MERCURY. SECTOR 9.
The info-channels are drowning in panic.
Hundreds of news agencies. Thousands of live streams. Millions of viewers clinging to screens—holograms, floating windows, air panels. Every feed screams the same story:
"Martian diplomat assassinated."
"War declared on Mercury."
"First Martian fleets leaving drydock."
Mercury trembles.
The streets thrum with unrest—countless voices converging into one great chaos. Panic bleeds into fury. Fear tightens into resolve. The heart of the Inner Belt roars like an overheated engine.
Again—history grabs us by the throat. Not for the first time. But maybe—for the last?
The fighters of the Inner Belt—once fugitives, anarchists, thinkers, warriors—feel the weight of time reaching for them. It's a soldier's glove: rough, metallic, cold. Every step through these streets feels like walking on landmines. Every glance is a spark above a fuel tank.
But not all fear the storm. Some see in chaos not disaster, but opportunity. A moment of rupture. A moment of power.
SPACE. MERCURY ORBIT.
Darkness. Thick as tar. Absolute, without mercy. On the shadowed side of Mercury, even the Sun feels like a distant afterimage—a reflection of a dead star, incapable of warmth.
Here, time stalls.
Here, silence crushes your eardrums like a scream.
Here, you don't live. You simply haven't died yet.
A shuttle emerges from the docking gate—pitch-black, like the pupil of something dying. No markings. No signal. Its silhouette is jagged, aggressive, like a hand-carved shiv. Not a transport—an apparition. A ghost wrapped in war-tech.
It cuts through the void like it knows the way.
Inside—two passengers. The cabin is steeped in tension. The silence weighs more than the gravity.
Vikar, the leader of Mercury's Corporation. His face: a map of old defeats and harder decisions. He doesn't speak. He exerts pressure just by being there.
If Mercury could walk, it would walk like Vikar—slow, heavy, with the weight of a thousand verdicts on its back.
Next to him: Ivor—smuggler. Diplomat. Killer. A predator's glint in his eyes. A shrug in his smile. He's survived where others turned to ash. He isn't just alive—he's intact.
"They did it," Vikar says, staring at the burn of the distant Sun. His voice hits like metal. "No warning. No diplomacy. They erased us like a bad line of code."
Ivor tilts his head, scratches his chin. His tone is casual—lazy wind through dry ruins—but there's a blade beneath the words.
"They've always been blunt instruments," he replies. "Mars was taught to strike first. Reflexes, not thought. Muscle over mind. That's not strategy—it's suicide."
He smiles, but his eyes don't follow. They're too busy calculating.
"They think we're the target. We're the trap. And it's already snapping shut."
Ahead, through the shimmering cockpit glass, a structure looms—Aspida Station. Its outline rises like the fangs of a beast tearing open the fabric of space. Hidden in the planet's shadow, it's no station. It's an ambush dressed in steel.
The kind of fortress no frontal assault could ever take. But the chains—it wears chains.
"Welcome," Vikar says slowly. He doesn't smile. But in his eyes, a flicker. The spark of something beginning.
Mars struck the match.
We'll throw it in the furnace.
Time stalls.
The void holds its breath.
The orbital shadow is about to ignite.
ASPIDA STATION. DOCKING BAY.
The hangar doors creak open, groaning like a beast roused from centuries of slumber, shaking bronze shoulders in the dark.
Gravity seals hiss, venting atmosphere with the deep-throated rumble of thunder dragged from planetary depths. Red emergency lights flare, casting blood-hued reflections across titanium plating. Landing sigils flicker to life—combat runes awakened from sleep.
Inside: near-total darkness. Only the stuttering glow of maintenance drones cuts through the gloom, circling like clumsy insects, searching for weaknesses in the station's massive body.
Vikar and Ivor descend from the shuttle. Their silhouettes are sharp, etched against the steel-black shadows.
Each footstep echoes—loud, deliberate. The station listens. The station remembers.
Vikar senses it. This place doesn't breathe air. It breathes war. The walls wait like teeth behind closed lips. The metal feels more ready for battle than the men.
Titanium sings underfoot. But neither of them hesitates.
