Humanity had long since fractured the boundaries of its cradle. The great exodus from Earth, once a desperate bid for survival amid population collapse, had become doctrine. Now, interstellar travel wasn't just feasible—it was expected.
By law and custom, every citizen reaching the Age of Ascent was granted the right to forge their own path into the void. Some called it the Rite of Departure. Others—the cynical, the scarred—called it the Lottery of the Stars.
The sea of stars held romance for the young. Glory, they believed, waited among the constellations. On the slate-gray platforms of Lunar Port—a sprawling orbital monolith tethered to Earth's broken moon—a new generation stood shoulder to shoulder beneath flickering halogen floods, their gazes fixed outward through carbon-glass view panes.
Each of them was armed with little more than raw ambition and discount engine licenses.
"Give me a few years," one young man barked over the noise, chest proud. "I'll return as a Planet Lord, mark my words!"
"You'll be space chow for the next void leviathan," someone jeered back, laughter bitter and honest.
A girl nearby laughed, then said, "I'll be happy just captaining a salvage fleet. If the Starborne Alliances notice me, I'll be golden."
Another aspirant clenched his fists. "I've trained ten years for this voyage. I won't die in orbit. I swear I'll carve my name across the void."
Among them stood a boy—tall, pale, quiet. His name was Silas Vire. Unlike the others, he did not boast. He simply watched.
Silas's eyes passed over the crowds of fresh initiates—most dressed in knockoff vacuum suits or scavenged armor-stitched uniforms. He could see it in their eyes: eagerness, naivety, hunger. Bloodthirst for glory, but not the kind that came with war. The kind that came with validation.
He knew it well.
It's been three years since I arrived in this world, Silas thought.
In this world, humanity had only just taken its first trembling steps beyond the solar system. The wider cosmos—called the Void by the few who survived it—was an uncharted abyss. A black Void of wonders and extinction.
Out there, if fortune smiled, one might stumble upon an unclaimed paradise—a dormant world, sovereign and ripe for settlement. Those lucky few were crowned as Planet Lords, answerable to no one but the Consortium of Thrones. Lords of untold resources, fleets, and political weight.
Others were not so fortunate.
Some never made it past the Oort Expanse, ambushed by void reavers—interstellar pirates and warbands with no allegiance but to entropy. Those taken were sentenced to lifetimes of servitude in asteroid labor colonies, their names erased from the star registries.
The Void Of Space, as it was known in whispers, offered infinite opportunity—and infinite oblivion.
A sudden stir rippled through the crowd. Heads turned toward the docking gate.
Clad in a jet-black pressure suit threaded with arc-silver veins, a woman descended from a military-grade hovercraft. Her figure was sleek, but there was nothing soft about her. Her stride was precise, controlled. The air around her crackled—not with electricity, but with authority.
Someone whispered, "Holy hell… that's her. That's Captain Lyra Caelis."
"The Heiress of House Caelis?"
"Don't stare. You'll draw attention. She's the Void Rose of Starborne Academy. Heard her father commissioned a Class-B Valkyrion for her maiden voyage."
"Class B?" A cadet gasped. "I've bled for a decade to afford a Class-E rustbucket, and she's launching in a Valkyrion?!"
In the Galactic Registry, personal starships were ranked from Class-F—the bare-minimum flight-ready junkers—to the mythical SSS-class dreadnoughts, relics from the Pre-Fall Empires. Class-B vessels were rare. They could level moons if configured for war, or cross star systems without refuel.
"For people like her, the stars bow before they even launch," someone muttered bitterly.
"I'd serve as janitor on that ship if it meant I didn't have to fly an F-class scrapheap," another said.
"Don't kid yourself," came the reply. "The Caelis Valkyrion only recruits Class-B credentialed personnel. Pilots, engineers, medics—the elite."
"Class B licenses are impossible for civilians. Guild graduates, maybe. The rest of us? We're lucky to get Class C."
Then, to their astonishment, Lyra Caelis broke formation and walked—no, strode—straight toward one of them.
Toward Silas.
"Silas Vire," she said, her voice as cutting as voidsteel. "I'm assembling my crew. I want you aboard."
Silence.
Mouths hung open. A Class-B captain personally recruiting a graduate? And not just any graduate—a boy they assumed to be nothing more than an overachiever with clean boots.
Then came the sneer.
A brash youth, hair dyed acid yellow, elbowed his way forward. "Captain Caelis, I'm a licensed Class-B pilot. You turned me down. And now you're offering him a post? The hell makes him special—his pretty face?"
Others echoed the resentment. Many of them had submitted applications to serve aboard her vessel, only to be dismissed without audience.
Lyra's gaze didn't waver. "He holds a Class-A starship command license. Do you?"
The air dropped.
The yellow-haired man stammered. "C-Class… with distinctions…"
Silas gave a half-smile and clapped him on the shoulder. "You're not wrong—I am handsome. But I like to think Captain Caelis was drawn more to my résumé than my jawline."
He raised a hand and summoned a holo-display from his wristband.
[PROFILE: SILAS VIRE]
– [Starborne Academy Graduate – Rank 1]
– [Class-A Starship Command Certificate]
– [Class-A Combat Systems Certification]
– [Class-A Voidcraft Engineering License]
A hush fell over the deck.
"Impossible," someone whispered. "He's not even twenty."
"A Class-A cert takes years. That's guild-tier training."
"Three A-level credentials? Is he even human?"
Silas didn't answer. He didn't need to. The silence was answer enough.
Lyra studied him again. She had her reasons. The Caelis House was powerful, but not reckless. A talent like Silas was rare—and valuable. Rumor had it that even the Solar Ascendancy, a cabal of Planet Lords ruling the heart systems, had attempted to recruit him.
Rumors she had dismissed—until now.
"Silas," she asked again, her voice softer this time, "Will you join me?"
He opened his mouth to speak—but the system spoke first.
[Location: Lunar Starport Detected.]
[Initiate Check-In?]
[Y/N]
Silas blinked.
The Check In System—his secret, his inheritance from another life. A system bound to no god, no state, no algorithmic law. Every location it recognized, it rewarded him with knowledge, equipment, power. Things not meant for mortals.
It's time.
He accepted.
[Check-In Confirmed.]
[Reward: S-Class Interstellar Cruiser — Hyperion]
[Classification: Battle-Carrier / Void-Flagship]
[Registry ID Transferred to Silas Vire.]
Silas inhaled sharply.
Finally.
He turned back to Lyra Caelis.
"Captain," he said, his voice calm and full of concealed fire, "I appreciate the offer. But I've just acquired my own ship."