Youri stood still for half a second longer than the rest, letting the moment settle into his bones. This was no underground arena. No crowd, no cheers. Just orders.
He pulled on the standard-issue academy uniform that had been folded neatly at the foot of his bed: dark gray fabric reinforced at the joints, the Terrian insignia stitched cleanly over the chest.
"Move it!" someone shouted from down the hall.
Youri joined the flow of recruits spilling out of the hangar and onto the open assembly field. The air was crisp, cooler than Batuzane's underground climate, and carried the faint scent of metal and ozone. Rows of recruits formed instinctively, some sloppy, some rigid, all uncertain.
They didn't wait long.
A line of officers approached from across the field, their boots striking the ground in perfect unison. At their center walked a man who radiated authority without needing to raise his voice. He was tall, lean, his posture sharp enough to cut glass. His uniform bore no unnecessary markings—only rank and unit insignia.
He stopped several meters in front of the recruits.
"I am Commander Rhel Varos," he said, his voice calm and carrying effortlessly across the field. "From this moment on, I own your time, your effort, and your excuses."
Silence.
"You are here because you believe you have what it takes to become orbiton pilots of the Terrian Empire. Some of you are wrong. Most of you will not make it."
A few recruits shifted uneasily.
Varos began walking slowly along the line, his eyes scanning faces, lingering just long enough to make each person uncomfortable.
"This academy does not train heroes," he continued. "It filters them. Those who remain will pilot Terrian orbiton across hostile worlds and hostile space. Those who fail will leave quietly and forgotten."
He stopped in front of Youri.
For a brief moment, their eyes locked.
Varos tilted his head slightly. "Kronos, isn't it?"
Youri stiffened. "Yes, sir."
"Late addition," Varos said. Not a question. "We'll see if that makes you desperate or careless."
He moved on.
"Today," Varos said, returning to the center, "you begin assessment. Physical endurance. Cognitive evaluation. Spatial reaction testing. No breaks. No mercy."
A pause.
"Welcome to the Orbiton Pilot Academy."
The physical assessment came first.
It was brutal.
Recruits ran obstacle courses under weighted gravity fields, climbed vertical surfaces that shifted unpredictably, and carried equipment designed to exhaust muscle groups Youri didn't even know he had. Sweat soaked through uniforms. Breath came in ragged gasps.
Youri pushed through it all.
Pain was familiar. Fatigue was an old companion. This wasn't so different from the underground fights—except here, there was no opponent to hate, no crowd to fuel him. Only himself.
Some recruits dropped out before midday.
They were escorted away without ceremony.
The cognitive evaluations followed. Recruits were strapped into neural chairs and subjected to rapid-fire simulations—pattern recognition, threat prioritization, spatial mapping. Holographic environments shifted violently, testing reaction speed and mental resilience.
Youri excelled.
Not because he was the smartest—but because chaos didn't rattle him. Years of surviving by instinct had trained his mind to stay sharp under pressure.
By the time night fell, only thirty-seven recruits remained.
Exhausted, bruised, and silent, they were dismissed back to the hangar.
As Youri lay on his bunk, muscles screaming in protest, he stared at the dim ceiling lights. Around him, the room was filled with shallow breathing and the occasional groan of pain.
Kess spoke from the bunk across from him.
"You didn't even flinch today."
Youri turned his head slightly. "Neither did you."
Kess chuckled weakly. "Yeah, but I felt like dying the whole time."
"So did I," Youri replied.
Sleep took him quickly.
The following weeks blurred together.
Training intensified.
Flight theory during the day. Physical conditioning at dawn and dusk. Simulation pods at night. Recruits were pushed harder with each passing cycle. Mistakes were punished—not with cruelty, but with repetition until failure burned itself out of them.
Youri began to notice things.
Who cracked under pressure. Who adapted. Who pretended confidence and who truly had it.
He also noticed the looks.
Some recruits respected him. Others resented him.
Especially one.
His name was Aiden Roe—a sharp-tongued recruit with perfect scores and a flawless Terrian accent. He piloted orbiton simulations like he was born in a cockpit, but he watched Youri with thinly veiled hostility.
"You don't belong here," Aiden muttered one evening after a simulation run.
Youri removed his neural link calmly. "Then beat me."
Aiden smirked. "Oh, I will."
The rivalry grew.
During drills, during evaluations, during meals. Every success Youri earned seemed to irritate Aiden further. And every failure—however minor—was met with smug satisfaction.
Varos noticed.
During a combat simulation review, he addressed the group.
"Competition is expected," he said. "But ego will get you killed faster than enemy fire."
His gaze flicked briefly between Youri and Aiden.
"Learn that."
One night, Youri was summoned unexpectedly.
A guard escorted him from the hangar to a quieter wing of the base. They stopped in front of a secure door.
Inside waited Barnaby
He stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking out over Fansilia's glowing skyline.
"You're holding up," Barnaby said without turning.
"I am," Youri replied.
Barnaby faced him. "Good. Because Volar's situation is worsening."
Youri's jaw tightened.
"The window is closing," Barnaby continued. "You graduate—or everything you came here for disappears."
Youri met his gaze, steady and unflinching.
"Then I won't fail."
Barnaby studied him for a long moment, then nodded once.
"See that you don't."
As Youri left the room, the weight of those words followed him.
Back in the hangar, surrounded by recruits who were slowly becoming fewer and sharper, Youri understood something clearly for the first time since arriving on Terria.
This academy wasn't just training him to pilot an orbiton.
It was stripping him down—burning away who he had been—so that whatever remained would be strong enough to survive what waited beyond the stars.