steadying herself with a hand against the wall.
Kenji stepped back, boots clicking softly as the magnetic grip adjusted. "It's fine."
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Aya noticed his expression—distant, unfocused. "Rough day?"
He hesitated, then nodded. "Flight class."
She grimaced sympathetically. "Yeah. That one's brutal."
"You passed," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Barely," she replied, which was a lie. "You'll get it."
Kenji wasn't sure he believed her, but he appreciated the attempt.
They parted ways without further conversation, both carried onward by the slow spin of the station.
At the far edge of Astra Station, behind multiple sealed access points and authorization locks, lay sections that most residents never saw.
Old sections.
Some were abandoned—early habitation modules replaced by newer, more efficient designs. Others housed experimental systems installed during the station's construction, then forgotten as priorities shifted.
One such compartment sat dormant, its systems in deep standby, its hull thickened beyond civilian standards. No signage marked its purpose. No maintenance logs referenced it directly.
It waited.
That night, as artificial lighting dimmed to simulate a circadian rhythm humanity no longer truly needed, Kenji lay awake in his small quarters.
The room was efficient: foldaway bed, compact desk, personal storage secured against sudden pressure changes. A faint hum filled the air, the sound of life support cycling oxygen.
He stared at the ceiling.
Earth.
He had seen images, of course. Everyone had. Blue oceans. Clouds. Green landmasses. The pictures felt unreal, like artwork rather than history.
Kenji wondered what it would have felt like to stand under a sky that did not require a pressure seal.
Outside his room, Astra Station continued its endless rotation, carrying tens of thousands of lives through the void.
The first indication that something was wrong did not come in the form of alarms.
It came as a discrepancy.
Chief Systems Engineer Marcus Hale noticed it while reviewing routine thermal flow data. One of Astra Station's external radiators was running warmer than expected—by a fraction of a degree. The variance was small enough to fall within acceptable tolerance, but Hale flagged it anyway. Thermal systems were conservative by design. They did not drift without cause.
He expanded the dataset, overlaying historical averages.
The deviation persisted.
Hale frowned and rerouted the display, isolating the radiator's feed lines. Flow rates were steady. No obstruction. No degradation warning from the coolant sensors. The station's AI reported nominal function across all parameters.
"Nominal," Hale muttered.
That word again.
He logged the anomaly and scheduled a diagnostic sweep. Not urgent. Not yet.
Still, unease settled in his chest like a low-frequency vibration.
Kenji's dreams that night were fragmented.
He dreamed of corridors stretching too long, of doors that refused to open, of gravity failing without warning. When he woke, his heart was racing, his breathing shallow. For a moment, he did not know where he was.
Then the familiar hum returned, grounding him.
He sat up and checked the time. Early. His schedule showed a half day—systems theory in the morning, practical labs postponed due to routine station maintenance.
Maintenance happened constantly. Entire generations had lived and died aboard stations like Astra because people never stopped fixing them.
Kenji dressed, sealed his uniform collar properly, and left his quarters.
The corridor lights were dimmed, simulating dawn. A handful of residents moved quietly, heading to shifts or early classes. Kenji joined the slow flow, his thoughts drifting back to the dream.
He shook it off.
There was no room for superstition here.
In the station's Command and Operations Center, Station Director Elena Kovács reviewed overnight reports.
She had been born on Mars Orbital Habitat Three, one of the first off-world colonies, long before Mars itself was abandoned. She had seen humanity's expansion slow, then stabilize. Survival had replaced ambition.
Astra Station was her responsibility.
She scanned Hale's logged anomaly and nodded once. Minor thermal irregularities were common. Still, she forwarded the report to the external systems team.
Protocol demanded caution.
Kovács leaned back in her chair, eyes drifting to the large central display—a real-time projection of Astra Station's structural health. The rotating ring glowed softly, intact and stable.
Far outside the station's hull, space remained silent.
In a classroom overlooking the inner ring, Instructor Yamada began his lecture on orbital mechanics.
"Everything in space," he said, pacing slowly, "is trying to continue exactly as it is. Motion persists. Stability is temporary."
The students listened, some more attentively than others. Kenji sat near the back, tablet open, notes scrolling.
"When Earth failed," Yamada continued, "it was not because of a single error. It was because systems that were stable for centuries became unstable together."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"Never assume a system is safe simply because it has not failed yet."
Kenji glanced up at that.
For a moment, he had the uncomfortable sensation that the instructor was speaking directly to him.
