06/07/2530 – UTF Black Site, Epsilon Prime Underground Facility
The elevator descent felt endless.
Elias stood between two armored guards, small wrists locked in soft restraints that still bit into his skin when he shifted. The car was a industrial cage—gun-metal grating underfoot, harsh white lights overhead, no windows. Only the soft mechanical sigh of cables and the occasional shudder as it passed through blast doors too thick to see.
The other children were silent. The girl with braids had stopped crying; her face was blank now, eyes fixed on nothing. The freckled boy kept swallowing like he was trying not to be sick.
When the doors finally opened, cold air rolled in, carrying the sharp bite of disinfectant and something metallic underneath. They were herded out into a vast receiving hall carved from living rock—polished floors reflecting rows of overhead strip lights, walls lined with observation windows that looked into darkened labs. Armed personnel in black fatigues watched from catwalks above. No one smiled.
Dr. Mira Voss waited at the center of the hall, lab coat crisp, hands clasped in front of her as if to keep them from reaching out. Behind her stood Commander Jax Harlan—late fifties, broad as a bulkhead door, scarred face framed by cropped iron-gray hair. His UTF combat fatigues were worn and patched, the kind earned through actual wars rather than parade grounds. His eyes, pale blue and weary, flicked over the children with something close to pain before settling on Elias.
"Line them up for intake," a cold voice ordered from the side.
High Chancellor Victor Kane stepped forward, flanked by two aides in expensive civilian suits that looked absurdly out of place. Tall, silver-haired, immaculate. His smile was thin and practiced, the kind used on holovid interviews, not frightened children.
"Welcome to Project Phantom," he said, voice smooth and resonant. "You have been selected for a great purpose. The future security of the United Terran Federation rests, in part, on young shoulders like yours."
Elias glared up at him, green eyes blazing. The Chancellor met the stare for a moment, then dismissed it with a faint chuckle.
Mira Voss stepped forward quickly. "Chancellor, the children have just endured traumatic extraction. Medical and psychological evaluation should come first—"
"Doctor," Kane interrupted softly, "your concern is noted. But time is not a luxury we possess. The Dominion's dreadnoughts are already probing our outer sectors. The Republic masses troops on three border worlds. We need results."
He turned away, already speaking into a discreet comm bead as he walked toward a side door. The aides followed like shadows.
Jax Harlan exhaled through his nose, then crouched to the children's level—slow, deliberate, the way a man moves when he knows how big he looks to small people.
"My name's Jax," he rumbled. "I'm gonna be looking after your training side of things. You're scared. You're angry. That's normal. But you listen to Dr. Voss here—she's the best damn mind in this facility, and she'll keep you safe as she can."
His scarred hand rested briefly on Elias's shoulder. The touch was surprisingly gentle.
Mira offered a small, tired smile. "Let's get you settled. Food first, then baths, then sleep. Tomorrow we'll do full medical scans."
They were led down a series of corridors—past sealed labs where white-coated figures worked behind transparisteel, past armories stacked with XR-9 coil rifles still in crates, past training halls where holographic targets flickered in the dark.
The dormitory was a long room with twenty-three small bunks, each with a thin mattress, gray blanket, and a locker. Names were already stenciled on the footboards—pulled from colony records, Elias realized with a chill. His was third from the end: KANE, E.
The children were stripped, hosed down in communal showers that echoed with nervous whispers, given identical gray jumpsuits two sizes too big. Real food followed—nutrient-dense stew and fresh bread that tasted like heaven after the paste on the corvette. Elias ate mechanically, watching the others.
Twenty-three children.
Seventeen boys, six girls. Ages six to ten. All from fringe colonies the news feeds rarely mentioned.
After lights-out, Elias lay staring at the underside of the bunk above him. The room was never fully dark—soft red emergency strips glowed along the baseboards. He could hear someone crying quietly three beds over.
He thought of his mother's outstretched hand.
He thought of the spoon in the dirt.
He didn't cry. Not yet.
**10/07/2530 – Medical Wing**
The scans began four days later.
Elias sat shirtless on an exam table, cold metal against his spine, while technicians in full haz-suits drew blood, took tissue samples, ran neural mapping. Mira Voss oversaw every procedure personally, her voice calm and soothing even as the needles went in.
"You're doing wonderfully, Elias," she murmured, brushing hair from his forehead. "Bravest boy I've seen."
He didn't feel brave. He felt small and cold and furious.
The results came back that evening.
Mira stood in the observation gallery above the dorm, clutching a data slate so hard her knuckles went white. Jax leaned beside her, arms folded.
"Twenty-three candidates," she said quietly. "Only four show the required genetic compatibility markers. Kane's going to push forward anyway."
Jax grunted. "He'll kill them all."
"Not if I can help it."
But they both knew the Chancellor's orders were absolute.
**15/07/2530 – Augmentation Theater One**
The first injections began a week after arrival.
They were strapped to reclining chairs in a circular theater, IV lines in tiny arms, monitors beeping softly. The serum was clear, almost luminous, pumped slowly into veins while Mira narrated calming nonsense none of them believed.
Elias felt it immediately—like liquid fire spreading from his arm to every nerve. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, refusing to cry out even as the smaller kids screamed.
The freckled boy—name tag read HARRIS, T.—went into seizure ten minutes in. Technicians rushed forward, but it was too late. His small body arched once more and went still.
Mira's face drained of color. She turned away, pressing a hand to her mouth.
By the end of the first month, eight children were gone.
By the end of the third month, fifteen.
The survivors grew quieter. Harder.
Elias learned to disconnect—to watch the ceiling while the needles went in, to count heartbeats during the pain, to store every memory of home in a place no serum could reach.
Mira visited every night, reading stories from a battered paper book she smuggled in—ancient Earth tales of knights and dragons. Sometimes Jax sat in the doorway, whittling small wooden figures with a combat knife: a horse, a ship, a tiny hopper-bug with iridescent wings painted in contraband colors.
They became the only anchors in a world of white walls and screaming nights.
**01/01/2531 – Dormitory, Age 8½**
Only six children remained.
Elias lay awake, staring at the red glow along the floor. Across the room, the girl with braids—name tag LIU, J.—was breathing in the shallow way that meant another fever had started.
He slipped from his bunk, bare feet silent on the cold floor, and padded to her side. Without a word, he took her small hand in his. She squeezed back weakly.
In the morning, she was gone.
Five left.
The war above continued—rumors filtered down through Jax's grumbling. IDS dreadnoughts had annexed two outer systems. RAW troop carriers massing. The UTF's tiny fleet couldn't hold forever.
Project Phantom had to succeed.
It would succeed.
Because only one child now showed perfect genetic resonance.
Elias Kane.
And deep in a sealed vault beneath the facility, something ancient stirred faintly in its crystalline prison—responding, for the first time in a hundred thousand years, to the presence of a mind strong enough to hear it.