They walk toward the place where one decision might tilt the balance of the entire system.
Waiting for them: General Jamal Arid—commander of the Belt, an android who's become a symbol of strength even among the living.
Clad in armor with no insignia, he stands like a citadel. His eyes: two cold lasers. Not emotion. Not doubt. Inevitability.
"Chairman," he says with a crisp bow. "All systems are operational. We are at full combat readiness. Test volley in eight minutes."
Vikar halts. He doesn't answer at once. His gaze sweeps across Jamal's synthetic face.
Can you trust steel with the lives of millions?
But he nods. No gesture. Just gravity.
"Lead the way," he says.
And the station listens.
**
CONTROL ROOM
HOLOGRAPHIC OPERATIONS CHAMBER
They step into the heart of the station.
Not a command center—something more. The brain, the bloodstream, the will of the fortress. All at once.
Data pulses through the air like a second heartbeat. The vibration is subtle—like the rustle of thought. The station feels alive. It senses every word, every movement, every tremor of intent.
Around them: holographic panels, rotating 3D star maps, miniature projections of entire systems.
At the center—an image of the solar system. Each ship a glowing mote. Every maneuver a suspended fate, trembling over the abyss.
Ivor watches the projections and, strangely, feels calm. As if, here on the edge of panic, something deeper is taking shape. The symmetry of war.
Two officers stand nearby:
Lia, an android analyst with a neural implant—her body barely more than a node of data.
Sho, an engineer with eyes like glass, reflecting light like prisms.
They don't speak. They merge. They are not individuals—they are functions. Continuations of the station itself.
"Target: fortified asteroid, sector 34-B," Lia says. Her voice is cold, exact. But beneath it—an electric thrill. Primitive. Primal. "Protected by drone escorts. Shield density: ninety-six percent."
Vikar doesn't blink.
He stares at the target the way a hunter watches his prey.
Not just a target. A rehearsal for retribution.
The first strike.
The first wound carved into eternity.
"Then the challenge is accepted," he says. Slowly. Each word like the pressure of a finger on a trigger.
"Show me what you're really capable of."
The operator activates the gravitational projector.
A burst of light.
The space in the center of the chamber flares like a newborn star.
And there it is—the target. Not pixels. Not a projection. A presence. You want to walk around it, touch it, erase it.
"Load the weapon," orders General Jamal.
His voice lands like steel on steel.
At the far end of the station, the energy collector hums to life.
It quakes. Glows.
From its core surges a blinding torrent of ergon—a fuel that could incinerate space itself.
Ivor holds his breath.
Even he—who's watched fleets melt and cities fall—feels the air freeze.
This isn't just energy.
This is divinity trapped in a formula.
The current intensifies.
Space tightens.
"Firing in three... two... one..."
And then—
FIRE.
Everything trembles. Reality folds inward.
A beam tears across the void like fate unleashed.
On the hologram—detonation.
The asteroid's core evaporates. Dust becomes nothing. Shields crumple like paper set ablaze.
Silence.
Vikar feels something hollow settle in his chest. Not triumph. Not fear. Just a cold understanding:
There's no turning back now.
Terminals hum softly. Someone stares in disbelief.
Someone claps—softly, carefully. As if afraid to wake the gods.
"We have a chance," Vikar whispers, eyes on Ivor.
In his voice—unshakable faith.
And the quiet terror of responsibility.
"We have the will," Ivor replies.
His voice is an anchor.
His face—stone.
"And with will...
chance is irrelevant."
THE HALL OF SPEECH
HOLOGRAPHIC FORUM
The chamber breathes in blue light. It doesn't just illuminate—it inhabits the walls.
The air tightens, heavy with the scent of a coming storm.
All around float the glowing visages of Mercury's android citizens—sector leaders, engineers, veterans, thinkers, builders. Their holograms drift like monuments to memory. Their eyes—sharp as lenses—fix on one man: Vikar.
He is not just a leader.
Right now—he is the pulse of the planet.
His hologram ignites at the center of the room. He rises from shadow like a messiah drawn from the heart of a star.
His face burns with purpose.
His eyes hold fire.
His image beams into dozens of major cities. His voice echoes in every home.
It reaches every soul.