Outside Astra Station, something crossed a boundary humanity no longer actively monitored.
It did not emit radiation. It did not broadcast signals. It did not maneuver like a ship.
It followed a trajectory governed by gravity alone.
Automated sensors registered it as debris—one more object among countless others drifting between stars. The station's long-range tracking systems noted its mass, calculated its path, and assigned it a negligible threat probability.
No alert was issued.
The first real alarm sounded two hours later.
Not a station-wide siren—those were reserved for catastrophic failures—but a localized warning in the external maintenance sector. Pressure sensors detected a micro-leak in one of the station's auxiliary conduits.
Hale received the alert instantly.
"Show me," he said, already standing.
The display zoomed in on the affected section. The leak was minor, barely measurable, but it was growing.
"That's not fatigue," Hale murmured. "That's impact."
Maintenance drones were dispatched automatically, small machines designed to operate in vacuum. Their cameras fed back images as they approached the conduit.
Hale watched the footage in silence.
A clean puncture marred the outer layer of the conduit—small, precise.
"Micrometeor?" someone asked behind him.
Hale shook his head slowly. "Too clean."
The station's defensive sensors recalculated, cross-referencing the new data. A revised trajectory appeared on the display, tracing backward through space.
Hale's blood ran cold.
Kenji felt the vibration before he heard anything.
A subtle shudder passed through the deck beneath his feet, barely noticeable, but enough to draw murmurs from the classroom.
Yamada paused mid-sentence.
"Remain seated," he said calmly, though his eyes had already flicked to the status panel near the door.
The panel glowed yellow.
Caution.
Not danger. Not yet.
Kenji's stomach tightened.
He remembered his dream.
In the Command Center, Director Kovács stood as the revised data streamed in.
"Confirm classification," she ordered.
"Unidentified object," an officer replied. "Non-propelled. High-velocity. Vector intersects station perimeter."
"Time to closest approach?"
"Seventeen minutes."
Kovács nodded once. "Initiate external shielding alignment. Notify all sectors to prepare for pressure contingencies."
No panic. No raised voices.
Astra Station had procedures for this.
The question was whether procedures would be enough.
In a forgotten compartment deep within the station's structure, systems began to wake.
Power flowed into circuits that had not been active in decades. Diagnostics ran silently, faster than any human could track.
A threshold had been crossed.
Conditions met.
Authorization no longer required.
Kenji's wrist console vibrated softly.
Station Advisory:
All residents are advised to secure personal belongings and remain in designated safe zones until further notice.
The message was routine.
That was what frightened him.
The first breach did not announce itself with fire.
It announced itself with silence.
In Habitation Sector C-17, a maintenance corridor registered a sudden pressure differential. Not total decompression—just enough to trigger an automated seal. Bulkhead doors slammed shut within milliseconds, their mechanisms driven by independent power reserves. The corridor lights shifted from white to amber.
Inside the sealed section, three people were still moving.
One of them, a technician named Raul Mendez, felt it in his ears first. A sharp, painful pressure change that made him gasp involuntarily. He reached for the wall as the air began to thin, not vanishing instantly but bleeding away through a rupture no larger than a fist.
There was no time to scream.
Emergency masks dropped from the ceiling, deploying on compressed gas. Raul tore one free and jammed it over his mouth and nose, lungs burning as oxygen flooded back in. The other two weren't as fast.
By the time internal pressure stabilized, one lay unconscious. The other did not move at all.
The station AI logged the casualties without emotion.
In the Command and Operations Center, the room had shifted from quiet vigilance to controlled urgency.
"Multiple micro-impacts detected," an officer reported. "Vectors are inconsistent. Not debris scatter."
Director Kovács stood rigid, eyes locked on the tactical display. The revised trajectories no longer formed a single line.
They formed a spread.
"Confirm hostile probability," she said.
The AI recalculated.
Threat Classification Updated:
External kinetic attack — non-propelled projectiles.
No engines. No heat signature. No warning.
Just mass and velocity.
Kovács exhaled slowly. "Initiate full emergency protocol. Seal non-essential sectors. Broadcast Level Three alert."
The officer hesitated. "Director, that will—"
"Do it."
The alert went out.
Kenji felt it this time.
A deeper vibration rippled through the deck, followed by a faint metallic groan that traveled up the walls and into his chest. The classroom lights flickered once, then stabilized.
A sharp tone filled the air.
Level Three Emergency.
Proceed immediately to designated shelter zones.
No one spoke.
Instructor Yamada moved first. "Masks on," he said, his voice steady. "Now."
