The jet sank slowly, dragged down by its own ruined frame. Water pressed in through the cracks as the cockpit filled around me. Through the fractured canopy, I saw it.
The Leviathan-Class. XN-Ω.
Its massive shape drifted just beneath the surface, darker than the ocean around it. One glowing eye shifted toward me—not curious, not angry. Just aware.
So this was how it ended. This was the moment. I thought in my head.
The glow started softly and then intensified. A blue light so bright it swallowed everything—the water, the wreck, even the shadows. It hit me with the force of daylight exploding underwater.
And then everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a shore. Wet sand under me. Salt on my tongue. Breathing. Alive. Somehow. My suit was intact, and my body felt normal—or as normal as someone who couldn't feel pain ever felt. No injuries. No pressure damage. Nothing.
I pushed myself up, removed my visor, and rubbed my eyes. For a moment, I just stared at the waves in front of me, trying to understand how I had survived.
Then I saw it.
A HUD floated in my vision, centered perfectly as if it had been projected onto my sight. Instinct made me swipe at it, but my hand passed straight through. No reaction.
I tried again, slower. The icons shimmered softly but didn't move.
Then I noticed the rest.
Tags appeared on everything I looked at. The water directly in front of me flickered with faint brackets, and numbers settled into place like they had always belonged there.
[Water Body Detected]
Depth: 14.3 m
Temperature: 19.2°C
Salinity: 3.4%
Current Flow: Mild → East
I blinked, thinking it would vanish. It didn't.
Below the surface, tiny shapes moved. More tags formed over them—perfectly aligned, precise.
[Atlantic Glassfish] — Count: 7
Average Size: 11 cm
Distance: 3.2 m below surface
[Abyssal Needle-Ray] — Count: 1
Juvenile
Distance: 5.8 m below surface
I froze. I wasn't supposed to know any of that. Not with my eyes. Not from this distance. Not through seawater.
I lifted my hand, and another tag shifted instantly.
[Tactical Glove: ACI Standard V]
Surface Integrity: 89%
Internal Damage: None
User Sync: Lucas Stratton Paige
My mouth went dry.
"Am I… dead?" I muttered under my breath.
The comms crackled back to life dragging me out of my head. A thin line of static trembled in my ear, then a voice broke through—strained, uncertain.
{Blackbird-3, respond. Do we have any survivors? Kepler's Edge signature is gone. Repeat, Edge is gone.}
The HUD still hovered in front of me, flickering tags over the waterline, over the rocks, even over my own damn glove. I forced my voice steady.
"This is Frost," I answered. "I'm alive. Sending coordinates."
I transmitted the location, trying not to focus on the translucent panels drifting across my vision. They shifted each time I turned my head, as if the world itself were being catalogued for someone else's use.
A pause. Then—
{Copy that, Frost. Hold position. ACI evac inbound. ETA four minutes.}
Four minutes. That was fast—even for standard ACI.
I stood still. The wind off the surf pressed my suit flat against my skin. Every direction I looked, the HUD calmly tagged and measured everything. The sand. The coastline curvature. The incoming storm front. It even displayed a faint biomass residual reading far offshore, where the Leviathan had been.
Four minutes later, the thrum of approaching rotors reached me, deeper and tighter than civilian choppers. The evac craft broke through the mist, its engines whining with ACI's signature pulse-thrust.
It landed with practiced efficiency, kicking sand into a cyclone around my boots. Two soldiers dropped out—Wingmen, armored, rifles slung but ready.
"Paige?" one called. His visor snapped toward me. "Holy hell, sir, Command said you encountered a Breach Class and lived. That's—damn, that's a legend on its own."
As I looked at him, new lines slid into the corner of my vision—clear, sharp, impossible to ignore:
[Name: Raikov, Dmitri]
Rank: Wingman
Age: 32
Equipment Status: Standard ADA Rifle — AR-92
They weren't hovering anywhere in the air. They were just there, overlaid on my vision like my eyes had turned into a screen.
He had no idea why I stared a second too long.
"Yeah," I said, the word clipped as the HUD recalibrated and listed his heartbeat and stress index. "Didn't feel legendary."
They ushered me aboard. The door sealed behind us, and the noise of the ocean vanished. The interior hummed with white-blue lighting, every surface clean, angular, efficient. I strapped into the seat as the craft lifted sharply.
Raikov sat across from me, still studying me like I had crawled out of a crater.
"Breach Class," he repeated under his breath. "Most people wouldn't even see one and stay sane, let alone survive the strike radius."
"I was busy sinking," I replied. "Didn't have time to admire it."
He huffed a laugh, but I barely heard it. The HUD had followed me into the chopper—overlaying the cabin walls with readouts, marking Raikov again, mapping the interior, scanning structural alloys.
I tried not to react. Tried to nod, breathe, and pretend this was normal.
It wasn't.
We reached ACI Command in under ten minutes. The landing bay doors parted, flooding the craft with overhead lights. The skids touched down, and the rear hatch hissed open.
Raikov gave a small salute. "Sir, Command wants you on rest cycle for now. Then they want your debrief in four hours. Medical check optional—they said you… don't feel pain anyway."
I nodded once. "Understood."
He hesitated. "Glad you made it."
I stepped off the craft without answering. The hangar smelled the same as always—ion fuel, steel, cold air recyc—and none of it felt real, because the HUD still trailed me like a ghost.
Tags hovered over personnel walking past, over each crate, over the flight paths of drones zipping overhead. Everything was labeled, measured, known.
And I was alive.
I shouldn't have been. Not against a Breach Class. Not after sinking god knows how deep. Not after that beam.
Maybe it meant something.
Maybe it didn't.
But as the doors of the hangar slid shut behind me, I realized one thing with a clarity sharper than any system tag:
Whatever saved me… whatever changed me…
It wasn't done with me yet.