"Free androids of Mercury," he begins. His voice is low—heavy, like the toll of a bell forged in war.
"Today, we don't just hear the roar of war.
Today—we see it.
Mars wants chains. Again."
He steps forward.
The movement feels intimate, as if he approaches each one of them.
They wait.
Not for excuses.
Not even for hope.
They wait for someone to speak the truth—without fear.
"They believe they can break us. That fear is stronger than memory. That brute force outweighs dignity."
His voice steadies—iron beneath velvet.
It doesn't argue. It asserts.
"We fled their rule. We built peace here. We believed freedom was not a fantasy. We chose not to be slaves—because freedom is a choice."
A pause.
The whole planet holds its breath.
I should feel fear. I know I should.
But I don't.
Only rage.
Contained.
Righteous.
The holographic cameras zoom in—close.
In his eyes: darkness lit from within.
Not accusation.
Not plea.
Warning.
"And now?" His voice sharpens like a blade.
"They send fleets. Drones. Killers. Swords to wipe us from the face of this world. To erase every trace we left in history."
Each phrase lands like a strike.
Each word a shell.
Each sentence: impact.
"They want us to forget that someone once dared to be free. Dared to defy their order. Dared to become more than property."
Across every sector, the crowd begins to stir.
A pulse.
A charge.
The very air trembles.
I can feel it.
They're no longer listening—they're remembering.
Their pain.
Their escape.
The price they paid for freedom.
"We are not slaves. We are the blade," says Vikar, his fist clenched tight.
A ripple of light bursts from the gesture, like a shockwave.
"We are the ones who never bow. Not to the living. Not to regimes. Not to fear. Freedom isn't granted—it is taken. It is our weapon. Our essence."
Lightning bolts of light flash across the screens.
People rise.
They scream.
"We are not slaves!"
The crowd roars in unison. As one voice. One will.
This is no longer a reaction.
This is awakening.
A collective consciousness remembering what it is.
Vikar stands like a priest in a temple—but he does not plead. He declares.
"They forgot who we are."
His voice doesn't just ring—it resonates, bending reality. The walls seem to shiver.
"We are the Free Androids of Mercury."
The response thunders back—not joy, but an oath.
A vow.
A sacred promise.
"We are the Free."
But it's no longer Vikar speaking.
It's the voice of an age.
Of a people who refuse to return to the shadows.
DEPARTURE PLATFORM
The Aspida station is silent.
No engine roar.
No alarms.
Only the low hum of power systems—like a vein pulsing beneath metal skin.
Ivor and Vikar stand by the outer airlock.
Behind them—a drop pod, black and angular, shaped like a fragment torn from reality.
Its hull glimmers under the dim horizon, half coffin, half crucible.
Vikar stares into the distance. His eyes hold no worry, no regret.
Only a quiet knowing—
There is no turning back.
"You think they'll hear you?" he asks.
His voice is dry, rasping—not with fatigue, but with the weight of something fragile.
The fragility of an age.
Ivor smirks, his tone as ever—slightly lazy, slightly amused. But his eyes betray something else.
In them is stillness.
And a will forged in fire.
"No. But maybe someone will. And 'someone' is already better than 'no one.'"
He extends his hand.
Vikar takes it—firmly. Without pretense.
Not as a politician.
But as a brother.
An equal.
We were mercenaries of history.
Now, we've become its authors.
"Take care of yourself, Ivor."
It sounds almost like a prayer. Unpolished.
But real.
Ivor nods. His reply is short.
But it lands with weight.
"You take care of Mercury."
He turns and enters the capsule.
His steps are steady. Unhurried.
He doesn't leave—
He writes himself into a new chapter.
The doors shut behind him. A dull thud. Like a seal pressed into wax.
The pod vanishes into the light.
A star flaring out in farewell.
Vikar remains on the platform.
Alone.
But not lonely.
He looks at the sky for a long time.
Farewell is not the end.
It is a beginning.
A memory.
A choice.
A promise.
He turns. His steps echo, heavy and grounded.
Each footfall—the heartbeat of a world preparing for war.
He walks back into Aspida Station.
Not as a fugitive.
But as a leader.