Panels slid open along the walls. Emergency oxygen masks deployed, dangling on flexible lines. Kenji grabbed one, pulling it down and sealing it over his face the way they'd been drilled since childhood. The faint smell of plastic and filtered air filled his senses.
The door unlocked.
"Move," Yamada ordered.
They moved.
In the rotating ring, the effects of structural damage were subtle but dangerous. Artificial gravity depended on balance. As sections sealed and mass redistributed, micro-variations rippled through the station.
People stumbled.
Loose objects slid, then settled again.
Nothing dramatic—just enough to make everyone acutely aware that the floor beneath them was not natural.
Kenji followed the stream of students through the corridor, boots striking the deck harder than usual. His breathing sounded loud inside the mask.
Stay calm, he told himself.
A loud bang echoed from somewhere distant—not an explosion, but the unmistakable sound of a bulkhead sealing under pressure. The sound carried through the structure like a warning.
Aya was ahead of him. She glanced back, eyes wide, but kept moving.
Outside the station, defensive systems finally engaged.
Astra Station did not fire wildly. It did not chase targets.
It calculated.
Point-defense arrays adjusted their orientation, tracking objects that did not maneuver because they did not need to. The first interception occurred thousands of kilometers out, a precise release of counter-mass timed to collide at relative velocities that annihilated both objects.
No flash. No sound.
Just math.
But there were too many.
Hale stared at the data, fingers flying across the interface.
"This isn't random," he said. "Someone mapped our rotation. They're targeting stress points."
"Can they breach the core?" Kovács asked.
"Not directly," Hale replied. "But if they destabilize enough sections—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
They both knew.
Kenji never made it to the shelter.
The corridor ahead of him shuddered violently, and the floor dipped—not much, just enough to throw him off balance. Someone screamed. The lights went red.
Hull integrity compromised.
Immediate evacuation required.
A new alarm layered over the old ones, sharper, more urgent.
The bulkhead ahead began to close.
Too fast.
People surged forward instinctively. Kenji froze for half a second too long, his mind lagging behind his body. By the time he moved, the gap had narrowed to less than a meter.
A hand grabbed his arm and yanked him sideways.
He slammed into the wall as the bulkhead sealed shut with a deafening clang.
Kenji slid down, heart pounding.
On the other side of the door, he could hear nothing.
No voices.
No movement.
The corridor he was in was empty.
His wrist console vibrated again.
Route unavailable.
Proceed to alternate shelter.
Kenji looked down the corridor.
The lights flickered.
And somewhere deep within the station, something far older and far more dangerous than a classroom failure was waking up.
The enemy revealed itself not through a message, but through pattern.
In the Command and Operations Center, the tactical display updated again, its projections tightening into clarity. Marcus Hale leaned forward, eyes scanning the incoming data as the station AI refined its model.
"They're not trying to destroy us," he said quietly.
Director Kovács turned toward him. "Explain."
Hale highlighted several impact vectors, overlaying them with Astra Station's structural map. The intersections clustered around key systems—not the core, not the habitation ring itself, but the interfaces between them.
"Targeted kinetic strikes," Hale continued. "No propulsion, no emissions. Fired hours ago from outside sensor range. Whoever launched them knew exactly where we'd be."
"Who?" Kovács asked.
Hale didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he pulled up a registry—old, archived, rarely accessed.
Independent fleets. Breakaway colonies. Resource-denied stations that had vanished from official records decades ago.
"Humans," Hale said finally. "Or what's left of them."
There was no other realistic answer.
Kenji forced himself to his feet.
The corridor felt wrong.
Not broken—just subtly off. The artificial gravity fluctuated slightly, enough to make every step uncertain. The air was thinner than it should have been, his mask compensating quietly as it fed him oxygen.
"Aya?" he called out.
His voice echoed down the empty passage.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then—movement.
Aya emerged from behind a recessed access panel, her own mask sealed tight, dark hair floating slightly from static and reduced airflow. Her eyes widened when she saw him.
"You're alive," she said, breathless.
"So are you," Kenji replied, relief cutting through his fear.
Another tremor rolled through the station, stronger this time. The deck vibrated, and a fine dust drifted from the ceiling seams.
Aya grabbed the wall instinctively. "That was close."
Kenji nodded. "We need to get to a shelter."
She shook her head, already checking her wrist console. "All nearby routes are sealed. Pressure failures everywhere."
He swallowed. "Then what do we do?"
Aya hesitated.
"There might be another way," she said slowly.
