Elias's spine straightened as the flight deck's vault-like blast doors came into view.
Red warning lights spun lethargically as the door struggled to open under the ship's strained power.
Behind it sat a second door, smaller, set into the throat of a pressure lock. Equally imposing. A faded stencil clung to the metal like an old rule nobody dared laugh at:
FLIGHT DECK. NO OPEN FLAME. NO FOOLING AROUND.
He set his last charge, dropped his bag by the entrance, and stepped in with a measured, confident pace.
The control room was dim, lit by the sick glow of failing panels and status lights that couldn't decide if they were warning or dying. A long strip of blast-proof glass overlooked the deck, and beneath it, dozens of terminals were packed tight, manned by a crew in full panic.
No one spared him a glance as he passed.
He reached for the heavy industrial handle on the inner door, and a whiteboard caught the corner of his eye. Two columns, hand-lettered in marker:
LAUNCHES
RECOVERIES
The tally marks favored the former by a concerning margin.
A dock of teeth. A mouth that didn't often give things back.
He opened the door.
The cavern-like deck was chaos.
The sounds of boots scrambling across sticky metal grates mixed with warning alarms and machinery noise.
A cathedral of cranes carrying crafts and supplies moved back and forth under load. Some screeched to a stop as the ceiling bowed inward, cracking and returning as the wounded vessel groaned.
In the center of this space lay four large pits big enough to fit a whale. Hinged trap doors stood upright beside each pit like towering jaws.
In the pit farthest to the left, he spotted it.
A tech carrying a crate of ammunition ran into him, brushing his shoulder.
"Watch where you're goin—"
Elias stared him down, his face covered by his red visor.
The man cowered a little at the taller figure.
"Um, sorry…"
The tech scrambled for words.
"Is she prepped?"
The tech glanced at the matte black interceptor and back to Elias, then nodded, not daring to ask a question.
"Yes, sir."
Elias didn't answer. He turned toward the craft.
Approaching the craft, he found it perched on a catapult arm, half-sunk into the pit, and pinned to a reinforced hinge. Shoddy welds peppered the assembly like old scars.
The interceptor itself was long and gangly. Dark hull. Patch plates. Burn scoring. Sporting two short, sickle-like wings, thickened at the roots, the way fighters did when designers stopped pretending pilot safety mattered.
Four boosters sat in a quad-symmetrical layout. It wasn't a ship that came with a booster. It was a booster that came with a ship.
Just behind the cockpit, faded silver graffiti clung to the plating:
Hangman.
He stepped onto the grated catwalk that crossed the nose, swung down into the open cockpit, and dropped into the seat as if it had been waiting for him.
The canopy sealed with a hiss. Cockpit lights came up in a cheap, angry flicker. Harness straps stiff, dry, and coarse. Foam padding flaking at the neck brace.
Someone had carved tally marks into the canopy brace, each one deep enough to feel.
On the left console, a transponder plate. Scratched clean where a serial number used to be.
Across it, hand-painted in faded red:
"Empire's bloody coffin."
Elias thumbed the power.
The fighter answered in fragments. Panels blinking awake, then dimming, then waking again.
A half-starved animal. Still breathing.
A thin ring of light tightened over his visor, reading his eye.
[IRIS CAPTURE]
New text blinked in, steady as a verdict.
[ARES-9 SIGNATURE: CONFIRMED]
[REDLINE PILOT PROFILE: VERIFIED]
[G-LIMITERS: DISENGAGED]
[INERTIAL SAFETIES: REDUCED]
[NOTICE: PILOT LOSS
PROBABILITY ACCEPTED.]
Elias stared at it for half a second.
Not because it scared him.
Because it sounded like home.
Outside, the deck crew shouted over each other. Boots clanged on grated steel. A wrench skittered across the plating and disappeared into the pit.
"Who the hell is in that bird?" someone yelled.
Elias toggled the external comm. Static. Then a channel opened, raw and crowded.
He didn't ask for clearance.
He didn't explain.
He didn't sound like a man hoping.
"Hangman is green." His voice filled the deck like it belonged there.
"Go for launch."
Seconds stretched.
Elias thumbed the detonator on his wrist.
His insurance policy.
The charge he'd left at the throat of the deck went off with a dull, heavy whump.
The cavern shuddered. Somewhere deep in the cruiser, metal groaned and kept holding.
"He'll breach the lock!" Someone shouted.
Then the deck answered him. Not with words. With motion.
Warning strobes spun up to full speed.
The top hatch began to close, heavy and final. A klaxon started its ugly chant. The air changed, pressure shifting as the pit, which was in fact an airlock, began to drink it down.
A deckhand's voice cut through, uncertain. "We didn't clear ventral fire."
Another voice snapped back, desperate for certainty. "We need a bird out there. Now."
The seal lights went solid.
The pit dropped colder. Quieter.
Then the bottom hatch opened, and the asteroid belt spilled into view, bright shards stained crimson from starlight against black space.
The catapult pivoted downward into the void.
Elias braced. Let the harness bite.
Capacitors whined like teeth grinding.
The craft lurched forward off the rail.
For a heartbeat, it was only falling.
The pit vanished above him. The cruiser's belly flashed past in the canopy, plating scarred and pocked, then the belt swallowed everything. His stomach tried to climb into his throat. The harness dug in hard, straps biting like they meant to keep his bones inside him.
The thrusters caught.
Hangman didn't ease into thrust. It snapped into it.
The world kicked. His vision pinched at the edges. Blood tried to leave his head as the interceptor carved into a turn that would have folded an un-augmented pilot into a prayer.
Elias overcorrected.
Stone filled the canopy. A boulder spun into view, close enough he could see its glittering fractures, the dust halo skating off the Rift Field like sparks off a grinder. The ship rolled again, too fast, too eager, like it was trying to throw him just to see if he deserved it.
He grunted once and forced his hands quiet.
Not still. Quiet.
Small inputs. Constant. He stopped fighting the motion and started shaping it. The stick wasn't heavy. It was honest. Every thought became a vector. Every breath became timing.