The reinforced doors slid aside to reveal the silo: a narrow catwalk leading to the ship's cockpit. Floodlights hummed. The air tasted of hot metal and spilled coolant. On the walkway a dark streak ran like a wound — a trail of blood.
At the far end, slumped against the ladder that climbed to the ship, a man in a pilot's suit clutched his midsection. He was alive, but barely; his breaths came ragged and thin.
Genesis jogged to him, boots slick on the blood-slick metal. The pilot lifted his head and blinked slowly as Genesis dropped to his knee, peeling the helmet away. The man's face was chalk-pale, sweat matting his hair. Dried blood crusted the corners of his mouth. He'd bled too long.
Genesis found a pulse with two fingers. Sniper and the Sergeant were already at his shoulder, riffling open medkits. Heavy watched the doorway, eyes cutting the dark.
"Sniper," Genesis said, voice flat. "Check his blood type. Start a transfusion if you can. Sergeant—healing gel, seal those wounds."
The pilot's right hand twitched. He seized Genesis's checking hand. Something cold and metallic clinked against Genesis's palm. The man forced the motion, voice thin as a razor.
"Take it. Finish the mission… Fly that ship straight into the queen. End this. There's no other way."
Silence dropped like a stone. The pilot's hand slipped free. In Genesis's palm lay a blackened key—a cockpit token.
The Sergeant barked, half disbelief, half protest. "We were sent to secure the device, not pilot it. Reinforcements are inbound—Command will divert a qualified pilot. They can take the ship to fleet command."
"No," the pilot rasped, anger sharpening him despite the blood. "By the time you get a new pilot the fleet will be gone. The orbital plates have to bite now. Punch a hole, push the weapon through the queen's core. If it fails—Earth falls. Humanity falls."
He convulsed, coughing blood. Sniper's hand flew to his side. "His wounds—he's opening up!"
Genesis leaned close. "Rest. You did your part. I'll take it from here."
The pilot's lips twitched into a weak, watery smile; a single tear tracked down his cheek. "I'm… sorry," he whispered.
His hands went slack. His shoulders slumped. He was gone.
The three troopers stood in silence, the room compassed by a somber, stunned hush. Genesis closed the dead man's eyelids with two fingers.
"Remove him," he said quietly. "Give him a proper burial."
The Sergeant and Sniper nodded and moved without argument.
Genesis rose, cradling the key. He stared at the ship like a man looking down a long, forbidden road.
The Sergeant asked softly, more to steady himself than to question: "What will you do now, sir?"
Genesis turned the key in his hand and let the light catch on its edge. "I'll finish the mission."
The Sergeant stepped up beside Genesis and stared at the ship waiting in the cradle.
It was a Solar Multi-purpose Fighter, M-6—a flexible air/space frame built to do too many jobs and somehow do them all well. Under its nose sat twin rapid-fire heavy ordnance gatlings, their barrels heat-blued and scarred. Wing pylons carried short-range anti-air missiles, casings beaded with rain. Slung hard to the midline was the reason the silo existed: a casket-shaped warhead the size of a truck—no label, no serials, just matte plating and a hazard chevron. Whatever it was, it was meant to end arguments.
Auxiliary ascent thrusters studded the fuselage like muscles, built to shove the M-6 through rain, air, and gravity in a single violent push. The canopy was a two-seat bubble—pilot up front, co-pilot/weapons officer aft. The second seat was empty.
The Sergeant swallowed. "Looks like you'll need a copilot."
Heavy and the Sniper turned at the same time. Genesis answered first. "No. I'll handle it."
The Sergeant shook his head. "Sir, let me ride shotgun. You don't have to do this alone. There has to be another way."
"Please," the Sniper added. Heavy nodded, grim. "We can make it two-brains smart."
Genesis smiled where they couldn't see it. Locks hissed as he unsealed his helmet and lifted it free.
The three troopers recoiled before they could stop themselves.
Genesis's face was a map of survival and fire. Optical augments sat where eyes had been—irised steel that tracked with inhuman steadiness. The lower jaw was all metal; the upper lip was a ragged crescent that exposed what teeth remained. Scalp mostly scar—patches of old gray stubble clinging like afterthoughts. The nose a flattened, surgical cut. The ears were ports—audio implants ringed by scar tissue.
He said, simply, "My time here passed a long while ago. I've cheated death more than is decent. I've watched good people—family, friends, comrades—go before me. If this is the last mission I get, then it's the one I want. I'm tired of outliving ghosts."
He turned the helmet in his hands, then offered it to the Sergeant. "Take it to your family. Your son will like the scars. It's done its work for me."
He looked at each of them once, then faced the ship. "All of you live. That's the order. Go home when this ends. Hold tight to the ones who matter. Sergeant—raise those kids into good citizens. This Empire will need them."
He climbed the ladder, popped the canopy, and dropped into the pilot's seat. The cockpit smelled like ozone and burned dust. He slotted the key-token into the column. Systems woke in layers: avionics, flight control surfaces, skip-drive safeties gray-out, weapon locks green, bomb interface black-boxed and waiting.
Below, the troopers carried the pilot's body back into the control room. The bulkhead doors rolled shut. Genesis thumbed the engine sequence. Turbopumps whined; fuel lines thrummed. The ascent thrusters coughed blue into the silo, filling it with heat and vibration.
Above, the silo iris split open to the night—rain still hammering down in silver cords.
He glanced back once. Through the glass he caught three silhouettes. They saluted. The Sergeant held Genesis's battered helmet at his hip and raised his right hand, rigid and square.
Genesis gave them a short return salute and pushed throttle.
The world shook. Fire washed the pit. The M-6 lifted—first with a stubborn lurch, then a rising, hungry climb. Concrete blurred. The research tower dropped away. He punched through the rain, then the clouds, and the cockpit went from gray to black in a breath.
Space opened above him like a wound.
The Miasma stretched from horizon to horizon—a sickly, emerald quilt of living hulls, tens of millions strong, veined with cobalt plates and faint acid vapor that glowed where it caught citylight. It smothered the stars.
Between him and that living night, the sky flashed like a storm. Thousands of strobes blinked and vanished, blinked and vanished—ships firing, ships dying, ships trying not to. It looked like a starfield until you realized stars don't flicker and go out.
Ahead and higher, in the Miasma's belly, flares bloomed the size of cities—orbital defense platforms cutting loose with super-lasers the length of stadiums. Each shot gouged a glowing tunnel through alien flesh. Each tunnel knitted at the edges as fresh bodies rolled in to take the place of the burned.
On his HUD, the tactical picture populated with friendlies and screams. Old pre-war hull IDs scrolled by in a tired font. Battlegroups had reoriented into a murder-bow before Earth; the line wasn't straight so much as harried, ships slewing to keep lanes open, point defense howling against dog-sized fliers.
The pilot had been right.
The Battle for Earth wasn't coming.
It had already begun.