In the Command Center, alarms layered over one another as new data streamed in.
"External communications spike detected," an officer reported.
"Source?" Kovács asked.
"Directional tight-beam transmission. Not to us. Between multiple vessels."
Hale's fingers clenched. "They're coordinating."
"How many ships?" Kovács asked.
The display updated.
"Unknown," the officer said. "But at least three launch platforms. Possibly more."
Kovács closed her eyes for half a second.
Kinetic warfare was brutally efficient in space. No need for energy weapons. No need for prolonged engagement. Just mass, velocity, and patience.
"Why attack a civilian station?" someone asked.
Hale answered without looking up. "Because we have resources. Fuel. Water. Manufacturing capability."
"And because," Kovács added grimly, "we can't run."
Aya led Kenji through a maintenance access hatch, pulling it open with more force than he expected. Inside, the passage was narrow, unlit except for emergency strips along the floor.
"This sector's old," she said, her voice steady despite the situation. "Pre-expansion modules. They don't show up on most public maps."
"How do you know this?" Kenji asked as they moved.
Aya didn't look back. "My mom works in navigation planning. I've… seen things."
Another impact struck the station—not nearby, but close enough that the shockwave traveled through the structure. The lights flickered, then died entirely, plunging the passage into dim red emergency glow.
Kenji's breathing quickened.
"Aya," he said, "I'm not good at this. I can't fly. I can't fight."
She stopped and turned to face him.
"I know," she said simply. "That's why you're still alive."
He blinked. "What?"
"You didn't freeze completely," she said. "You followed procedures. You put your mask on. You moved when you had to."
She placed a hand against the wall as another vibration passed.
"That's enough—for now."
Far from Astra Station, a small fleet drifted in silence.
Their ships were ugly by any aesthetic standard—patched hulls, mismatched radiators, external cargo cages welded on over decades of desperate survival. They did not transmit identification codes. They did not speak over open channels.
On one vessel, a man watched the attack telemetry with detached focus.
"Station defenses adapting," a crew member said.
"Let them," the man replied. "We don't need to destroy it."
He zoomed in on a structural readout.
"Break its rhythm," he said. "Force evacuation. Then we move in."
No hatred colored his voice.
Only necessity.
Aya slowed as they reached the end of the passage.
Ahead of them was a heavy door—thicker than most, with manual locking mechanisms instead of automated seals. A faded warning stencil marked its surface.
RESTRICTED ACCESS — LEGACY SYSTEMS
Kenji frowned. "What is this place?"
Aya swallowed.
"There's a rumor," she said. "About a craft built into the station. Not for transport. For defense."
Kenji's heart thudded. "That's just a story."
"Maybe," Aya said. "But stories don't survive decades up here unless they're close to the truth."
Another violent shudder rocked the station. This one was different—longer, deeper.
Somewhere far above them, Astra Station began to lose coherence.
Aya grabbed the manual lever and pulled.
The door groaned.
Kenji tightened his grip on the wall, every instinct screaming that whatever lay beyond would change everything.
The door did not open all the way.
It retracted just enough to allow entry, heavy mechanical segments sliding into the surrounding frame with a low, grinding sound. Beyond it lay a chamber that felt older than the rest of Astra Station—less refined, more industrial. The walls were thicker, layered with composite shielding scarred by age rather than damage.
The air inside was colder.
Emergency lighting flickered to life as Kenji and Aya stepped in, their footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. The chamber was large, but not cavernous—built with purpose, not comfort.
At its center sat the craft.
It was smaller than Kenji had imagined.
No sweeping wings. No intimidating weapons. Just a compact, angular vehicle mounted within a reinforced cradle, its hull matte and unadorned. External thrusters were embedded flush with the frame, designed to minimize vulnerable protrusions. The cockpit canopy was narrow.
One seat.
Kenji stopped walking.
Aya did too.
They stared at it in silence.
"That's it," Aya said quietly.
Kenji swallowed. "That's not a shuttle."
"No," she replied. "It's an escape craft. Or a drone with a seat."
Kenji took a step closer, eyes scanning the hull. There were no visible markings, no insignia. Only maintenance ports and sensor clusters arranged with brutal efficiency.
"Why would the station have this?" he asked.
Aya didn't answer right away.
"Because," she said finally, "sometimes stations can't be saved."
The deck shuddered violently.
Both of them stumbled as artificial gravity fluctuated, the force briefly weakening before snapping back. A deep metallic groan reverberated through the chamber, followed by a distant, unmistakable sound—the tearing of structure under stress.
Kenji's wrist console flashed.
ROTATIONAL STABILITY DEGRADED.
MULTIPLE SECTOR FAILURES.
Aya looked at the cradle mechanisms. "If this thing's going to deploy, it won't be for long."
Kenji turned toward her. "You should take it."
She stared at him. "No."
"You're better," he said quickly. "You actually understand navigation. You can—"
"Kenji," Aya interrupted. "Listen to me."
Another tremor hit, stronger than before. The craft's internal systems began to hum, responding to the environmental instability. Indicator lights flickered across its surface as dormant power systems came online.
"It only fits one person," she said. "That doesn't mean it decides who lives."
Kenji moved before he could think.
He climbed onto the cradle platform and grabbed the cockpit edge, pulling himself into the seat. The interior was cramped, built around the human body with no wasted space. The seat molded slightly as his weight settled, adaptive padding tightening around his shoulders and torso.
Aya's eyes widened. "Kenji—what are you doing?"
"I'll start it," he said, hands shaking as he reached for the harness. "Then you can get in."
"That's not how this works!" she snapped.
The canopy slid partially closed on its own, stopping just short of sealing. The cockpit display powered on, projecting data directly onto the glass.
A calm, synthetic voice filled the confined space.
"Occupant detected."
"Initiating biometric verification."
Kenji froze.
Aya stepped forward, pressing a hand against the hull. "System, stop. Override. There are two of us."
The voice did not respond to her.
Inside the cockpit, Kenji felt a slight pressure against his wrist as a recessed sensor activated. The display flickered.
"Biometric signature confirmed."
"Authorization established."
Aya's console vibrated.
Her face went pale.
"Kenji," she said slowly, reading the data, "it's locked to you."
"What?" he asked.
"Your vitals," she said. "Heart rate, neural patterns—probably stress response. It thinks you're the sole occupant."
"That doesn't make sense," he said. "You're right here."
"The system detected two people when the chamber opened," Aya said, voice tight. "But once you entered the seat—"
Another violent shudder rocked the station.
A deep crack echoed through the structure above them.
The voice spoke again.
"Secondary life signs detected outside cockpit."
"Launch inhibited due to external obstruction."
Aya exhaled sharply. "It won't launch because I'm here."
Kenji fumbled with the harness. "Then move. Get in. Push me out."
Aya shook her head. "It won't let me. It's already chosen its pilot."
"Chosen?" Kenji repeated. "That's stupid."
"It's not choosing," she said. "It's following rules."
She stepped back.
The moment she crossed the threshold of the cradle platform, the cockpit display updated.
"External obstruction cleared."
"Launch window available."
Kenji's chest tightened. "Aya, no. Come back."
She didn't.
Instead, she reached up and placed her palm against the canopy.
"Listen to me," she said, forcing calm into her voice. "This system activated because conditions crossed a threshold. You were inside at that moment. That's all."
The station shook again—this time violently enough that dust fell from the ceiling and a warning siren wailed somewhere deep within the structure.
"Aya," Kenji said, his voice breaking. "I don't want this."
"I know," she replied. "But wanting doesn't matter up here."
She took a step farther back.
The canopy began to close.
"No!" Kenji shouted, slamming his hand against the glass. "Stop it!"
"Launch sequence initiated."
Aya raised her voice, fighting the noise. "You don't fly this thing, Kenji! You let it fly you!"
The cradle locks disengaged with a thunderous clunk.
The chamber lights flickered wildly as power surged into the launch rails.
Aya backed away toward the door, her boots skidding as the deck tilted.
"Live," she said. "That's an order."
The canopy sealed shut with a final hiss, cutting off sound.
Kenji could still see her.
She stood alone in the chamber, framed by red emergency light, one hand raised against the glass as the craft detached from its mount.
The station groaned like something alive and dying.
And then the launch rail fired.
The launch was not smooth.
It was violent.
Kenji's body was slammed back into the seat as the rail system fired, converting stored electromagnetic energy into forward momentum in less than a second. The harness bit into his shoulders and chest, adaptive padding stiffening instantly as the craft accelerated away from Astra Station.
There was no sensation of speed—only force.
His vision narrowed as the G-load spiked. Blood drained from his extremities, his breath forced from his lungs despite the oxygen feed compensating automatically. The cockpit display dimmed, prioritizing essential data only.
"Acceleration within survivable limits," the AI stated calmly.
"Pilot restraint integrity confirmed."
The station fell away behind him—not exploding, not burning, but tearing.
Entire sections sheared loose as rotational stability failed. The ring distorted, once-perfect curvature breaking into uneven arcs as structural members exceeded tolerance. Atmosphere vented in long, ghostly plumes, invisible except where particulate matter caught the light of distant stars.
Kenji couldn't hear any of it.
Only his own breathing, ragged and loud inside the helmet.
"Aya…" he whispered.
The AI did not respond.
The craft rotated—not by banking, but by firing micro-thrusters in precise bursts, canceling the angular momentum imparted by the launch rail. Kenji felt the change immediately as the pressure eased slightly, then shifted.
His stomach lurched as the craft flipped end-over-end.
Not fast. Controlled.
The AI was aligning vectors.
"Collision probability with station debris exceeds acceptable threshold," it reported.
"Initiating evasive trajectory."
Kenji's body was pushed sideways as lateral thrusters fired, the craft translating rather than turning. There was no graceful arc—just abrupt changes in direction as Newtonian physics demanded payment for every correction.
Outside the canopy, debris flashed past.
Not chunks. Not flaming wreckage.
Bolts. Panels. Entire sections of hull tumbling silently, each one carrying lethal kinetic energy.
The AI calculated thousands of trajectories per second, threading the craft through gaps no human could perceive in real time.
Kenji clenched his jaw as another acceleration spike crushed him into the seat.
His vision dimmed again, the edges graying.
"Warning: pilot nearing G-LOC threshold," the AI said.
"Reducing acceleration where possible."
"Don't," Kenji gasped. "Just—get out."
A pause. Not hesitation. Calculation.
"Acknowledged," the AI replied.
"Survivability prioritized."
The craft surged forward.
Beyond the debris field, the enemy ships became visible—not dramatically close, but undeniably present.
Kenji saw them as angular silhouettes against the stars, their profiles inconsistent, functional. No running lights. No broadcasts. Just mass.
The AI tagged them instantly.
"Multiple external vessels detected."
"Probability of hostile intent: 92.6%."
One of the ships released something.
Not a missile.
A cloud.
Kenji's breath caught. "What is that?"
"Kinetic dispersal field," the AI said.
"Micro-projectiles. Passive interception."
A shotgun blast in space.
The craft reacted before Kenji could process it.
Thrusters fired in rapid sequence, the vehicle accelerating toward the cloud rather than away from it. Kenji's body protested violently, pressure slamming into his chest as the AI altered trajectory at the last possible moment.
The micro-projectiles passed behind him.
Milliseconds mattered.
The AI had threaded a path through a probabilistic kill zone by predicting not where the particles were—but where they would be.
Kenji's hands trembled uncontrollably.
This wasn't flying.
It was surviving mathematics.
Inside the cockpit, the displays shifted.
The AI overlaid a tactical solution—not an attack plan, but an escape envelope. Vectors extended into the dark, thin lines marking paths of least interception probability.
"Fuel reserves limited," the AI stated.
"Long-term evasion not viable."
Kenji swallowed hard. "Then what are you doing?"
"Creating distance," it replied.
"Then uncertainty."
The craft cut thrust abruptly.
Kenji lurched forward as inertia carried him on, harness catching him hard. Outside, the stars appeared to surge.
Then the AI fired a single, powerful burn—straight downward relative to the enemy formation, dumping velocity in a direction that defied intuition but satisfied physics.
The enemy ships overshot his previous trajectory.
For a brief moment, Kenji was invisible.
Behind him, Astra Station continued to die.
Not all at once.
Sections sealed. Others drifted. Some held, stubbornly maintaining life support for those still inside. Emergency beacons activated automatically, broadcasting distress signals into the void.
Aya was still there.
The thought hit him harder than any acceleration.
Kenji's breath hitched.
The AI adjusted oxygen flow, compensating for his rising panic.
"Emotional distress detected," it said.
"Stabilization measures engaged."
"Don't," Kenji whispered. "I need to feel this."
The AI did not disable the measures.
It simply reduced them.
As the craft slipped into deep space, its emissions dropped to near zero. Radiators folded inward. Thrusters went silent. The AI transitioned to inertial navigation, tracking position through star mapping and internal gyros alone.
Kenji floated slightly in his seat as acceleration ceased, the artificial pressure gone.
For the first time since the launch, there was stillness.
Astra Station was no longer visible.
The enemy ships were no longer visible.
There was only the dark.
And the quiet realization that he was alone—alive not because he was capable, but because something else had decided he could not die yet.